Speedy Ortiz

From a solo project to a band

Speedy Ortiz began in 2011 as Sadie Dupuis's solo project and became a full band in the late part of that year. The name comes from a character in Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez's comic Love and Rockets, and her debut, The Death of Speedy Ortiz, was recorded alone in summer 2011 while she worked at a songwriting camp. Dupuis, born July 8, 1988, attended MIT and Barnard, took an MFA in poetry at UMass Amherst, and also records as Sad13; she sang in a children's choir for six years. The Sports EP (2012, Exploding in Sound) and a Phoenix award for Best New Band in Massachusetts followed.

Major Arcana came out on Carpark on July 9, 2013, produced and engineered by Justin Pizzoferrato at Sonelab in Easthampton and made, Dupuis said, in four days paid for with cash scrounged on a summer tour of this country's basements. It peaked at 30 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart and scores 81 on Metacritic; Pitchfork's Lindsay Zoladz gave it 8.4 and Best New Album, writing that they join a small club of young indie rock bands writing lyrics worth poring over. Foil Deer (April 21, 2015, Carpark), recorded at Nicolas Vernhes's Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, won artist, album and song for "Raising the Skate" at the 2015 Boston Music Awards, and Noisey named them Artist of the Year. Twerp Verse (April 27, 2018) was produced by Mike Mogis and Rabbit Rabbit (September 1, 2023, Wax Nine) was recorded at Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree and Sonic Ranch in Texas.

On August 31, 2023 they played an NPR Tiny Desk concert, their first, with one song from each album, and Major Arcana was reissued in a 10th anniversary edition on November 17, 2023, remastered by Emily Lazar and Chris Allgood with an essay by Lars Gotrich. Setlist.fm counts 580 setlists through a December 8, 2025 show in Philadelphia. In 2023 Dupuis said they had taken many years off the touring. Her poetry books include Mouthguard (2018) and Cry Perfume (2022).