MJ Lenderman Still Wonders Where All These Fans Came From
Early in 2025, Lenderman and the Wind were scheduled to play two sold-out shows at Cat’s Cradle, the fabled North Carolina indie-rock institution just a few miles from the place he rents these days. But he’d been back in the mountains, visiting his family. As he and one of his three sisters, Olivia, drove the three hours east in his old minivan, every light on the dashboard started flashing. He wheeled into a Meineke, where a mechanic told him he needed a new battery. He couldn’t make the fix because of a busted pipe Lenderman had ignored for months.
They found an ad hoc solution that would at least get him to the show, then the mechanic told him to get back to a shop immediately. He, of course, did not. “I stopped at a gas station, and smoke was just pouring out of the hood,” he says, chuckling. “I made it back to my house, got it towed to the mechanic, and they just said, ‘We can’t do anything about this.’ ”
In late September, Lenderman finally went to a dealership and leased a black Toyota Tacoma. It’s a sign that he plans to spend more time at home next year, writing and recording and considering what comes next. Of course, as he tells me this, he’s been off the road one week, and he’ll be back onstage in another week. He’s calling from an Airbnb in Atlanta; his partner, Rachel Brown, is on tour with their band, Water From Your Eyes, and Lenderman is spending a few days in the van with them. He laughs when I ask if, a year after Manning Fireworks, he’s simply addicted to being in motion.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a decent break. Early on, when I’d get back to my house after I first moved in, I’d freak out a little bit. I would start to see what my life looks like, maybe understand it,” he says. “But I have definitely started to feel more at ease.”
