The Bad Penny (beta)

Seattle garage/glam/dance punks Linda From Work are gearing up for the release of their eminently danceable and joyous self-titled full-length on Oct. 17 – and the band graciously gave The Bad Penny the opportunity to debut the video for its first single, “Blood in the Water.”

We chatted with the band earlier this week about the album and much more. What follows is an excerpt from the interview that deals with the song and its accompanying clip.

What inspired you to write “Blood in the Water,” and how did the video come about logistically?

[Vocals/guitarist] Hillary Tusick: It started as a song because [bassist] Shayla [Riday] came to us with this bass line that she had been working on.

Riday: I taught myself how to play bass during lockdown as a way to stay sane. That was the first bass line I ever wrote. I wrote it in my kitchen years ago, back when I used to play alone by myself and never dream that I would be in a band.

And then, when we were in our songwriting process, we were having an open-ended practice, and Hillary said, “What do you got?” And I said, “I have this bass line that I love.” The song kind of came together after that. Hil;ary wrote all the lyrics.

I love it so much. It’s so cool to see something that’s been in my head forever to not only be a full-blown song but be one of the singles and then do the music video for it.

Tusick: There was something about this bass line that Shayla had that we all naturally fell into. It felt kind of like driving a car late at night on an open desert road. There’s something about it … not sinister, but a little moody, like the sun’s glooming.

[Drummer] Sam Nowak: Yeah. I think the working title was “Night Drive.” We decided on “Blood in the Water” during the recording.

Tusick: Right. Then it took on a life of its own because it started to feel again like driving, but then also like the music itself was also the driving force of the song.

There was this kind of chugging-along feeling to it. It was inspired lyrically by a cycle of competition, climbing the ladder [in the corporate world].

Without further ado, here’s the clip:

(This video was filmed and created by Bella Petro and Brennan Moring.)

Stay tuned for The Bad Penny‘s extensive conversation with Linda From Work, in which we discuss the record and much more.

Go to Linda From Work’s Bandcamp page to preorder their self-titled record.

This entry was posted on 09/26/2025 at 9:59 am and is filed under Exclusives, Videos with tags Linda From Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.