PREMIERE: Hot Joy Release New Single “Head out of the Window”

This morning, St. Louis rock quartet Hot Joy have unveiled the latest single from their forthcoming EP, Small Favor, which is due out on Friday via kind of a jerk records. “Head out of the Window” follows the brisk, incredible “Folded Tongue,” a track we deemed “a quick blast of grungy energy and brazen lyricism from a blossoming lo-fi band you ought to look out for” and named one of the best songs of March 2024. “Head out of the Window” follows a similar blueprint, adding a few minutes to its runtime and reveling in the chemistry shared between Austin McCutchen, Nicole Bonura, Wil McCarthy and Curt Oschner. What makes “Head out of the Window” flourish the most, however, is its bulletproof melody, with oscillates between McCutchen’s vibrant croon and a dual-guitar lead performed by him and Oschner that absolutely wails in seismic rock ‘n’ roll technicolor.

McCutchen says of “Head out of the Window”: “This was one of the first songs that Curt brought to our writing sessions when we were first thinking about starting this band, and it grabbed me right away. The lyrics for this song became my ode to touring—something I did for the majority of my 20s, that started to slow down more and more before coming to a complete halt. I spent a lot of early 2020 grappling with the feelings that I might never have a career in music and that my best days were behind me. I spent a lot of time really reflecting on everything that I’ve gotten to do and experience through playing music, and how sometimes when it’s week three of a four week tour everything feels terrible and you would rather be anywhere else. But in reality it’s such an amazing and freeing feeling that not many get to experience, and you don’t realize that until it’s gone.”

Listen to “Head out of the Window” below.