*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Izzy Cihak: You’re gearing up to release Coin-O-Matic, which I know revolves around this sort of secret history of Rhode Island, but I’m curious how you think the album compares to previous releases in terms of the writing and recording process?  I know you did it in your home studio, but that it is your first self-produced album.

John McCauley: I don’t know so much about this history being a secret around here.  I mean, I kind of grew up assuming that every town in America had a mafia [laughs].  But that’s not really what the whole thing is about.  It’s very inspired by growing up in Rhode Island in general.  There’s some songs about criminals and whatever, mafiosos, but there’s also a lot of songs about family and religion and stuff like that.

Anyways, about the recording process…  At this stage in our career — we’ve been a band for over 20 years now — we’re comfortable in the studio and we know what we like.  And Dennis [Ryan, drummer] has spent the last several years really working on his engineering skills.  We were making demos at our studio, and they sounded good enough to release, so we thought, “Maybe this is the moment where we kind of bring it all home.  We do the record here in Rhode Island, we make a record about Rhode Island, we produce it ourselves, and we just take the money that the label was gonna give us to hire a producer and have to cram the whole process into a week, maybe two weeks, if we’re lucky.  Let’s just take that money and invest it in our studio, and we can work at a more leisurely pace.  And if any unforeseen roadblocks get in the way, it’s not a big deal, we’ve got all the time in the world now.”

Izzy: Have you had any favorite early reactions to the new music?

John: A lot of people have picked up on the writing, which means a lot to me.  I put in a lot of extra work, more than usual, on these songs, so to be recognized by a few people for that felt really nice.  My friend Gabe called my songs on the record “elevated” [laughs], “Elevated Deer Tick” [laughs].  So, that’s cool.

Izzy: It’s your second full-length for ATO Records, which is such a great label and home to so many of my favorite people [including PHILTHY phriends Friko, Joseph, and Margaret Glaspy].  How has it been working with them and being a part of that roster?

John: It’s great!  I’ve been aware of ATO Records for as long as I can remember, and a lot of musicians I know, some that I’m friends with, are on that label and have put out some terrific records with them.  They’ve been very supportive.  They’re psyched on our new music, and when you’re in the same band 20 years later and there’s people telling you that your music still excites them, that’s nice.  But yeah, they’ve been very helpful and I’ve enjoyed our relationship so far.

Izzy: Since you mentioned ATO having a lot of artists that you like, or even that you’re friends with, do you have any particular favorite labelmates?

John: Oh, gosh!  Alabama Shakes has put out music with them, My Morning Jacket (I love those guys), Rayland Baxter.  It’s just a cool and very deep roster they’ve got there.

Izzy: Next month you kick off a ton of live dates with three separate runs.  Are there any dates you’re especially excited about, or just cities you’re especially excited to revisit?

John: Philly’s always fun.  You can’t really get a good cheesesteak around here [laughs].  You especially cannot get a Philly roast pork sandwich here.

Ian O’ Neil [joining call after brief technical difficulties]: There’s one place in North Providence that almost does it, but they just don’t put the pork on it.

John: What?!?!

Ian: It’s like broccoli rabe, provolone, and then no pork.

John: Doesn’t that sound like some bullshit, Izzy?

Izzy: Yeah…  And, on that note, you have played Philly I don’t even know how many times over the years.  I feel like I’ve seen you at least a dozen times and maybe missed you just as many.  Do you have any favorite memories or experiences throughout the city?

John: Union Transfer was pretty memorable the time when there was a gas leak in the building [laughs].

Ian: That kind of bummed me out, actually [laughs].

John: Maybe not a favorite memory of Philly, but definitely a memory…  I’ve always had a lot of fun in Philly.  One early gig that we did there was a house show and I was 20 and I remember going out after the show.  We went to the Pretzel Factory and got a bag of pretzels, and everybody was like, “We’re gonna sneak you into the bar, John.  We’re gonna figure it out.”  We got to some bar and my friend Jacob gave me his ID.  I don’t look anything like him, but he looked a little bit older than me, I guess.  He handed the door guy a pretzel and the door guy just let him in, without checking his ID.  And I didn’t have any pretzels, so of course he checked my ID, and I gave him Jacob’s [laughs].  That’s how I got into the bar that night!

Izzy: On this upcoming run you’re playing Underground Arts…  It is definitely the smallest venue that you’ve played in Philly in a long time, unless you count the Free At Noons…  What can be expected of the live show on this run, in this room that’s literally half the size of Union Transfer?

John: I think we’re trying to get the rooms a little smaller, so it’s just packed out and feels more exciting to be standing in the crowd.  We’re bringing out a friend of ours, Jeff Dazey, who plays with Nathaniel Rateliff and Leon Bridges, and he’s gonna be playing keyboards and saxophone.  It’s gonna be a proper album release tour and it should be a lot of fun.

Izzy: You were talking about this, doing it for two decades now, and not only do you have a huge catalogue at this point, but you also seem to play fairly different setlists every night.  How do you decide on what songs to bring out on any given tour, or even individual nights?

John: Having new material complicates things, because it messes with the calculus [laughs].

Ian: It pushes things in a weird direction the first time we go out with new material.

John: Fans expect a certain amount of familiar material.  We’ve gone really heavy on new stuff and covers, and the success rate can be not as high as when we mix it up a little bit more [laughs].  So, we always try to find a good balance, but we have to entertain ourselves, too.  I don’t know when we kinda figured it out…

Ian: We’ve put out so many albums at this point, and done this exact kind of thing so many times, where we have to decide.  We kind of start out thinking that every single new song is absolutely essential for the rest of our career because it’s the best thing we’ve ever done [laughs].  And then you learn over time which ones make the most sense to be playing on a nightly basis, or which ones end up joining the ranks of your quote unquote greatest hits, the ones that are kind of perennial songs that you’ll play the rest of your career.  Even though you hope that like every single song you ever write and record is absolutely essential, you learn along the way which ones are [laughs].  You don’t wanna cut them off at the knees from the outset, but it’s kind of like a natural culling process of figuring out what’s best live.

Izzy: Do you feel like there are previous records, or periods of the band, where the music gels especially well with the new record, that we might expect to hear a fair amount of?

John: I think there’re a lot of similarities with our earliest stuff.  The new record’s kind of a cross between the first couple albums and Emotional Contracts, our latest album.  I think that’s where I feel like fits in our catalogue, and maybe a little bit Vol.1 and Vol. 2.  I think there’s some kind of mid-period Deer Tick stuff that maybe the new album’s not so similar to.

Izzy: This is totally an Ian question, about a song that I’m not expecting to hear, but I’ve definitely heard you play a lot.  I have a radio show, Philthy Radio, on Y-Not Radio which is essentially an extension of this, and on the latest edition I talked about the show and played “Now It’s Your Turn,” which I know is one of the ones you wrote.  It’s a longtime favorite, which you don’t play a ton these days, but I’ve seen you play it many times back in the day, so I’m curious if you have any memories of how that song came about or even of just playing it live?

Ian: That song was written when I was a very young man [laughs] about a personal relationship situation, but that’s probably as specific as I wanna get with that…  But, the cool thing about that song is, I was listening to a lot of Harry Nilsson at the time and I think it was the first time I cracked some codes on some chord changes that I hadn’t yet explored, kind of getting closer to my love for standard songs, that kind of traditional songwriting.  I had tried to get to that place before on my own, and I don’t think I quite had, so that was the closest I got to that.  That’s kind of a cousin song to “A Light Can Go Out in the Heart” from Emotional Contracts, just ‘cause they’re kind of approaching my absolute love for that type of songwriting.  But we have been playing that one more often recently than we had been, and kind of playing it in a heavier way, which seems counterintuitive, but it’s really fun, so maybe we’ll break it out, if you’re there.  Let me know!

