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PLAYING ATLANTA: password:password Discuss New Singles and Dream Pop Vibes

We’ve really got it all here in Atlanta: rock ‘n roll, pop, R&B, soul, and – with the resurgence of the indie scene – some of the best shoegaze-y dream pop a music lover could want. Atlanta-based, Georgia Tech-born quintet password:password is at the helm of the movement.

Fronted by lead singer Claire Lacombe and backed by Chris Mickas on guitar, Heath Murphy on synth, guitarist Jed Paz, and bassist, Merritt Treaster, the group takes DIY to the next level, writing, recording, and producing their own music, while blending the swirling, experimental sounds of My Bloody Valentine and Phoenix with classic synth-pop acts like Pet Shop Boys.

The band released their debut EP, Session Boyfriend, on Valentine’s Day. Just over four months later, they’re gearing up to put out a new single on June 28th, with a b-side that pays tribute to another local act. Check out our interview below to hear more about what they’ve been up to and how it all began.

AF: All five of you have been in bands before; how did password:password get started?

We met while we were all students at Georgia Tech. We were each a part of the Musician’s Network there, which is a student organization that connects musicians at Tech and runs a student-run venue/practice space called Under The Couch. MN has a thing called New Band Showcase every fall, and in the fall of 2017, we got together to compete. A lot of us had been in bands together before (Merritt and Chris in Yes! Hornberger!, Jed, Merritt, and Chris in Priam, and Jed and Claire in Junior Prom), but for the 2017 showcase we decided to start a new project.

AF: Which bands do you consider your greatest inspirations when writing and performing?

Shoegazey stuff like Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, and My Bloody Valentine, newer indie pop like Alvvays, Japanese Breakfast, Beach House, M83, MGMT, Phoenix, and older synth-pop like Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, Nena, and all that. You can hear joy division in some of Merritt’s bass playing. There are some other pulls that we’ll make for little details and stuff, but those are probably the biggest influences.

AF: How did your sound develop as you began writing and playing together?

We actually set out to start a dream pop band from the beginning. All of us have an appreciation for sonic textures and a mutual love of bands that experiment with it. When the five of us got together to start creating our own music, those mutual influences came through. Also, having a dedicated synthesizer/keys player in the band ends up pushing the tone of the music in many different directions. Combine that with constant tinkering of effects pedals, and we end up where we are now.

As far as the instrumental arrangements go, we all have an appreciation for simpler parts. Chris and Heath have jazz backgrounds, and we know a decent bit about music theory, but we try to convey that through atmospheric and interesting sounds rather than really technical pieces.

AF: What’s your creative process like? Do you usually write together, or does one of you come in with a finished idea and jam it until it feels good? Has it changed over the years, as you’ve played together?

Most of the time one of us (usually Jed) comes to practice with an idea or a written demo, usually one that consists of one or two parts and possibly a melody. We play around with it for a bit to get a feel of where the song needs to go, and then a lot of the song’s progress comes from us working on it from home. Merritt has a knack for fleshing out what would otherwise be a boring midi demo, which really helps us get a feel for the potential of the song. We’ll send each other updates or additional parts and then come together at the next practice to try them out as a band. All of the lyrics and vocal melodies come from Claire, so after listening to the rest of the band playing around with the song structure, she’ll write the rest of the song on her own. It’s overall very collaborative and everyone kind of holds their own.

AF: You’ve got some new tracks coming out soon! What can you tell us about them? What was the recording process like?

“Just Yours, Not Mine” is our first single written after our EP, Session Boyfriend. It’s the first time we’ve approached a song with a drum machine base, resulting in Jed playing guitar for this song. We’ve started to utilize backing drum tracks a lot more, but this is the first song we’ve written with it in mind since the start. Also! “Just Yours, Not Mine” includes a couple samples that come before each chorus. One is from our friend Dennis Frank when he performed his solo set at Under the Couch. The second is when Claire was testing out her digital recorder and caught Jed talking about how researching Buddhism helped his outlook on life.

“Gold Room” is a song originally by our friends in The Organ Machines, who have graciously allowed us to perform and record the song. It’s probably our favorite song by them, and we hope that we do it justice!

We recorded both of the songs on our own at Standard Electric in East Atlanta. Merritt used to intern there and is close with the owners, so they let us rent the space to ourselves when we need to record. Merritt oversees the whole session, and we each come in, hang out, and record our parts. It’s really a great space with a lot of cool equipment, and we’re lucky to be able to use it.

After all of the parts are recorded and tidied up a bit, we send the initial mixes off to our friend Cody Lavallee in Murfreesboro, Tennessee to mix and master them. Heath has known him since elementary school (they were in a band together in high school), so it’s a great set up to have him help produce the songs. He did both Session Boyfriend and the upcoming singles, although our first single [from the EP], “Thursday,” was mixed and mastered entirely by Merritt.

AF:What inspired “Just Yours, Not Mine”? What made you decide to release it as a single?

We’ve been playing “Just Yours, Not Mine” at shows recently, and people have been super receptive to it. It has a strong energy. We really think the studio version will do that justice.

JP: I had been playing around with the chord progression for the verse of “Just Yours, Not Mine” for a while before bringing it to the rest of the band, and at first I had planned for it to be a much more downtempo song. My main source of inspiration for the feeling behind the progression came from lo-fi hip-hop. I’m really glad it evolved past that though. I think what it became is a million times better than what I originally had in mind (which has been the case with all the ideas I’ve brought to the band so far).

CL: For lyrics, I liked the idea of an upbeat song with a sad story attached. It’s about feeling like you aren’t an individual once you’ve been in a relationship for so long, on top of feeling distanced from the other person in said relationship. It resolves with a repeating “don’t go,” because in the end, you are so dependent on this person it would be way worse off alone.

AF: What do you consider to be the greatest challenge when it comes to writing, recording, and performing? The greatest victory for you as a band?

Making time for the five of us to get together is always a bit of a challenge. We also record all of our own music at Standard Electric Recorders, so acting as both the artist and the recording engineer typically leaves us pretty exhausted. Performing, practicing, and writing together is really enjoyable still. We’re all really close friends, so any time that we have to work on password:password stuff is pretty great.

AF: Claire, this one is specifically for you: can you talk about your experience as a woman in the music industry? Do you ever feel like you’ve got to “prove yourself” or work harder to be taken seriously? How do you use your platform to encourage more women and girls to be active members of the music industry?

CL: There have definitely been times where I am at a show and I look at the bill and am like, “Wow, I am the only woman performing tonight.” Especially coming from Georgia Tech, which is majority male anyway, I kind of got to expect that I was always going to be a minority. The issue of women in the scene is kind of a conundrum because women will be encouraged to join the scene when they see other women in the scene, but, like, there have to be women in the scene as an example first. Also I think that women have to be more original, talented, and have a better thought-out presence to make it big or do well in music, which can be discouraging. Like, why can’t I just be as good as everyone else? Why do I feel like I have to be better to make it the same distance?

I try to use what platform I have just to encourage women to jump in with no reservations. That’s what I really like about DIY shows; they are low pressure and you can really just mess around as much as you want. You don’t have to be this amazing new concept that’s going to “make it.” On that same note, you don’t have to be amazing at your instrument to contribute and play in band if you want, so for sure, learn a new instrument and experiment as much as you are comfortable with!

AF: This column is dedicated to Atlanta bands, so let’s talk about the industry in the city! It’s expanded rapidly in the last few years, and is continuing to grow. What’s your favorite aspect of being part of the Atlanta music scene?

The best part about the expanding indie scene in Atlanta is definitely the “expanding” part. Having new venues and bands pop up every year means there is so much opportunity to move up and get into the fold. Compared to what I’ve seen in other cities, it’s pretty good about including women and LGBTQ people, too. With Claire as a frontwoman, and Heath as nonbinary, it’s very nice to have other groups around and venues that are receptive of that.

AF: What’s next for password:password?

We’re continuing to play shows around town over the summer. We’re also taking some time to focus on writing new songs. You should see some bigger releases from us somewhat soon™.

AF: Last one! Best show you’ve ever seen in Atlanta?

JP: Definitely Mitski, Japanese Breakfast, and Jay Som at the Masquerade back in 2016. Looking back, it’s a dream bill of mine, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.

HM: Oof, this was one that I arranged and password:password played at, but Couchella 2018 was so much fun. Superbody, Lunar Vacation, and Delorean Gray were major highlights. Seeing Kero Kero Bonito and Tanukichan at 529 was also a great one.

CL:Easy; Anarcticats’ album release show at Drunken Unicorn. Everyone was so hype, and they overpacked Drunken Unicorn by like 30 people. It’s really cool to see your friends so lifted up like that.

CM: Julien Baker. I saw her a few days before her most recent album came out, and the crowd was almost silent when she was performing new songs because everybody wanted to hear every word she was singing. It felt very unique and intimate.

MT: Tame Impala at the Tabernacle in 2013 for sure.

Dreaming of more? Follow password:password on Facebook and keep an eye out for more music coming soon.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Seersha Returns With New Single, “Lecture Me”

It’s been almost two years since Atlanta’s chill electropop artist Seersha – aka Kara Revnes – shared any music with the world, but at long last, she’s back with her latest single, “Lecture Me.”

The singer, songwriter, and producer’s seemingly effort ability to create ambient soundscapes that are equally driving and oh-so-chill is unrivaled, but I was immediately impressed by her ability to draw listeners in while watching her perform live at The Vinyl. Her presence is calm, subdued, and self-assured on stage, and she takes that easy confidence with her into the studio, imbuing each song she writes and produces.

Three days after the release of “Lecture Me,” Revnes sat down with me to talk all things music, Tiger Moms, and dancing across the line between her Korean and Irish roots.

AF: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me! This is definitely the world’s most over-asked question, but how did you create the name Seersha?

KR: Seersha is the phonetic spelling of Saoirse, an Irish/Scottish name that means freedom. All the matriarchs on my dad’s side are Irish, and I thought “Seersha” looked like it could be a K-Pop name…homage to both sides!

AF: How did you get started in music? Was it something you grew up in, or did you grow into it?

KR: A little bit of both, I would say. I remember playing piano in church band starting at age 10. My wonderful Korean “Tiger Mom” strongly encouraged me to stick with piano lessons from age seven to age 18; I’m so grateful to my parents for that gift. I wrote my first songs around age 14. But I never considered music as a possible career until I was 24. I feel like that’s when things really got started for me.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest influence when it comes to writing, creating, and performing music?

KR: Specific to the Seersha project, I would say artists like Grimes and HANA. When I first started producing myself, I was looking for other women who had done the same, and they were beacons of light for me.

AF: Why do you feel driven to create music?

KR: Making music is precious to me. There have been times in my life when I haven’t had space or time to create music, and those were very dark times. I believe that music is about connecting with people, at its core. I create out of my own need to express myself, but always in the hope of connecting with someone else who might not have a way to express what they’re experiencing. I also believe representation is important, so to be a multiracial woman producing and writing on my own feels vital. I do wish I had seen artists and producers like myself when I was younger; I think I may have considered music as a career earlier if that had been the case.

AF: You’re gearing up for the release of your upcoming single, “Lecture Me,” the first in two years. Can you tell us about it? What inspired the song, and how did you know it would be the one you released first?

KR: It kills me that it’s been that long! I’m so excited to release this music. The catalyst for this song came out of a painful situation where I felt pressured to change by someone who was close to me at the time. I’ve always been a bit of a rebel and, really, that’s what this song is about. I wanted the first single from the forthcoming EP to be upbeat but also a little angsty. “Lecture Me” jumped out from the get-go.

AF: What’s your writing process like?

KR: My process is not having a process. Sometimes I will make a track and write on top of it. Sometimes I start with a melody (they usually come to me in the shower or in the car) and go from there, either into production mode or just building an arrangement on guitar or piano. Or I might sit down with an instrument and start writing. I have a bunch of notes on my phone of one-liners and short poems that could lend themselves to songs.

AF: What do you consider to be the greatest challenge you’ve faced in the music industry yet? The greatest victory?

KR: [The greatest challenge was] figuring out how to break through the crowded media landscape to connect with new fans. Victory? Teaching myself how to produce. It will be a lifelong learning journey but I’m really proud of how far I’ve come.

AF: You’re a woman in an industry that, while changing, is still heavily dominated by men. What has your experience been? How have you used your platform to help drive change?

KR: I feel so fortunate that I have not had any significant negative experiences with men in music-creating settings. I have been very frustrated at the kinds of questions I get from men on the business side of the music industry—questions like, “Do you have kids?” or “How old are you?” that I know they wouldn’t be asking their male colleagues. I try to work with female engineers when I can, and to support my fellow female artists and producers. I think the best way women can drive industry change is to keep working, creating, supporting, and advocating for each other.

AF: The Atlanta music scene is booming, and you’re such a well-known and active part of it! What is your favorite aspect of the Atlanta music scene?

KR: Ah, I’m blushing! I would say the diversity of artists and genres. Atlanta is known for hip-hop and R&B, of course, but I know artists making straight up rock and roll, chill electronic, dream pop, indie rock, ambient, and experimental music…the list goes on.

AF: What’s the best place for a great show in Atlanta?

KR: My favorite venues are Aisle 5, 529, and Terminal West.

AF: Last one! What’s next for Seersha?

KR: “Lecture Me” came out on June 7; look out for the video in a few weeks. You can expect at least one more single and video this year. I’m working on some local shows this year, with a goal to tour in 2020.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Victoria Blade Talks Lo-Fi Love Songs and the Long Road Home

For singer-songwriter, actress, and filmmaker Victoria Blade, home is less of a place than a state of mind.

Michigan-born, Blade has since called Detroit, Chicago, Brooklyn, and – finally – Atlanta home. Before you start calculating how much time and energy it would take to simply move from city to city, let me add another daunting task to the list: on top of all of her own creative endeavors, she’s also the co-founder of independent record label, Already Dead Tapes with her husband, Joshua Tabbia.

Her latest release, the warm, deeply intimate debut LP, Lo-Fi Love Songs, is more of a look into Blade’s personal journal than a generic singer-songwriter record. Written and recorded alone with the use of a Tascam 4-track, Lo-Fi Love Songs details the lives of Blade and her husband over the last seven years, at times chronicling their adventures together before diving inward, examining the ongoing changes – and challenges – of the life of a creative nomad. Set to a delicately precise sonic backdrop that blends folk with the sweet sensibility of indie pop, Blade is equal parts studied and effortless, good-natured and introspective, and always – always – carefree in her delivery.

In the midst of days on set, in studio, and on the road, I caught up with Blade to talk all things moving, music, and the simple joys of cheap champagne and hot jazz.

<a href="http://alreadydeadtapes.bandcamp.com/album/ad311-victoria-blade-lo-fi-love-songs">AD311 Victoria Blade ‘Lo-fi Love Songs’ by Already Dead Tapes and Records</a>

AF: Let’s start from the beginning! When did your musical journey start? Was it always a part of your life, or was it something you grew into?

VB: I’ve been singing forever. I remember discovering a stack of Jackson 5 45s in the garage as an eight-year-old and I was done for. When I was 10, I auditioned for the musical Annie and got the lead role, even though I forgot the lyrics at my audition. I continued to do musical theatre for years. In college, I started songwriting with my soon-to-be husband and composing songs for original plays. I started to realize I had a gift for combining lyrics and melodies in a way that helped make sense out of life. In Chicago, I fell in with a group of songwriters at our local church. It was an incredibly supportive community with lots of creative freedom. I was encouraged to be myself and write whatever I wanted. My songwriting exploded and became a constant source of inspiration in my daily life.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest inspirations?

VB: Otis Redding, Charles Bradley, Elvis Presley. I love their soul and raw vocals. Right now I am really inspired by The Garden and Shabazz Palaces. I’ve always loved Ben Kweller. Also, my husband, Josh Tabbia, is a total badass because he’s a doer and not a talker, writes beautiful music and built Already Dead Tapes from the ground up.

AF: You recently released a pair of new singles: “I Don’t Wanna Worry” and “Moving Song.” What inspired the songs?

VB: Growing up, I was surrounded by a lot of over-thinkers and couch philosophers. “I Don’t Wanna Worry” is a rejection of that way of life. It’s just me processing some bad habits from my youth. My husband is the exact opposite kind of person. He doesn’t overanalyze things. He just works really hard on what’s important to him. And we have a lot of fun!

“Moving Song” is about the pleasure and pain of leaving what you love to discover something new. I used to crave a permanent home. A city I could live in forever. But it hasn’t panned out that way. I’ve moved from Detroit to Chicago to Brooklyn and now Atlanta. I love discovering new cities and tend to get bored once a city is too familiar.

AF: What drew you to Atlanta? Do you think you’ve found a home base? How does the scene differ from other cities?

