MJ Lenderman reveals in a new interview that he will no longer tour with Wednesday — the Asheville indie rock band where he’s served as lead guitarist since 2018 — but he will continue to take part in the group’s studio output.
In the GQ profile, Lenderman spilled that he recently played his last scheduled show with the group — a January 4 gig in Chiba, Japan — and that he and his girlfriend, Wednesday singer Karly Hartzman, broke up during that tour.
“Oh, that was my last show in Wednesday… The guy that’s replacing me? His name is Jake, too,” Mark Jacob (Jake) Lenderman told GQ. The band has not yet revealed their new lead guitarist.
Despite Lenderman and Hartzman’s split, he returned for Wednesday’s studio sessions for the follow-up to 2023’s Rat Saw God, which is reportedly almost complete. “I was numb during those sessions. I had to be,” Hartzman told GQ. “[Lenderman] and I had written so many songs about each other and our relationship over the years, including these, and I just needed to get them out.”
Lenderman added, “Karly’s writing style, it’s almost like diary snippets. Pretty much every song, it’s maybe something that happened to me. But I don’t remember it that much now, aside from going home each day exhausted.”
MJ Lenderman and the Wind will spend the majority of 2025 out on the road in support of Manning Fireworks, with the band currently in the midst of a North American tour that runs through early March, after which they’ll head to Australia and Europe before returning stateside late April, then back to Europe, and then back to the U.S. for a string of gigs that includes a stop at Bonnaroo.
Lenderman also recently announced yet another new slate of North American tour dates, scheduled to kick off Sept. 3 at Mission Ballroom in Denver and wrap Sept. 19 at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver. During the run, he’ll play his biggest headlining show to date at the Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles on Sept. 11.
Wednesday do not currently have any concerts on their 2025 schedule.
