Sloppy Jane's theatrical avant-punk is as exciting as it is idiosyncratic. They debuted with the proto- and post-punk-informed 2015 EP Sure-Tuff as a four-piece that included Phoebe Bridgers on bass. By Sloppy Jane's second full-length, the 2021 concept album Madison, project leader Haley Dahl was setting her volatile relationship songs to a 21-piece blended rock band and chamber orchestra. Following a three-year search for just the right acoustics, Madison was tracked underground at the Lost World Caverns in West Virginia. The dramatic ballad "Cancer" and a duet with Bridgers, "Claw Machine," followed in 2023 and 2024, respectively. New York-born Haley Dahl began performing under the Sloppy Jane moniker as a young teen in Los Angeles, where she spent most of her childhood. After racking up shows with her friends on the Sunset Strip, she decided to forego college to focus on music, and found work as a dancer at a strip club to make ends meet. It was during this time that she developed the performative aspect of Sloppy Jane. One of the steadier bandmembers in early iterations of the band was drummer Imogen Teasley-Vlautin, who appeared on Sloppy Jane's debut EP, Sure-Tuff, alongside guitarist/backing vocalist Sara Catherine and bassist/backing vocalist Phoebe Bridgers. The cassette version arrived on Lolipop Records in 2015. Sloppy Jane's debut album, the self-released Willow, was recorded by Joel Jerome (Cherry Glazer, Tashaki Miyaki) in Los Angeles, with Dahl and Sara Catherine both playing multiple instruments. With guests on strings, it reflected a shift toward more playful, theatrical songs involving instruments like glockenspiel and flexatone, spoken word samples, and crowd noise. Dahl moved back to her native New York before the album's release in March of 2018. By that time, she had also begun to explore an idea for a concept album based on fantasy relationships that she intended to record in a cave. With her co-producers Al Nardo, Mika Lungulov-Klotz, and Jack Wetmore, Dahl scouted various caverns across the U.S. that might suit the material she was writing for a 21-piece rock orchestra (she learned how to notate music during this time). In the interim, she continued to perform regularly, including a month-long residency at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn in 2019. The Sloppy Jane team eventually found the perfect spot at Lost World Caverns in West Virginia and spent two weeks recording daily between the late afternoon and early morning hours, with engineer Ryan Howe wired to a mixing board in a car 90 feet above them. The completed Madison was released on Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records in November 2021. In celebration of the one-year anniversary of Madison, Sloppy Jane reteamed with Bridgers for a limited-edition 7", "My Misery Will Bury You," consisting of two versions of "Wilt." Jane was back in late 2023 with the rock opera-styled ballad "Cancer" before joining forces with Bridgers again for 2024's "Claw Machine," a more orchestral ballad. - Biography by Marcy Donelson