VB: I’ve learned to embrace change and almost expect it these days. Atlanta was a total surprise. We were living in Brooklyn and ready to move on. NYC is an incredible place but it takes a toll. I’m an actor and started doing research on the film/TV industry in Atlanta. I talked to some actors in Atlanta and couldn’t believe the amount of opportunities here. We decided to dive in and try it. It’s been exhilarating and fun. Wherever I am is home base. It’s never my goal to move. As a couple, we are creative nomads. We move wherever is going to nourish us as artists the most. And right now, that is definitely Atlanta! Atlanta feels like a small town compared to NYC and Chicago. But that’s not a bad thing. I’m not an expert on the local music scene yet – that’s going to take some time. There’s a lot less of everything here, which is refreshing.

AF: What’s your writing process like? Do you typically write alone, or is it more collaborative?

VB: It just depends on the project. Everything on Lo-fi Love Songs is super intimate and simple and written by just little ol’ me. I’ve collaborated a lot over the years and I love that way of creating just as much as writing alone.

AF: Your debut record, Lo-Fi Love Songs, released on May 31st. What message do you hope to share with your listeners? Why do you think it’s so important for them to hear, feel, and connect with that?

VB: My main goal is to reach people’s hearts. To offer hope, encouragement, and love. That is the motivation behind everything I do as an artist. There’s so much pain and suffering out there. My desire is to uplift and empower others. Life is messy and these songs help make a little sense out of the chaos. When we tune into our heart, we can live with more clarity and authenticity.

AF: What inspired you to write this new record? What do you consider to be the most exciting part of recording it, and what was the most challenging?

VB: The album was inspired by my husband’s and my creative journey as wayfaring artists. The tracks were selected from the many songs I’ve written over the years telling our story. I wanted the recording quality to match the intimate atmosphere of the music. The most exciting part of recording was capturing the warm, lo-fi sound I was going for. This was also the most challenging part as I had to learn to slowly capture each song on a Tascam 4-track that I had never used before. It was a delicate and technical process that I got the hang of eventually.

AF: You’re an actress, producer, and singer-songwriter. What drives you to create? Do you find one of these mediums more authentic or expressive to you, or do you find that they all offer a way for you to express yourself at different times and in different ways?

VB: Songwriting in some ways feels like the easiest and most immediate way to express myself creatively. Acting and filmmaking require so many other steps and collaborators before you can finish or share anything. It can be challenging. So songwriting has been a creative life-saver for me over the years.

AF: You’ve been in Atlanta for just over a year now; what’s your favorite aspect of the Atlanta music scene?

VB: Everything in Atlanta feels so accessible. It feels like an open door. There are a lot of great people here who are doing things out of sheer passion and that’s exciting.

AF: Favorite place for a good show and a drink?

VB: I really like The Earl. But there are so many great venues in Atlanta it’s hard to choose. One of my favorite places in the world for live music is The Green Mill in Chicago where the jazz is hot and the champagne is only $6!

AF: Last one! What’s next for Victoria Blade?

VB: I have a music video for “Moving Song” that will release this summer and I’m looking forward to planning a tour for later this year! Acting wise, I have roles on a few upcoming HBO shows. I’m also shooting a top-secret project with Janelle Monae next month.

Keep track of Victoria and her travels on Facebook, and stream Lo-Fi Love Songs on Spotify this Friday.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Grace Conley Lives and Learns on Debut EP Indigo Sky

For singer-songwriter and high school senior Grace Conley, change has almost become second nature. As she approaches the next chapter of her life, however, she felt compelled to look back and chronicle her growth through some difficult goodbyes, painful moments, and take a big leap of faith into a world that’s full of the unknown, the terrifying, and the wonderful.

The result is a soulful, poppy five-song EP titled Indigo Sky; like its lead single, “Things Will Change,” its central motif is growing pains and the healing that follows, imbued with a wisdom beyond the singer’s years. Grace sat down with Audiofemme to share the story behind “Things Will Change,” the artists who have inspired her the most, and her favorite Atlanta venues.

AF: Thanks so much for agreeing to chat with me! Let’s dive right in; how did you get into music? Was it a lifelong passion, or something you grew into?

GC: Music was something that was always on the back burner for me at first. I grew up singing in church choir and taking piano lessons here and there, but I really got serious about it around two years ago. I’ve had a lot of passions and hobbies in my life, but when I started music something just clicked, and I knew it was what I was meant to do.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest influences?

GC: My greatest influence has got to be Jennifer Zuiff, aka Indee Killed The Popstar. I started taking vocal and guitar lessons with her, and she really encouraged me to start writing and performing. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her. Other influences would definitely be Andrew Hill and Patrick Taylor, who’ve really taught me a lot and helped me grow as an artist — and as a person — in the last year.

AF: You recently released a new single, “Things Will Change.” Can you tell us a little bit about the song? What inspired it?

GC: I wrote “Things Will Change” as a way to move on from a broken friendship. I didn’t write it until probably a year and a half after the “breakup,” as I call it. It took a long time for me to acknowledge the fact that I was still hurt, and an even longer time for me to recognize that it was time to heal. This song has really meant a lot to me, and I hope it reaches someone who needs to hear it.

AF: What’s your creative process like? Do you generally write alone, or is it more collaborative?

GC: Every song comes out differently, some in ten minutes, and others take hours. I normally write alone, except when I feel a song is missing something. Then I take it to Andy, who produced my [Indigo Sky] EP and my previous releases at his studio, Off The Record, and he always knows just what the song needs. Sometimes you just need another perspective to polish things up, and I think getting a second opinion is really valuable when it comes to songwriting.

AF: Can you give readers a little bit of an inside look at the record? How long have you been writing the songs, and how did you know it was time to release? What message do you hope your fans take from it?

GC: All the writing for the EP has happened over the last year, and I knew I really wanted to release it this spring. As a graduating high school student, I think it really signifies the jump into the next chapter of my life. This EP really encompasses the feeling of being a foreigner in your own skin to me, and I hope that listeners who feel alone in their journey find reassurance and hope through listening.

AF: What’s has it been like to get your start in the Atlanta music scene? How has the scene — and all the incredible bands, artists, and players — impacted you as a musician, songwriter, and performer?

GC: I’ve been so privileged to be surrounded by a group of incredibly talented and compassionate musicians from the very start of my career. There’s definitely a built-in support system that comes with being an Atlanta musician, and I wouldn’t give that up for the world.

AF: What’s next for you?

GC: I’ll be out playing a lot of shows this summer, and I’m already planning my next release. There’s a lot of exciting things in the works for me, and I can’t wait to see how it all plays out!

AF: Last one! Favorite venue you’ve played in the city?

GC: Favorite place I’ve played so far has got to be Aisle 5, but I have a show coming up at Vinyl on May 24th, which is my favorite venues in Atlanta. A lot of artists who I really look up to have played there recently — Noah Kahan, Hollow Coves, Allman Brown — and I think it’s definitely going to take the top spot!

Follow Grace on Facebook, and keep an eye out for her upcoming release on Spotify.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Andi Kezh Banishes Self-Doubt with Bold Single “New Me”

Since the launch of PLAYING ATLANTA, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some incredible bands, most of whom I’ve known for a while. Every now and then, though, a new local act comes onto my radar, and it’s always a pleasant surprise.

Andi Kezh, however, is something else entirely.

A pleasant surprise, yes. But there’s a refreshing wisdom and sensibility in the high school senior that caught me off guard. Her voice and lyricism are even more unexpected; she can belt with the best of them as she pens songs about weighty topics like self-doubt and inequality.

After listening to her latest single, “New Me,” exactly once, my mind was made up; I sent her an excited message and got an equally enthusiastic response. Read on for all the deets on the Atlanta music scene, Amy Winehouse’s lasting influence, and the state of the music industry through the eyes of a young woman who’s determined to make her mark on it.

AF: How long have you been writing and performing? Is it something you’ve always wanted to do, or did you grow into it?

AK: I’ve been performing since I was four years old. My sister went to a performing arts high school, so I was constantly around music and performance from a young age. I’ve been in countless musicals and choirs, and have had a passion for singing my whole life. I picked up the guitar at age 13, and pretty much knew immediately I loved it.

AF: What’s your writing process like? How has it evolved since you started writing?

AK: When I first started writing songs as I began learning guitar chords, they were pretty terrible. But the process has always felt the same. Melodies and lyrics tend to fall right out of me when I sit down for a few hours and focus. I usually start with a melody, and find corresponding chords to go with it. Lyrics come slower but are the most important element I try to put into each song I write. This process is very personal and raw for me.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest inspirations? Do they differ from the music you listen to when you’re just hanging out?

AK: My musical inspirations are Amy Winehouse, Nirvana, Lorde, Joni Mitchell, and Fleetwood Mac. I think all these artists have inspired a part of my music in someway. Joni and Lorde’s lyricism is unmatched. Fleetwood Mac and Nirvana’s guitar and rhythm chops are authentic and incredible. And Amy Winehouse’s vocal strength is astoundingly present.

AF: You recently released a single, “New Me,” and it’s incredible! Such a banger. What inspired the song? How did you conceptualize it to capture the strength and assurance it conveys?

AK: I wrote this song in a time in my life when I was starting to really take responsibility for my music as an artist. I was tired of people underestimating me because of my age and gender. The amount of times people have condescendingly told me how to soundcheck, or how to write a song “the right way” was staggering. I wrote my newest single “New Me” about turning my cheek to words and my own inhibitions, and no longer apologizing for what I want to do, no hesitation.

AF: How do you combat self-doubt, both in the industry and in your own life, and stay true to yourself?

AK: “New Me” is a call to myself to combat my self-doubt and those little voices in the back of my mind. Being an artist is a selfish act, but can bring so many people together. Staying true to myself is a duty that comes with a music career. I work at this in many ways (staying off social media when it pulls me too deep, playing songs for joy and not because I have to) and will continue even though I’m far from perfect.

AF: We’re living in a time where inequality is finally getting the attention it deserves. Can you talk some about your experience as a woman in the music industry? Have you ever found yourself having to prove yourself or work harder to be taken seriously, even though music itself should really be the great equalizer?

AK: I constantly have to prove as a woman I know what I’m doing when I walk into places like Guitar Center, an Open Mic, or even my own headlining shows. Even at a young age it’s easy to see the stark inequality in the music industry for girls and women, at every level. Mansplaining at open mics, studios, and public spaces is normalcy in this career.

AF: How has the Atlanta scene surrounded you and supported you, both as a woman and a music industry professional?

AK: I am lucky to have lived in Atlanta all my life. I’ve had the opportunity to get my start in this welcoming music scene to now playing shows at Smith’s Olde Bar, Atlanta City Winery, Eddie’s Attic, the Decatur Book Festival, Tin Roof Cantina, and more. The ATL scene has also given me the chance to meet so many incredible musicians, and understand the importance of connections. Meeting local artists like The Pussywillows, Indee Killed the Popstar, Chelsea Shag, and Pony League have inspired me and helped me widen my performance openings.

AF: If you had to give any advice to your younger self, what would it be?

AK: Pick up the guitar sooner and start writing terrible lyrics to get to the good stuff!

AF: What’s your desert island record?

AK: Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

AF: You recently put on a benefit concert for The Decatur Education Foundation. Why is it so important to you to give back to the community and support education — and music/arts education/resources — for students in the area?

AK: Giving back to the community is extremely important to me. I wanted to organize a benefit concert for the Decatur Education Foundation because they give incredible arts grants to students, and nothing is more influential than music and arts education. That is how I found my initial interest in the arts, and I believe it’s essential to the future musicians of our industry. Two local musicians performed, as well as my band, and we successfully raised more than $1000.

Keep up with Andi on Facebook, and stream “New Me” on Spotify now.

PLAYING ATLANTA: The Hipps Don’t Lie With Latest Single “Take It Off My Hands”

Only a few years ago, it was no surprise to hear an Atlanta musician say, “I’m moving to Nashville to play music.” It makes sense, right? It is the music capital of the South – or, at least it was. But for Nate Cain, lead vocalist and guitarist of the tart-pop quartet The Hipps, the opposite was true. After a stint in Tennessee, he made the decision to return home to Atlanta and pick up where he left off, alongside childhood friend and keyboardist James Deveau, drummer Wade Sullivan, and bassist and vocalist JT.

Following the January release of their latest single, “Take It Off My Hands,” I caught up with Nate to talk about the transition from solo songwriter to lead vocalist in an incandescent pop band, the first good song he ever wrote, and his favorite music venue in the city.

AF: Let’s start with the basics! How did The Hipps form? Were you all involved in bands growing up, or was it something you became interested in as you got older?

NC: The keyboard player, James Deveau, and I have known each other through friends since we were both in high school. When I graduated, we lost contact, and I was playing music in Tennessee while going to school. I decided to move back to Georgia and when I did, I made sure to contact James and start working together again. From there, I met the other guys working at a music shop in Alpharetta. We all come from different sorts of backgrounds, so our music definitely has some unique vibes to it.

AF: What initially inspired you to pick up an instrument or write a song?

NC: I actually started writing when I was in sixth grade. I think initially I just wanted to create something, and that’s what I enjoyed the most. I tried to start a band and got three other kids at my house to put together some makeshift sounds. I remember my buddy looking at me after I played what I thought was the best out of the three of the songs I had written, and he just was like, “We can’t play that, man.” So I think for the next couple of years, my audience remained my dog in my room. I just wrote bad song after bad song until I finally got one right. From there, I guess I just got addicted to writing.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest musical inspirations? Are the bands who have inspired your sound different from the bands that you listen to when you’re just hanging out?

NC: I’d say we’re all somewhat predictable in that we like everything. Like, none of us are super against any genre. But then again, there’s almost always artists that someone listens to that no one’s ever heard of, right? I think for me specifically, I’d have to say some influences that I can’t ever get out of my system are Father John Misty, Darwin Deez, and James Taylor. Those are three that I just have never stopped listening to. I love the integrity of their art. Interestingly, when I am just listening to music casually, usually I’m just trying to find something new. Whether it’s pop, indie, rap, country, or whatever. Lately, I’ve actually been listening to ton of Lennon Stella. She’s great.

AF: You guys just released a song, “Take It Off My Hands,” and it’s so rad. Can you walk us through your creative process? What inspired it, and how was it different from other songs you’ve written before?

NC: So I actually wrote “Take It Off My Hands” about four or five years ago. It’s a pretty simple song. Back then, I was going for more of what Darwin Deez does. Which I guess is sort of like sweet, hyper-indie, sorta bedroom pop sounding tunes. Just go listen to “Bad Day” by him and you’ll see what I mean. But “Take It Off My Hands” was slower, more simple, and definitely a deeper concept than what I was comfortable with singing about at the time. I was going through a pseudo identity crisis, and that’s what the song is about. It also brings in the idea that you need support and love from people to make it through life.

AF: How has your creative process changed since The Hipps was formed?

NC: Back when I wrote that song, and really up until the time when I formed The Hipps, I pretty much wrote all the songs by myself and then brought it to musicians and had them learn my parts. Back then, I was just trying to dip my music into the local scene where I could, here and there, while being in school and in Little Moses, another band I played lead guitar in with Nick Carpenter (now known as Medium Build). Now it’s completely different. At this point, I’ve dived into the deep end with The Hipps. It’s my baby, and we’re not gonna stop pushing as hard as we can. Ultimately that means we’re a team and we write songs and finalize arrangements together. That being said, when we’re in the studio, a lot of things change. That’s partially due to wanting the song to come out better and realizing places where we could’ve done better, but also we’re super thankful to be working with Paul Rogers and Jimmy Mansfield. Paul finds genius pockets of secret sunshine in arrangements that I never would’ve thought of, and Jimmy is an incredible engineer. We’re thrilled with how “Take It Off My Hands” came out, and so excited to show you guys what else we’ve got.

AF: What’s been your proudest moment as a band?

NC: I think we’d all agree that our release party for our single would probably be that moment. It was a relatively small show of maybe 150 people at 529 in East Atlanta Village. The moment was playing the last chorus of that song and being able to step back from mic ’cause the audience was loud and clearly knew the words. I think that was cool for all of us, having worked hard to get a great sounding song out in existence and literally hearing what we had worked on sung back at us. But we keep having great moments, and hopefully that will continue. We’ve had the chance to open for Trongone Band, The Suffers, and recently Daniel Donato. All of which we were honored to be able to be the supporting act.

AF: The Atlanta music scene has grown exponentially over the last few years. What’s it been like to be part of the city’s music and arts scene?

NC: That is 100% true. When I first moved back from the Nashville area, I had a hard time finding good indie music. Ever since, it’s been this exponential growth. We have so much love for the Atlanta music scene. Every once and while you strike gold with an experience here. Shout out to people that are changing or have changed the game like Rowdy Dowdy, 529 – specifically Kyle with Irrelevant Music – Creative Loafing, Tuna for Breakfast… I mean there’s just so many people. So many creative people in this city. It’s wonderful.