Izzy: Yeah!  I will definitely be there!  And, on that note of the Philadelphia show, it’s your first of a number with Jobi Riccio, who I met last year and totally love, so I’m curious if you have any thoughts on her and her music?

John: When we got a list from our booking agency, like, “These are some bands that could open for you,” Jobi really stood out to me and I think, unanimously, she was on everybody’s list of openers.  She sounds great, so I’m really excited to see her play every night and get to know her.

Izzy: You’ll be returning to the Newport Folk Festival this July, which you’ve played a bunch in the past and which always has kind of an insane lineup.  What’s it like playing Newport?  And do you have any favorite memories of it?

Ian: We’ve been there so many times.  Two memories, and then I’ll let John go [laughs].  We have this tick, pun intended, where we kind of try to subvert expectations when we’re put in a place.  Like, at Newport, you could really do the Newport thing and play “The Weight” by The Band or something like that [laughs].  We opened one of our sets with “Mother” by John Lennon, which I thought was a really fun choice, and when you make a choice like that, it kind of sets this set off-kilter from what else is happening during the day, so that was a really memorable thing to me.  Another one was we played a Bob Dylan tribute thing with the guys from Dawes, and a friend of ours, who has since passed, handed me Bob Dylan’s guitar he played at Newport in 1965, and I got to play that.  So, that’s obviously a highlight.

Izzy: Yeah, that’s pretty insane.

John: You got to play the guitar that pissed Pete Seeger off…  A memory that stands out to me is I was playing as a solo artist one year and I brought my mom up to sing a cover of “Margaritaville” with me…  She’s a Parrothead [laughs].  And it was being broadcast nationally on NPR, so like two or three million people heard my mom singing “Margaritaville,” which was really funny to me.

Izzy: You do have a few gaps in your upcoming live runs, so I’m curious how you hope to spend your time off of the road, whether relating to Deer Tick or just kind of having fun and getting some downtime?

John: I’m either gonna be on the beach, if the weather’s nice, or probably smoke a little pot and just watch Jeff Beck videos on YouTube.

Ian: [Laughs] I will also be on the beach.  We’ve got kids and stuff like that, and we haven’t been home for a summer in a couple of years, so after this June run we’ve got a couple genuine months of summer, with Newport in there, too…  The Newport thing will be really fun.  We’ll have to spend some time preparing for that, because we’re going to be having various musicians and guests and friends…  What I think will be fun about that, probably fun and nerve-wracking, is just figuring out who’s around and what we can do, but that’ll be cool.

Izzy: I saw that!  I saw it was billed as Deer Tick and Friends.

John: Yeah, they were like, “You wanna play Newport?”  And we were like, “Okay, sure.”  And then they were like, “Okay, it’s Deer Tick and Friends,” so we’re like, “Ah, shit, now we gotta practice” [laughs].

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Izzy Cihak: The last time we talked was last August, after The Rubber Teeth Talk dropped and a little before your headlining tour behind the album.  What do you consider to be some of the highlights of the album cycle since then?

Daisy the Great: Yes!  We put the album out in early summer and then went on tour in the fall.  It was such a special tour.  It’s always so moving to perform the music you’ve been working on for people in a live space where it feels like you’re delivering songs directly to your audience.  We played Bowery Ballroom in New York, which was a dream venue.  We also played a few record store in stores and it’s so awesome to see them line the walls with your record and to see people buying it off a real shelf.  It’s been so cool to be a band for almost ten years and to grow with your music.  We’ve been working on something special to celebrate a year of the album being out that we’re going to announce very, very soon and that has also been a blast to work on.

Izzy Cihak: Considering that the LP has been out for about a year, do you currently have a favorite album track, whether one that’s most fun to play live or one that might signal where future sounds might be headed?  I realize those are kind of two different things…

Daisy the Great: Our favorite songs change all the time, but we’ve been really liking playing “Sue Me Alice,” “Dream Song,” and “Lemon Seeds” live on this tour.  We don’t know totally what the next sound will be like, but we’ve recently been really excited by using some more experimental vocal styles and want to sit and explore that more when we get home.

Izzy Cihak You did just release “Can I Have A Moment,” a sort of breakup song.  How do you feel like the song compares to the music on The Rubber Teeth Talk?  Does it feel like an evolution of that sound, or were you trying some new things, whether with writing or recording?

Daisy the Great: “Can I Have A Moment” was actually written around 2022 and then reworked while we were writing the album, so it feels like a part of that world but more of a stand-alone song.  We didn’t put it on the album, but we love the song and wanted it to exist in the world.

Izzy Cihak: You also made a really cool video for the track with your buddy Jack Haven, who also just did a really cool video with Lowertown, which I was just talking with them (Lowertown) about, and which I know you (Mina) also worked on!  Anyway, the last time we spoke, you spent a lot of time talking about using your music videos to help build a world around The Rubber Teeth Talk, so I’m curious if you consider this video to be an extension of that world, or possibly the start of a new world… or just something that you’re exploring in-between?

Daisy the Great: Yeah, we’ve known Jack for 14 years, so it was a real pleasure to get to make this video together.  They’ve been in a few of our music videos over the years and a pretty constant collaborator in our lives, so we thought it was about time they directed a music video.  We wanted to make something quick and raw and a little embarrassing to pair with the sentiment of the song and it was such a fun video to make.  It definitely has aspects of the spirit of how we always like to make videos: something that feels playful and handmade, but it does feel like it lives in its own world.

Izzy Cihak: You just kicked off a big summer tour, mostly consisting of dates opening massive rooms for Tash Sultana.  What can be expected of the Daisy the Great show on this run?  You’ve told me that you love having big stages to run around on, and I know that you’ve played support slots on a lot of massive tours before, so it’s definitely nothing new to you.

Daisy the Great: This is the first time we’ve ever been on a full tour playing as a duo without our band behind us!  It has been so special to be working on the show in this way, it really reminds us of playing together when we were starting out.  Getting the chance to sing together like this on these stages definitely helps to put it into perspective how much we’ve grown together but also reminds us of younger us and why we initially fell in love with playing music together.  We’re grateful to have the opportunity to show the songs in that very intimate and vulnerable way and to let the raw lyrics and melodies have their time in the sun.  We’re also performing our hocket cover of “Tom’s Diner” on the tour and that has been so much fun as well.

Izzy Cihak: And what are your thoughts on Tash Sultana?  I definitely dig them, but I’ve, somehow, never seen them before.

Daisy the Great: Tash is so kind and talented and everyone in their camp is so lovely!  They’re taking good care of us out on the road.  We played Bananagrams backstage with their band the other day and they are, in addition to being super talented, also so, so funny and sweet.  Tash plays alone on stage for a good chunk of the set and that has been really cool and inspiring, especially as we’re on our first duo run, to see them build this huge sound with loopers and layers all on their own.

Izzy Cihak: What are you hoping and planning for the second half of 2026?

Daisy the Great: We have a big project that we’ve been working on that we will be announcing soon!  That has been all consuming for a while and we’re so, so excited about it.  We’re also planning to start writing again too when we get back home.

Izzy Cihak: Finally, not to detract from your own music (although I’m going to, haha), but this tour kicked off the day before Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, so I have to ask if you have any favorite summertime jams that you grew up with or that have soundtracked summers of recent years?

Daisy the Great: Totally.  Here are some of our faves: “Extraordinary Machine” by Fiona Apple, “Small Car” by John Lurie/Marvin Pontiac, “Going Up the Country” by Canned Heat, “Fruits of My Labor” by Lucinda Williams, “Letters” by @, “Feisty” by Smerz, “Outstanding” by The Gap Band, “The Thing” by Pixies, “Rill Rill” by Sleigh Bells, “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches, “Everywhere” by Michelle Branch, “I’m into Something Good” by Herman’s Hermits, “Cactus” by Sam Evian, “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain, and the whole Loaded album by The Velvet Underground is also a go to summer album.

