Don’t be misled by the title of Annie DiRusso’s new album Super Pedestrian. There is nothing pedestrian about the rising indie rocker’s exciting full-length debut, which hits stores and streaming platforms Friday. The title comes from DiRusso’s primary mode of transportation — her feet.
“I knew the name pretty soon into creating the album,” DiRusso tells the Scene by phone from her home in East Nashville. “I don’t have a license, so I walk everywhere. I was without a license in Nashville, a drivable city, for so many years, so I was, like, walking to the grocery store and kind of making it a walkable city for me.”
DiRusso also considered the album finale, “It’s Good to Be Hot in the Summer,” for the title of the record.
“I think Super Pedestrian is a little bit more descriptive of me, and ‘It’s Good to Be Hot in the Summer’ is a bit more descriptive of the songs,” she says. “And for a debut record, I think I wanted to introduce myself a little bit.”
Super Pedestrian features 11 songs that build on the blend of distortion and melody DiRusso has explored on the dozen singles she released between 2017 and 2022 and her acclaimed 2023 EP God, I Hate This Place. All of those recordings were made with producer Jason Cummings, while the new release was helmed by Caleb Wright (Hippo Campus, Raffaella, Samia), whom DiRusso met after a show in Minneapolis in 2023.
“I loved working with Jason so much, and we had such a long-standing relationship and way of working, but I knew I wanted to try something different for this full-length record, just to see how I could expand my sound,” DiRusso explains. “I was talking to all these different producers, and I kept coming back to the idea of Caleb … that he was who I wanted to bring the songs to.”
The album was recorded in February and March 2024 at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville, N.C., where DiRusso had previously done some sessions. On the Super Pedestrian dates, she sang and played guitars, while multi-instrumentalist Eden Joel played all the other instruments, including bass, keyboards, drums and additional guitars. The album also features guest backing vocals by co-writers Samia (“Back in Town”) and Ruston Kelly (“Wearing Pants Again”).
Talking with the rocker about her recent EP ‘God, I Hate This Place’ before her show at The Basement East
On God, I Hate This Place, DiRusso addressed the pain she experienced from unfulfilling, sometimes even psychologically abusive relationships, which left her doubting herself. While she continues to explore those themes on Super Pedestrian, she does so from a more positive and settled place.
“I was 23 at the time the last tour ended,” she recalls. “I loved that tour, but I was playing songs every night that I wrote when I was 18 or 19 or 20, and I was wearing the outfit I would have been wearing at that age. I think being off the road made me have to face myself, like, ‘OK, who am I at 23,’ which was really, really beautiful. So I do think the album comes from a bit of a more grounded place and a little bit more inside my body looking out, where maybe the EP was a little bit more outside my body looking in.”
Sonically, God, I Hate This Place was darker and more dissonant than her new record, which shows DiRusso integrating some of her pop influences. Those influences are most apparent on cuts like “Back in Town,” “Legs,” “Wet” and “Good Ass Movie.”
“I love pop music, and I feel like my melodies are very inspired by my love of pop,” she says.
While her pop influences inform Super Pedestrian, make no mistake, it’s a rock record. The most raucous track on the album is also the shortest — “Derek Jeter,” a dense, noisy tribute to the legendary New York Yankees shortstop complete with hooky power chords and vocal chants of his name by DiRusso, Joel and Samia. It clocks in at 1:46 and includes a brief spoken-word bit about Jeter written and voiced by DiRusso’s father, a lifelong Yankees fan.
The song first came together during a demo session at Joel’s Nashville studio. He and DiRusso had hit a wall on another song they were recording and needed to take a break with something less serious.
“We kind of just made the song as a joke,” she says. “It was a palate-cleanser and ended up being one of my favorite things.”
“Derek Jeter” provides a lighthearted break in a record that is largely about heavier concerns. No track is heavier either lyrically or musically than “I Am the Deer,” whose chorus features the repeating couplet, “I am the deer / I am the driver.” It’s a song in which DiRusso confronts the enemy within, and in doing so demonstrates her growth as a person and an artist.
“It’s about self-sabotage,” she says. “I am the deer, I’m also the driver. I’m constantly hitting myself with a car. I’m not letting myself get to where I want to be or do the things I want to do. But now that I’ve said this, and I know that, I can move forward.”
