In an interview with The Times, Wet Leg co-founder Doug Richards claims he deserves co-writing credit on two songs from the award-winning duo's debut album.
“I decided the only way I can shift this eggy energy is to say something,” the Grammy Award-winning band's former drummer tells The Times. “It feels a bit like airing your dirty laundry. But so much has already been made public, I sort of felt I had to speak out.”
Richards says he met Merseyside-born Teasdale on the Isle Of Wight in 2013. She initially joined him for a jam session, and they eventually went on to become a couple and began collaborating on music together. In 2019 they formed Wet Leg with their friend Hester Chambers.
“There was a good vibe, felt like it had real potential,” reflects Richards, speaking to the press for the first time about his perspective on the band's origins. “The songs were good. It was just a lot of fun.”
While Chambers and Teasdale went on to record the band's self-titled debut, released in 2022, Richards was out of the picture by then and claims he was asked to leave the band following the break-up of his seven-year relationship with Teasdale.
“I was really upset actually,” he tells The Times now. “I had the sense of it maybe being quite successful. I also felt like I helped create it.”
Richards claims that part of that creative process is co-writing the songs Oh No and Too Late Now – both of which appeared on Wet Leg's debut album.
“I feel frightened to try and approach that subject,” he says. “But I did write [on those songs] and they are on the record. So I probably should get recognised.”
Wet Leg are yet to respond to these claims. Richards also claims to have been at least partly the inspiration behind Wet Leg favourites Ur Mum and Wet Dream – a song later covered by Harry Styles. He's got mixed feelings about the way he believes he's been portrayed in some of the songs.
It’s just been completely surreal, watching them get massive
“You can’t make a cake without breaking some eggs,” Doug says now. “We all do it. It’s difficult to be the egg though. I realise she wrote these lyrics during the heat of a break-up, but she could have come and told me about it after, given me a heads-up at least.
“It’s just been completely surreal, watching them get massive,” adds the musician, now the singer, guitarist and pianist in the Cowes band Plastic Mermaids. “I keep thinking, ‘Why does it have to be the No 1 album? Could it not just be No 4 or something?’”