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“They’re all very different and yet they all feed into one another,” Kiesza says of the trilogy of EPs during a phone chat earlier this month, slightly prior to both Vol. 3’s drop and the accompanying tour (at which time she tells me she’s currently trying to remember the choreography from her most recent shows in addition to coming up with choreography for the new songs).  “I don’t always get all the songs done before one is released, so some songs carry over.  Like, some songs written around the time of the second one will wind up on the third one, or some songs written around the time of the first one might even wind up on the third one,” she explains, going on to say, “They all have little bits of each other in them, but they each have a song that seems central to build around.”

FEMMUSIC characterizes Dancing and Crying: Vol. 3’s second and most recent single, “When I’m Dancing,” by saying, “With smooth, technically perfected vocals and steady, hypnotizing production, ‘When I’m Dancing’ captures the universal sentiment of letting go of everyday struggles on the dancefloor,” but Kiesza tells me that the release actually had some seemingly unlikely influences: “For Vol. 3, I was listening to a lot of Pink Floyd.  You can hear the guitar and the drums and the use of panning.  I wanted to pan really hard, but then I realized not everyone can hear out of both ears, so I softened it a little bit… but I wanted to create a 3D effect.”  She goes on to explain that much of the EP’s sound was inspired by the studio experience itself: “Vol. 3 was done all in an analogue studio; we were like kids in a candy shop with all these synthesizers and vintage mics.”

Kiesza has been bringing her dance EPs to stages across North America (and now the world) since Dancing and Crying: Vol. 1 dropped in May of 2024, and the live show has apparently been transforming along the way.  “I’ve been evolving it as I go.  It really is a unique, hybrid show.  In dance music, most people are DJs, but I’m a really theatrical performer,” she explains, admitting that she was originally leaning a little more on the latter approach: “For the tour for the first EP, it was essentially a theatre show to dance music, but it was definitely way too long, like over an hour and a half, and I think some people were happy to leave [laughs].”  However, she assures fans that her theatricality isn’t something she plans to let go of anytime soon.

“They loved watching me do my big theatre production, but they weren’t really dancing.  And because it’s dance music, I want them to experience the music.  So, the next show was kind of like a DJ set, but there were no breaks, one song flowed into every other song.  For certain songs they wanted to sit and watch me, and sometimes they wanted to dance…  The Dancing and Crying Vol. 2 tour worked really well, so I’m building on that concept, but maybe with one break, just for me to catch my breath and have some water [laughs].”

This eclecticism applies to Kiesza’s sense of style as well: “I’m like the anti-brand artist, and it’s not that I have anything against brands, it’s just I really have that many vibes to my personality!  I dramatize how I’m feeling every day.  I’m eccentric in that way, and so is my mom, and so is my grandma!”  However, she does admit to understanding the concept of traditional branding, even if she’s happy to be beyond that point in her career: “For ‘Hideaway,’ I did do the branding thing, and it does work… but then you change and you get upset.  I get it, that ‘90s girl with the Reeboks and the mohawk’ thing, and that became my brand, but then they’re like, ‘Don’t take your mohawk off, that’s your brand!’  I understand the corporate side, but I’m eclectic and that’s what defines me!”

I ask if she has any looks amongst fans that she especially appreciates, or that she would encourage fans to consider when coming out to the Dancing and Crying Tour, and Kiesza tells me, “They’ll dress up like an eccentric version of themselves, like themselves with glitter, while they want to wear glitter every day…  I just like it when they aren’t afraid to not hold back.  Like, if they’ve ever been like, ‘I wanted to wear that and didn’t,’ this is the time for that!  This is the show!”  And, fortunately, she tells me these tours have been attracting the kinds of audiences more than willing to give themselves to these sentiments: “Because I’m just touring again, I’ve kept it small, really small venues where I can control the lighting, with these core fans dancing their butts off, singing all of the old songs and the new songs…  It’s the core fanbase and it’s an emotional experience…  It is very much a dance party, but we connect.”

While Kiesza tells me that intimate shows with core fans tend to be her favorite, she does have more than a bit of experience playing to significantly bigger crowds, including a handful of 2014 dates providing support for Demi Lovato (with whom our phriend Cobrah also recently shared a stage) on her Demi World Tour arena jaunt, which she admits to enjoying as well: “When I’m with deadmau5 [whose 2020 single ‘Bridged by a Lightwave’ she features on], I’m playing for like 10,000 people…  And I’ve played festivals, and it’s exposure to a bigger fanbase, and when people see you live for the first time, they remember it.  I’ve actually had a lot of people meet at my sets at festivals and go on to get married.”

We almost got a chance to see Kiesza on a significantly larger stage – well, split the difference between 10,000 and The Foundry – in the summer of 2021 while she was opening for our buddy Lindsey Stirling (whose Artemis Tour played The Met), but her whole team got COVID and she and the other two members of her crew who tested negative decided to rent a van and book it back to their home in LA, which she admits may have been for the best, considering she was still recovering from a serious car accident in 2017 that led to a two-year hiatus due to a traumatic brain injury: “With the brain surgery, I was still in the midst of recovery…  That was a fun show, but I wasn’t able to do choreography because of my brain injury, so I was freestyling…  And everyone was like, ‘Should we be doing this?’”

Joining Kiesza for her North American dates is “raptress/actress” Rye Rye, who made a major splash with 2012 debut LP Go! Pop! Bang! and her appearance in 21 Jump Street the same year, but has been a bit out of the mainsteam spotlight for a few years.  “A lot of musicians who fall off the map, it’s not because of her or her music, but it’s like a label situation,” explains Kiesza, before telling me she’s a big fan of the musician: “I love Rye Rye!  My dancer Jaylen [Brown] literally screamed when the announcement came in!”  (Brown also appears on Dancing and Crying: Vol.2’s “Runway,” which you’ll likely hear at The Foundry.)  And Kiesza tells me she appreciates pairing with artists like Rye Rye: “I really try to lean into the indie artists.  We need to stick together out there…  And I think our music goes really well together.  I was touring with Bonnie McKee, who I love, but she wasn’t available.”  However, Kiesza tells me she definitely doesn’t mind having Rye Rye filling McKee’s role: “I’m gonna be fangirling hard for my opening act!”

Although an April press release called Dancing and Crying: Vol. 3 “the final installment of the singer’s dance trilogy,” Kiesza tells me that that’s not actually true: “I definitely have another volume of Dancing and Crying.  Dancing and Crying was created for me to grow through dance music.”  But she also tells me that there are additional musical projects she’s hoping to have in the relatively near future: “I have a bunch of folk music, and it wasn’t meant to be released.  It was just for me, like a journal entry, but some friends heard it and really liked it…  And I did an orchestra show a few years ago and that was incredible, so I’d like to explore that, and maybe even doing a ballet to my music, like making a ballet for me with my repertoire and collaborating with other artists…  I’m really into not limiting myself.”

Since 2020 sophomore LP Crave, all of Kiesza’s releases have come courtesy of her own label, Zebra Spirit Tribe, which she tells me she also hopes and plans to expand in the future, bringing on additional artists: “I do want to build the label.  I remember sending notes to my friends who had labels about artists I loved, and they were like, ‘They don’t have the Spotify numbers,’ or whatever, but it’s about a feeling, and of course [those artists] got huge!  I feel very confident in taking risks, so I think the label will be really special in that way.  I mean, I would sign a 90-year-old!  It’s not about Instagram likes.”  However, she admits that having your own label definitely isn’t easy… and that she’s grateful for the help that she has: “It’s tough, but it’s rewarding to have the freedom to do what I want, and nothing can replace that… but I really have to thank my manager a lot because she really helps me with the backend.”

