Daisy The Great Share New EP 'Tough Kid'

Daisy the Great release the Tough Kid EP, their long-awaited follow-up to last year's album ALL YOU NEED IS TIME, which has been streamed 300 million times globally. The EP's release also brings us “Time Machine 2,” which enlists the production help of Illuminati Hotties' Sarah Tudzin to continue the narrative from a standout single of last year.

The first single from Daisy the Great's Tough Kid EP, a modern summer dating anthem titled “Looking U Up,” came out with an accompanying music video in June. 

The second release from the new EP was a reimagining of indie sleaze classic “Rill Rill” by Sleigh Bells, which the band first teased on Instagram, where the track received excitement from fans and a ringing endorsement from Sleigh Bells themselves.

The band's sophomore album, ALL YOU NEED IS TIME, has surpassed 300 million global streams, and their five-week US headline tour in Spring of 2023 was very close to a complete sell out. To continue their touring success and build up to a new EP release, the band embarked on a European Tour with opener Liza Anne. The European headline tour featured stops at multiple festivals, including Reeperbahn in Hamburg, where the band was selected as an Anchor Award 2023 nominee.

Daisy the Great Bio

As Daisy the Great, Kelley Nicole Dugan and Mina Walker make folk-inflected indie rock that spans a multitude of moods, capable of being clever, devastating, or both simultaneously, spanning harmony-laden pop to powerhouse balladry. The pair first met as acting majors at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts where they began co-writing a musical about a fictional band before realizing they could make it happen in real life and set out as Daisy the Great.

2017 saw Daisy the Great make an auspicious debut with “The Record Player Song,” which quickly proved an immediate smash now boasting over 250M worldwide streams and multiple viral moments on TikTok. A full-length debut LP, I'm Not Getting Any Taller, arrived in 2019, followed in 2020 by the quarantine-born Soft Songs EP. In 2021, Daisy the Great teamed with acclaimed indie-pop trio AJR for “Record Player,” a brand new song inspired by their original 2017 hit, available at all DSPs and streaming services HERE. An official animated video now boasting close to 3M views is streaming via YouTube HERE.

Having now grown into a full six-piece band currently featuring Matt Lau on guitar, Bernardo Ochoa on bass, Matti Dunietz on drums, and Brie Archer on additional vocals, Daisy the Great first heralded ALL YOU NEED IS TIME with the dazzling “Glitter,” available for streaming and download HERE. Hailed by Atwood Magazine as “a dreamy, inspiring alternative anthem to let our light shine,” the track is joined by an official music video – directed and edited by Dugan and Walker – streaming now via YouTube HERE.

An entrancing “Press Play” performance is viewable on the official Recording Academy/GRAMMYs YouTube channel HERE. The band also visited 90.9 The Bridge in KC for a session that NPR included in their 2022 “Sessions of The Year” list and appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert's “Late Show Me Music” series, available on the show's Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook channels.

2023 saw the band releasing a new version of “Tell Me Have You Been Dancing” featuring vocals from indie pop artist Claud and a reimagined emo lo-fi version of their song “Glitter” titled “Glitter 2”. Ahead of their first ever European headline tour, the band released two new songs “Looking U Up” and “Tough Kid” followed by their new Tough Kid EP in the fall of 2023.

“Our music is generally pretty introspective, and we are often interested in the complexities or ironies we see within ourselves,” Dugan says. “That's something we love about writing—you can say something small and delicate and true that maybe feels scary to say, but once you put it out there, it can turn into a comfort for anyone that might also be feeling that way.”

About illuminati hotties

illuminati hotties, the musical project founded by producer/writer Sarah Tudzin, was originally an outlet to showcase and experiment as a producer. It quickly grew into a full-time band that was picked up by independent label, Tiny Engines. After the success of her debut album, Kiss Yr Frenemies, and coining the term “tenderpunk,” illuminati hotties were on their way to recording and releasing a highly-anticipated sophomore album.

However, things at the label started to fall apart, and illuminati hotties found themselves stuck in a contract with a label who didn't have the infrastructure to put out the album the band had been crafting for months.

FREE I.H. was the project that brought back the energy and intention that had seeped out after the label fallout. After its release, Sarah dove straight into the new album, Let Me Do One More. The result is a diverse, layered album of “all riprs and no more skiprs.” From the vibrant, clever, and undeniably fun, “Pool Hopping” to the edgy, sardonic and witty, “MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA” (pronounced ‘Moo'), to the intimate and vulnerable “Growth,” Let Me Do One More embraces Sarah's autonomy as an artist, and the fearlessness of being figuratively open and exposed for art.

According to Sarah, “The songs tell a story of my gremlin-ass running around LA, sneaking into pools at night, messing up and starting over, begging for attention for one second longer, and asking the audience to let me do one more.”

With the album shaping up, Sarah knew that she didn't want to sign a traditional label deal anymore. After all the work to get herself back creatively, she wanted to maintain as much autonomy and creative control as possible. She started an imprint label, Snack Shack Tracks, and partnered with Los Angeles-based, independent label, Hopeless Records. Together, they're gearing up to release Let Me Do One More.

While FREE I.H. felt like an experimental conduit for self-expression at breakneck speed, Let Me Do One More is the fully-realized creative vision of two years of ambition, heartache, uncertainty, redemption, and ultimately triumph. Sarah reflects, “I love these songs and they're a part of me and I'm proud of them.”

Credit: Alistair Barrell

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