Cheekface

Three people, no reverb

Cheekface came together in Los Angeles in 2017 out of a set of mutual acquaintances rather than a scene. Greg Katz had graduated from UCLA into the Great Recession, worked in A&R and lost the job in 2011, after which he set up his own imprint, New Professor Music. Amanda Tannen had trained classically on cello, played bass in the Brooklyn band Stellastarr through the 2000s, then moved west and worked in graphic design — she still designs the band's sleeves. Mark Edwards, who goes by Echo, plays drums.

The method was fixed early and has barely moved since. Katz talk-sings rather than croons, the songs almost all come in under four minutes, and the lyric is the load-bearing element; the band ask venues for no reverb and no delay on the vocal so the words stay legible. The stated reference points are Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, Stephen Malkmus and Das Racist, which is a fair map of the territory: plain-spoken, aggressively literal, funny in a way that keeps turning out to be about something worse.

The first thing to travel was "Dry Heat/Nice Town" in 2018, written after Katz attended the 2017 Women's March. The debut album Therapy Island followed in 2019.

A record a year, and nobody's permission

The run since has been close to annual and entirely self-released. Emphatically No. arrived in 2021 and was named by Paste among its forty best rock albums of that year. Too Much to Ask followed in 2022. It's Sorted was put out as a surprise on 22 January 2024, with no rollout, after the tour had already been announced the previous December. Middle Spoon came on 25 February 2025. Around them sit the EPs and offcut collections — Emphatically Mo' and Emphatically Noel in 2021, Don't Ask in 2022, Sort Of in 2024 — and a steady habit of releasing live documents: an Audiotree session in 2020, Live at Baby's All Right recorded in Brooklyn in October 2022, Audiotree Far Out in 2023, and a recording of the Axis Club in Toronto from 7 May 2025.

None of it went through a label other than their own. The band trade as "America's Local Band", sell direct, and run a paid fan subscription, the Stubbs Clubb, which they have described as the thing that makes touring survivable. The audience has a name for itself — Cheek Freaks — and the band are unsentimental about the parts of the public they are not for. Speaking to Exclaim! around It's Sorted, Katz put it as the more people they reach, the more people they reach who are annoyed by them, and said he loved that.

Touring built the rest. A North American run in 2023 was followed by a British stint and a spring 2024 North American return.

Podium

Podium, the sixth album, was released on 28 July 2026. It runs to thirteen tracks — "Hostile Street", "There Is a God", "Peanut Butter Prawns", "The Weather", "MFT", "Rent Is Down", "Black Site", "No Fly Zone", "I Don't Work Here", "EBT", "Discrete", "U Can't Do It" and "I Decline" — and was produced and mixed by Eric Palmquist at Palmquist Studios in Los Angeles, mastered by David Kutch, with the sleeve again by Tannen. The singles came out across the spring: "MFT" in April, "I Don't Work Here" in May, "No Fly Zone" in June. Guests widen the palette for the first time in a serious way — saxophone from Emily Williams, trumpet and trombone from Jer Hunter, turntables from Teddy Roxpin, flute from Elise Welch — and "U Can't Do It" is co-written with Katie McTigue.

It is also the band's most directly political record. The subjects are hostile street architecture, ICE raids, black sites, deepfakes and the spread of AI, surveillance and the cost of living, and the band turn the same scrutiny on the left — performative activism, infighting — that they turn on everything else. Katz told Atwood Magazine the album was about how well-meaning weirdos and oddballs navigate a callous and violent culture. Tannen described the delivery mechanism as a spoonful-of-sugar situation.

Reviewing it on 3 August 2026, Spectrum Culture scored it 80 and called out the clearest and punchiest production the band have had, with scratching, G-funk bounce and guest brass widening the sound, while judging that the record is unlikely to convert anyone who has already declined — even though the writing is among their most accessible.

The AT&T refusal

In March 2026 a casting director approached the band looking for a credible, tight-knit group, without naming the client. Cheekface sent an audition tape and were told they were one of the favourites. When the advertiser turned out to be AT&T, they withdrew, writing that because of the company's contracts with ICE they would decline to go any further. AT&T holds a ten-year, $146m contract with the Department of Homeland Security, announced in 2024, covering communications infrastructure for ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

The band described the money as really significant and said publicly on 30 March 2026 that everyone draws the line in a different place and this one was over theirs. Katz framed it as a demonstration rather than a scolding: a band, or a person, offered a lot of money for something that does not seem right can say no and be fine. He has since credited the Stubbs Clubb subscribers with making that refusal affordable.

Where they are now

The US and Canada tour behind Podium was under way by 22 August 2026 at the Casbah in San Diego and has worked east through September — Durham on the 10th, Richmond on the 11th, the Black Cat in Washington on the 16th, Underground Arts in Philadelphia on the 18th, Racket in New York on the 19th, Brighton Music Hall in Boston on the 20th and Higher Ground in South Burlington on the 21st. Ahead lie Pittsburgh on 24 September, Grand Rapids on the 25th, the Bottom Lounge in Chicago on the 26th, Toronto on the 28th, Rochester on the 29th, Cleveland on the 30th and Madison on 1 October, with Catbite among the support acts.

Nine British dates follow in November: Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on the 17th, the Art School in Glasgow on the 18th, Future Yard in Birkenhead on the 20th, New Century in Manchester on the 22nd, the Fleece in Bristol on the 23rd, Chalk in Brighton on the 24th, the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath on the 25th, the Grove in Byker on the 26th and the Dome in Tufnell Park on the 28th. The rooms are the same size they have always played; Songkick lists around 19,100 people tracking the band, with Los Angeles far and away their most-played city.

The economics are tighter than they were. In the Atwood interview the band were plain that the cost of getting a tour round the country has risen sharply on fuel, and that the subscription rather than streaming is what keeps the van moving.