Those who caught the latest edition of Philthy Radio (now streaming via Y-Not Radio) heard “Sky Ain’t The Limit,” a Crave track that I spun during a block dedicated to recent and upcoming graduates.  And while she hasn’t played the song in quite some time, Kiesza admits that not only does she still like it, but that it also serves as a milestone of sorts: “I love that song!  During that time when I was recovering, I was told this is what to expect for the rest of my life, but that turned out not to be true…  That was the first song I did with Jess Cake (with his band, Lick Drop), who produced Dancing and Crying: Volume 3 [who will also be DJing onstage for Kiesza].”  She also informs me that that’s one of the songs we missed out on during the Lindsey Stirling tour, and while she thinks it’s really cool, it might not quite fit the theatrical theme of this tour: “A lot of Crave songs haven’t been making the setlist.  We had been playing ‘Love Me with Your Lie,’ but it might get cut [laughs].”

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“Leaving Home Is Going Home” – which you may have heard on the latest edition of Philthy Radio, now streaming via Y-Not Radio – was the second single from Gracie and Rachel’s fourth full-length, If We Could, Would We, which dropped last month.  The LP follows 2023 EP Nowhere Now Here, their last release before spending some time apart (Gracie began working on solo material, while Rachel processed the conclusion of a long-term relationship.)  Although the new album would seem to represent a new iteration of the duo’s artistic relationship, when I present that to the two of them during our most recent phone chat, Gracie quickly amends the characterization: “I feel like it’s constantly new iterations over the past ten years.  You gotta mix it up when you’re together for that long!”

“The whole concept of the record is exploring our individuality,” Rachel explains of the album, which is comprised of four solo songs from each artist, in addition to four collaborative numbers (including “Leaving Home Is Going Home”).  And Gracie clarifies that this is something the two had actually been working on for some time: “I think in past work we were kind of willing the way, trying to give ourselves permission to go away and not seek the other person’s approval…  With the group, sometimes you feel like you need to write for the group, but now we’re writing different stories and our own stories.”

In addition to allowing themselves to write from different perspectives, If We Could, Would We also sees the duo expanding upon their origins as “a piano-violin orchestral pop thing,” as Gracie puts it.  “I think, from a production or aesthetic standpoint, we were purists in wanting a fairly minimalist backdrop, just coming in with our piano and violin and not too much production happening,” explains Rachel, going on to admit, “In recent years, I’ve become really interested in engineering and discovering new instruments.  When we started, it was like, ‘Eww, guitars!’ and now it’s the only instrument I want to play!”  She further acknowledges, “I have an affection for mind-changing and not being beholden to one aesthetic…  We did some pop-forward things, and now we’re more of a band-band, I think…  It’s romantic to think that a band is this one thing, but, like anyone, we have multitudes.”

If We Could, Would We had Gracie and Rachel working with producer Benjamin Lazar Davis of our phriends Cuddle Magic (whose lineup includes our good buddies Kristin Slipp and Cole Kamen-Green, AKA mmeadows), who the two confirm is a longtime friends of theirs, whose work they tell me they’re endlessly impressed by, even if it can be a lot at times: “Ben is an amazing person.  He goes in and he doesn’t come up for air for like 10 hours, and it’s intense, but he gets so much out of you as a songwriter because he just keeps pushing you, like time doesn’t exist and the outside world floats away for a bit.”  However, they also tell me that, after extended periods in the studio, he’s not afraid to switch it up and have everyone step out onto the porch with their instruments and just see what comes of it.

Although this upcoming batch of dates are Gracie and Rachel’s first since their latest LP dropped, many of the songs have already had a little road testing.  “We did a tour over the summer in Europe, and we were playing the song ‘WTF’ [If We Could, Would We’s lead single, which dropped last June], and people would yell out, ‘What the fuck?!’ and we were united in our bewilderment of what was going on in the world,” Gracie tells me when I ask if they’ve had any favorite reactions to the new music.  They also played this year’s SXSW on a showcase put on by booking agent Anniversary Group, with whom they’d just signed, prior to opening a run of shows for our mutual phriend Marissa Nadler, who also works with Anniversary Group and who Gracie and Rachel adore: “We just love Marissa so much!”

In terms of what can be expected of June 4th at MilkBoy, in addition to the “truest and rawest performance of the tour,” Gracie tells me, “We’re playing with a full band for the first time in forever, and they’re a stellar band,” while Rachel playfully adds, “There will be a lot of quiet moments and a lot of loud moments.”  And when I ask what they’re planning for the future they admit that they’re already planning on revamping the show for the West Coast run (which begins July 22nd in Seattle).  But they say that there are also a handful of Righteous Babe peers, including our phriend Jenna Nicholls, with upcoming releases you should check out: “Jenna Nicholls and Peter Mulvey have this great new project, Floyd Mercantile, and Pieta Brown is about to drop a new album, and we love her; we did the Righteous Babes tour with her.”  And they say that you should always be on the lookout for Ani DiFranco’s live shows: “We just got to see Ani perform on the last night of her run, in New York, but she’ll be coming back in August!”

*Get your tickets here.

Izzy Cihak: Last month you released Two Wheels Move the Soul, your sophomore album.  Have you had any favorite reactions to the LP so far?

Nina Cates: It’s been very cool to meet people who know the music in cities we’ve never played in before.

Izzy: How does it feel like the album compares to Wild Guess?

Nina: I think it’s a little colder maybe than Wild Guess, as far as writing it goes.  I think both were driven by being curious to try things, but I think having had Wild Guess out we felt more comfy wandering further off into new directions a bit–since there was a frame of reference already.

Izzy: Do you, at the moment, have a favorite album track?  I think “Bullseye” is my favorite this very second…

Nina: I love that you like “Bullseye” 🙂  I know our answers differ on faves between band members, but I’ve been stuck on “Avalanche Sound Effect” as my favorite for quite a while.  I think something about the simple intro and segmented build into chaos kinda scratches an itch for me

Izzy: You’ve recently put out a few really cool music videos for album tracks, including “Talkback” (which I know you made yourselves) and “The Sound It Made” (which was made by Wes Sterrs, who I was actually just talking about with Liz Cooper, who also recently collaborated with him), in addition to your cover of “Suspicious Minds.”  What kinds of things have been influencing the visual elements of Robber Robber recently?  Do you enjoy thinking about and working on that kind of stuff?

Nina: We are having a lot of fun finding old cameras or things that look cool sort of accidentally (like the security camera we used for the “Talkback” one) and then leaning into it.  It’s almost too easy to make things look pretty good with how nice phone cameras are these days that it’s kinda fun to hunt for old lo-fi things.  We tried to sneak in elements of old videogame motifs in “The Sound It Made” video and the “New Year’s Eve” video too.  We love thinking about the visual world of the band.

Izzy: Some artists hate this kind of question, but I can never help myself…  Considering that this is your sophomore LP, do you have any favorite sophomore LPs in your own music libraries?

Nina: Surfer Rosa is a stellar sophomore album.

Izzy: You’re currently on a batch of tour dates behind Two Wheels Move the Soul which wrap at our very own Johnny Brenda’s.  What can be expected of the live show?

Nina: I think it being the last show of tour will mean it’s pretty high energy and we’ll be pretty tour tight and dialed hopefully.  It’s been a fun process figuring out how to translate these songs live with just guitars and drums, but we’ve been loving playing them out and we have some new funny sounds we’ve figured out since our last time in Philly.  Tiny amps, clunking noises, broken stuff, we’re playing a combination of lots of the new record and some of our favorite live songs from the last record too.

Izzy: I just realized that this year will be the fifth anniversary of Caldera, your very first EP.  What are some of your most vivid memories of both making and touring your earliest music?

Nina: Woah!  Hey, Happy 5!  That’s crazy–we made the earliest EPs on laptops in basements and dorms and played a ton of basements and DIY shows, but definitely have learned a ton about touring more sustainably since then (energetically and financially, haha), fewer basements nowadays but we still have so much love for a nice basement show.  We threw one in on this run actually just for fun in Hadley, Massachusetts.

Izzy: On a related note, and this is a big question, but what are some of your biggest personal highlights of the first half-decade of the band?

