“We didn’t really have an interest in creating the ‘biggest distortion’ or ‘fattest drum sound’”, says Basement guitarist Ronan Crix about their new album WIRED. Simultaneously a return to their roots and an exploration of a new era in their lives and music fandom, it’s the comeback we’ve all been hoping for.
Words: Christina Wenig
2026 is shaping up to be a great year for millennial emos: American Football released their first album in seven years, Tigers Jaw are back with a new record, Citizen will follow suit soon – and now Basement manifest their comeback with the celebrated new album WIRED – a collection of twelve songs that hit you right in the feels.
It’s been eight years since Basement released their previous album Beside Myself, which saw them develop from one of the most beloved bands bringing post-hardcore as well as the emo and grunge revivals to sweaty clubs to a new alternative rock hope, one fit to soon take on the big stages of the world. But something didn’t feel quite right – the polish, giving control to major label Fueled By Ramen and the exposure that comes with it. Maybe that’s why the band members needed a few years afterwards to figure out how to move on. “When we decided to take the break after our last record, we all felt like we had more to offer in terms of music, but putting new music out any earlier would have been a mistake. We really needed some time away to allow ourselves to reset”, explains guitarist Ronan Crix.
A change of course
When Basement got together to start writing new material, it was clear that it had to be on their own terms. The band reconnected with what made them excited to make music in the first place – friendship, fun, self-expression –, they re-signed with their old label Run For Cover and set out for a sound that was grittier and more organic than their previous release. “It was definitely a conscious decision to steer away from a very slick, overproduced sound for this record”, confirms Ronan. “That kind of production is over-saturating every genre of music right now and we didn’t really have an interest in creating the ‘biggest distortion’ or ‘fattest drum sound’. We wanted more to capture what it actually sounds like when musicians are in a room playing their instruments, writing together, all the little accidents that give a song a soul.”
The Brits found the perfect producer for this endeavor in John Congleton, who’s worked with countless artists from Phoebe Bridgers, Swans and David Byrne to Chelsea Wolfe, Blondie and Lana Del Rey – an eclectic collection of collabs proving one thing: Congleton devotes himself completely to the people he’s working with and their vision. “He only cares about helping his artists achieve their goal and is almost allergic to anything that sounds manufactured or overproduced. He really knew exactly how to dial in the sound we were looking for”, Ronan says. And what they found is quite impressive: The mosh pit chorus of the title track, the laid-back swagger of Deadweight, one of their most experimental songs Pick Up The Pieces or the balladic Head Alight show Basement at their most multifaceted.
Influences of the past and the present
Listening to WIRED, you can’t help but feel a certain sense of nostalgia, the same melancholic longing that made so many people resonate with Basement back when they were barely adults. Whether it’s that first singalong hitting in the album opener Time Waster, the heartwarming teen skate video for The Way I Feel or Andrew Fisher singing lines like “Am I wasting all my time / Living in a sense behind”: There’s a yearning for times and places, for people and feelings, for things you wish had happened that just seems to be ingrained into Basement’s DNA, whether they’re aware of it or not. “It’s interesting, nostalgia is something we’re very cautious of”, Ronan laments. “Obviously, we’ve been a band for a long time now and we have a history that is now being looked back on with that kind of nostalgic lens. We definitely do not try to hit the nostalgia button, quite the opposite in fact, but you can’t avoid your own writing tendencies, and the music we produce will always be tinged with the music we grew up listening to.”
WIRED is the opposite of a group of thirty-somethings clinging onto the good old days and refusing to grow up, though. They just found a way to carry their excitement and dreamy lightness into adulthood – and it’s infectious. 15 years after the release of their debut album I Wish I Could Stay Here, you might think the days when teens in the pit grabbed the mic to shout along to songs like Earl Grey might be over, but if you look at the numerous posts about Basement’s latest shows, you know that that’s far from true. And you may like it or not: TikTok helped Basement reach a whole new generation of these music fans, the same way it did for bands like Deftones or Korn. In 2024, their 2012 song Covet from the instant classic Colourmeinkindness went viral and helped lay the groundwork for their glorious return.
“Because we started playing shows and producing music before social media really took hold, I feel like it would be easy for us to go unnoticed by kids who have grown up specifically finding bands through these platforms. Something I’ve really noticed, though, is that we have a very wide age range coming out to the shows; people who have been there from the early days and some who first heard our music through a meme on TikTok. It’s crazy”, says Ronan, noting that Basement shows now are multi-generational events, and it’s not rare to see parents who were fans when they first started bringing out their kids who are fans now as well. “We recently played a release show event in L.A. and for the first time I was seeing a lot of fans making their own mini documentaries of the day and posting them to their socials, which is obviously a kind of word spreading that just wasn’t around in the 2010s. On the other side, there has to be a balance of the pure, in-the-moment enjoyment of seeing a band live and just being there to get the postable moment. I have to remind myself sometimes that it’s just much more normal to kind of log every moment of your life now, so there will be phones at your show.”
A desire for real connections
It’s a tightrope to walk for a band from the underground that built much of its success on community and the collective physical experience of live shows. But that bond hasn’t weakened; if anything, it is still growing stronger with this release. Be it intimate record store performances, listening events ahead of the album release or their last-minute outdoor release show in L.A., which saw hyped fans moshing, stagediving and singing along non-stop: Basement are actively reaching out to their community to form personal and real connections. The next special event in addition to their regular tour is the WIRED Run Berlin: a running event followed by an intimate performance. “The band are all enthusiastic, stereotypically millennial runners”, says Ronan who lives in Berlin and turned towards his running club bpm to help organize the event. (Don’t worry, if you’d rather not or are unable to run, you can skip this part of the event.)
“We’ve really focused on the live/in-person delivery of this record and want to do more events that create a connection between our listeners, the record and us”, the guitarist elaborates. Basement are aware that connection and community mean not only being there for each other in good times – those moments of euphoria you share at a show – but also, maybe most importantly, building a support system for when times get rough. That’s why all the profits of the event will be donated to Telefonseelsorge Berlin, a 24-hour suicide hotline. “We were very adamant to link it to a charity as strengthening our community is really important to us and Berlin has been good to us, especially in recent years”, Ronan explains. “With the tragic passing of Bo Lueders, it seemed poignant to donate the profits in support of the Berlin suicide hotline. You never know who is truly struggling under the surface.”
The past has shown that whenever Basement go on a hiatus, they only come back stronger, and WIRED is no exception. So, no matter if you’re 15 or 35: We’ll see you in the pit.
