When I meet up with feminist punk duo True Dreams<\/a> at drummer Hannah Nichols’ Brooklyn apartment, they’re wearing what they call their “uniforms”: black school girl skirts, leather harnesses, and crisp white Dickies button downs, each emblazoned with half of the band’s logo: Nichols’ shoulder says “TRUE” and guitarist Angela Carlucci’s says “DREAMS” in a slimey green font with pink stars Carlucci embroidered herself. It’s a twisted take on the “Best Friends” necklaces girls trade with their gal pals in grade school, each half of the necklace a broken heart that connect to the other whenever said besties reunite. Nichols and Carlucci are very much two halves of a whole, their friendship the gooey glue that holds their band together; on their forthcoming LP No. 1<\/em>, you can hear it pulse in their call-and-response vocals, shouting out supportive messages to one another (and to anyone else that might need to hear them).<\/p>\n “A big part of our band is our friendship,” Nichols says. “We\u2019re best friends – [Angela] is like a sister to me. You can’t separate the two.” They co-write everything, and Carlucci says the act of writing together is a huge adrenaline rush. “We really try to make it 50-50,” she says. “There\u2019s no one leading.” The egalitarian approach is rooted in their political ideals, which make their way into the songs as well.<\/p>\n Carlucci and Nichols met at a video shoot for an ex-boyfriend’s band, back when Nichols was just beginning to learn drums on an electronic kit in her living room. Carlucci had already been involved with a number of anti-folk bands, most notably with duo The Baby Skins<\/a> and as a backup singer with Herman D\u00fcne<\/a>, as well as releasing solo work under the moniker Little Cobweb<\/a>. As the two became close, they realized making music together was the next step, and punk music felt the most accessible. “Growing up listening to punk bands was what made me want to play drums,” Nichols says. “[Punk] is fairly easy to pick up; it\u2019s simple when you\u2019re first starting out. It was what I wanted to do and what I was capable of.”<\/p>\n Carlucci says “as soon as I learned Hannah was learning to play I was already scheming\u201d to get a band going, but it took a while for Nichols to feel confident enough to do so. They formed True Dreams about four years ago, and the project is now beginning to bear fruit – they released a three-song EP in 2016<\/a>, and slightly re-mastered versions of those songs will appear on their forthcoming full-length No. 1<\/em>, out Novembver 22 on King Pizza Records in Brooklyn and Lousy Moon Records in Frankfurt, Germany. Audiofemme is pleased to premiere its first single and title track, “No. 1.”<\/p>\n