Nina: The first time we were ever taken on a tour as support was huge for us.  We were supporting Thus Love and GIFT for a few shows in New England and that really felt like a milestone.  They’re all friends of ours too so it was especially fun.  The first time we ever played in New York was also a big one.  It was a shit show; we showed up for load in and they told us we couldn’t soundcheck because there was a comedy show that went on right until doors of our show, and we were getting shocked a lot, and I think the mic fully cut out during our friend’s set and she had to run over to the guitarist’s mic to finish the song.

Izzy: Following your current North American run, you have a bunch of fall dates, first supporting Modest Mouse at some pretty huge shows in the States, followed by a bunch of Europe and UK gigs.  Are there any cities or shows you’re especially excited about?

Nina: Ahh man, we’re excited about all of it!  The Modest Mouse shows will be the biggest we’ve ever played by a pretty big margin so we’re all incredibly excited to see what they’ll be like.  I’m also super psyched to play some of the festivals in Europe–it seems like they have a really supportive rock community out there.

Izzy: Between your current tour and those fall dates, you don’t have any shows (at the moment) announced for the summer, so I’m curious how you’re hoping and planning to spend this summer, whether relating to Robber Robber or just summertime fun, if you’re into that sort of thing…

Nina: Definitely trying to eat a lot of hotdogs on the beach but also stoked to have some time at home to write.  We’ve got a handful of ideas we’ve been batting around but haven’t had much time to focus on it since the fall, alongside touring and gearing up for Two Wheels’ release.  Summertime in Vermont is lovely though–glad to have some time to hang.

*Get your tickets here.

*Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Izzy Cihak: Thank you not only for taking the time to chat, but for making last night’s show happen!  I know you had some major issues, but it was amazing!

Cobrah: You’re welcome!  Yeah, it was insane!  I woke up in the morning, and you wake up where you’re gonna play, and I was like, “Okay, it’s in a gas station…” but there’s a reason for everything…  The tour manager called everybody out and was like, “The bus is broken down.”  I looked at the map, and we were twenty minutes outside Boston…  We were just like, “Pack your stuff!  Be ready to leave at any time!”  I remember sitting in the parking lot, doing my glam, with my fake lashes and my lip liner and everything.  They were like, “It’s a five-six-hour drive…” [laughs].  I think I got to the venue at 7:30 and did the meet and greet at 7:45.  We ran in there, like, “Let’s go!”  For them to be able to set up so that we could be on at 9:30, according to schedule, was magic to see!  That’s the result of a very good team, but also being at the end of the tour and everybody being so knowledgeable of what they’re going to do.

Izzy: Last night was my first time seeing you, but you did play Union Transfer two years ago, so I’m curious what you’ve thought of Philadelphia and the venue?

Cobrah: I love that venue.  I was so happy to come back.  They have what you need, a makeup room and also the PA, the way they position the speakers; it’s a very good place to play.  I think the show we did last was much, much more rowdy, in a good way.  Even though we played the same venue, it was a whole different type of show, so it was fun.  They have this sign in the back room, “Is it hot?  Does it look good?  Are you proud to serve it?”  Have you seen it?

Izzy: Yeah!  Because that building used to be The Spaghetti Warehouse, so it was referring to spaghetti, but they just kept it and it totally works…

Cobrah: It’s like the way my friends speak!  It’s such a good sign!  I remember that sign from last time and I’m so happy it’s still there, because it really works as a musician.  Like, “Am I proud to serve it!?”  Yes, I am!  And then you go on stage [laughs]!

Izzy: As you mentioned, you’re nearing the end of your North American dates behind Torn, which you’ve been touring since late March.  What have been some of the highlights and standout moments?

Cobrah: I probably have the loudest fans in the world.  It’s insane!  We hit some crazy decibel levels.  My sound technician told me that one time they were at 120 decibels for a like 1,000-cap show, and that’s the sound of plane engine [laughs].  My whole team has been like, “They’re so happy!”  I think that’s the best thing I’m taking away from this tour.  I’m very, very happy and grateful that everyone is so excited.  Sometimes artists are afraid that when they play they’re being judged.  When I play, I feel like everyone’s there to support and to be a part of it.  That’s the best thing I’ve taken away from this tour.

But there’s other stuff, as well.  There’s the Philly cheesesteak that my very nice merch girl ordered for everyone in the crew that’d I’d never had before… so delicious!  I visited a town in Kansas called Lindborg, which is a Swedish town.  There’s like 3,800 people that live there, and the college team is called Bethany Swedes, and everybody speaks Swedish.  It was really surreal.  If you’re Italian, you have Little Italy everywhere, but as a Swede, you never have Little Sweden, so that was really strange and fun!

Izzy: These have mostly been headlining dates, but you did kick off the tour at Treefort, which always has such an incredible lineup, and you played Coachella both weekends, which is obviously massive, and you’ve got a few more festivals in the summer in Europe.  How do you like playing the massive outdoor festivals, compared to your headlining shows, which are mostly in nightclubs?

Cobrah: Coachella was amazing.  They told me we hit the record of people in the tent for both weekends, which was crazy.  There’s challenges like the heat, partly because of the performance, but I have a lot of metal in my show, and when metal gets hot it expands, and it started to melt the glue in the set…  But then you have these massive crowds that are, from the stage, kind of infinite.  You have people partying, and it’s a whole other vibe.  The good thing about your headline shows is that you know that everybody’s there for you.  There’s a commitment there that is stronger.  But, for a festival, you gain a lot of new people.  They both have their charm, but I’m a perfectionist, so I do like a controlled environment a little bit more [laughs].

Izzy: I know that you’ve studied theatre and done work in fashion and film, so I’m curious what kinds of things you would consider your current live performance to have drawn inspiration from?

Cobrah: My set is very theatrical, and I wanted it to be like that because of the way I approached the album.  I creative directed it and I wanted it to feel very cinematic.  I feel like that’s somewhat rare because everything’s so short-form these days, the most bang for your buck, small videos or visualizers.  But I am really into making the art that I do, and I invest so much energy and time and money, so I wanted to bring that theatrical or cinematic sense onto the stage, having something that feels like more of a theatre set than a club set.

It was important to expand or move forward from the show that I did before, that was much clubbier, with the BDSM cross.  Now I have this softer approach.  Act 1 is the clubbier, more dominant act.  Then we have Act 2 — with “Torn” and “Charming” and “Snow White” — that’s the more emotional act, when we play really hard and one of my dancers steps on my chest [laughs].  Then we go to “10/10,” and then we do the party songs, “Wet Like” and “BRAND NEW BITCH.”  With the musical theatre background and my passion for telling more of a story with this album, I tried to do a version of that for the stage as well.

Izzy: I’ve gotta say, not only do you and your dancers really bring it, but your fans really turn up with their looks…  Have you had any favorite fan looks from throughout these dates?

Cobrah: I did have a fan not too long ago that dressed up as me, with the whole beige catsuit, and it was perfection… Exactly the same nails, which is really hard to do because they’re a rare sort of nails, and the exact same type of necklace… the wig and the makeup!  I was like, “How did you do that?”  Even the heels were a beige leather stiletto!  I was like, “You stuck it to perfection!”  That’s really fun when you see someone getting all the cues.

But people dress up, so anything that they do just makes me happy because it reminds me of what I used to do when I used to go to concerts.  I put on the highest Pleasers that I had, and I used to be so uncomfortable, but the happiest girl in the world because I was there partaking in a culture and a movement and a person that I was so devoted to.  That was the best thing, to really commit to a show.  And you meet friends that look the same.  I think looks are a big part of the community that I’m in.  It’s all about that creative expression, no matter what it is.  A lot of people come dressed up because it’s how you partake in the music and I think that’s amazing.

Izzy: You’re touring behind Torn, which dropped a few months ago and is your debut full-length, despite the fact that you’ve already released quite a bit of music and done some pretty huge things.  You’ve talked a lot about getting much more personal with the content on the LP, which you mentioned you creative directed yourself, but how did you approach the process of writing and recording, compared to your previous EPs, or was it essentially just an evolution of how you work?

