Marriage Story: How Grief Strengthened Tennis and Shaped Their New Album
Swimmer recounts the darkest times of Alaina's and Patrick's marriage. But it’s anything but morose.
Photos by Annie Dressner, Luca Venter
Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, the husband and wife behind indie-pop duo Tennis, are sailors. They could’ve used any number of nautical metaphors to describe the choppy waters they’ve been wading through the past few years. But they ultimately settled on the simple “Swimmer” as the title for their fifth LP, out now on the couple’s own Mutually Detrimental label. Despite multiple stints living on their shared sailboat, Moore never learned how to swim. But when it comes to the unceasing waves of life’s tragedies, both Moore and Riley are familiar with all the strokes.
In the time between the 2017 arrival of their second breakout release Yours Conditionally and now, Moore was hospitalized with the flu, Riley’s father died of cancer and Moore’s mother was also hospitalized “on the brink of a stroke.” All of this occurred during a robust tour, one the self-made musicians needed to complete in order to sustain their income upon its end. Moore, in a recent phone call with Paste, described it as a “month of suffering.” But it was also the biggest tour of their careers up to this point.
“We all called it the tour from hell,” she says, “because like every five days a new horrific event would occur. And we all got very superstitious. We felt like the universe was conspiring to just end the tour suddenly at some point.”
Despite the ever-mounting list of major, miserable life events, Tennis found themselves at a pivotal point in their careers. So they soldiered on and completed the scheduled dates, vowing to “always, always” finish tours in the future.
“It was just so surreal to feel that vulnerable,” Moore continues. “We felt so broken and beaten down by what was going on in our lives, but then we would walk on stage at Brooklyn Steel or 9:30 Club, and it would be sold out and everyone would be this warm, attentive, kind audience. And the juxtaposition was so profound that I think [it] really helped us survive that month.”
Moore and Riley weren’t even sure a fifth LP was in their future. Yours Conditionally felt like a logical resting place, Moore says, but instead of calling time out, the pair pushed forward. They returned to the sea for a third time—following a post-college sailing excursion down the East Coast to write their 2011 debut Cape Dory and a salty sequel in the Sea of Cortez for Yours Conditionally—to write Swimmer. They found themselves again in the Gulf of California, aka the Sea of Cortez, for another extended, off-the-grid writing retreat.
-
-
-
-
- Curated Home Page Articles By Test Admin October 21, 2025 | 3:10pm
-
- Curated Home Page Articles By Test Admin October 21, 2025 | 2:57pm
- Urls By Test Admin October 21, 2025 | 2:57pm
- Curated Home Page Articles By Test Admin October 21, 2025 | 2:55pm
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-