AF: What’s next for you guys?

NC: Next for us will be more singles, videos, and, ideally before the end of this year, we will release an EP and tour the crap out of it right out the gate.

AF: Last one! Best show you’ve ever seen in Atlanta, and best place for a late night hang?

NC: Best show I’ve ever seeeeeen? Sheeesh that’s a hard one. I will say that we just played with a touring band at Smith’s. They’re called Sexy Dex and The Fresh. I listened the their recordings and thought they were pretty impressive. But seeing them live was wildly entertaining. They are great musicians and their show was incredible. Locally, I’d say 529 has it nailed down right now better than anyone else. You could go there blindly on a Friday or Saturday, not knowing the bill or anything, and you’ll likely have a great night full of great music. Again, props to Irrelevant Music.

Keep up with The Hipps on Facebook, and stay tuned for fresh releases and 2019 tour dates.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Bird Dog Jubilee and the Resurrection of the Southern Jam Band

I think I was about 22 minutes into the Allman Brothers Band’s infamous “Mountain Jam” one day when I realized something: I love jam bands. I love the seemingly effortless movement, the way the players anticipate every chord change, every shifting rhythm, every intricate melody and harmony, and make it seem like it just happens. I love how seemingly incongruous parts weave themselves into a musical tapestry, creating a sound that’s full, lush, and textured. I love how you can lose yourself in the music.

Jam bands were abundant in the area surrounding my hometown, but in recent years, I’ve seen fewer and fewer of them. It wasn’t until I discovered Atlanta quartet Bird Dog Jubilee and their Southern-infused, psychedelic sound that I felt a slight return to the music that surrounded me growing up. I had the chance to sit down with lead guitarist RJ Fyfe to discuss their creative process, frozen Jack ‘n Cokes, and what happens when you combine the influences of Kurt Cobain and Phish.

AF: How did you guys get into music, and what made you decide that it was time to form a band?

RF: Kurt Cobain is what did it for me as the sole influence of getting me to play the guitar. I started playing at a very young age (3rd grade), but didn’t take it seriously until high school. I played a lot of acoustic guitar for church and with friends, but was honestly afraid to solo until my uncle bought me a Les Paul Studio for learning how to play Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla.” At that point, I didn’t have any excuses and knew it was time to learn how to solo.

Around 2012, I started jamming with two friends in a group called Red Wood Trio. We played small parties for our friends and were the background music for poker parties and things like that. Unfortunately, those friends didn’t want to gig, and that’s the direction that I wanted to take the band. I was fortunate enough to link up with some great musicians from high school, and in 2014, Bird Dog Jubilee was born.

AF: How did the sound evolve? Did you come into it thinking, “We’re going to start a jam band,” or was it the result of playing together and allowing your collective influences to blend and create something organic?

RF: First and foremost, we love to jam, and improvisation has always been the backbone of the band. We didn’t care about fitting into a specific genre but knew that we loved to improvise and see what happens on stage. It was purely organic and with all of our influences — Phish, Grateful Dead, Wilco, The Band, etc. — those creative juices started flowing.

AF: Speaking of influences, who do you consider to be your greatest inspirations when it comes to music?

RF: Great question and I know for me personally, I have three major influences: Kurt Cobain inspired me to pick up and learn the guitar at a very young age; my love for the blues and psychedelic rock put ]Eric] Clapton at the top of my list as he was always the one driving me to be a better player when I was younger; and Trey Anastasio — full credit to this man as BDJ probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him. Trey pulled me out of my shell and really got me to explore and improvise with my playing, tone, and overall appreciation for music.

AF: You’ve recently released a new single, “Take Your Breath.” What was the recording process like?

RF: This was an interesting one. We put out our first EP, Album Art, in April of 2018 and wanted to put out live recordings that we really liked. “Take Your Breath” debuted at the Sweetwater 420 Fest in 2018, and it went through a number of changes until we released the live version from an August 2018 show at Aisle 5. Releasing live tracks is something that we will be [doing] periodically throughout 2019.

AF: Can you walk us through your creative process? Is it fairly collaborative, or do you tend to have someone come in with a complete idea?

RF: This process has evolved over time, which is so cool to see. When we first started writing songs, we would do it separately, bring them to practice, and basically go with the original idea with some changes. After some time, we would schedule practices around a particular idea and then we would write the whole song together. Collaborating on writing the music together has allowed us to explore our individual strengths and offer different ideas. 95% of BDJ songs are written collaboratively now, with lyrics worked out on the backend. It’s always great when we can write a song in one sitting like “Never Coming Back,” but most of the time is a more lengthy process like with “Young,” “Choices,” and “Take Your Breath.” We’ve got two new ones that we are anxiously awaiting their debut this summer, so stay tuned!

AF: We’ve seen so much growth in the music and entertainment industry here in Atlanta. What’s it like to be part of the music scene as it hits its stride?

RF: It’s truly an honor to be part of this, especially in this city. There are so many great bands, fans, venues, and promoters in this city, not to mention the festivals. Atlanta is the best place to be in our opinion, and we are so excited to see how everything evolves and grows!

AF: Two questions in one: best place for a late night meal in Atlanta, and best place for a good drink and an even better show?

RF: After shows, you can find great beers at The Porter in L5P, or frozen Jack ’n Cokes at Victory Sandwich Bar. Woody’s is the go-to spot for late night cheesesteaks and PBRs!

AF: What’s next for Bird Dog Jubilee?

RF: To infinity and beyond! In all seriousness, we want to continue to build the Atlanta market and make this the go-to city for jam bands. ATL has the talent to compete with the northeast, and that is the mindset we all need to solidify ATL as a “jam city.” In addition to focusing on our hometown, we will be hitting the road a fair amount in 2019, and will get back into the studio.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Bridges “Learn to Dance” as a Trio After Solo Beginnings

It’s officially spring in the South: the sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful… and the pollen count is through the roof. That’s not keeping the music lovers of Atlanta from getting out and enjoying themselves, though! Lucky for us, we’ve got plenty of rad bands to keep us dancing through the itchy eyes and sniffly noses.

Bridges is one of those bands. The Atlanta-based trio, made up of Alex Young, Chase Cross, and David Williams, still considers themselves a new addition to the scene, but if their funky, soulful, thoroughly danceable music is any evidence, they’re in it for the long haul.

“Learn to Dance,” the A-Side of the group’s latest single, is a rich, jazz-infused track that grooves with a Latin flair, transporting listeners to a sweaty, oceanside club in the Caribbean. As the trio preps for their next gig – a free show at the famed Georgia Theatre on April 30th – they took the time to sit down and talk all things music and forming a band with Audiofemme.

AF: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me! Take me back to the very beginning; how did Bridges form?

AY: Bridges started as my solo project; I invited friends to play with me at different shows, but always wanted to be in a true band. Chase, David, and I met through our mutual guitar teacher. The first time we got in a room together to see if we could make music, we had immediate chemistry and came up with a new song in fifteen minutes. That song became our first single, “Wake Up,” and we’ve been a band ever since.

AF: How did you get into music? Did you guys play for different bands, or is this your first band?

DW: I was raised in a musical family and was heavily influenced by my father who was a music director and classical guitarist. I’ve played in two bands before this one, and also play professionally around Atlanta and the Southeast.

CC: I grew up surrounded by my parents’ love and appreciation for music and the arts, and was surrounded with music from Duran Duran, Grover Washington, and everything in between. I began playing guitar at the age of 9 and struggled with it for a while, and then began playing and studying the bass guitar very intensely about 3 years ago, and it has become one of my greatest passions since.

AY: My grandparents shipped their old upright piano to my house when I was 6 or 7, and I took to piano immediately. Later, I picked up guitar, started singing in church, and started writing songs my senior year of high school. I went from solo gigs straight to Bridges; this is the only band I’ve ever been in.

AF: Alex, what was it like to see Bridges evolve from a solo project to a band? Were there any growing pains you had to work through, or did it just come together?

AY: The short answer is that it just came together…and then there were plenty of growing pains! I think anyone in a band would say that it’s sort of like a marriage. Our band had a great honeymoon, and then we had to do some work to figure out how to make things work long term. I still don’t know if we’ve got it completely figured out, but I do know that I’ve learned a lot about conflict resolution, communication, and giving and receiving grace through being in this group. And I think that we’ve all become stronger friends and musicians through the growing pains.

AF: How do your different musical backgrounds influence the music?

We all appreciate great musicianship, and artists who play with depth, complexity and purpose. We don’t like showing off for its own sake, or doing something musically that doesn’t serve the song. And we also like to go hard and play our asses off at our live shows.

AF: Are there any bands or artists that you look to for inspiration?

There are many! Here are a few:

DW: The Beatles, Miles Davis, Pat Matheny, and Vinnie Colaiuta (session drummer who has played with everybody).

CC: Jaco Pastorius with Weather Report, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Grover Washington

AY: Sting and the Police, Dave Matthews Band, and U2

AF: What’s your creative process like? How has it evolved as you guys create more music together?

AY: At the beginning, I wrote a bunch of the songs on my own, but as we’ve grown as a band, we’ve done more and more writing and arranging in the room together, which is really rewarding.

DW: Yeah, a lot of times we start with a musical idea from one of us, and then we build on it and come up with a song structure.

CC: I like my creative process like I like my salad: organic.

AF: Your latest release, “Learn to Dance,” is this incredible blend of smooth jazz-inspired sounds, Latin percussion, and rock. Can you talk about the creation of the song? What’s it been like to play it live and see your fans loving it?

AY: The song started as a guitar riff, and I wrote the chords and lyrics around it. The lyrics are anti-escapism; they were inspired by Alice Walker’s book of poetry, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing. Chase came up with an incredible bass line that really brought new life to the song, and David brings the heat with a drum breakdown in the live arrangement.

DW: And we’ve loved playing it live, the groove is great, and it has evolved over time. There’s a lot of room in that song to maneuver and improvise.

AF: You’ve got a new single coming up soon; what can you tell us about it, and when can your fans expect to hear it?

We’ve got a couple of new singles on the horizon, along with some live studio videos. They are groovy. No specific dates yet, but soon!

AF: The Atlanta music scene has grown exponentially in the last few years; how has the city and the diversity of the scene impacted you as artists?

We still feel like we’re pretty new to the Atlanta music scene… there are so many incredible artists making really unique music. We’re honored to be a small part of that community, and excited to see it continue to grow.

AF: What’s next for Bridges?

The plan is new music and new videos! Also, a free show at the Georgia Theatre Rooftop on Tuesday, April 30th.

AF: Last question: best place in Atlanta for a drink and a live show?

We love Vinyl, Venkman’s, and Vista Room. And Alliteration.

Keep up with Bridges on Facebook, and catch them live with Xander Ward on The Rooftop at Georgia Theatre on April 30th.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Challenger Deep Unleash Frantic Energy on Self-Titled Debut

There’s something about the quiet and stillness of winter that drives me to seek out new music to break through the silence. Lucky for me, I stumbled across a Spotify playlist with a long list of new releases from Atlanta bands a few weeks ago. I spent a happy afternoon shuffling through a wide variety of music written and released mostly by people I knew and loved – and have written about, like I The Victor and Starbenders. A few songs in, I found myself nodding along with an intricate, expansive instrumental track called “Immersive” by four-piece instrumental rock group, Challenger Deep.

I’ll be honest: I haven’t listened to many instrumental bands in my life, other than the occasional instrumental Allman Brothers Band song, but there was something so emotive about this group’s playing that immediately drew me in. It’s high energy, bordering on frantic at certain moments, but there’s something welcoming about all that enthusiasm.

I immediately reached out to the quartet, made up of James LaPierre and Jordan Fredrickson on guitars, bassist Jason Murray, and Grant Wallace on drums. After exchanging a few messages, I got to sit down and chat with Jordan about their self-titled debut and all things Challenger Deep.

AF: How did you guys get your start?

JF: James and I met in a bar and sparked a conversation about music and found that we both play guitar and sort of naturally decided to jam. About a year or so later, we thought it’d be a good idea to play some shows and recruited Grant. Not long after that, Grant introduced us to Jason, and we were happy with the sonic art enough to play The Pink Room, my friend’s basement venue. I couldn’t have asked for a better first show. We all love challenging ourselves to make the music as interesting to listen to as it is technically challenging to play. That shared passion really makes our dynamic work.

AF: Were you involved in music growing up, or was it something you grew into?

JF: I’ve been playing guitar for 21 years, but I didn’t really start taking it seriously until I was about 17, so I guess a little of both.

AF: When did you realize it was less of a hobby and more of a career?

JF: This is the first band I’ve been in where I feel like we’re all committed and talented enough to realize our creative dreams while appealing to a wide array of people.

AF: We’re living in a day where instrumental bands are far less common. What made you decide to start an instrumental group? Was it a group decision, or more a natural, spontaneous creation?

JF: In the beginning, we had some conversations about adding vocals, but we couldn’t really imagine any style that would enhance the music enough without being a little too much. I’ve been in instrumental bands as a guitarist for the past 6 or 7 years and I really like being able to express the feelings a song might invoke without having to verbalize anything. We actually have two lyrics: “Whoo!” and “Ru-Fi-O!”

AF: You recently released your self-titled debut album. Where did you record it? What was the recording process like?

JF: This experience was so great! We took one bongo part from our session at Standard Electric Recorders, but besides that, Corey Bautista recorded most everything at his studio, Corey Bautista Audio. He’s a pretty brilliant guy when it comes to laying down a record and he’s a wizard at smoke machine operation too! For the album, I loved the perfectionism. When I hear the finished tracks and think about all the work we all put into it, it really makes me smile. Everyone really brought something special to the table, along with their passion, and I think that really comes through in the music on the record. The process was so much fun because I love being around musical people and things. It’s hours of tuning drums and replacing guitar strings and really searching for that one sound in your head that you really want to lay down, and of course, forcing your fingers to do really weird and sometimes unnatural things. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. My favorite part was recording the auxiliary percussion though. Just being silly and shaking tambourines and shells for a while was great.

AF: What’s your creative process like? How has it changed in the year that you guys have been together?

JF: Well, James and I played exclusively in his room for a while before finding the right additions to the band. He had a lot of the stuff down, but we added some parts here and there and redid a lot of the arrangements. After the additions of Grant and Jason, the music really started to take shape. I thought it sounded complete and great before, but after adding their instruments and ideas to the mix, there’s no other way I would want to hear it. Basically, the songs have been through the wringer four times over. We each break them down and ask ourselves and each other how every particular part serves the song, and if it doesn’t, we find where it fits or throw it out.

AF: Which bands or artists inspire you the most? How do you draw from that inspiration and use it to create something that’s unique?

JF: We draw from bands like Protest the Hero, Chon, Clever Girl, Saves Us from The Archon, the list goes on. I think I’m inspired by bands that have a certain playfulness to their music. When I draw from influences, it’s more about the feeling than it is about sounding or playing a certain [part] like them. I’m inspired by music that makes me feel like making music that will hopefully inspire someone else to make music that makes someone happy, or help make someone’s day a little bit better. Damn, that sounds cheesy.

AF: How do you communicate feelings and stories through instrumental music? Do you think it’s in the notes you play, or the way you play them?

JF: I tend to think about the way that the melody and harmony lines are working together and working up to in any given part. Proper execution is key to conveying the melody and harmony, but for me, it’s more about the bigger picture. Where did the song come from? What was felt there? Where is it going? Where do you want the listener to end up?

AF: What’s your favorite part of the Atlanta music scene?

JF: I like the variety. It’s got a little bit of everything and no matter what you like I can probably tell you where to find it on a Saturday night.

AF: You’ve been together just over a year and are already seeing some serious growth. What’s next for Challenger Deep?

JF: We’ve been writing new (super secret) songs and finding creative ways to display them. We recently recorded a lyric video with onomatopoeias for the instrument sounds. It’s pretty hilarious and it was so fun. You can look for more of that weirdness.

AF: Last question: best place to hang out and listen to live music in Atlanta?

JF: I like EAV a lot, 529 and the EARL always holds some familiar faces and crazy talent. I love seeing people play music there and I’m just thinking, “I am so lucky to see this, and it’s right down the street.”

Keep up with Challenger Deep on Facebook, and stream their self-titled debut on Spotify.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Sami Michelsen Dishes on Her Electronic-Pop Trio Reptile Room

Reptile Room – made up of Sami and Sean Michelsen and Bill Zimmerman – is one of Atlanta’s signature bands. The electronic-pop trio is known for their thrilling, psychedelic visuals, intoxicating music, and powerful performances on the best stages throughout the city, so when I got the chance to sit down with Sami in the midst of a schedule that just won’t quit, I was beyond excited. Since forming in 2017, they’ve put out a self-titled EP and released three stand-alone singles in the past year that (we’re hoping) could signal a forthcoming full-length.