Cobrah: No, I think I approached it differently because, as you said, I put out music for quite some time, but I’d never put out an album.  There’s a couple of reasons for it, but to keep it short, I never really got the opportunity.  Other things happened and I had to kind of follow along…  But then I finally got the opportunity to do this album that I’d been longing for since I was in my early twenties.  And when you get to do what you’ve been longing for for a long time, it kind of shakes you a little bit, because now you have to be the thing that you’ve wanted for so long, and how do you approach that?

I felt like this was the perfect opportunity to show that I can do a little bit more than just, like I said on stage, “sucking clit [laughs].”  I have a background as a musician, so I approached it to explore and wrote about thirty demos with my lovely producers.  We really tried to start over again and be like, “What is Cobrah as an album and how far can we take it with it still being the core of who I am?”  I felt like I got to experiment again, like when I started making music.  It was meant to be kind of a reinvention.

Izzy: Have you had any favorite reactions to the new album, or this sort of reinvention, whether things that have been written about it or things that fans have told you?

Cobrah: I’m just so happy when they tell me they love the album.  Nothing makes me happier, especially when they recognize the evolution and follow along in my train of thought.  It tickles me, because that’s the way you intended it to be received.  That’s really, really fun.  But I think the most interesting thing is that there’s no one that likes the same song.  With earlier EPs, everyone’s been like, “Yeah, ‘GOOD PUSS’ is a banger,” or “‘BRAND NEW BITCH’ is a banger,” like the most popular songs.  With this album, it’s very spread out, which one everyone thinks is the banger.  It was for me, as well, when I put it together.  It was really hard to decide on the singles.  So, that’s a compliment.  It means that it lands differently with everyone, which is lovely.

Izzy: I think that, at the moment, my favorite album track is “Snow White,” which comes toward the end of the album but the middle of the show.  How did that track came about?

Cobrah: That was one of the first tracks that I wrote for this album.  There was “Excusez Moi,” “Snow White,” “Hit Girl,” and “Torn.”  They were all written even before I released SUCCUBUS [2023].  Those were the starting seed of exploring.  I went to Paris to start writing the album and the first song I wrote was a demo called “Sickening.”  I thought, “It’s fun and it’s very me, but it’s not an evolutionary step, it’s just me doing me and it’s not interesting.”  The second day we wrote “Snow White” and “Excusez Moi” and the other songs where it was the first kind of step towards exploring more genres.  So that’s a really important song in the evolution of Cobrah.

Izzy: You’ve put out a handful of really cool music videos for album tracks with Julius Hayes.  How would you characterize your process of working together?  And what were the concepts or ideas behind this batch of visuals?

Cobrah: Julius Hayes is a very, very good friend of mine.  He’s kind of become my right hand in this process.  I reached out to a bunch of different directors, and everyone was really keen to make it happen but everyone also wanted to do things that were way too expensive.  I think that’s my Achilles heel.  I have very grand ambitions for everything that I do [laughs].  They don’t always match reality.  But then I approached Julius, who was a friend of a friend at the time, and I think he has the same Achilles heel as me.  He didn’t see the issue with all of my grand plans of doing things.  He put the biggest effort into making it come true with the budget that we had.  The material that we got is just insane.

He was also part of designing the set for the tour, he was part of designing the merch for the tour.  I saw him every day for about two months, just working on everything together; it was a joy.  There’re things you wouldn’t think a director would do, like the blueprint for the glass box for “Torn,” because the original thing was too expensive to make, so he found a way to cut like $10,000.  And there’s a glass table I dance on in the “Hush” video; he drew that as well, because it had to match the dimensions of the couch.

It was really, really fun to work with him.  As a creative director and the writer of the music and the artist, you’re so invested in it and don’t wanna compromise on anything.  And he really allowed me to not compromise on anything.  He really indulged me in having my say, and that is so rare, I think, when you work with a director or anyone creatively.  Usually, they have their own vision and you kind of have to spar a little bit.  But this collaboration was really beautiful and lovely in every way.  And now he’s a very good friend.

Izzy: Considering that this is your debut album, I have to ask if you have any favorite debut albums?  I feel like often times the debut albums go on to be the fan favorites.

Cobrah: There’s something about a debut album, I think, that kind of catches the core of an artist… like watching someone in their teenage years, when you see what they are when they’re unfiltered, which is really, really cool.  I love Björk’s debut album, Debut.  I used to have it on CD and I remember some of the songs are in Léon: The Professional, which is one of my favorite movies.  I used to listen to it a lot.  And I really love Lykke Li’s debut album as well, it’s still on repeat for me.  It’s a classic.

Izzy: You’ve had music in a number of ad campaigns and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness… which I have to admit, I haven’t seen any of his films since Alps, but Alps and Dogtooth are definitely two of the best/funniest films of this century…  But anyway, is there anywhere you dream of your music one day winding up?

Cobrah: I feel like when you see the movie, after, you’re always like, “Oh my God, my song would have worked great!”  Now I’m really dreaming of acting in a movie or being the face of something.  It’s really intriguing to me, after having done all these cinematic music videos, I feel like maybe that could be something for the future…  I feel like it’s somewhat similar, because you do a lot of acting as a performer in general.

Izzy: You currently have dates scheduled through late summer, but I understand you kind of want to indulge in Torn for a while, with more touring and maybe more music videos, so I’m curious what the future holds for you, beyond these currently announced dates?

Cobrah: I’m always in the studio, so I’m always working on that, but I’m also working for the festival season, because, like you said, I want to indulge in Torn.  I’m working on making an upgrade to the set, or a different version of what I have now, for festival season.  Like, why would I only do one stage design when I could do two or three?  I can’t tell you anything concrete yet, but I am very much working to keep the evolution of Torn going.

Izzy: You do have shows planned throughout the summer, but there are also some gaps, so I’m curious how you’re hoping and planning to spend the summer when you’re not performing?

Cobrah: I want a scuba license this year!  This is what I will do when Cobrah has her off days.  I love swimming and I love diving especially.  I just got my driver’s license last year, which is very late for Americans, but for Swedes, the public transport system is so widely available, you don’t really have to have a license.  So, if last summer was driving license, this summer is scuba license for me!

*Ignore the titles of My Prime Rock TV’s YouTube clips.  The first video is of “Reckless” and the second video is of “Violent Times,” both from 2024’s All Born Screaming.

1. LIVE IN LONDON! IS PHENOMENAL

This March, St. Vincent dropped Live in London!, a 19-track live album documenting Annie Clark’s performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall for last year’s annual BBC Proms where she was accompanied by the 60-piece Jules Buckley Orchestra.  The setlist features orchestral takes on fan favorites “Marrow,” “Digital Witness,” and “Los Ageless,” along with deep, early cuts “Black Rainbow” and “Paris Is Burning,” each of which were performed for the first time in over a decade.  The album would seem to serve as a preview for St. Vincent’s upcoming tour, which will feature Jules Buckley returning to her side to conduct 15 unique orchestras across as many US dates.

2. EVEN WITHOUT A FULL ORCHESTRA, ST. VINCENT ALWAYS CRUSHES IT AT THE OPERA HOUSE

June 6th will be St. Vincent’s third headlining appearance at the Metropolitan Opera House of Philadelphia, and each of her previous engagements have been unforgettable.  Those who were there for the September 2024 date of the All Born Screaming Tour surely still reminisce about Annie crowd-surfing her way through the orchestra pit before scaling the ornamental filigree on the side of the stage to stride across the lip of the balcony during Record Store Day single “Krokodil.”   While a repeat of that seems somewhat unlikely, for her BBC Proms performance, Annie did elegantly make her way across the crowded floor of London’s most historic concert hall during her most celebrated ballad.

