Minneapolis’ Bad Bad Hats and Party Nails Form Megasound, Announce Self-Titled Debut

A tour can test a friendship. For Bad Bad Hats and Party Nails, it did the opposite. The Minneapolis duo and the LA-based musician Elena Carroll have been close since sharing bills in 2018, closing every show with a cover of “Pretend To Be Nice,” the Adam Schlesinger-penned track from the Josie & The Pussycats soundtrack. That ritual was a glimpse of a working chemistry that has now led to a permanent collaboration.

Kerry Alexander and Chris Hoge of Bad Bad Hats began writing with Carroll remotely in 2022. The result is Megasound, a self-titled debut album arriving August 7 via Don Giovanni. The project is described as “inspired by early 2000s rock,” and the lead single “Supersize” delivers on that reference point without nostalgia-baiting. It is direct, hook-driven, and leans into the assertive simplicity that defined a specific pre-streaming moment. The Dan Stewart-directed video matches the song’s tone with a restless visual language that feels more opportunistic than sentimental.

The album’s twelve-track list includes cuts like “I Hate It Here,” “Dog Leash,” and “Speck Of Dust,” titles that suggest the wry self-awareness both acts brought to their previous work. Alexander and Hoge spent the past decade building Bad Bad Hats into a cult fixture, while Carroll’s solo output as Party Nails has quietly sharpened its edge. Megasound doesn’t scan as a side project so much as a consolidation of parallel instincts.