Read on for all the details on Reptile Room, and a few exciting hints at what’s to come.

AF: Thanks so much for chatting with us, Sami! Let’s dive in, starting from the beginning. How did you get your start in music?

SM: Thanks for having us! Sean, Bill, and I first started playing music together while we were all pretty young. We actually started our very first band together in life while we were in middle school. All three of us explored quite a few different musical outlets and projects over the years, and then, in 2017, we decided to get back together and create something fresh from our experiences… that became Reptile Room.

AF: What made you decide to start Reptile Room, and what’s been the biggest creative difference since its creation?

SM: We started Reptile Room as an experiment at first. Like I mentioned before, we had all been in various ensembles over the years, working on multiple projects with other people, so we wanted to see what we would create together after all of that. Everything came around full circle. The idea is to push the boundaries a bit and keep some more wild elements inside the box of pop music. Since the three of us have a past, our workflow is very fast and constructive which is probably the biggest difference. Things get created quickly because of our comfort levels with one another. We don’t sugarcoat our opinions and we don’t take things too personally when it comes to Reptile Room. We do all creative projects exclusively between the three of us.

AF: I’m sure you’re asked this all the time, but what’s it like to work with your sibling? Does it make the creative process easier, since you’ve got similar backgrounds, or do you find that your different interests balance each other out?

SM: Working with my brother is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. We’ve been through a lot together in life, but I think that you can hear that depth in the music. We have our differences, but we usually sort them very quickly in the creative process. Every individual brings their own special magic to the mix of the group, and it’s very cool to get to share that experience with anyone, but it’s especially magical to share it with someone you’ve known your entire life.

AF: What’s the creative process like? Which artists and bands inspire you the most?

SM: [The] creative process almost always starts differently each time, but it always ends the same way. Usually one of us has an idea, whether it’s an instrumental loop, a cool sound, or just a hook we’ve written. When we all like an idea, we move forward as a team on production and songwriting until we all love it.We all have very different inspirations, which I think makes our ideas pretty unique. But as for me, I am obsessed with Imogen Heap, Jeff Buckley, and The Killers. Janis Joplin and David Bowie are always in my heart; I’m always asking myself, “What Would David Do?” Big fan of Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish and Posty these days as well. Aside from musicians, many artists continually inspire me. David Lynch is a visionary favorite of mine, along with countless writers/directors/painters and artists of every kind. I’m constantly seeking inspiration from everything in life, and all of it is fuel for the band.

AF: You released some singles in 2018, and have more music coming this year; what’s been the most exciting part of creating these new songs? The most challenging?

SM: You find that you really capture a moment in your life. Even when you hit a wall during the process and you get tired, it’s all about the work. It’s always about the art and that focus keeps the process exciting. The most challenging part of the work is managing the administrative side of things, because we do that ourselves too. We are in the process of getting some help with that.

AF: How have you evolved as artists and songwriters since forming Reptile Room?

SM: Reptile Room has learned to just let go and create; to move quickly when we can. We try to not get caught up on details too small and paralyzing to the process. We try to bounce ideas off each other and let our intuitions guide us in the moment, and I think that trait specifically is turning all of us into better songwriters… staying present and trying not to over analyze anything and just feel it.

AF: You’ve been involved in the Atlanta music scene for years; how has it impacted you as artists?

SM: There is a ton of great music in Atlanta, but it’s very exciting to be working on Reptile Room here. I feel like most artists with a similar style come from New York or LA, so we want to help put Atlanta on the map for electronic pop music! We are proud to be here and will always be influenced by the A. It’s a very diverse music scene that offers a lot of sounds and inspirations. My musical endeavors in ATL, both ups and downs, have shaped me into the artist I am today.

AF: What’s next for Reptile Room?

SM: We have a lot in the works for this year. Exciting news, music, videos, and shows will be announced very soon. We have some teasers for “Talk” (our upcoming single) on our social media pages as well as show announcements and news.

AF: Last question: best place in Atlanta to hear live music?

SM: Atlanta has great music everywhere! Terminal West, Tabernacle, The Loft, Aisle 5 and tons more.

Follow Reptile Room on Facebook and Instagram.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Sister Moon Talks Songwriting, Star Trek, and Bacon Chips

Ashley Rivera, the frontwoman and creative force behind Atanta’s Southern gothic-blues group, Sister Moon, weaves a dark mystique throughout her music, eerie melodies set against a heavy sonic landscape. It’s Southern gothic at its finest: a crumbling mansion in the light of a full moon, Spanish moss swaying like ghosts from the limbs of a live oak tree. Her innate ability to evoke strong imagery within her music is part of what drew me to her in the first place; her subtle confidence and intensity of stage sets her apart as one of the finest acts Atlanta has to offer.

As the group prepares to take on Austin for SXSW, Ashley took a few minutes to sit down with me and talk about her musical history, her creative collaboration with producer, writer, and guitarist David Rowe, and the band’s latest single, “Corners.”

AF: When did you realize that music was your passion and calling? Have you always been interested in it, or was it something you grew into?

AR: It was very early on. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t obsessed with singing! I started doing small local shows around age nine and realized that playing music could be a “real thing.” I haven’t stopped since. The passion for writing songs was something that developed a little later and has continued to grow and change. It is the most frustrating part of all of this. It’s also my favorite part.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest influences when it comes to your sound? Are your favorite artists and bands different from the bands that inspired you to form Sister Moon?

AR: The artist who always comes to mind first is Bobbie Gentry. She was my childhood inspiration. Her voice was so different… thicker and spookier than any female artist I’d heard. And her songs were masterfully crafted stories. I always wanted to be like her. I still do. When we formed Sister Moon, I think we all brought different influences to the table. There have been plenty of times in the studio when we’re not playing a note but instead just sitting around listening to things that inspire us, elbowing each other, “Did you hear that part?!” One of the bands we always go back to is Led Zeppelin.

AF: What’s your creative process like?

AR: It varies, but I typically start with lyrics and melody, and simple chords on the guitar. I bring that to David Rowe (Sister Moon’s producer/guitarist/writer) and we continue writing the song together. He is curiously good at knowing exactly where I want to go creatively. Once we write it together, we take it to the band, and it goes farther than I could’ve ever dreamed.

AF: You’ve recently released a single, “Corners.” What inspired the song?

AF: “Corners” came out of a dark time and some painful experiences. I’m not usually a “wrote this in ten minutes!” songwriter… I will start on something and tinker with it forever. But “Corners” was genuinely one of those songs that just tumbled out. I didn’t imagine it would be released at the time.

AF: You’re going on tour in March; what’s it like to travel and sing your songs in different cities around the country?

AR: About 1% of the time is the playing the gig and 99% is discussing Star Trek in the van while passing around bacon chips.

AF: How has the Atlanta music scene impacted you as an artist?

AR: The scene here inspires and challenges me. My favorite thing to do on nights off is to go hear a great local band, and there are so many of them. Not only am I blown away by the talent pool, but I’m floored by the support Atlanta’s musicians show one another. For the most part, everyone just loves to share what they do. That’s so refreshing to see.

AF: What’s next for Sister Moon?

AR: We hit the road for SXSW next week! When we return, our new single “Lorelei” will be released on the 26th.

Follow Sister Moon on Facebook for new releases, SXSW FOMO, and (hopefully!) the occasional Star Trek reference, and stream “Corners” on Spotify.

INTERVIEW: Ziemba Extends an Invite to Parallel World of Ardis with “Veritas in Terra”

René Kladzyk has made it her artistic purpose to merge various media since the very beginning of her musical project Ziemba; her debut LP came with an incense made from flowers in and around her childhood home, and her live shows frequently feature the diffusion of scents she’s created to go along with the specific experience. Now, inspired by singing collectively with Colin Self’s XHOIR, feminist science fiction, Nabokov’s treatise on time, and the neofuturistic architecture of John Portman, Kladzyk has launched the first phase of Ardis, a high-concept three-part album that explores utopia from a human perspective.

Essentially, Ardis is a parallel version of Earth, with “necessary changes” having been made. Its creation was a direct response to Trump’s election, Kladzyk explains. “I felt really devastated by a lot of what I was seeing in America and I wanted to talk about it but in a way that didn’t just perpetuate me feeling devastated by it,” she says. “How can I talk about this in a way that’s not just dwelling on how upsetting it is, but instead thinking about possible alternatives and mobilizing in a way that’s fantastical and fun and uplifting? If you believe that cultural change is fueled by art and creative work, which I do, then people who are making work that envisions possible alternative futures can have a real material impact on the world we live in here.”

The first five songs from the LP, which comprise Part One, were released in February, along with a video for “Veritas in Terra” that brings Kladzyk’s concepts into the real world via John Portman’s architecture. His buildings have served as the inspiration for Delta City in Robocop, and appeared in sci-fi classics and recent blockbusters alike, from John Carpenter’s Escape From LA to the Divergent series. Kladzyk first encountered his work on a trip to New York City (which she now calls home) during her teens, when she ventured into the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. “Veritas in Terra” was shot in three Atlanta hotels; Portman’s architectural thumbprint is everywhere in his home city, characterized by the multi-storied arrangement of floors overlooking a towering atrium, often with a glass elevator that traverses it like a an electrical impulse running up a human spine. Indeed, this is the intended visual allusion, one which Kladzyk mirrors in relating humanity to the sprawling scale of a futuristic cityscape. “It’s an inter-scalar thing – it’s like, if you look at a building like a body, and a body like a song, you find the commonalities in the way we structure ideas to the way we structure our world on the macro level,” she explains.

The video was co-directed by Kladzyk, Megan Mack, and Allison Halter, and it wasn’t an easy shoot, considering they were forcibly removed from the Portman-designed Hyatt, Westin, and Marriott hotels. “We filmed in [the Hyatt] and almost immediately got in trouble… then I was like, okay, we have to be a little bit more careful. And then we got kicked out of another place,” she says with a laugh. “We were very cautious with the Marriott Marquis. We mostly filmed from like 4-6 in the morning. We got kicked out while shooting the last shot; I knew we would because it was right in front of the concierge desk.”

That shot became one of the opening scenes in “Veritas” – Kladzyk looks up through the atrium, wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit. Throughout the video she’s “simultaneously exploring but also a little hunted, but then also realizing that there are all these different versions of me.” She says that Portman’s buildings support an almost voyeuristic tendency that she wanted to highlight: “[The atrium] changes how you look at other humans – you can see people so far away and they look so tiny. They often aren’t aware that you’re looking at them, but you can’t help [it] because the nature of the space encourages you to look.” Overall, it was the fact that Portman’s buildings are like parallel universes unto themselves that attracted Kladzyk to his work, which has been both credited with revitalizing formerly desolate downtown areas as well as criticized for being too insular.

The two remaining segments of Ardis will appear in April and June, each with their own specific fragrance accompaniment. This March, Kladzyk begins a month-long residency at Red Hook artspace Pioneer Works, which will culminate in a musical version of Ardis on April 14. It will expand upon the excerpt she performed at MoMA Ps1 at the end of 2017, which featured herself and her sister Anna discovering, then destroying, a fragrant utopia before rebuilding it. “One of the narrative arcs [of the project] is me as a human, trying to open doorways to Ardis, failing and trying again, and in the process finding it in all these different places,” she says. The Pioneer Works performance, she adds, will feature “a number of other performers, there’ll be a large choir, and other musicians… I’m working with a really incredible set designer, and there’ll be wild costumes, but it will largely be the music interacting with visual signifiers of the world.”

Ziemba will also perform a handful of more straightfoward shows on the West Coast with Teeny Lieberson’s solo endeavor Lou Tides in the coming months, as well as some dates throughout the Mid- and Southwest. She’s performed some of the songs from Ardis in a live setting before – “Ugly Ambitious Women,” in particular, appeared on a 2015 EP, and Kladzyk says she has more material she’s interested in reimagining – and will do so again at Secret Project Robot next week. Ever prolific, she’s currently writing songs that are a little more grounded and personal, but whether she revisits Ardis in the future remains to be seen. “We’ll see what path it follows. Some of that may depend on how people respond to it, and the way that I learn from it after touring it,” she says. Though she hesitates to say that she makes therapeutic music, she does hope Ardis will offer others some catharsis, as it has for her to imagine such a place.

“[Someone asked] ‘What does Ardis look like? What’s it like there?'” recalls Kladzyk. “In short, I don’t exactly know. I’m still looking for it and I’m still learning from it. But that’s kind of the idea – maybe we need to reject this idea that we as humans can be certain, and instead focus on expansiveness, and listening and connection.”

PLAYING ATLANTA: I The Victor Promotes Positivity with “Hypotheticals” Video

I discovered I The Victor by chance sometime in 2018. My band and I were asked to play an artist spotlight alongside Rebecca Ramos, the heart, brain, and creative force behind the act, that, unfortunately, coincided with a tour we were going on, but I started following her then and loved her bright, open, offbeat aesthetic. Almost a year later, I got the chance to talk with the “posi-rap” artist about all things music, Atlanta, and “Hypotheticals,” her latest release.

AF: Thanks so much for talking with me! Do you mind telling me a bit about your story? How did you get into music?

RR: Of course, thank you! I super appreciate getting to chat. I got into music shortly after discovering Avril Lavigne as a living, breathing, amazing entity on earth. She just really struck me, and from there, I was interested in making music of my own. Not too long after, my parents got me one of those $40 first act guitars, and I was off to the races. I ended up writing really bad songs for a long while and, as I got older, began writing stuff that I was excited about and wanted to put out into the world.

AF: What’s your creative process like? Has it changed over the years, as you’ve toured and recorded and released more music?

RR: Usually it starts at the guitar, but sometimes a line or melody will hit me at a random time, and I try to just drop everything and give it the attention it needs to become something bigger. I try to steer clear from sitting down to write and usually wait for something to come to me, and then I’ll sit with it and flesh it out into something more full. Otherwise, if I try to sit down and be creative, I get pretty in my head about if I’m being organic and real, and usually end up scrapping whatever I write if it feels forced.

As music has become more of the main focus of my life, I have a lot of new toys that have made their way into my process, whether it’s the instrument library on Logic, weird samples, or just messing around with different plugins or vocoders. I think it’s cool, when possible, to start with something kinda eclectic or weird and to pull out some pop sensibility from it. So all that’s in the mix as far as my process, but I definitely try to keep it fluid and let lyrics or melodies come to me naturally.

AF: Who do you consider your greatest influences? How do you draw from those influences while also staying true to what makes you unique as an artist? What inspires you as a songwriter?

RR: I’ve been listening a ton to Billie Eilish recently, along with Glass Animals, Still Woozy, Hippo Campus, Jaden Smith, and so many more. I try not to pull too many direct musical influences; I like to just listen to a ton of diverse stuff, and if I hear a sound or topic that inspires me, I’ll go from there. I do, however, get super inspired just watching artists as they blossom and create worlds around their songs. That’s something I feel like that takes songs to another realm.

I also get inspired by seeing other artists’ merch or marketing rollouts for albums. I love the whole packaging and how far a song can extend into other dimensions like visuals or live shows or clothing. I’ve been really inspired by artists like Halsey or The 1975, who are very meticulous about their aesthetic and the way their visuals and songs transcend into their shows. Anytime I see something unique, I’ll screenshot it and go back to it as I brainstorm for ITV content. I never want to copy what’s been done, but there are always ways of taking cool concepts and molding them into something unique to your own song or vision, so that’s what I try to do!

AF: Everything about you — your music, your visuals, all of the messages you send out to your fans — is so positive. How do you stay so optimistic, in both your music career and your personal life?

RR: Thank you so much! I aim for that. I definitely started writing songs out of a darker and more insecure place, but the purpose was to kind of seek out hope through writing about hopelessness. So, that whole theme of staying positive has just kind of stuck throughout and become this mantra for ITV as a whole, which I am really proud of. The music industry can definitely feel dark at times; there have been times I get so discouraged that I don’t know where else to go than to go back to that place of seeking out hope. I think life is that way too in general: a constant flux and flow of failure versus success, light versus dark, or progress versus setbacks.

I just don’t know what I’d take refuge in if I didn’t have music or wasn’t creating for the purpose of finding hope and staying positive, so I feel really lucky and comforted that it’s naturally become kind of the banner of ITV songs. It’s begun making its way into my mindset day to day, too, which is also lucky. I think there’s just a ton of darkness out there and we all kinda get to feeling alone or hopeless. As ITV grows, I just want it to be a light for people where we can discuss growing pains and dark times but still do that within the lens of hope because we all need that.

TL;DR – life can get heavy. What would I have if I didn’t have hope? I literally don’t know and don’t want to know. ITV has been a vessel for finding positivity for me and I hope it can be that for others too.

AF: What’s your favorite part of the Atlanta music scene, and how has the city — and the creative community here — influenced you as an artist?