3. TOURING SEASON IS WINDING DOWN

Although summer means that The Met will be opening their Pop-Up Beer Garden whenever weather permits (which, regardless of whether you’re a fan of the outdoors or not, is nice, as it about doubles the size of the lobby and allows for smoking…), it also means that — shed events and festivals aside 🙄 — live music is slowing down substantially…  So, we would strongly suggest taking the opportunity to see this sure-to-be stellar event — which would be a superlative-earning performance regardless of the season — before your opportunities for good live music largely dry up until fall…  However, remember, despite the beer garden element, this is an orchestral performance at an opera house, so no shorts, sandals, or anything you could potentially work out in…  Feel free (if not “encouraged”) to use Annie’s outfit above as a sartorial template…

*Get your tickets here.

**Listen for the studio recording of St. Vincent’s most celebrated ballad on the May edition of Philthy Radio, now streaming courtesy of Y-Not Radio.

“That’s gonna be awesome, but then there’s another five albums, like the Love album that we did with Jack Endino and Krist Novoselic in 2009…  We have a couple of live albums from CBGB’s, like a show recorded on Thanksgiving 1983 called Blow’n Chunks, which was released on ROIR Records, who put out the first release from Bad Brains.  All of their releases were live and they were all on cassette only…  There’s another live release from CBGB’s from around that time, so two different live records…  We recorded a couple shows with David Yow in 2019 [on Flipper’s 40th anniversary tour], one in Chicago and one in LA, that I think we’re going to make into one live record…  Then American Grafishy, which was recorded under contract with Rick Rubin, and all the rights defer back to us in like two years, so we’ll put that out…  There are like 11 altogether that we’re gonna be putting out over the next three years or so.”

According to DePace, the idea for the reissues had been floating around for a while: “It came about a few years ago.  A bunch of record companies had been coming at me, wanting to do reissues, and I’m the one guy in the band that does all of the work, nobody else in my band had that kind of energy to put into it,” he jokes, before explaining that it was the recent retirement of founding guitarist Ted Falconi that gave him the final push: “Ted was the last of the original members to retire, and I was kind of down in the dumps, so I decided it was time to reach out to Superior Viaduct, who were one of the record companies, and tell them I was ready to do it.”  He tells me that the decision to go with Superior Viaduct was partly because of the SF connection between themselves, Flipper, and Subterranean, but also because a lot of people had been singing their praises, including some unlikely ones: “I’ve heard from around that they’re one of the best.  When you hear from their competitors, ‘You gotta go with them!  They’re great!’ it really means something!”

Late April and early May saw Stephen DePace celebrating the reissue of Generic Flipper with a string of West Coast dates that had him joined by a number of musical friends playing the band’s earliest material: “I’ve been referring to it as Flipper and Friends, with Ted retiring…  I’ve been working with various people, because it’s kind of difficult to find a set group of people to do anything for an extended period of time.”  The dates featured Jon Kelly — who Stephen first met when Jon sent him a Flipper cover he’d done on an album by his duo The Flood — on guitar and Sean Shimmer of Los Angeles trio shimmer bed on bass, who played half a dozen shows throughout California, along with one stop in Reno, Nevada, which DePace admits was a surprising highlight.

“Reno was a standout.  I’ve never known Reno, Nevada to have a great punk scene [laughs], but it was all ages and there were all these young people there.  It was at Holland Project, which has an art gallery attached and a live music venue run by people in their twenties.  All these kids showed up, and they were super enthusiastic and knew all of our songs to sing and dance along to…  And then in Santa Cruz we played this festival called CruzaPalooza, which was at The Catalyst, this legendary venue which is apparently on the verge of closing, and there’s a big movement in Santa Cruz to try to buy the venue and save it.  FEAR was the headliner and Flipper played right before them, but then there were a bunch of younger bands, and Mentors played… of course without El Duce.  And then they had a wrestling ring set up and all of these wrestlers doing their thing.”

Flipper and Friends are gearing up for a four-date East Coast run that will wrap next Sunday, May 31st, at our very own Johnny Brenda’s, which kicks off this Thursday, May 28th, with an exceptionally intimate gig in Highstown, New Jersey: “We’re playing the first show at a record store, Randy Now’s Man Cave, which is run by Randy Ellis, who ran the infamous City Gardens in Trenton, New Jersey, where everyone played, all the punk bands…  We’re doing this kind of in-store performance, but he has shows there all the time.  It’s kind of like a mini venue that caps out at like 60 people.”  The following night will find them at Baltimore institution Holy Frijoles — a Tex-Mex bar/restaurant that doubles as an indie rock venue — before they play Total Bummer Fest at Knockdown Center in Queens alongside the likes of Dinosaur Jr., Blonde Redhead, and Meat Puppets on Saturday.

Considering the variations in setting and size of venues Flipper’s played in recent years (2019 saw them sell out The Church, while 2022 had them at Kung Fu Necktie before providing direct support for The Garden at Union Transfer later that year.), I’m curious if DePace has a favorite type of space, but he admits that that doesn’t tend to play a huge factor.  “I gotta say, the most important thing, and it’s important that the sound is good, but the number one most important thing is the audience that shows up.  If they’re super enthusiastic and love what we’re doing, we feed off the energy coming from the audience, and the surroundings almost don’t matter,” he explains before going on to recount a particularly memorable show in the ‘90s: “We were on tour with Gwar and when we got to the venue there was no power or something, so the show was cancelled, but these punk kids came looking for Flipper — they didn’t even care about Gwar [laughs] — and they found us in a parking lot, and they were like ‘We’re putting a party together and we want you to play!’  So, a few hours later, they picked us up and drove us back to their home for this amazing show, and Dave Brockie from Gwar came!”

When I ask if he has a favorite Philadelphia memory, DePace says that Flipper’s October 2019 show at The Church for the band’s 40th anniversary tour — which had David Yow providing lead vocals — was an exceptionally cool experience, in part because of a very special guest whose work in Public Image Ltd, Killing Joke, and Pigface I’m hoping PHILTHY’s readers are familiar with: “Martin Atkins did a thing with us…  It was David Yow who introduced us…  We played Chicago and David called up Martin and told him to come down to the show and he did a thing with us with two drummers…  He was in Philadelphia when we were, so we did it again!”  “We’re good pals.  I communicate with him all the time now.  He’s gonna be doing a new Pigface thing later this year or next year, and I think Flipper might do something with them,” DePace tells me, before going on to say that he was already a longtime fan of Martin’s work: “I remember the very first time Public Image Ltd came through San Francisco, Flipper was their opening act.  It was probably 1980 and we had made a little name for ourselves at that point, but we were just starting out.  I solicited the promoter endlessly and harassed him to get us on the bill [laughs].”

Although the details of a potential Flipper and Pigface collaboration are still in the works, for their upcoming East Coast dates, Flipper have enlisted another, more recent, legend, Pissed Jeans’ Matt Korvette, who Stephen tells me has been on his radar for quite some time now: “Flipper played with Pissed Jeans 20 years ago exactly in Brooklyn and, man, we were all really impressed with them at the moment, and they’d just started in 2005.  I even brought home a poster they had made for the show, which I still have…  They stood out to me, and Matt popped into my head when I was thinking about vocalists; I’d been kind of following him and I thought he’d be a great match.”  He also tells me that fans can expect more Flipper and Friends live jaunts throughout Flipper’s time dropping reissues, and at least one of those lineups is likely to feature vocalist Chris Spencer, whose Unsane covered early Flipper single “Ha Ha Ha” on their 2012 album, Wreck.

