Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker of the band Wussy are two of the best songwriters in the known universe. They’re also an absolute blast to talk to about (in no particular order): music, their Forever Sounds radio show, bad movies, Swedish Eagle, the Eagles, TV show filling station characters, ball peen hammers, ascots, super-glued teeth, and other important matters. Oh, and fecal matter too – because we’re erudite!
Wussy is doing a full band show at The Woodward Theater on Friday, February 27. Advance Base (the latest project from Owen Ashworth, formerly of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone) and Moontype open the show. Get tickets here.
Chuck and Lisa also do a radio show on WAIF-FM every Tuesday morning (i.e. Monday night when the clock strikes midnight). As Lisa mentioned in our podcast interview, they play music like you’d hear on stations like 97X. And their on-air banter is equal parts enlightening and hilarious. You can find a full archive of their past episodes on Mixcloud and Apple Podcasts.
The Wussy oeuvre is chock-full of gems – there are so many amazing tunes that it’s tough to single out just one. But here’s Chuck’s favorite Wussy song:
Lisa’s description of the interplay between her voice and Chuck’s as a flipped version of John Doe and Exene Cervenka of the band X is a fitting comparison.
You can really hear it in a song like “Airborne.”
Chuck and Lisa also did an digital album of cover songs as a fundraiser for WAIF.
You can get that album here for a pledge of $25 or more.
97X fans no doubt know that Chuck also was the front man for the fantastic Cincinnati band Ass Ponys. (Or “A-Ponys” as we sometimes had to refer to them on 97X in their early days.)
Their entire catalog is stellar. You can listen to several archived live shows from them here: https://archive.org/details/AssPonys. And check out this great profile of the band by David Simutis in CityBeat back in 2000, and this 2025 article by Peter Crigler in Perfect Sound Forever featuring band interviews.
A few years ago, we interviewed Mark Messerly from Wussy for a two-part Rumblings podcast – here and here.
Last, but certainly not least, here’s the trailer for the 1979 movie Angels Revenge:
Goober says “hey!”
