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Avery Lee (they/them) is a singer-songwriter from Fayetteville, AR, known for their sharp lyricism and commanding stage presence. As the lead vocalist of The Phlegms, a Northwest Arkansas post-punk band with five EPs, a new single and full length album coming out in July. Lee has shared stages with Shame, Protomartyr, Mannequin Pussy, Hawthorne Heights, and Calvin Johnson. Their songwriting challenges societal norms, urging audiences to rethink gender roles, expectations, and the pressures of conformity.

Now fronting Avery Lee and the Sweeties, Lee channels the psychological weight of these themes through a fusion of folk storytelling and the infectious energy of ’90s pop-country. Their music is an outright rejection of gendered expectations and the disenfranchisement of the working class. Through raw, unflinching lyricism, Lee dismantles the culture of politeness, smallness, and shame ingrained in the Midsouth——inviting listeners to do the same.

Has growing up in the South influenced your music?

Absolutely. Growing up in Oklahoma—and now Arkansas—means being steeped in a blend of hospitality and deeply entrenched shame. Working-class values, gender roles, purity culture, and a strange obsession with your virginity were all part of the air I breathed. I was dress-coded from 4th grade on to senior year. I wore a “True Love Waits” ring at 13. My mom worked for the NRA. I rebelled by liking my teachers, being out about being queer, and starting a band (which she really hates thanks to my dad). 

There’s a lot of unlearning that happens in my songs. It’s like I have to puke on the floor and try to figure out what I ate, or didn’t eat, so that I can tweak my current diet and not feel so sick. But I also hold a lot of deep affection for growing up where I did — for the lessons, for the people I’ve loved/hurt and been loved/hurt by, and for the weirdos making meaning out of their ouchies.

How did you get started making music?

I grew up around a lot of live music. My dad is a drummer — his fun fact is that he played for Reba McEntire for a few years. By day, he worked for the City of Tulsa; by night, he played anywhere from one to three shows a week. When it was my weekend with him, I’d be posted up in a bar (as a 14 year old) with a Shirely Temple watching his country and blues bands. Afterward, we’d hit up Taco Bell and he’d give me his unsolicited but entertaining post-show analysis. I still abide by a lot of those lessons: don’t just hang out in the greenroom, get to know people and their stories, don’t be a dick, and when you are inevitably a dick (because we all are at times) — say you’re sorry. Honestly, the coolest thing about all of that was watching this extremely anxious man that couldn’t multi-task turn into a calm, present, badass drummer doing a million things at once and making it look easy. 

But despite being surrounded by it, I never saw myself as the person doing the music. I think he didn’t ever want me to feel pressured into it, but at the time I thought it just wasn’t my role. I was more of a supporter and hyper focused crowd member. Fast forward to college around 2012 where I met a bunch of artsy weirdos who thought nothing of playing a song that wasn’t finished in front of friends and strangers alike, reading their poetry aloud to three people in a duplex, and being unabashedly strange and pained. They normalized creative bravery. I wasn’t a creative writing major, but I mooched all their material and had them read and critique my writing. I started writing songs and playing guitar because of my community’s encouragement and acceptance of all the things I thought you had to keep in empty houses. 

That summer I worked at Gusano’s Pizza in Fayetteville. My manager, Erik, was a philosopher trapped in a pizza place. He once said, “You know you can learn how to sing, right?” I thought he was joking. But he gave me a few voice lessons and suddenly, music felt possible. Daunting — but possible.

In 2015, I had what you might call a spiritual awakening slash psychotic break. I realized I didn’t want to work in a hospital and decided I’d rather teach and play music on the side — kind of like my dad, but with summers off. So I switched majors and took fewer hours so that I could practice multiple times a week. When Lee, my friend and first bandmate, and I started playing together, I made us practice a minimum of twice a week. (Well, not made him — he was all for it.) 

I threw myself into the local scene. I made a rule: go to Backspace (our DIY venue) at least three times a week. The goal was to go to every show even if I didn’t know the band. I treated it like grad school. I started playing open mics at Dickson Street Pub. I was drawn in by the promise of a “family meal” cooked by bartender Skylar Greenen, but stayed for the weirdos who felt like a church I could actually stand by. The host, Clay Cole, encouraged me to play my songs and actually do the music thing, not just watch. That place was like a church, if the church were full of hungover poets, musicians on hiatus, and comics in recovery. 

From there, things bloomed. I played in bands with my best friend Lee, who let me drum for his band, The Gebharts, and then drummed for my band, The She. Our first show that wasn’t at Backspace was thanks to Willie Carlisle not being able to make a gig and telling the venue, “Hey, try this band.” One of life’s happy accidents. He had only ever seen me play solo at the open mic. Add him to the list of nice ass humans who didn’t have to help but did because they also care about the ecological well-being of our local scene. 