RR: I meet and find more and more amazing people in Atlanta daily, it seems. I adore it. Everything I do with ITV is super DIY or friends-only in a way. We just don’t have a label, don’t have big budgets or resources to do huge productions or outsource a lot of things. The result is myself and my closest friends getting to work on ITV things altogether, and it’s been life-changing. The output is so much more raw and organic, which makes it all the better. I’ve gone to Switchyards quite a bit with my brother and met some amazing designers and creatives there. ITV lets me meet awesome people, too, which is fortunate. It’s just so cool getting to meet people doing creative things that inspire them. It creates such a limitless space for organic collaboration and just freedom to keep doing you; it’s so exciting and definitely a huge part of how anything for I The Victor gets accomplished.

AF: What’s next for I The Victor?

RR: So. Much! So much. I keep feeling like we’re in the most exciting phase yet, and I get sad thinking about releasing it all because then this phase of anticipation and excitement will have to come to a close! But yes. A lot! Definitely some new music preceding an EP and then we have quite a bit planned to complement the songs coming out, from merch to videos to shows. Excited is an understatement and I feel really lucky for the small community growing around ITV because it’s a super exciting time right now!

Follow I The Victor on Facebook to stay up to date on new releases, music videos, and shows (and your daily dose of positivity in a crazy world).

PLAYING ATLANTA: True Blossom is in Full Bloom with New LP Heater

Atlanta’s varied music scene is no secret; in just a few short months, Playing Atlanta has featured garage rock, indie rock duos, Americana singer-songwriters, and disciples of Southern Rock, but even that doesn’t begin to cover the true mosaic of the city.

Audiofemme got the chance to talk with True Blossom, a bright, joyous pop experience, who have just released their newest album, Heater. Read on for more about the quintet, their passion for pop, and big plans for their next release.

<a href="http://citruscityrecords.bandcamp.com/album/heater">Heater by True Blossom</a>

AF: What is the True Blossom story? How did the band form?

TB: We knew each other from playing shows together in other bands for years in the Atlanta pop scene, and we wanted to form a new band. We don’t have much of a narrative, only our songs. Like Paula Abdul. We’re the Paula Abdul of Atlanta indie pop.

AF: What drives you to create music, together and individually?

TB: Pure, unbridled ambition. Like that fucking uncut, barrel-strength, Napoleon-whining-about-Alexander-the-Great ambition.

AF: Which bands or artists inspire you the most?

TB: We mostly draw on pop formalists in one way or another, but the specific artists vary. Sophie listens to a lot of pop country and Motown; Jamison likes what you might call psychedelic pop, like Beach Boys, Robert Wyatt, Tropicalia, etc; Nadav likes a lot of that sort of hybrid disco/funk from the ’80s, like the Jones Girls. The sophisti-pop bands are also a big influence: Orange Juice, Prefab Sprout, the Blue Nile, etc.

AF: You recently released a record, Heater. What was it like to release your debut album? What was your proudest moment, and what was the most challenging for you?

TB: We loved making the album! It was easier than we expected. A blessed process. I think the best moment was when we all traveled up to New York together to mix it; we ran ahead of schedule, and finished early somehow, which in retrospect seems impossible.

AF: What’s your creative process like?

TB: We just play songs over and over again until they write themselves. We’re a fairly prolific band, which is amazing because we’re not exactly a well-oiled machine of creative praxis. I think it helps that we limit our palette of sounds, but like, literally, every guitar rock band does that too, so I don’t know.

AF: What’s your favorite part of being in the Atlanta music scene?

TB: When we travel the rest of the country, we notice that the shows often happen in really crummy DIY venues. Atlanta is very blessed by the quality and stability of the venues and promoters. 529 is at least ten years old at this point and remains a great place to play and watch bands. And if it ever closed, we’d probably just utilize the Unicorn more. I think knowing that your band is usually going to be playing on real sound systems allows folks to get more ambitious with the sounds their bands make, and that goes a long way in explaining Atlanta indie pop right now. The trade-off, of course, is that DIY, all-ages venues get choked off a little, which is crummy. My other favorite part of the Atlanta music scene is that you can now get Campari at 529, which is not a thing you used to be able to do. But they don’t have sweet vermouth, which is bizarre. How are they planning on selling all that Campari?

AF: How has the Atlanta scene influenced you as a band?

TB: Talking about the Atlanta music scene is sort of ridiculous because there’s a rap scene obviously, and a hardcore scene, a bunch of old garage punks, Georgia Tech kids making proggy-jazz, squares with acoustic guitars… there are a lot of scenes that don’t overlap. And there’s not really a reason for them to; those garage punks probably will not like our band and are under no obligation to do so. But our little corner of the world is wonderful. Lots of kids getting ambitious with real pop melody, keeping the DX7 patches very bright, a lot of joy to go around. We’re inspired by Fantasy Guys, Red Sea, Breathers, Doug Bleichner’s solo stuff, and that’s just a very short sampling.

AF: What’s next for True Blossom?

TB: We’re tracking our next album in less than a month, so big things popping there. We’re also working on a video and planning a tour for the spring.

Follow True Blossom on Facebook as they prepare for a new release, announce spring tour dates, and take over the pop world, one song at a time.

PLAYING ATLANTA: The Ain’t Sisters Talk Music, Feminism, and the Marrow of Life

The Ain’t Sisters are one of the raddest and most versatile groups Atlanta has to offer. Whether playing as an acoustic duo in front of a crowd of fifty at The Red Light Cafe, or captivating audience as a rockin’ quartet, they bring passion, charisma, raw bravado, and a certain indescribable “oomph” to the music.

The dynamic duo – aka Barb Carbon and Arrie Bozeman – sat down with Audiofemme to discuss their latest record, Marrow.

AF: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us! We know The Ain’t Sisters had an incredible start. Do you mind sharing that story?

BC: Arrie and I have been friends for close to 15 years. When I met her, she was just a teenager playing lead guitar for the first time for our friend Hollin Gammage. She played some shows with me over the years, backing me up on lead guitar. Over time, we became best friends, and in 2012, we were on a trip to Folly Beach, South Carolina, and we spent a lot of time playing street guitar that week. People kept coming up to us and saying to one of us or the other, “You and your sister are so good!” We, of course, are not sisters.

Jokingly, we said we should start a band and call it The Ain’t Sisters. That joke persisted, and when we got back to Atlanta, she taught me how to play her songs and we started booking some shows under that name. Two years later, we had added a bass player and a drummer, and the rest is history. You’re always supposed to say that at the end of the story, right?

AB: We got into a bit of a situation with the cops at Folly Beach over illegal busking, and Barb told one of them he probably had a small penis.

AF: How did you initially get into music? What made you decide to join together to form The Ain’t Sisters?

BC: Music always felt like a part of me. Growing up in my parents’ house, I was exposed to good stuff. My dad listened to the Beatles and The Highwaymen. Both of my big brothers played guitar and I was always trying to get my hands on one myself. When I was 14, we moved, and the new house had an outbuilding with a bunch of crap in it. The landlord said I could play with whatever I found in there, and, lo and behold, I found a shitty old guitar. The strings were about 2 inches off of the neck and it sounded horrible, but I was determined to learn how to play. I never really had much support musically, so I’ve always had to scrap and scrape and make do. I suppose I still do that. It was a good place to start because I’ve never taken anything for granted.

AB: I’m just here for the ladies. We formed The Ain’t Sisters to confuse straight women and make men wish they had vaginas. We’re sort of like a new facet of feminism.

AF: You recently released a record, Marrow. What was the creative process like?

BC: Ha! Long. We started talking about making the record in early 2015. In November of that year, our friend and engineer, Critter, gave us a push. He said, “We’re going into the studio next week.” We were so not ready. We didn’t have solid arrangements. We hadn’t done any pre-production. Luckily, we recorded at Woodridge Studios, which is a small home studio that is run by a friend of ours, Phil Abbate. He and Critter both gave us extraordinarily reasonable rates, so in the end, it didn’t completely break us to have to do most of our pre-production in studio. It was the most massive learning experience. Some of us had more prior experience than others, but in this particular scenario, we were all learning as we went to some extent. We got lucky and were able to make it all come together in the end, but we didn’t end up putting the record out until this past November. Three years! That’s a long incubation period.

AB: I got nicknamed TC in the studio. TC stands for Tyrannical C*nt. I think we almost killed Critter, and the band for that matter. I personally had a great time, and I’m thrilled with our results.

AF: What inspires the music?

BC: Life. Isn’t that the consummate answer? Haha. I would say that, for me, writing tends to be an outward expression of my emotions and my philosophies. I’m a thinker. It never stops. I’m always chugging away on some idea or exploring a new concept. Occasionally I just have a great line pop into my head and I’ll build a song around it, but more often I’m ruminating on a situation in my life… a relationship, an adventure I’m having, stuff like that. I think a few of my best songs have come from a dark place. I write happy, hopeful songs to try and cheer myself up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, I usually get a good tune out of the deal.

AB: When someone asks, “If ya ain’t sisters, what are ya??”

AF: Which artists and bands have influenced you the most?

BC: Always my favorite question. Without a doubt, The Indigo Girls were the most formative influence for me. Emily’s writing, Amy’s grit and passion – it was those elements that really gripped me. I would also place Patty Griffin, Michelle Malone, Aimee Mann, Sheryl Crow, and Lucinda Williams up near the top of the list. Those, along with an enormous list of local bands that you have never heard before. Hope for Agoldensummer and Trapper’s Cabin are probably the biggest of the lesser-knowns. I could literally go on all day in this category. Right now, my single biggest influence would be Shovels & Rope. I just love their intensity. I want to have that kind of energy on stage. I want to be some androgynous mix of Carrie Anne and Michael when I grow up.

AB: The Atlanta and Charlotte music scenes have been my greatest influence. So many great songwriters and players. I’m grateful to be involved.

AF: If you could tell your younger selves anything, what would it be?

BC: Practice. Learn music. Don’t just play chords and use guitar as a vehicle for songwriting. Learn how to speak through your instrument. I’m 38 years old and I’m just now truly learning the language of music. It’s never too late, but I wish I’d been told that when I was 16.

AB: Production takes time and patience is key. Growth is constant and inevitable.

AF: What’s your favorite part of being in the Atlanta music scene, and how has the city influenced you as artists?

BC: I’m sure everybody says this about their city, but there’s truly no place like Atlanta when it comes to our music scene. Whether we’re talking about songwriters or players or the huge, incredibly supportive community of music lovers, Atlanta is the best. The worst part about it is trying to decide which amazing shows to hit up when you have a night off.

I would add that the Atlanta scene and the Athens scene have a massive crossover, and Athens is a monster: R.E.M, Caroline Aiken, The B-52s, Drive By Truckers, Widespread Panic… there’s just such a rich and diverse history of music here.

Lastly, I’d say that the sense of community here is second to none. There’s no competitive vibe here. Everyone is inclusive and supportive of their peers. When we see Adron playing shows with Donald Fagan or Carly Gibson (of The Pussywillows) and Sami Michelsen get picked up on tour with Mother’s Finest, we’re all back home cheering them on. There’s an undercurrent of understanding around here that rising tides lift all ships. When one of us gets a break, it means good things for the entire community. We have no need or desire to tear each other down. Atlanta’s music scene is about symbiosis and love.

AB: I love the inclusiveness of our tribe. Everyone lifts each other up. The abundance of talent and graciousness is humbling.

AF: What’s next for The Ain’t Sisters?

BC: Oh man! A lot! I’ve been meaning to sit down and write out an itinerary so we can all keep track of where we’re supposed to be and when, but I’ve been too busy, so I guess that says a lot. Our drummer, John Cowin, is off on a grand adventure with his lady in Thailand for three weeks, so Arrie, Boudreau (bass), and I are doing a handful of smaller shows this month. We’re at Square Pub in Decatur on Valentine’s Day and again this Sunday, February 17th. We’ll be at From The Earth Brewery with Donna Hopkins on March 21st.

This might be a secret, but I’ll let the cat out of the bag: Ralph Roddenbery has invited us to be guests on his set at Springfest the weekend of March 23rd in Live Oak, FL this year, which is an amazing opportunity and such an honor. We love Ralph and we love our Florida family. Spirit of Suwanee Music Park has the most magical vibe, too, so we’re beyond excited to play that stage.

When we get back, our next stop will be Grizz Fest at Terminal West on March 31st, where we’ll be joining an all-star lineup of local bands, including The Grapes and Copious Jones, to honor and celebrate the life of our friend Kevin Meaders, who passed suddenly two weeks ago. Kevin was such an integral part of the Atlanta music scene for decades. There’s a huge hole in our community, but this is definitely going to be a joyous occasion because he would have wanted it that way.

AB: We’re making a punk album called Atomic in honor of the ever-looming apocalypse.

To keep up with The Ain’t Sisters as they plan world domination, like their Facebook page and follow them on Instagram.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Stop, Rock & Roll with The Ides of June

Atlanta’s music is as varied as the people who call the city home, blending the sounds of pop, rock, alternative, R&B, hip-hop, and singer-songwriter to create a constantly moving, evolving scene. Even so, there’s no mistaking the history of music in the region… or the city’s proximity to Southern Rock’s hometown, just two hours south in Macon, Georgia.

No Atlanta band is as inspired by that Southern Rock history than The Ides of June. The quartet – made up of Dusty Huggins, Clay McConnell, Justin Nelson, and Alex Gannon – blend heart-thumping rhythm sections with soaring guitars and a heavy blues influence to create a sound that’s equally impactful when witnessed live or through speakers.

Despite a busy schedule promoting their latest record, Stop, Rock & Roll, the guys sat down with us to tell their story and talk all things music, writing, and rock ‘n roll.

AF: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me! Let’s jump right in. How did you guys come together as a group, and where did you get your band name?

Dusty and Clay got together and decided they wanted to form a band, so they simultaneously learned to play their instruments and began writing songs. They began playing with different people until they found a core group on board with the project’s sound. The band has gone through a few lineup changes over the years, but is currently a four-piece band consisting of bass, drums, and two guitars.

The name “The Ides of June” is derived from Roman folklore – the Ides of March is a day in the Roman calendar signifying March 15th. Caesar was told by a seer that he would not survive the Ides of March. He was stabbed to death that very day by members of the Senate at an official meeting that the seer warned he should not attend.

The modern day version for the Ides of June is the tale of a curse. On June 15th of 2012, front man Dusty Huggins’ mother was taken off of life support due to a suicide attempt that left her with zero brain activity. In the following years, his group of friends would endure car crashes, motorcycle wrecks, and many other oddly occurring events on The Ides of June. When the date was approaching, Huggins would exclaim, “Beware The Ides of June!” After a year of searching for a band name, Huggins said the phrase per usual, and McConnell was stricken with the idea for a band name. That night the two agreed that their future name would be The Ides of June.

AF: You guys released your last album, Stop, Rock & Roll, a few months ago; what was the creative process like?

Usually, one member comes up with a riff as a starting point, then we would jam on it as a group for about 25 minutes until it started to take shape. We throw ideas out for structure; sometimes lyrics are already in place, sometimes they come later. In the case of “Face in the Mirror,” Clay came up with the riff and Alex put lyrics to it later.

AF: What inspires the songwriting for you guys?

The first album was bursting with fuzzy tones and dark, angry lyrics. The songs on this album are mostly songs with lessons and learning, but many end with despair, such as the song entitled “The Ides of June.” Today, its meaning is positive and uplifting to the band members. The group talks about itself with the simple nickname “The Ides.” The music has also gained a more refined sound with uplifting overtones. This is due in part to the changes and progressions in the music and lives of the original members, and largely in part to Gannon’s addition to the band.

The Ides is no longer a curse. It is a cause for celebration of life and what a group of people can do together, whether it be pulling together to help a friend through his mother’s death or spending two years grinding through practices, on the road, and in the studio in order to make an album that we’re proud to call our own.

AF: Who would you cite as your greatest influences when creating your sound?

Each member kind of pulls from different influences. Dusty is without a doubt infatuated with The Black Keys, especially the lead singer Dan Auerbach. There is a definite blues element to the music we play, but also an obvious taste of southern rock. The Allman Brothers are also a major influence on the general style of the band.

AF: How do you blend that iconic Southern Rock sound with more modern influences and styles to create something unique to you?

We think that is what makes our music stand out – there is an obvious blend of backgrounds. Dusty’s vocals pull a lot from more modern rock artists, while Alex’s multi-faceted background brings the blues, as well as a more technical approach to creating music. We don’t actually try to produce any particular sound. When we get together to play, our sound is just the unplanned result of multiple backgrounds coming together.

AF: What’s it like being a part of the Atlanta music scene? How has it impacted you as a band?

