The Precariat

“Many of us are, or are at risk of falling into the precariat.” This urgency inspired the title of the debut record by Tommy Lefroy, the soft rock project of Wynter Bethel and Tessa Mouzourakis.

The Precariat, a portmanteau of ‘precarious’ and ‘proletariat’, was popularised by economist Guy Standing to identify a new class riddled with financial fear and job insecurity, trapped in circumstances beyond their control and at the mercy of systems stacked against them. The band found the term a perfect metaphor for both global and deeply personal experiences of increasing precarity.

A timestamp of fraught, unstable times in which it was written, the album’s themes come to light through deceptively immediate, earworm indie-rock, cementing Tommy Lefroy as a vital and timely new voice.

“The level of insecurity, even in America is insane. There’s no ceiling but there’s no floor; there’s nothing catching people. We felt a responsibility to speak to this experience that so many people are having, to do something about it,” says Bethel, originally hailing from rural Michigan. “As far as I’m concerned, art is not neutral,” Mouzourakis, from Vancouver, Canada, continues. “I have no interest in being an artist that’s apolitical – to me, that’s not art.”

The Precariat arrives as an invigorated, impassioned call to arms: a clarion call to look up and zoom out, delivered by a pair of musicians who’ve put in the hours to back it up.

“We treated this record like a thesis and really studied what we were writing about,” says Mouzourakis. “Learning about it all was kind of life-changing. The whole point is that [this time in history] is very alienating, but we’re all experiencing it and we can all work together. That is power and that is resistance, and that is inherently hopeful.”

While their debut album is grounded in heavy experience – in the burning wildfires of LA that open the scene of ‘Angel In The House’ or the shadow of Grenfell that looms in ‘Anomie’ – the origin story of Tommy Lefroy is one that, conversely, seems like kismet. Bethel and Mouzourakis first met in Nashville in 2017, while plugging away at an often thankless songwriter circuit. Surrounded by people trying to crack the elusive formula for a hit, they gravitated towards each other as writers who, instead, valued honesty and unpredictability.

Over the next half decade, the pair travelled back and forth, writing their 2021 EP Flight Risk on FaceTime across different time zones before moving to London to throw themselves entirely into the project. “When we started, we didn’t live in the same country. It was completely illogical, but it was very instinctual,” Bethel says. “We found each other and were both just like, ‘where have you been all my life?!’”

Suggested off-the-cuff by a friend, the pair saw the name Tommy Lefroy (a reference to Thomas Langlois Lefroy, Jane Austen’s alleged muse for Mr. Darcy) as a cheeky nom de plume, an opportunity to take up space in a lane so-often reserved for men.“Borrowing the name was about embodying that boyish courage and a confidence we were jealous of,” Mouzourakis explains. “And that’s what it felt like being in the band – like stepping into something new and putting on the armour of this persona.”

Since that first release, and through subsequent EPs Rivals (2023) and born blue (2024), Tommy Lefroy have found audiences connecting intensely to the raw vulnerability that pours through their deeply personal lyrics. “The first time we played a show, someone came up to us afterwards and wanted to get the lyrics tattooed of a song that wasn’t out yet,” Bethel remembers. “we couldn’t help but have this feeling we were on to something, something that was bigger than us.”

With their previously self-sufficient recording and production process amplified by co-producer Stephen Sesso and executive producer Mike Crossey (The 1975, MUNA), The Precariat offers up the most fully-formed version of their assured vision yet.

Here, their knack for acute observations and gut-punching specificity is still intact, but The Precariat firmly turns the lens outwards. On instant earworm lead single ‘Slush Puppy’, they use the sugary treat as an allegory for hyper-consumerism and temporary fixes. “We were reading a lot about disaster capitalism and liked the idea of creating this big, anthemic song that’s actually a sardonic parody,” says Mouzourakis.

The melancholic slow-burn of ‘Thief’, with its hugely cathartic payoff, took seven years to nail, with its tales of situationships and an existential sense of strife, taking on new meaning in the context of The Precariat. Meanwhile, ‘Angel In The House’ marks one of the album’s most defiant moments: a song that puts Mouzourakis’ sludgy, stoner rock riffs front and centre, whilst lyrically taking inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s speech, “Professions For Women”. “The ‘Angel in the House’ is basically this metaphor she creates for societal expectations of women and how they directly compete with her ambitions as a writer,” Bethel explains. “When we moved back to the states [in 2024] we were shocked by this resurgence of viral content around women in traditional roles” she continues, in reference to the right wing pendulum swing fueling tradwife discourse online, keeping Woolf’s 1931 musings as relevant as ever.

The short incantation ‘In paradise, war is prevented by mothers’ is a 66-second ode to “not just the power of women, but all the complex ways women carry the onus for the actions of men”, while ‘Vacuum’ presents the story of Tommy Lefroy’s own intense journey so far, providing a more compelling testament to trust and togetherness than most romantic love stories. “I had nothing, then I found you / Built an empire in a vacuum”.

The Precariat ends with its title track: a heartland rock-inspired closer, crafted in the Springsteen tradition of anthems where the American dream is never quite as it was built up to be. “I was missing home so much, but living outside of the US gave me so much perspective and concern.” says Bethel. “We were sonically playing into a sort of bleeding heart patriotism,” notes Mouzourakis. “A lot of US presidents co-opt ‘Born in the USA’, even though its lyrics are in direct contradiction to the systems they represent.”

It’s a big, bold ellipsis of a finale that’s meant to provoke questions and start conversations. And Tommy Lefroy, for their part, want to take The Precariat as far and wide as they can – building on their previous support shows with Sigrid, Samia and Niall Horan, and engaging with audiences by playing live as much as possible. The band hosts book swaps at their headline shows, where fans are encouraged to bring and take a book, in a hope to facilitate conversation and connection. This comes alongside the band’s book club, Some Vague Hope – a Kafka-indebted name that also doubles as the imprint label for their record. ‘Some Vague Hope’ could also stand for the steely yearning that Wynter Bethel and Tessa Mouzourakis put into everything they do as Tommy Lefroy – embedded into The Precariat, it’s a message that, together, there’s still life in us yet.