That winter, after The She had played Backspace, Grant Williams asked me to front a new band that he and his friend Pete were starting. This eventually became The Phlegms. We’ve been making noise together for eight years now and show no signs of maturing. Our new album Gulp! is out June 27th for any post-punk lovers. ;^)

What’s something small—maybe something overlooked—that consistently inspires you?
Birds and bugs. Arkansas has a full-on ambient soundtrack at all times. The buzz and chirp is meditative — until my anxiety mistakes birdsong for laughter and I think someone’s mocking me. Then I realize, “Oh. It’s just a cardinal trying to get laid. Carry on.”

How do you feel about the local music scene?
The scene here in Fayetteville is full of genuine, talented, heartbreakingly hardworking, kind people. I would venture to say a majority of us grew up in religious households or institutions, and it fucked us up in a lot of ways. But, the parts I’m willing to accept are our yearning for community organizing, singing together, and the desire to do good by others. Unfortunately, a lot of our scene has been slowed by venues closing, which really just makes me sad for the younger college-aged kids who are looking for their home of weirdos to eventually start bands with. Somehow there are still new bands popping up all the time, like Midnight Wagon, or Idle Valley and they give me full faith DIY isn’t dead, damnit! 

Anyone in the local scene you’d like to shout out?
Yes! Jude Brothers. Their voice will make you want to hug your friends and then read a fable. They’ve got this deep reverence for their craft that pushes everyone around them to level up, and they gave me the confidence to pursue a solo project. Plus, they sang background vocals on Hand Washing, which made my inner child cry in a good way.

Lee Nagel (of The Gebhearts) is now in Austin, but I owe him for so loudly being himself, unashamedly making tons of music, and for seeing something in me and watering it even if it was a weed in the concrete at first: not pretty, stubborn roots, and no idea where it’s going. 

Also, Dick Darden, the most in-demand drummer in town, somehow still said yes to practicing with me based on scratchy iPhone demos. Aaron Brymer, for joining us even though we were just two chatty guys with drums and a guitar already. And Chaz Knapp, for playing rock and roll adjacent music even though he’s an avant-garde guy. 

Hayden Johnson and Dylan Earl were also crucial. During the fall after the psych ward, when I was in my first semester of the DIY scene, walking alone to Backspace every night, they started up a conversation with me and we headed to the town dive bar after the show. When I mentioned I was writing songs, they were so stoked and sure that I should start playing. They hadn’t heard anything yet, but were just like, “Oh, you’re writing music. You have to start sharing that”. Not everyone wants to always share their art in public and that’s totally okay too. For me though, live performance with a band is where I feel like the most growth happens. Something about social accountability and a team vibe. I felt like I’d found a home where I could show up as my true self and still be accepted. 

And everyone who ever played, organized an event, or attended a show at Backspace or Lalaland. Those DIY venues were my teachers. May their ghosts haunt overpriced student housing forever. 

When you think about “home,” what do you see, hear, and feel—and how does that show up in your songs?

Home feels like a TV playing in the background. It shows up in my songs as a sort of haunting warmth that leaves me thinking, “I made it through that… am I still making it through that? Is the episode over?” 

There’s always another season.

What was the first song you ever wrote, and what do you remember about it?

I don’t remember a specific song, but I do know that I started writing lyrics because I couldn’t ever remember the words to the songs I loved. In order to sing them I had to make something up which kind of became a fun game always being played in the background. When I first started writing more seriously, it was a lot of, “you’ve read too much Sylvia Plath and are in love with your best friend who has a boyfriend” themes. I look back on that stuff now and think, “Wow, you’re actually a less sad bastard than before.” So, that makes me hopeful for the future.

What inspired you to choose the title Hand Washing for your new EP?

The simple version: lifelong OCD. The full version: hand washing has always been both a ritual and a reflex for me. As a kid, I’d scrub my skin raw out of fear — of germs, sin, damnation, rejection, and of getting it wrong in any way. I now see that getting it wrong is where the magic happens.. I’m fully aware that I might dislike these songs eventually, and that I’ll possibly think everything from this period creatively sucks, but I’ve got to get it out to go where I want to. I see now that a lot of that was about self-protection. OCD became a sort of hyper-vigilant best friend who meant well but never let me rest. Hand Washing is an ode to that younger me who just wanted to stay clean and “just right” — physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It’s also a nod to how doubt and repetition, while painful, have shaped how I create. I’ll redo a vocal take 16 times because I’m scared I’ll never get it “right“. Sometimes that 16th take is the right one, and other times I stick with the first take. Either way, it helps me feel a sense of knowing that I tried enough.

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Follow Avery Lee & the Sweeties on tour in JUNE 2025!

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