It is very rewarding to be a part of such an awesome group of people. We have met many great bands that, over the course of time, have turned into great friends. It has let us know that there is amazing support out there in what can be a very intimidating career. We have seen friends in the Atlanta rock scene start to make a name for themselves, and we are both proud of their achievements and honored to get to play alongside them. It is very inspiring for us as a still relatively young band in the area to see such successes.

AF: What’s next for The Ides of June?

We plan to continue promoting the new album, Stop, Rock & Roll. We are lining up quite a few shows between now and the end of summer to do so. We are very excited to see what this new year has to bring us and looking forward to meeting new people/bands and making new friends.

We are considering what our next music video will be as well. We have already begun throwing around ideas for new songs that will ultimately go on the third album. However, that is a ways in the future.

Follow The Ides of June on Facebook and Instagram, and stay tuned for their upcoming tour dates.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Chris Coleman and The Reason He Leaves

One thing that I’ve noticed as the years go by is that, as we get older, our lives get simpler. Not that the problems, stresses, or worries disappear, but the things that kept us rattled as teenagers into our early twenties seem to settle into their designated place, and the things that really matter – family, friends, our four-legged children – become our focus.

Atlanta Americana artist Chris Coleman knows that all too well. After years on the road, as a solo artist and a sideman, he captured that wisdom on 2017 LP The Reason I Leave. It’s an intimate, emotive, eleven-track time capsule of the lessons learned, the mistakes made, and, ultimately, the peace he found on the road and in the music.

Though he’s been hard at work on his next record, Chris sat down with Audiofemme to talk all things music, travel, and a lifelong love for freedom.

AF: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, Chris! Let’s dive right in. We know you’re an avid traveler; how has your time on the road inspired you as a musician?

CC: I grew up in an army family, so in a way, I’ve always been a transient person. I remember as a kid, we would move every two or three years. I’ve lived everywhere from San Diego, to Washington D.C., to Atlanta, and now my wife and I live in Athens, Georgia. We have a Sprinter Van we’ve built out as a camper and travel in quite often. When we aren’t on the road for work, you can usually find us road tripping to our favorite places or snowboarding. I find myself so inspired traveling in the van, simply because most of life’s distractions are thousands of miles away.

AF: Your songwriting is reminiscent of Ryan Adams, Neil Young, and Dawes, diving deep into your stories and experiences. How does music allow you to express yourself? Do you ever find it difficult to translate your emotions and experiences into music?

CC: I started playing guitar and writing music really young. Moving to new places so often as a kid, I definitely struggled to find where I fit in. I’ve always had my guitar and a passion for music. All of the artists I admire tell a story with their songs, and I try my hardest to do the same. I find the best kind of peace when I write about the things that are difficult to talk about. For me, it’s way easier to write a song about my emotions or experiences than it is to talk about them.

AF: Was there a moment when you realized music was more than just a hobby?

CC: Music has always been my life. I’ve kind of felt my whole life that music is what I was made to do. I just turned 31, and I’m at that age where a lot of my friends are slowing down from touring, focusing on side hustles, and studio stuff. I really can’t picture myself doing anything but traveling, playing music, and writing songs. It’s my passion, it’s my hobby, it’s my career.

AF: You’ve recently built a studio of your own. Do you plan to record your next album there?

CC: I’m really excited about my new space! We moved from a 500-square-foot tiny house, so we’re really enjoying the elbow room. Just having all of my instruments out and accessible has been huge. I’m not sure if I’ll do my next record here or not. I’m writing a bunch and demoing new ideas here for now though!

AF: What’s your creative process like, and what inspires the music?

CC: The creative process always starts with a trip for me. I wrote this last record in Park City, Utah and in the van on a National Parks road trip. Being outside someplace beautiful, with no cell phone service, really inspires me. There’s something about being outside with just my wife, my dogs, and my guitar that clears my head. I’ve been trying to conjure that same inspiration at home my whole life.

AF: How has being in the Atlanta music scene impacted you as a musician?

CC: Freelancing for different artists as a guitar/keys/bass player over the years has forced me to branch out and try many different styles of music. I’ve gotten to meet and learn from a ton of different great players with a variety of styles. I can’t imagine how different my playing would be without Atlanta’s influence.

AF: What’s next for you?

CC: I’ve been writing for my next record and touring with a new Atlanta band, MyFever. It’s been a huge stretch for me since their style is new for me. I’ve enjoyed the challenge though.

Keep up with Chris and his travels via Facebook and Instagram, and stay tuned for his upcoming release.

PLAYING ATLANTA: MammaBear Speaks Volumes With Latest LP SAY

It’s easy to describe Atlanta psych-rock group MammaBear with one word: wild. The brainchild of band leader Kyle Gordon, a MammaBear show is an intense ride from start to finish, unlike anything most millennial music fans have ever experienced.

As the band prepares to release their upcoming record, SAY, in March, Gordon took a few minutes to chat with Audiofemme about making music and living life in the fast lane.

AF: Okay, I’m starting with the most obvious, so bear with me (pun partially intended). How did you come up with the name?

KG:When forming this project, I wanted it to have a name that was in most English-speaking peoples’ vernacular, something that would be very easy to remember. I also liked the contrast between how soft the name sounded verses how destructive I am live. Some people have told me that it’s their favorite band name, but most people scratch their heads and say they don’t get it. I love it.

AF: You’ve been making music as MammaBear for five years; what did you do before, and what made you decide to start this project?

KG:Before I formed MammaBear in 2013, I was playing in the Atlanta band Young Orchids. In 2011, we released an album called Afterglow, and shortly after were working on songs for a follow-up EP, Knives. I had been making music and playing shows somewhat professionally for over a decade, and I had become a severe alcoholic by that time. I was making a lot of bad decisions and not taking myself, my personal life, or my art very seriously, and in the process, I did some serious damage to my loved ones, my reputation, and the band as well.

Over time, the band’s writing process began to break down and there were a lot of resentments and doubts about our future together; it was a negative time creatively. At that point, I had seen three other bands that I had formed come and go due to “artistic differences,” and thought to myself, “I want to make an album by myself, and I don’t care if anyone thinks any of the songs are worth a damn. I have to do this for me or I’ll die creatively.”

I decided I wanted to make an album after writing three particularly good songs that were somewhat different and more evolved than my previous work, and – due to the situation with my band at the time – I didn’t want to share or give them to a project whose writing was on the wall. I had been writing and demoing my songs my whole career, but never had the nerve to just go into a studio and do all the instrumentation myself with no one to blame or thank but myself.

The results are MammaBear’s first full-length album, released in 2013, Vol. 1 Birds of Paradise. Since then, I’ve had many lineups to perform my songs, the longest of which has been Troy Wolf, who has been playing drums for MammaBear for about three years now, and Josh Longino, who played guitar with the original lineup and now plays the bass and does backing vocals. I play the guitar and sing lead vocals for MammaBear.

AF: You’re a little bit rock, a little bit psychedelic, and you’ve got a twist that’s all your own. How did you go about developing this sound, and what bands have inspired it?

KG:MammaBear’s sound has evolved quite a bit over five years. Originally I wanted to do something not too far away from early Squeeze, but without ripping on them in any way, of course. I just loved the songwriting and the production of their album Argybargy and felt like what I was writing at that time reflected some of that same energy. After Vol. 1, I wanted to make an album that was a little bigger, more in the vein of Peter Gabriel or Kate Bush, but less electronic, so I hooked up with my very good friend Kris Sampson (formerly of Ponderosa), and he and I produced MammaBear’s 2nd full-length album, Chocolate, released in 2016. The album is more orchestral then any of my former work and proved to be extremely difficult to play live, especially when the band plays as a three-piece. In between the two albums, I released two EPs, Strange Love and Hell Cat. They sit somewhere in between ’90s grunge and The Kinks’ late ’60s pop.

I’ve received criticism that our recorded sound does not match up with our live sound, so our upcoming album release is an attempt at capturing us in a more live and guttural way. I did this not only because I agree that our recorded sound doesn’t represent what we are live in the slightest, but also because it sucks making albums you can’t play live.

AF: What’s your creative process like?

KG: MammaBear’s creative process evolves mainly from me honing an idea I think will go well with a live band, getting a rough demo to the players, then hashing it out in a live setting. When in the room, we will play the song four or five times in a row without much talking or any notes to each other, just focusing on remembering the changes of the song and learning the chord patterns.

Usually, after a few rehearsals, the song will start to really have some life. It’s important for everyone to have their own voice with a song; what I do on a demo is not necessarily what I’m looking for in the room with a band. Whoever I’m playing with – and I only play with great players – brings different muscle memories, different techniques, and alternate rhythms that aren’t innate in me, and some of the best stuff MammaBear does comes from my players being musically creative and feeling free to express themselves in their own way outside of my instruction.

When writing I try and be patient with myself, as good ideas cannot be planned; you have to be open and ready for creativity to hit you at any time. I try and push myself to be as creative as possible with my arrangements and rhythms, and know that everything musical has already been done, so it’s what we say and how we say it that makes our music stand out. For me, lyrics are always the last piece of the puzzle, as it’s the hardest part of relating to people for me; I’m so lazy that I will often wait ’til an album is about 90% done being recorded to start to write lyrics that don’t make me cringe.

AF: How has the creative community in the city impacted you as an artist? What’s your favorite part of being in the Atlanta music scene?

KG: I love the Atlanta music scene, and I think it’s one of the richest and most vibrant I’ve experienced anywhere in my time as a traveling musician. Atlanta attracts a lot of different people from all over the world and the U.S., so the scene is constantly changing and evolving. I’ve seen some good friends do amazing things with their music, and it feels incredible to see them making names for themselves in the greater world of art. I feel extremely fortunate to live in a time where a musician such as myself can record and release any type of music I want. That is freedom.

AF: What’s next for MammaBear?

KG: MammaBear will be releasing our third album, SAY, in March. I teamed up with David Prasse of Slush Fund Records to record the album and think we really captured something close to our live sound. After we finished recording, we signed with Slush Fund and have been hard at work on a handful of music videos, and have a tour lined up for early May.

Before we hit the road we have a double album release with Sash the Bash at The Earl on Friday, March 22nd, so mark that shit on your calendars so you can grab your own album or vinyl! In the meantime, check us out on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. for our previous releases, and our YouTube page is chock full of our music videos. Cheers!

Can’t bear to reach the end of such an awesome interview? Connect with MammaBear on Facebook and Instagram, and join them at The Earl on March 22nd for the release of their newest record.

PLAYING ATLANTA: The Pussywillows Are Atlanta’s Hardest Rocking (and Hardest Working) Indie Rock Duo

When watching Hannah Zale and Carly Gibson, the dynamic duo at the front of Atlanta indie rock outfit The Pussywillows, perform on stage, it’s easy to get lost in the effortless synchronicity presented. They are perfect complements to one another, standing toe to toe and side by side, pushing — and encouraging — each other.

Offstage, they’re equally complimentary, full of exuberance, passion, and creativity. Hannah is lightning in a bottle, captivating the crowd with her dramatic mystique. Carly is equal parts intense and laid-back; quieter, but commanding and electrifying as she makes playing guitar look like something she was born to do (and trust us — she was).

The two women are committed to their music, performing together as The Pussywillows and in stand-alone projects as Zale, Carly Gibson, and Gibson Wilbanks. In the middle of their eternally busy schedules, Hannah and Carly sat down with Audiofemme to talk music and their otherworldly connection.

AF: Individually, you’re both incredibly talented performers, musicians, and songwriters; what made you decide to band together and form The Pussywillows?

CG: Thank you so much for the kind words and inviting us share our story! It’s funny how things organically happen. Hannah and I never thought about it much; we immediately started singing and writing together after we met. It felt like it created itself, with no question or hesitation. We were both strongly drawn to each other’s energy and our vocal tones happened to blend effortlessly.

From the very beginning, we’ve been riding on the same emotional life roller coaster, mirroring each other in our own fashion. Our lives seem to move in tandem and it’s one the most beautiful and healthy relationships to be a part of. My weaknesses are her strengths and my strengths are her weaknesses; together, our polarity conducts some kind of unique power source that’s cathartically satisfying.

HZ: Well, dang. Thank you so much. I don’t think becoming a band was really a choice we made or something that we talked about at the beginning. We wrote together instantly and easily so we kept doing it. A lot of our connection came from being in the same place in our personal timelines and dealing with a lot of the same struggles. We still struggle and heal in tandem somehow. Carly makes me a better musician and person and that’s how I know we are onto something.

AF: How did performing as solo artists prepare you for working together as a unit?

HZ: I think our different backgrounds as solo artists are one of our greatest strengths as a band. While I was performing in Broadway musicals and reading books about artist management, Carly was already playing out gigs and soloing on guitar better than the boys.

We try to bring our experiences together to create a dramatic, energetic rock show that makes you feel something. We are yin and yang and let each other be completely who we are. We both felt like we were missing something playing alone that we have found in each other.

CG: We definitely had polar opposite backgrounds. In a nutshell, I’m from a weird hippie family full of musicians, and Hannah is from a musical theater-loving, Jewish doctor family. I was ignoring my homework and playing out in rock bands in high school while she was getting straight A’s and slaying Broadway musicals.

We grew up marinating in very different kinds of genres, but our common thread is ’90s music. The moody, chick-rock stuff is our jam, and was the vibe that inspired the songwriter within each of us to be born.

We strangely complement each other perfectly. Though we are opposites in a lot of ways, we share a soul connection that allows us to be on the same page, pretty much all the time. We catch ourselves harmonizing lines without meaning to and we often finish each other’s sentences with the same inflections and gestures. There is a whole lot of unconditional love and respect that we have for one another that’s the foundation to what we are as a unit.

AF: What’s been the hardest moment for you, and, on the other hand, what’s been the proudest?

CG: Our hardest time was going through a nightmare studio experience where we wasted a whole lot of our time and money on a debut EP we could never use. We were able to pick ourselves back up, as a team, without blaming or taking it out on each other.

I think our proudest moment yet has been able to finally define and refine our sound as a band; to be able to get to the essence of our vision and belief in who we are as artists. We get to create our own world that people seem to really dig stepping into with us. Packing out rooms with a hyped audience screaming “PUSSYPOWER” feels super satisfying, every time.

We’re proud to be women playing rock n’ roll that’s for everyone. We aim to take back the word that has been so harshly demoralized and connotated with “weakness.” We believe in a balance and respect of feminine/masculine energy that resides in all of us. Being able to tap into our individual truth and power without shame or judgement is what we strive for every day, and we hope to encourage our audience and fans to do the same.

AF: Your sound is self-described as “Tarantino feminism.” What inspires the music?

HZ: Our music has that same neo-noir quality; it can be dark and has a sometimes sinister, shadowy feeling. We like to tell bold stories featuring strong female characters based on real events and people in our lives. We aren’t afraid to be a little cheeky and impolite. Tarantino doesn’t believe in linear timelines and neither do we; we live and write for the past and future at the same time. We want our music to be consumed, analyzed and enjoyed equally, not cause we are a “girl band.”

AF: Who has inspired you the most in your individual careers, and as The Pussywillows?

CG: Having a musical family was the most influential part for me. Music was constantly around and supported, which I am so very grateful for. My parents played in groups all throughout my childhood, and we went to a lot of concerts and festivals. Music has always been the coolest thing in the world to me and looked like the most fun way to express [myself]. I started playing guitar at twelve years old, largely because I wanted to be able to connect and communicate with my dad and brother on a deeper level, to fit in and jam with “the guys” and have stuff to talk about. My brother showed me some live AC/CD footage for the first time and after seeing Angus Young play, I thought to myself, “THAT’S what I want to do. That crazy, sweaty little man is having the time of his life. I want to feel that.”

It was mixture of artists like Jimi Hendrix, John Mayer, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, Grace Potter, Pat Benatar, Led Zeppelin, Heart, Joni Mitchell, Michelle Branch, Alanis Morrisette, Norah Jones, The Black Crows, Indigo Girls, and many others that inspired me to create music of my own. It all lead up to meeting – and eventually being mentored by – one of my local heroes, singer/songwriter/guitarist Caroline Aiken, who so kindly helped show me the ropes and gave me a platform to be heard in the Atlanta music scene. Caroline has also generously mentored Hannah and me as a duet to help tighten and refine our intricate harmonies, as well as giving us opportunities to share the stage with her.

Our sound is a melting pot. We naturally like to be diverse and dynamic by having a spectrum of feels, from light, heavy, to funky. Our biggest influences are Heart, Grace Potter, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, First Aid Kit, Indigo Girls, Jack White, and of course ’90s icons like Meredith Brooks, Alanis, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, TLC, and more.

HZ: I take a lot of inspiration from ’90s female singer-songwriters like Alanis Morisette, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan, Lauryn Hill, and Gwen Stefani. I also am extremely inspired by larger than life performers like Freddy Mercury, David Bowie, and St. Vincent.