The majority of Flipper’s most noted fandom comes from artists of the golden era of alternative, the early-mid ‘90s, with Kurt Cobain regularly seen in a homemade Flipper shirt (prior to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic officially joining the band in the mid-aughts), in addition to Buzz Osborne of Melvins (who’ve both covered and collaborated with the band) and Donita Sparks of L7 citing Generic Flipper as a favorite album.  However, DePace notes that Flipper had some pretty major endorsements from pretty early on: “Jello Biafra from Dead Kennedys was an early fan of Flipper, from day one.  And they got out and did their first national tour a little before us, and everywhere he went he was telling everybody Flipper was his favorite band, so by the time we got out there all of our shows were sold-out, based on the early singles and what Jello said, so we had a pretty successful career going into it!”  However, DePace admits that the very earliest years of Flipper were a bit more labor-intensive, literally…

“We formed in late 1979.  I answered an ad about a legendary studio in San Francisco that was known as Wally Heider Studios, and now it’s Hyde Street Studios.  They put out an ad looking for musicians who would help fix the place up in return for studio time, so we got paid in studio time and we’d go in to record whenever we’d accumulated enough time to do an eight-hour session.  We’d do these midnight to eight-in-the-morning sessions because they were the cheapest…  We released three different singles over the first few years, and we were lucky enough to be contacted by a record company, Subterranean Records, and it call came together from there…  We recorded Generic Flipper starting on Halloween of 1980, and it was 10 months of recording from here to there, whenever we had enough time, and we eventually had enough material for an album.”

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This coming Friday, May 29th, Margaret Sohn will be returning to Fishtown for the penultimate date of Miss Grit’s tour supporting Irish noise rockers Just Mustard (who were last in the 215 in 2022 when opening a now-legendary show for Fontaines D.C. at Underground Arts), which will have the two at Johnny Brenda’s.  Miss Grit is currently touring behind Under My Umbrella, the follow-up to Follow the Cyborg, which sees Sohn effortlessly exploring their affections for trip-hop and dream-pop alike.  “I approached it very differently, more personally.  I wanted to be a bit more direct in the things I was singing about and not filter myself.  It’s a really heavily layered album, because I kept everything,” Sohn tells me during our chat this past Friday from their parents’ house in Michigan, where they’re comfortably spending their first real day off from tour between dates in Chicago and Toronto.

“It does feel really different, even though the process was similar,” Margaret tells me, referencing the fact that both LPs were largely created in their Queens apartment (They were also both mixed by Sohn’s longtime friend and collaborator Aron Kobayashi Ritch of our buddies Momma.), despite some sonic differences.  I point out that Miss Grit’s self-released sophomore EP, Impostor, actually celebrated its fifth birthday this year, to which Sohn replies, “To be honest, I’m always very hard on my previous work; I can be quite critical of it [laughs],” before confessing that it may have more in common with their current output than they immediately realized: “It was still written in my room, so it’s very similar, and very different maybe more in my approach.  Back then, I was more purposefully molding what I wanted things to sound like, and now I let the sounds happen more naturally.”  They also admit that the Impostor era was a significant milestone: “That was one of the first times I started playing live more seriously, and also the first time I got to go abroad, going to Europe and the UK.”

And while Miss Grit hasn’t done a ton of touring since spring of 2024 (which served as much inspiration behind Under My Umbrella), Sohn has been on the road for the entirety of the month and is feeling quite at ease at the moment: “On stage, it’s really nice to feel more comfortable with the set, because when you’re just playing sporadically you can’t really practice or get more comfortable playing the songs.”  They also say that the new songs, with their strong techno beats, have proven exceptionally fun to play live.  When I ask what can be anticipated of the performance this coming Friday, they tell me that you can expect to hear a lot of them: “I’ll be playing a solo set, all from the new record.  And I bring in another visual aspect to make it not so lonely onstage [laughs]; I have my projector that I’ve had forever.”  And they say everyone should stick around for Just Mustard: “They’re so, so amazing, just the sweetest people, and they have been so welcoming and friendly, and they’re one of my favorite bands to see live, if not my favorite.”

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Earlier this week, Witch Club Satan released their latest single, “The Kids Will Kill Us,” along with their fifth Official Music Video, accompanying the track.  When I ask Nikoline what inspires the band’s visuals, which embody the same rage and resistance as their music, she tells me, “What is so wonderful about stepping into the black metal world is it has such a strong aesthetic, so we’re twisting that and seeing how far we can get away from that and challenge that, but also mix it up like a joker, in a way…  A lot of black metal draws inspiration from the woods, but to us the sea is even more inspiring, so there’s a lot of that.”  But she also admits that the visuals are equally inspired by even older traditions: “Fairy tales, traditional lure from where we come from…  In Norway, the witch trials were extremely brutal, especially in northern Norway, where I’m from, and they’re things I’ve been thinking about for a lot of my life.”

Following last summer’s “You Wildflower,” “The Kids Will Kill Us” is the group’s second single to drop since Witch Club Satan released their self-titled debut full-length in 2024 (There is, apparently, a sophomore LP in the works…), something which Nikoline tells me felt like a significant milestone for the trio (also comprised of drummer/vocalist Johanna Holt Kleive and bassist/vocalist Victoria Røising, who has to sit out the North American jaunt on account of just having twins), especially considering their backgrounds: “We felt like it was important to make an album because it has been a bit difficult to be taken seriously as a band, because we come from theatre.”  However, the three have already made quite an impression on the music world: “The cycle of Witch Club Satan has been so short and small so far, but we’ve played Hellfest and Roskilde, which are some of the most important metal festivals in Europe.”  But she says that the individual reactions the group has gotten have proven to be the most meaningful.

“The highlight has been the meetings with the fans and the feedback…  To me, the ones that stand out the most are when people experience something spiritual.  We met a woman who struggled getting pregnant for years and felt something happening at the gig in Norway, and the next cycle she was pregnant…  I know that’s not really how things work [laughs], but just her acknowledging the shift in her body, it was truly magical.”

And while this may be the most memorable reaction an audience member has had to the trio, Nikoline emphasizes that a Witch Club Satan performance is never simply a metal show: “We don’t even say ‘concert,’ we say ‘ritual.’  It’s supposed to open up all the senses of the partaker, open up a universe.  We will always emphasize what we wear and the lighting and the actions on stage to create a universe.”  But she tells me it’s the connections that are most important: “We try to create new meetings and a temporary community.  What’s most emphasized is the community.”  The band’s official website states, “We never wanted to become celestial beings far away from you on a stage.  Our deepest wish for this band, this collective of witches, was always to grow a community/movement of more witches, who believe in the power of music and rituals.”  And she says that there is one track off of Witch Club Satan’s debut that seems to best embody all of that in a live setting.

“My favorite song to play live is ‘Black Metal is Krig.’  It’s our battle song.  We have an intro to that song saying where we stand with society at the moment, whatever’s happening in the world at the time, and it changes with what country we’re in.  It’s a peace song in a way but also a war song.  It always feels very good to do that song.  And, like most of our songs, the lyrics are very much written like spells.”

I’m curious if Witch Club Satan feels as though they have any especially kindred spirits in black metal today, and Nikoline says there is another Norwegian band that they’re big fans of: “ROSA FAENSKAP, their debut album, Jeg blir til deg, it’s black metal, but it’s really pink metal…  Lyrically, they’re more of an emo band in a way, not all death and nihilism.”  She goes on to explain, “Norwegian black metal was infamous and the history is really quite awful, along with the politics…  The history is something we’re kind of going against.”  But there’s another artist with whom the band also feels a profound connection (who I met in 2021) who Witch Club Satan will actually be bringing along for the first half of the Founding of the North American Coven, including May 27th at Underground Arts, a venue Nikoline tells me feels perfect for the tour (“Smaller clubs are personally my favorite.  When the cap goes over 700, it shifts and it’s harder to make a true ritual.”)

“Penelope Trappes has basically been on top of our wishlist of anyone to do support for us from the beginning.  We did one show in Stockholm with her.  What she represents to me is magic and the mythical and dreamscapes.  To me, she’s really like a shaman.  It’s about taking people on a journey, through the gates.  And her music can be the perfect portal for opening up what we’re presenting.  She’s a magician.”

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