Childhood and college friends, local band Stalefish entered the Austin indie pop scene in 2023, following Dalton Hausman (marketing, ‘23), Jake Magee (physics and astronomy, ‘23) and Avery Delost’s (chemical engineering, ‘23) graduation from UT. Also including Sam Franklin (guitar/bass/vocals), Jonathan Cazares (drums) and Jon Pedraza (keyboard/synth), the six-piece group takes inspiration from Ween, The Strokes and The Velvet Underground. Solidifying their name in Austin’s indie scene, The Daily Texan sat down with the band to talk about their recent release on Tuesday and their growth.

The Daily Texan: Where did the name Stalefish come from?

Dalton Hausman: Stalefish came from a multiple-monthslong look for a band name. Jake texted me one day and was like, “We just need a name. What are some niche skateboarding tricks that people wouldn’t know that wouldn’t be lame?” The first one I said was Stinkbug and he was like, “No,” and then I was like, “What about Stalefish?” It’s a skateboarding grab trick. … There (were) a lot of names out there, but I’m glad we landed on Stalefish. There’s more we can do with that.

DT: What sparked the decision to start producing and releasing music?

DH: Jake and I had separate projects before this. Mine was called Golden Days and Jake’s was called Artificial Death. It was a very hodgepodge, (having) the same band rearranged kind of vibe. One day, we both had played a couple of really shitty shows and we were like, “This sucks! We just need to start over.” We had a long phone call, and we were like, “What if we tried really hard instead of acting like we don’t care?” (We decided to) bring it all together, and that’s what we did.

Jake Magee: We (also) lived together. We were kind of over it and felt like we bumbled it the first time. We wanted to start over and try again. We intended to bring everybody … but we had two drummers. There’s some unreleased versions of our first album that have two drummers.

DT: You guys released a single today. What’s the story behind that and what went into the production?

JM: This is quite a story. I (wrote) this bass line a while ago because I play bass the most. … I was messing around and I wrote this bassline and I liked it. I didn’t really know what to do with it. I was here last summer in July, staying at Sam’s old apartment.

Sam Franklin: I had also, that day, been trying (to write) a song in seven or five, a weird time signature.

JM: We had never done that. … We got a little inspired somehow, one way or another, and then in an hour, we cranked out this demo with no lyrics. … Then a couple months later, … I was in Pittsburgh and I was like, “It’d be a real shame,” (since) we were debating whether or not to put it on this album. I came up with the chorus and the outro. I sent it to them and they were like, “This is awesome.”