Together, as The Pussywillows, we look to Black Sabbath, Tegan and Sara, The Runaways, Zeppelin, First Aid Kit, Jack White and lots more!

AF: You’re fixtures in the Atlanta music scene. How have the city and the creative scene impacted you and your careers?

HZ: We adore playing music in the ATL! The scene here is exploding with talent. Depending on the neighborhood, I get to practice my jazz chops or write an R&B hook or headbang to live metal karaoke. Over the last couple years, we have formed this inner circle of players, producers, engineers, writers, dancers, venues, and filmmakers that have helped us take our art to the next level. These professionals are true friends who challenge us to dig deep and never give up on our goals.

AF: What are your plans for 2019?

HZ: Girl, you know we have big plans for 2019! We are putting out a 5-song EP this spring, along with music video shorts for every song. We are playing hometown shows and touring! We are also going to be in the studio working on more new pussylicious music. We are pushing ourselves to do what feels good and leave the rest behind.

Craving a little more #PussyPower? Connect with The Pussywillows on Facebook and Instagram for the latest and greatest.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Catching Up with Atlanta’s Favorite Girl-Boss, Sydney Eloise

With a rapidly growing music school and a successful music career of her own, calling Sydney Eloise busy would be an understatement. Many Atlanta residents know her as the frontwoman of ’60s-infused indie pop group Sydney Eloise & The Palms, but she’s also founder at Little Treblemakers, Atlanta’s most colorful and innovative music school for children. With an aesthetic that can best be described in one word – sunshine – Sydney’s ability to guide children through their initial immersion into the world of melody and chord progression is rivaled only by her bright smile and infectious love for music. Her immediate connection with her students is obvious as they perform at their showcases, playing simple melodies or writing songs of their own.

Despite her hectic schedule, Sydney took the time to sit down with Audiofemme to discuss all things musical and magical in the new year. Read on for more about Atlanta’s favorite girl-boss and the world she’s created.

<a href="http://sydneyeloiseandthepalms.bandcamp.com/album/faces">Faces by Sydney Eloise & The Palms</a>

AF: You’ve done it all: written, recorded, and toured as Sydney Eloise & The Palms, taught at a Montessori school, and opened a children’s music academy. What’s been the most challenging aspect, and — on the flip side — what’s been your proudest moment?

SE: It’s been a journey, and I’ve enjoyed every phase and lesson that led me to this moment. I needed to tour and record just as much as I needed to teach full-time as a Montessori assistant. In those moments, I didn’t realize I was setting myself up for what’s next, or that I was mastering skills that would lead to me start my own business. I mostly felt a little lost as to what my path was. I love working with young children – their pure optimism and honesty are virtues we need more of in today’s world – and, as a songwriter and musician, I decided to see if I could apply my style of teaching with music education.

The challenge was taking a leap of faith and opening Little Treblemakers without a clue as to how this small business would evolve, if at all. I had no clue what I was doing, but I knew it was what I needed. I had a few students and no other source of income, so I buckled down and worked my tail off learning all I could about growing a business. I experimented with lesson plans and teaching materials and called upon my mentors and other teachers for guidance until I found my style and method. I am so proud to say LTM, at only (officially) a year and a half old, has a full roster with a waiting list, along with plans to expand by adding more teachers in the New Year. I am so amazed at the rapid growth of LTM, I’m just trying to keep up!

AF: How did growing up in a musical and entrepreneurial family help you lay the foundation for the life you’d end up building?

SE: We are our environment, and as a child, you absorb so much: what you hear, see, and experience really shapes your story. I was very fortunate to have two entrepreneurial parents who were also musicians. I watched my parents record music in their home studio, I saw my mother open a Montessori School in our house, and my father start his own construction company. He also built a website that was totally before its time, called Music Makers. It connected musicians together to share original music and helped them form bands in their area. When you grow up observing that you can create anything you want, the idea of working for yourself doesn’t seem so scary or far-fetched. If you put in the time, work your butt off, and are willing to make sacrifices and be scared, you will reap the rewards of following your dreams.

AF: Who or what has been the greatest inspiration for you? What keeps you going on the bad days?

SE: There are days where I feel totally overwhelmed with the business and how fast it is growing. I catch myself saying things like, “What am I doing? I don’t know how to run a business!” In those moments, I research and educate myself on subjects I still need to master. I talk to my friends and I call mentors who have been where I am, and I am reminded that no one really knows how to do this, and there is no secret manual to success. You just solve tiny problems every day until the big problems are smaller, and then you tackle those. My days are never bad! I get to work with incredibly adorable and talented little humans every day, and they make me smile and laugh!

AF: What’s it like to encourage and inspire the next generation of musicians? Which musicians inspired you as a child?

SE: It’s so magical to watch these kids bloom before my eyes! It’s incredible how quickly they can master concepts and grow their skills. To see my first-year students master chord changes and simple melodies, to my second- and third-year students writing original pieces or picking out groovy songs to perform, I am always in awe. I remember as a kid spending hours and hours looking up chord charts to Beatles songs, learning to play Joni Mitchell’s “Yellow Taxi” and Alanis Morissette’s “Hand In My Pocket,” so it’s really cool to have students who are interested in an array of musicians, from Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Sheryl Crow to Taylor Swift. We all start somewhere, and oftentimes the things we learn early on remain very powerful later in our lives.

AF: Do you think you’ll return to writing and performing, or do you think that opening and running Little Treblemakers is where you’re meant to be?

SE: I am always writing, because that is just who I am. I do miss performing and recording very much, and plan on diving back into that world very soon! I am right where I am meant to be though, and opening Little Treblemakers has given me even more purpose and reflection into the type of art I want to make and share with the world. Music is powerful and I want to contribute in a thoughtful way.

AF: How has the Atlanta creative scene impacted you, as a musician and as an entrepreneur? Why do you think it’s become such a refuge for creative types?

SE: Growing up in the city definitely helped me cultivate exploring ways to express myself. It’s the creative types that tend to build the culture of a city, and Atlanta does a wonderful job championing that. We have so much going on, from start-ups, visual artists, musicians, to film. It’s all booming right now, and it’s very cool to be a part of it.

Keep up with Sydney on Facebook and Instagram, and follow along with Little Treblemakers as it continues to grow and shape the next generation of musicians!

PLAYING ATLANTA: The Howling Tongues Premiere New Single “Daily Dose”

When The Howling Tongues hit you, you know it. Atlanta’s brazen sons of rock ’n roll — Davey Rockett, Nick Magliochetti, Brandon Witcher, Thomas Wainright, and Tylor James — are best known for their signature garage rock-inspired records and over-the-top, bombastic performances, and made their name in the darkest, grimiest rock clubs around the country before taking the stage with Bon Jovi at State Farm Arena in May 2018. After spending most of the last decade wearing out the roads and leaving fans dazed and confused, the quintet is back and better than ever with a series of singles preceding their newest recording project.

Audiofemme caught up with lead guitarist and producer Nick Magliochetti and drummer Tylor James for the premiere of their newest single, “Daily Dose.” They’re gearing up their last show of the year, The Howling Tongues “It’s Not A Christmas Money Grab” Show at The Earl on December 20th. Read on and get ready to party with rock’s most devoted disciples.

AF: You’ve been together for over seven years, and friends even longer than that. What’s your secret to longevity?

NM: The fact that we were friends for so long before really set us up to be able to communicate more openly. We live together and do a lot of things together, when a lot of bands don’t go that far with their relationships. We’ve kinda just been rooted in that for so long, it’s become second nature.

AF: What’s been the biggest change within the group since you started?

NM: I think the biggest change has been streaming and availability of music. The modern DIY scene had just kind of started when we were starting out as a band. We were selling a ton of CDs in the beginning. Now with Spotify and Apple Music and others, our big sellers are vinyl and other merch items. I think Spotify is a tool that artists can use nowadays to promote themselves.

TJ: And sometimes we can charge money to go play somewhere.

AF: How do you keep the creativity flowing and evolving? Do you ever feel musically stagnant, and if so, how do you get beyond it and keep creating?

NM: We try not to put ourselves into a box when we’re in the studio, but more into a situation where a song can come out. Whether someone writes a part on an instrument that they’re not used to, or has a strange idea for a song lyric or title, that’s the stuff that’s inspiring. Having lots of options and infinite time is the real killer of creativity.

TJ: And you’ve just gotta keep listening. Everyone’s gonna get stagnant once in a while, but that can be limited by constantly seeking inspiration, whether it’s music or otherwise.

AF: “Daily Dose,” and your last single, “Fever Dream,” are a step away from the sound you trademarked in 2016 with Boo Hiss. What new sounds and techniques are inspiring you guys for these latest songs, and how important to you is it to maintain The Howling Tongues’ sound?

NM: With Boo Hiss, we wanted to be more bold and daring and take some chances. We’re all about creating moments in songs and on stage, so this is really us taking that ideology and diving even further into it. We’re always trying to push ourselves and continue to make the kind of music we love. We are always pushing the studio to the limits, using different equipment and things that might be unique. Sometimes the stuff that’s broken or almost broken can be inspiring and create a really cool moment in the track. I think we did some of that with these latest singles.

TJ: I don’t know if I could cite one sound or technique specifically, but we try to never be afraid to just play around with shit in the studio until we stumble into something we enjoy playing and hearing back. The Howling Tongues’ sound is free to change as we change; we’re not Aerosmith.

AF: How has the creative process changed for you guys?

NM: Since we have our own studio, it’s good for us to put a little pressure on ourselves and create deadlines. If we don’t do that, then we sit on stuff for a long time, which is easy to do that because of infinite studio time. If you limit that, it forces you to make decisions and that usually leads to some pretty cool stuff happening.

AF: What’s been the proudest moment for you as a group over the last seven years?

NM: Every time we release something new is a proud moment for all of us. That’s what gets us most excited. We want to keep making music that people can turn up really loud and get lost in it for a moment. That’s what gets us going.

AF: How has the Atlanta music scene impacted you as a band? What’s your favorite part of the music scene here?

NM: The Atlanta scene has been amazing. We have seen so many bands come and go in seven years of being a part of the scene. Plus it’s so diverse in Atlanta. There are a lot of bands with their own unique sound, and that creates interesting shows here in Atlanta.

TJ: There are so many different and fun places to play, and some good promoters in the city that are willing to give a young band a shot.

AF: What inspired “Daily Dose?” What was the writing process like?

NM: I wrote the main riff on a bass guitar and wouldn’t stop playing it until the rest of the band joined in. It developed into this really funny jam and it kind of has this Jekyll and Hyde thing going on with the verses and the choruses being one and the end being a faster different feel.

AF: What’s your goal, moving forward? You’ve already toured the country, opened for Bon Jovi, and released an EP and two full-length LPs. What’s next?

NM: I think for us it’s always going to be to keep creating and pushing ourselves to be a face for rock ’n roll music. If we can inspire someone to pick up a guitar or drumsticks, then it’s all worth it for us.

TJ: I want to get a big corporate sponsorship, like Olive Garden or something.

Keep up with The Howling Tongues on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and if you’re in Atlanta be sure to stop by the Earl on 12/20.

PLAYING ATLANTA: Starbenders Keep Rock Alive (And Weird) With Their Biggest Year Yet

When considering the Atlanta music scene, few bands encapsulate the weird, ecstatic, constantly-changing energy as well as Starbenders. The halfway home for misunderstood misfits, fringers, and glam punks, Starbenders — made up of Emily Moon on the drums, bassist Aaron Lecesne, guitarist and vocalist Kriss Tokaji, and the fierce lead vocalist and guitarist Kimi Shelter — is a sonic assault from the very first note, and their legions of fans across the globe are ready and willing to prove it.

In October, the foursome took their show to the other side of the world, touring for the first time in Japan. I caught up with the group upon their return to talk about touring far away lands, rebellion, and rock ’n roll.

AF: You just got back from what looked like an incredible tour in Japan. What was that like? What was the biggest difference from playing and touring in the US?

KT: Japan was incredible. There was so much to see and experience. The culture is so fascinating, and Tokyo is a remarkable city that’s so full of life and prosperity. While playing shows in Japan, we witnessed a certain level of respect and a passion for music that we don’t really see in the States too often. It was a very positive artistic environment. Everyone was at these shows purely for the love of music and the live performance. People were truly engaged, and they were there to see and feel something real and tangible.

AL: I think in America we can be a little cynical or pretentious about music sometimes. Japan seems to be much more unapologetic in their appreciation for all things music. The enthusiasm there is palpable. There are record stores on every corner, and trucks drive through the streets with images of artists plastered on their sides. Big LED screens advertise new albums everywhere you go. The overall attitude towards music from audiences struck me as very pure and joyful.

AF: How has ATL and its musical history influenced you? What statement do you want to make with your music about the city, and what do you love most about the Atlanta music scene?

AL: Atlanta is weird, and that’s the best part. That’s not only what I like most about it, but it’s also a statement I stand behind with our music. Keep being weird, Atlanta. I’ll always be proud to call you home.

AF: What’s been the proudest moment for you guys? The most challenging?

EM: I’d say touring in Japan was both our proudest and most challenging moment. Flying 14 hours across the world to play music to an entirely different culture was both rattling and extremely fulfilling. I think I can speak for all of us when I say it didn’t really hit us until we arrived at the airport the journey we were about to embark on. The language barrier once getting to Japan was what was challenging – I remember a distinct moment during sound check when all we could do is tell the in-house sound guy, “Led Zeppelin! Make it sound like Led Zeppelin!”

KT: Playing in Japan was nothing short of a dream come true. We were able to meet so many wonderful people at these shows, as well as share the stage with some amazing artists. It’s a testament to how universal rock n’ roll is. Despite thousands of miles existing between us, we feel the same love and passion for loud guitars and drums. It was an amazing experience. The most challenging thing for us might have been the language barrier, as well as getting used to certain customs and a way of life we were not familiar with. Throughout our time in Tokyo, we were constantly learning and adapting to our surroundings, and that’s what really opened our eyes to Japanese culture.

AF: You’ve released a single and a new EP this year. How has your creative process grown and evolved since your first release in 2016? Is it collaborative, or does one of you tend to come in with an idea and present it to the group?

KS: I often compare our songs to a human body. I build the skeleton and the rest of the band and I work together to attach the muscles and tendons that mobilize the piece into a living and breathing organism. This has been our process since day one.

AF: 21st Century Orphan packs an even heavier punch than Heavy Petting, which was a killer debut album. Did you go in intending to sharpen the edge? Do you ever find it difficult to just let it all go and give in to the music?

KS: Thank you so much! We move freely through different textures and genres. The moment you start trying to put bumpers on your creativity is the moment you will prevent something really special from coming out. I believe that you should only prune a grown tree – why disassemble the seed? We protect that sentiment as much as we can and that is what allows us to keep people guessing. It’s just the Starbenders sound.

AL: Letting it all go and giving into the music is pretty much what I live for, so it’s definitely not difficult. Performance is an almost meditative state for me because my mind is never quiet and when we play, it’s liberating. It’s like going into a trance but exhilarating at the same time, and it’s the one drug I’ve never developed a tolerance for.

AF: In my eyes, Starbenders is a musical representation of rebellion and nonconformity. You’re not afraid to blend genres, take risks, and create something entirely unique. What does that mean to you? How has music allowed you to express yourself freely and without fear, and do you think your fans feel the same way when listening to your music or attending a show?

KS: Music is freedom. I want to convey that freedom to the listener as much as possible. As an artist, we need to accept the vulnerability that comes with creating in a way that makes you strong and not weak. Art and beauty are in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. A compelling and consistent act should be polarizing. I don’t want people to “sort of” like us. It’s better to be hated or loved. That’s what makes us free.

EM: I can’t really go around hitting people with sticks and honestly that’d be scary for everyone involved so luckily I’m in a rock band that allows me to beat the shit out of drums instead. I should hope when people see us perform they feel the angst and raw power in their bones that’s vibing off of the stage and if they don’t then they can just go back to scrolling through Instagram.

AF: One of my favorite questions to ask musicians is how they feel about being a voice for people who may be silenced, out of fear, insecurity, or even governmental/societal oppression. What role do you think art plays in giving a voice to the silenced?

KS: Through standing strong it might help to inspire someone out there to know they aren’t alone. I often tell people that if I can make it through, they can too. There are more of us than there are of them and WE belong to the misfits.

AL: Personally, I hesitate to put art on a pedestal as some kind of noble pursuit in and of itself. Like any medium, what matters is how you use it. We put our entire beings into this, and I would hope the things we’re passionate about – equality, love, empathy, tolerance, and compassion – shine through as a positive message. That being said, we’re rebels at heart who aren’t satisfied with the status quo. We’re in the trenches with everyone else, and our job isn’t to speak for anyone so much as it is to raise the flag and beat the drum on the march towards change. If you’re ready to fix bayonets and charge, we’re right there beside you because we ARE you.

