Annie Hardy

Annie Summer Hardy (born 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actress.

In 1999, she moved to Los Angeles.

At some point, Hardy worked as a DJ at Beauty Bar.

Hardy continued looking for band members and was involved in many potential bands, including Mein Coif, with friends Mike Felix (now drummer of Toys That Kill) and Max Humphrey (bassist of The Adored).

She is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter of the indie rock band Giant Drag, which she formed in 2003.

In May 2003, Hardy and Micah Calabrese formed Giant Drag.

Hardy's mother, who had worked with Calabrese at an internet company, had initially attempted to get Hardy and Calabrese to meet, but the two eventually met through mutual friends who began dating.

They began recording music together, including covers of Journey's "Who's Crying Now" and the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows."

According to Hardy, "One day I said, 'Hey dude, you know all my songs. Why don't you be my drummer?' He agreed."

The two considered hiring a bassist to join the group, but instead, Calabrese began performing bass using a synthesizer with one hand, while drumming with the other.

Performing both roles limited Calabrese's drumming performance, but soon became a stylistic element of the duo's music.

Giant Drag's first show was on June 4, 2003, at the Scene in Los Angeles, one month after they decided to be a band.

After releasing their debut EP, Lemona (2004), the band was briefly signed to Kickball Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, who distributed their debut album, Hearts and Unicorns (2005).

On January 25, 2005, Giant Drag released the EP Lemona on Wichita Recordings.

This was followed on September 13, 2005, by their first full-length release, Hearts and Unicorns, on Kickball Records.

In 2007, Giant Drag covered Madonna's "Oh Father" for a charity/tribute Madonna album that benefited AIDS assistance efforts in Africa, titled Through the Wilderness.

In addition to music, Hardy has also occasionally worked as an actress; she appeared in Spike Jonze's short film I'm Here (2010), and later starred as a semi-fictionalized version of herself in the 2021 horror film Dashcam.

Hardy was born in San Clemente, California, to a part-time playwright and director, and James Kent Hardy.

Her mother is a Catholic of Irish descent, and her father is of Jewish ancestry.

Hardy has stated that she discovered her father's Jewish ancestry through a DNA test; her paternal grandmother was ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish, but religiously a born-again Christian.

Hardy also stated she has small amounts of Punjabi Indian, Sardinian, and Italian ancestry.

Hardy was raised in Orange County, and began playing guitar when she was in sixth grade.

In the tenth grade, Hardy went to a boarding school in Ojai of which she says, "There was nothing to do there. I was acting there and I was in the choir."

It was there that she met another girl who also had a guitar.

According to Hardy, "Her dad was teaching her Beatles songs. So we learned how to play together. I learned a lot by studying piano books that had chord charts. I bought some rock books. Around then I learned how to play and sing at the same time."

After high school, Hardy did extra work for money and pursued a musical career.

The Swan Song EP was released on February 16, 2010.

Also in 2010, Giant Drag's cover of "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak was used in a commercial for Nip/Tuck on the FX Network.

Giant Drag originals have been featured on television shows including The L-Word, Jericho and the movie A Love Song for Bobby Long starring Scarlett Johansson and John Travolta.

She started her own record label October 2012 launching Full Psycho Records, TV & Crafts in a soft launch via her YouTube channel.

She is known for her quick-witted stage persona and retorts to insults.

Their second album, Waking Up Is Hard to Do (2013), was independently released through the band's own label, Full Psycho Records.

Hardy was voted one of NME's "50 Coolest People," and has received major news coverage in NME, Spin, MTV News and Rolling Stone, among others.

In 2013, the band released their second studio album, Waking Up Is Hard to Do.

Commenting on the album, Hardy said: "On Hearts and Unicorns everything was a complete mystery to me. I put zero thought into writing songs – I was like, "oh, this is just how they come out.

They're beamed to me from a spaceship and they come out finished and then I add a cat solo". Now I'm aware that I have some control over the situation and I put a little more thought into if I was a listener how I'd like to hear it, I guess."

The same year, Hardy began recording material under the projects PnP (short for "party and play") and Annie Hardy and the Psychos, both featuring her friend and bandmate Monica Barciki.

Hardy released her first solo album, Rules, in 2017.

In 2020, while Hardy was quarantined for COVID-19 restrictions in London prior to shooting the horror film Dashcam, in which she starred, she recorded material for Giant Drag's studio album at The Libertines' recording studio, The Albion Rooms, alongside another secret project.

The material was recorded with Jamie Reynolds, formerly of the English rock group Klaxons.