Those of a sensitive nature look away now. Fcukers – pronounced (loudly) as FUCKERS – refuse to play by the rules. Instead, they’re following that infamous Taco Bell motto, ‘Live Mas’, to its rapturous peaks. “When we got to London last summer, our very first show there, I didn’t even have a place to stay,” Fcukers vocalist Shanny Wise airily recalls. “I had no idea where I was gonna stay. I left my stuff at the venue after our show and went out partying. I woke up on a couch somewhere a day later.”
This is the Fcukers way. If you weren’t aware of the party-hardy New York duo, then it’s only a matter of time. They’ve been living their best lives since first garnering the attention of icon and cultural influencer Hedi Slimane of fashion house Celine, who invited the group to Paris Fashion Week last year. With their event cancelled due to the riots in the city, they extended their trip to include a stop in London, which is where Shanny spent that opening whirlwind visit before jetting off to the next party.
As to how this pair of upstarts came to become globe-trotting stars just over a year into their career, it’s all in their beginnings. Shanny made her start in “dreamy” indie bands, as she tells it, most notably The Shacks. Music is inherent to her being. “Making music and writing songs is something I would be doing, regardless of anyone ever hearing it,” she says. “If no one ever listened, I would still be in the studio making songs because it’s my favourite thing to do.”
Producer and instrumentalist Jackson Walker Lewis also found his start in more instrument-based rock outfits, touring around in a van – it’s the classic knuckle-down-till-you-make-it story, which never panned out. After that dissipated, he turned his attention to producing and DJing with drummer Ben Scharf, who recently left the group to focus on school instead.
While a change in ranks would shake most bands at this early stage, fortunately for Fcukers, their framework remains intact. “It was always just Jackson and I in the studio,” Shanny explains, “writing and producing everything together. So from that aspect, it’s been a pretty chill transition, honestly.”
“That’s pretty much been the nature of the whole thing: ‘Fuck it. Let’s go’”
Shanny and Jackson were introduced by a mutual friend. With Jackson aware of Shanny after her previous band, he asked to meet her. “I thought he just wanted to throw a party at this bar I worked at,” Shanny recalls, rolling her eyes. Instead, it was to see if she wanted to embark on the new project he and Ben had toyed with. He’d been toiling away with ideas for Fcukers in his modest home studio. Unbeknownst to him, instead of having to pitch and beg Shanny to jump aboard, she was raring to go. Having both been in more rock/indie-leaning outfits, the pair’s joint love of electronic, dance and the like meant they were a match made in heaven. “Both of us being like, ‘I’ve never done it before, but fuck it, let’s try it’. I think that we both share that, and it’s in a lot of the kind of music we make. We’re always down to try something new and just take a stab at it and have fun with it.”
And thus, Fcukers was born. Putting out their first tracks in March 2023, with no real intentions or ambitions, it was all vibes. They’re the result of a new generation growing up in a full-on world where taking your time isn’t pointless. In their case in particular, they’re from a total life forever scene, filled with young, nocturnal New Yorkers soundtracked by crate-digging DJs. It’s how Fcukers have come to be proponents of thumping dance music that insidiously worms its way into your pulse. It’s all tied together with Shanny’s dreamy vocals quipping out carefree nighttime slogans like she’s petitioning for Night Czar (e.g. “Blackout, show up late, ’cause homie don’t shake”).
Eventually, they played their first show. And then, Paris Fashion Week came calling. “It was a crazy year,” Shanny says, understating their burgeoning success. This led to their whistle-stop tour of our fair shores, engraining the Fcukers’ mindset, which developed during their previous industry experiences: they’re seizing the day before someone else takes it from you. “We had used the money they paid us to already buy a round trip back from London,” Shanny remembers. “So we were like, ‘Fuck it. We’re gonna go to London and play some shows’. That’s pretty much been the nature of the whole thing: ‘Fuck it. Let’s go’.”
From Europe, the then-trio headed to the southern hemisphere, hitting up Australia and Tokyo. Getting to such far reaches before even hitting their home country shores properly, Shanny laughs, is all part of the fun. “Just keeping it random and keeping it fun. We never really had a game plan when we started. We were never like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna put a song out, and then we’re gonna go tour, and then we’re gonna put an album’. It was just, let’s make some songs for fun. And that’s really at the heart of it. We wanted to do this to have fun and make music that we like, so it’s pretty cool that we get to do that.”
“We wanted to do this to have fun and make music that we like”
Of course, playing shows around the world is one thing, but you also need the tunes to pack in the suitcase. On the back of their early handful of singles, including remix-fodder ‘Mothers’, this year saw the release of their debut EP ‘Baggy$$’. Made up of a handful of tracks that neatly introduce the pair’s house-loaded inspirations and influences, if the raw-eyed, certain-look artwork didn’t give it away, then the immediate wall-trembling, dust-off-the-shelves rapture-inducing, sing-along igniting ‘Bon Bon’ should give a swift indicator that Fcukers are here to wake you up.
But there’s more than a rabble-rousing round of one styling.
“We felt like it was a fun sampler of our range, where we don’t just make house music,” Shanny explains. “We like a bunch of different kinds of music, and we like to fuck around with a bunch of different styles. So, here you go, here’s some different styles.” For instance, ‘I Don’t Wanna’ smokily oozes a reggae dub heart, while ‘Tommy’ follows this thread to a darker end as it radiates bass with the ferocity of an atom bomb. But there still exists an ease at which Fcukers can electrify with their infectious hooks throughout the head-rush-inducing run of ‘Bon Bon’, ‘Heart Dub’, and ‘Homie Don’t Shake’.
While there are no concerns about being pigeonholed, or at least avoidance of, they are keen to prove that they have a lot more going on. “Stuff that I listen to isn’t always house,” Shanny explains. “It’s a lot of dance hall and reggae and trip-hop, so it was a fun opportunity to showcase that.” It’s helped Shanny’s confidence, too. “Fcukers just feels different, and it’s another side of myself as an artist that I haven’t tapped into as much before,” she smiles. “It’s made me encourage myself to keep trying new things with music and making all different kinds of stuff.”
Having made tremendous strides, there’s no stopping this vibrant wave of energy. Even with all of the opportunities they’ve hungrily gobbled up, it still doesn’t change anything. Fcukers’ only agenda is to have a good time. Currently working on their debut album and other live shows that Shanny remains tight-lipped on (“Jackson will kill me,” she laughs), 2025 looks set to be even stronger. “We’ve been continuously working on music this whole time,” says Shanny. “We have about maybe fifteen to twenty demos and some of them will probably be on there, and then we’re still writing a bunch too.”
But even that seems like a bit too much of a plan. For Fcukers, it’s still most important, above all, to get lost in the noise – their own and in the night ahead. Let’s see where it takes them.
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