AF: You’ve been heavily involved in various charities since your conception. What kind of awareness do you hope to spread using the Starbenders platform?

KT: Music is a powerful conduit. With all that’s wrong in the world, it’s our responsibility to use the tools we possess to help fight off the evil and the turmoil that exist in our society. We feel there is no stronger voice than rock n’ roll, and it’s necessary for us to use that voice to spread the word about issues we feel strongly about.

KS: Cultivating awareness through social media is a very big part of life now. But people can forget to put their bodies to work for the name of a cause. The physical realm still needs us and boots on the ground can be vital. We don’t work with charities for the brownie points; we do it because we have a calling to do so.

AF: Who are you listening to, and who would you say had the most influence on you as a band?

KS: I’m all over the place. I grew up playing violin, so I carried the drama of classical music into my repertoire. Phasing from classical music I fell in love with punk, which developed the thunder in my heart. Thunder and drama met the mission when I encountered rock n’ roll. I listen to anything that grabs me… Vivaldi, Miles Davis, New York Dolls, The Sex Pistols, Bowie, Placebo, Dead Kennedys, Stevie Wonder. It’s not a musical act that carries the influence. It’s thunder, drama and the mission. I’m moved by the storm that wakes me up in the middle of the night.

AL: As a bassist, most recently I’ve been digging in to how [Motown legend] James Jamerson played. He’s just so deft and slick but everything he plays serves the song, and his style defined a whole era. As a fan of music, that new Of Montreal album has me hooked.

KT: My two biggest musical influences are Led Zeppelin and Prince. Others include Hendrix, Thin Lizzy, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Stones, Bowie, The Cure, U2, Oasis, Bauhaus, The Clash, and The Damned. Rock n’ roll was my first true love in music, but I’ve always been fascinated with the other styles, genres, and sounds that the world has to offer. Classical and gypsy jazz are two other styles of music I adore and draw influence from.

EM: Paramore, Faye Webster, The Power Station…definite influence for some of our new recordings, Wolf Alice.

Keep in touch with STARBENDERS via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and check back with Audiofemme every other Wednesday for the latest installment of PLAYING ATLANTA.

ONLY NOISE: 20 Years Ago, Outkast and Goodie MOB Were the Soundtrack to My Budding Bisexuality

ONLY NOISE explores music fandom with poignant personal essays that examine the ways we’re shaped by our chosen soundtrack. This week, Rebecca Bodenheimer reflects on an important friendship with a fellow fan of Southern rap legends Outkast and Goodie MOB – one that would eventually lead to her coming out as bisexual.

Touched what I never touched before
Seen what I never seen before
Woke up and seen the sun sky high, sky high.

Goodie MOB’s “Black Ice” is a lyrical wet dream for hip-hop nerds. The anchor verse of the track, by Outkast’s André 3000, is one of the most beautifully constructed flows in the genre’s history:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your eardrums. It was a beautiful day off in the neighborhood. Yellows and greens and blues and browns and greys and hues that ooze beneath dilapidated wood.

I mean, paraphrasing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar? That’s some deep intertextuality. The rhythmic flow of the verse alone, not to speak of its content, is absolutely mesmerizing.

This track represents the best of many collaborations between Outkast and Goodie MOB, two groups who came out of the Atlanta-based hip-hop collective known as the Dungeon Family/Organized Noize Productions in the mid-1990s. Their 1998 albums, Aquemini and Still Standing, not only represent a pioneering moment for Southern hip-hop, but were also formative for me as a twenty-something growing into my identity.

These albums, along with Outkast and Goodie MOB’s earlier releases, were the soundtrack to a relationship that eventually led to my coming out as bisexual after I realized I was in love with my best friend. One of the cornerstones of our friendship was hip-hop: we were both white girls with a deep affinity for Black music, and our strongest bonds were forged through listening to music together. We met freshman year in the student union watching ABC soap operas like One Life to Live and General Hospital. We were smart, politically conscious, feminist young women with an inexplicable affection for a deeply patriarchal genre — go figure.

Although there is nothing inherently problematic about two white girls loving hip-hop and R&B, I now realize that some of the things we did — like my friend braiding my hair into cornrows — were culturally appropriative. However, despite our shared whiteness there were also stark differences in our backgrounds. She grew up poor in the South, calling people from the north “Yankees,” while I was a middle-class product of highly educated professionals raised as a “red diaper baby” in San Francisco. Our bond strengthened even after she transferred to a college in her hometown after sophomore year. After I finished college and moved to Italy for a year and a half — her family’s graduation present to her was a ticket to visit me there — I was back in San Francisco, and soon after, she moved out west.

It was when my friend moved to San Francisco in 1998 that I became a serious fan of Outkast and Goodie MOB; that year, Aquemini would go on to secure Atlanta’s place in the hip-hop pantheon. My friend and I would get high and listen to the groups’ various albums, breaking down the depth and eccentricity of André’s rhymes on “Black Ice,” and Cee-Lo Green’s gorgeous, soulful singing on “Liberation.” And then there were the infectious beats, which sounded nothing like east- or west-coast hip-hop; they had their own flavor. The musical interlude in the middle of “Rosa Parks” sounded like a straight-up southern hoe-down (or at least what I imagined it would sound like): there was whooping and hollering, off-beat handclaps, a country-sounding harmonica solo, and lots of southern Black slang.

I still consider Aquemini to be one of the top five (maybe even the best) albums in the history of hip-hop. It’s just shy of perfection, its one weak link the cringe-worthy “Mamacita,” which always seemed to me like it was dropped into the album from outer space. The rest of the album is a masterpiece of storytelling. Take “SpottieOttieDopaliscious.” Those infectious horn riffs riding over the laid-back beat are unforgettable; and if you had forgotten about them, Queen Bey reminded us when she sampled them on Lemonade’s “All Night.”

I particularly love Big Boi’s verse:
Yes, when I first met my SpottieOttieDopaliscious angel, I can remember that damn thing like it was yesterday. The way she moved reminded me of a brown stallion horse with skates on, you know — smooth like a hot comb on nappy-ass hair. I walked up on her and was almost paralyzed, her neck was smellin’ sweeter than a plate of yams with extra syrup.
And that last line: “Go on and marinate on that for a minute.”

I can’t imagine being from Atlanta and hearing an album like this blow up nationally; it must have been such a tremendous affirmation of Black Southern identity.

I always loved how different André and Big Boi’s styles were, and how they complemented each other: the bohemian André spitting abstract lyrics whose meaning was open to interpretation, throwing dozens of unrelated references into each of his verses vs. the down-to-earth, more relatable (yet very evocative) storytelling of Big Boi (as heard in “West Savannah” on Aquemini). And then there’s the other eccentric MC of the Dungeon Family (who later became a “problematic fave”), Cee-Lo Green. Forget Gnarls Barkley and everything that came after his crossover to the mainstream. For me, he did his best work with Goodie MOB, where he not only wrote some of the most deeply felt verses but sang almost all the choruses. I remember waxing poetic with my friend about his verse on “Cell Therapy” from Soul Food: “Every now and then, I wonder if the gate was put up to keep crime out or keep our ass in.” It still slays me with its potent truth. Cee-Lo shining a light on the security apparatus constructed around Black neighborhoods was a revelation for this middle-class white girl who had always felt the freedom to come and go as I pleased.

Among the many topics of conversation during our late-night listening sessions was the specific brand of hip-hop feminism found in Outkast and Goodie MOB songs, like “Beautiful Skin,” which extolled the importance of self-love for Black women. My older, wiser self is more skeptical of the respectability politics in this song — the idea that Black women are either queens or gold-diggers instead of complex, fully human people — but back then I was impressed by the groups’ deviation from the “bitches and ho’s” misogyny that was (and still is) so pervasive in hip-hop. On the other hand, “Guess Who,” an ode to Black mothers backed by sparse, haunting keyboard accompaniment, stands the test of time. Khujo, Cee-Lo, Big Gipp, and T-Mo each offer soul-wrenching verses chronicling the struggles of being a mother enveloped in poverty. After giving thanks for all the times his “old bird” bailed him out, Khujo injects some humor into a taboo topic: “Guess who beat the dog shit out of me kid? My momma don’t play. Shit, I had to pick the switches.” It’s not PC, but it’s a real, complex, non-romanticized portrait of Black motherhood. Although we never spoke directly about it, I wonder if my friend also thought about her own family history—her stepfather was physically abusive—when she heard this song. For me, corporal punishment was a foreign concept, but my friend’s history was proof that it wasn’t a “cultural difference” between Black and white people (as it’s often represented).

My friend and I shared a love of many 1990s hip-hop groups — WuTang, Gang Starr, Black Star — but Outkast and Goodie MOB are the ones that make me think of her. It’s because they, like her, wore their Southern-ness as a badge of honor, challenging the widespread stereotypes of the region as “redneck,” “backward,” and “racist” (as if our country’s deep entanglement with systematic racism could be contained within one region). Just like André’s infamous, defiant acceptance speech at the 1995 Source Awards when Outkast won Best New Artist and the audience booed, my friend always felt that “The South got something to say.”

Beyond casual acquaintances, I don’t think I’d ever really known anyone from the South before I met her, and she ended up teaching me my greatest lessons about class in this country and the still-existing chasms between the North and South. She taught me about what it was like to grow up white and poor, without the safety net I had taken for granted, and that in the South—despite its inescapable history of slavery and Jim Crow—there is a cultural intimacy between white and Black people (particularly those who are poor) that isn’t visible in the more segregated, supposedly more “progressive” North.

The beginning of the end of our friendship happened in the middle of a road trip from the Bay Area to the Grand Canyon in August 2002. I realized I could no longer deny my feelings for her and, unable to hide my dread or put physical distance between us, I told her. My dread stemmed not only from the realization that I was queer but that I had shame about it. It’s ironic: I grew up in one of the most queer-friendly cities in the world, and I still wasn’t immune to internalized homophobia. Although she also identified as queer by then, after a few days of thinking on it my friend told me she didn’t see us having that type of relationship. Initially I put some distance between us to heal—though I began seeking out queer community and opportunities to date women. After several months we resumed our friendship, which was forced in some ways by a holiday trip we had agreed to go on with a large group of friends; to my surprise, we became close again quickly and easily.

But in 2006, after beginning a serious romantic relationship, my friend decided our friendship was no longer healthy, that it was “codependent” (at the time she was working on fixing her self-diagnosed codependency issues and had been attending twelve-step meetings). Two months before, in the leadup to my 30th birthday, she had refused to honor my request to a group of close friends to organize a party; she said she didn’t want the responsibility of guessing what kind of celebration I wanted. I probably should have ended the friendship right then and there. Instead, I angrily vented to other friends. Then she dumped me, while we were both bridesmaids in a mutual friend’s wedding. In what to me was a stunningly selfish act, she said she just couldn’t wait until after the wedding; no matter that we would have to attend social events together and “make nice” in public, and that this might be incredibly painful for me.

The hurt, anger, and sense of betrayal — especially after I had done the emotional heavy lifting of getting over her and still trying to maintain a friendship — ran incredibly deep, more so than with any previous breakup in my life (romantic or not). The worst part was that she minimized our bond as just another friendship, completely disregarding the intense emotional attachment we had forged with each other, because she had decided it was a codependent relationship. I had been the sum total of her support system when she moved across the country to San Francisco, and I’m certain she wouldn’t have uprooted her life and taken this risk if I hadn’t lived there.

Completely coincidentally, I’ve been going through old memorabilia and letters in recent weeks and came across all the letters my friend had written to me throughout our friendship. On the inside flap of the envelope for a letter sent on March 30, 1998, she wrote, “I have this dream of a Celie/Shug type sharing/reading of all our letters together one day so I hope you’re holding on to them!” These are not the casual words of an average friend; they are a declaration of love for a best friend, of deep connection between two people that the writer expects to last a lifetime. It’s not lost on me that she thought about our relationship in terms of The Color Purple, as many of her frames of reference related to Black art and culture. But perhaps the mention of Celie and Shug also suggested she felt something more than friendship for me.

It took years to get over the betrayal I felt, but in retrospect I can see that our breakup was for the best, as she didn’t deserve the endless support I had given her. I was giving too much and not getting enough, and yet I was still clinging to the relationship.

I can’t explain why, but despite all the hurt and anger, the moments we shared — particularly our bonding over Outkast and Goodie MOB, as well as getting high and watching Friday, Half Baked, and old episodes of Wonder Woman — still make me nostalgic. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had revenge fantasies of her crawling back to beg my forgiveness and me saying no. But I can’t throw out all my experiences with her as wasted. Maybe I’m a sucker. I tend to be loyal to a fault and have always had trouble letting go of relationships I’ve invested in, even if they weren’t good for me. Whatever my psychological hang-ups though, I truly believed our friendship would last the length of our lives.

As I came to accept my bisexuality, it started to make sense as an authentic identity for me. I reflected on how I had always shied away from black and white views of the world and often found myself in grey territory. To my surprise, I ended up falling in love with a man, a relationship that began as a summer fling in Cuba, where I was conducting research for my doctorate. Perhaps less surprising was that I ended up creating a biracial, bicultural, bilingual family (another manifestation of my bi-ness, I guess).

My queerness went underground for quite some time during my 30s, not because I purposefully hid it, but because I was busy cultivating other aspects of myself: the ethnomusicologist and Cuba scholar, the mom, the PhD abandoned by academia struggling to redefine myself professionally. However, it’s still an integral part of my identity. Like most bi people, I feel like I can never stop reminding people that one’s sexuality isn’t defined by who they’re partnered with and that our bi-ness doesn’t just evaporate into thin air if we settle down with a man or a woman and are in a monogamous relationship.

Maybe in the end I’m not a sucker. Perhaps now that it’s been over a decade and my anger and pain have lessened, I can appreciate the good memories I have with my friend, the experiences that were so formative for me as a young adult, and the fact that this relationship led me to my bisexuality and turned me into a lifelong Outkast and Goodie MOB fan.

The chorus for Aquemini’s title track is an apt metaphor for this relationship, and the idea that although friendships (and romantic partnerships) don’t necessarily last forever, they can inspire a kind of ride-or-die loyalty:

Even the sun goes down, heroes eventually die
Horoscopes often lie, and sometimes “y”
Nothin’ is for sure, nothin’ is for certain, nothin’ lasts forever
But until they close the curtain, it’s him and I: Aquemini

ALBUM REVIEW: Gringo Star “Float Out To See”

Though the world is hardly hurting for sixties-inspired doo-wop indie rock, Gringo Star‘s latest release, Floating Out To See, skews rock and roll in an irrepressibly colorful direction that’s too much fun not to pay attention to. Brothers Nicholas and Peter Furgiuele grew up raiding their parents’ record collection, and it shows: the Atlanta-based trio composed of the two brothers and, most recently, multi-instrumentalist Chris Kaufmann repurpose sunny riffs and hummable harmonies from sixties rock. Sometimes, their music could fit right onto a record from that decade, but more often a Gringo Star song feels like more than imitation: they recall the atmosphere of blissful excitement behind a Beach Boys song or a Turtles song, but along with evocative chord progressions and a generous helping of reverb, Gringo Star mix in plenty of modern-day psychedelic bells and whistles to bring off the finish.

The name, in fact, is not a Beatles reference. As the group told one interviewer a couple of years ago, it’s inspired by Mexican slang they’d picked up working in kitchens. That anecdote gives you a decent idea of what to expect going into Floating Out To See: the project was entirely DIY, the first of the group’s three albums to be put together without a producer, and the tracks on this thing are short, catchy, and crackling. The album sounds like a brilliantly half-baked bid for glory, but if you listen closer, the distortion on this record cloaks a lot of melodic detail and very strong musicianship. It’s as if Gringo Star wants to make simply-constructed instant hits, but can’t resist slipping him an extra riff or harmony here and there.

Then there are the unexpected instrumental breaks that pepper this album. Though they don’t seem to fit into the rest of the music at all, the musical lines are a pleasure to listen to, both on their own and laid over the rest of the band. The first song on this album, “In The Heat,” barely sees a vocal line, instead giving itself over to an easy beat that saunters through the track from start to finish. It’s an unpredictable opener for a band like Gringo Star, and although so many of the group’s beats and harmonies are well-worn, it’s only one of the ways in which Float Out To See defies expectations. Six tracks in, “Satisfy My Mind” melts from a fast-paced cut-and-copy rock number into an extended drum solo, which lasts for a solid thirty seconds.

With tightly controlled musicality, the album speeds up, and slows down, and speeds up again. Sometimes brooding, sometimes barely containing its excitement, Float Out To See contains an impressive number of elegant shifts in mood and intent. Gringo Star hits a gorgeous balance of immaturity and sophistication here, which, hopefully, will afford them room to experiment for many albums to come.

Find Gringo Star on Facebook, and watch the music video for “Find A Love,” off Floating Out To See, here:

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