Grumpy, the Six-Piece Band: Gender Flows the Way the Music Flows

One track on the new album, "Twenty Five," was sparked by a conversation at home between frontman Heaven Schmitt and his girlfriend, bassist Ellie Long. Long said that if she could go back in time, she'd want to transition at a younger age. Schmitt admits he had what he calls a "selfish" thought in that moment: if that had happened, would they still have met? The song became a time-traveling love song and doubles as a promise he's making to Long—"I like watching you change."

Grumpy is now a six-piece, and aside from drummer Austin Arnold, the other five members—Schmitt, Long, synth player Anya Good, guitarist Diego Clare, and keyboardist Lane Rodges—are all transgender. For Schmitt, the fluidity of gender and the fluidity of genre are two sides of the same coin. "Being trans means you have to get creative about how you live your life—there's no template to follow," he says. "That stretches your boundaries in music and art too. You learn to really trust yourself." Long adds: "Being willing to tear down any preconceived idea of what something's 'supposed' to look like—I think that's where the best music, and the best gender identity, come from."

From a Solo Project to a Six-Person Family

Grumpy began as Schmitt's solo project. Hailing from Charlotte, North Carolina, he studied songwriting at Belmont University in Nashville, worked a year at a marketing firm after graduating, then returned to writing songs, which led to 2020's "Loser." At the time, Schmitt was still living as cisgender and married to drummer Arnold. As the band grew, he gradually came to understand himself as queer, then non-binary, and eventually confirmed he was transgender. He and Arnold divorced, but Arnold stayed in the band. Schmitt has also dated both Good and Rodges—the only member he's never been romantically involved with is Clare. "I've dated literally everyone except Diego, which sounds like a mess, but it actually turned us into a real family," Schmitt says. "Everyone knows my best and worst sides intimately. That closeness can lead to fights sometimes, but it also brings deep trust, respect, and love."

"Unfindable Ring" is Grumpy's first full album recorded with all six members, made at Arnold's studio in Brooklyn, with band members rotating through the producer's chair as they wrote and recorded. "All six of us were present for every moment of this album, crammed into a small, damp room without enough chairs," Schmitt says. Compared to the more restrained bedroom-pop feel of their earlier EPs, this album leans into warmer, more tactile sounds and more conventionally structured, emotionally unguarded songs—"Yr Bitch" and "WTF" lean on AutoTune and vocal processing, "Queens" is a piano ballad, and "Twenty Five" brings thick, grunge-leaning guitar. Good sometimes records her synth textures solo while wearing headphones, deliberately avoiding the other instrumental parts to see what unexpected collisions might emerge.

"There's kind of a pressure from outside to make our sound as a band more cohesive and distinct, but we wanted to push back against that," Clare says. "A lot of the artists we love have pretty scattered styles themselves, and we wanted to hold onto that same freedom." Good adds: "The most interesting part is listening to what a song 'wants' to become. The six of us sit there really listening, trying to figure out what shape the song is actually trying to take."

Touring With Zach Bryan—and Bringing That Stage Energy Back to Grumpy

Over the past few years, Schmitt has also been a regular backing vocalist for country-pop star Zach Bryan, having been introduced to Bryan through a college friend. He sings backup on Bryan's latest album, "With Heaven On Top," a title that actually comes from something Bryan once said while describing Schmitt's harmonies; Schmitt and Long have also toured arenas with Bryan's 23-piece live band. "I really connect with how Zach runs things—none of us are super technical, we work off instinct," Schmitt says. "He picks people he trusts, people with the right attitude, and then just lets them do their thing. That's been affirming for how I run Grumpy. Now I'm thinking about what I actually want to do onstage, what I want to experience—basically, I just want to rock out harder."

Grumpy plans to tour as much as possible in 2027. "Unfindable Ring" arrives October 23 via Bayonet Records.