I realized today that it's been exactly one month since Phonetics On and On came out– how do you feel about the record now that it's completely out of your hands and into the world?
Penelope: I feel pretty good about it. I feel like I haven't been thinking about it that much. I've just been focused on school and regular life in a way that feels really great and grounding. So things have just felt really normal– but that makes me feel very positively about the record and like I still feel really connected to it, which is a good feeling after releasing something.
Gigi: Yeah, I mean, we're about to go on tour in one week's time! I think that that is when things are going to feel like, oh my god, this record is out, people know it! I think we got a taste of it when we played our homecoming show in Chicago for our record release because some people knew the words to Julie already and knew the parts to Rock City and things like that. It's cool to experience that people now know these songs. It feels like it breathes a new life into it.
I also wanted to talk about the artwork while we're on the topic of the album because my friend is in a bookmaking class and there were some scraps left behind and they sent me this photo the other day…
Nora: Oh, yeah. That was because I took a printmaking class at NYU and we did this project where we were supposed to make a little icon and then we made a big screenprint of all the little things. I couldn't think of anything, so I just– that was before our album came out–
Gigi: I wouldn't say you couldn't think of anything– you were excited because the symbol was good–
Nora: I felt attached to the symbol because…it's a good symbol.
Gigi: –And it was exciting to have it as a little stamp!.
Is there any particular significance to this shape? When you were approaching designing this record what did you initially have in mind for it?
Penelope: It's like a classic quilt design. I think we liked taking something that's so folk arty with a little bit of a femininity to it and using it as a rock symbol for a rock record. We thought that was like a cool twist on it. We knew we wanted something simple and striking and so we thought it was like an unusual shape that also still felt recognizable in some way. That was what I liked about it.
Gigi: I think the physical aspect of quilt art and fiber art was something that we were inspired by a lot and we've only really explored it through paper, but it felt like our own rocking twist on quilt art.
I was at the first listening party at the end of last summer and I remember Gerard [Cosloy] saying something about how he wanted the album to be called “Hooked On Phonetics.” I was thinking about that and also how you brought Cate [Le Bon] into the album’s workspace. How do you go about taking in these outside influences and deciding when to take a step back from them? Are there any specific moments of going against what other people were telling you to do with this record that you're really proud of?
Penelope: That's a great question.
Nora: Agreed. I feel like for the recording process, that was super collaborative and Cate would get us out of our comfort zones, but not in a way where we felt like we were being forced to do anything that we didn't think would be good or that we didn't feel confident doing. There was a time when we had a different version of Frontrunner recorded that just felt kind of–it was to a metronome–it felt a little bit too robotic and it didn’t have the same sincerity that we wrote it with. I feel like that was a moment where Cate liked it, but we didn't like it. So then there was kind of a tension but then we figured it out and now it has this very strange percussion instrument in the back that was Cate’s idea and it still has the feel that we wrote the song with and that we wanted to keep in the recording.
Gigi: Yeah. She felt like there was a part that needed to propel it a little bit.
Nora: And we figured it out!–
Gigi: But I think it couldn't have been the metronome.
Penelope: Yeah, I feel like I, personally speaking, can have a tendency if I feel like something is not aligning with the band vision to be like so all or nothing about it. I'm just like absolutely no way. There's no way that this idea will turn out the way that I want. I feel like I can be really uncompromising creatively– not with [Gigi and Nora], but with outside forces, it can be really hard for me to trust that anyone gets it. Maybe that comes from starting off so young and feeling like it's us against the world a little bit and needing to stick to our guns to get what we want when working with adults. But with Cate, I feel like there were a lot of ways that she pushed us to try new things, even if it was just like, okay, what if this isn't your guitar part? Go in and try something else. She would never tell me what the part should be, but there were ways where I was like, no, I love this guitar part. I don't want to change it. Even just her encouraging me to like give it another shot, allowed me to tap into a different, creative part of myself. That was really cool– being open to an outsider's perspective is a really good thing to learn how to do.
Gigi: Yeah! I feel like she expanded our confidence rather than injecting her own shit. She took what we already had and was saying “what if you pushed this a little further and stripped it back?” She really understood us and wanted to help us create what we wanted to create. I think that with each other, like Penelope was saying, I feel like we can be uncompromising with us three versus the world. I think that does come from being young women and young girls together and kind of knowing what's best for ourselves and each other in ways that I think people that are trying to, I don't know, make money out of this, maybe don't understand.
Taking a step back to Versions of Modern Performance, I know that that was inherently such a different record from Phonetics due to your age and growing up and everything, but were there any moments either in songwriting or any experiences with that record that you really wanted to take and implement into this new record? And is there anything you're going to take from this record into the next one?
Penelope: Good question. I feel like there's a scrappiness to how this band started that was at the core of what we wanted in Versions of Modern Performance. It feels like an important part of the three of us. We knew we wanted to make something cleaner, more in the studio, but we were like, there needed to be this messiness to it still. We didn't know what that was going to look like when we translated it into the second record. You know, coming from DIY scenes, we wanted to make sure that by making more of a studio record, that it wasn't just a shiny indie pop record. We wanted it to still feel textured and interesting and raw in a way– but that was a challenge considering that what we were excited about was clean guitar tones and things like that.
Gigi: I think there was something we had to discover between the both of them– how exciting it can be to play with clean guitars and no distortion and how to play live takes with each other while leaving all the space that our parts were leaving with each other. I feel like what we took and what is in this under layer that is in both albums is the feeling of us three playing together and the inherent scrappiness and jankiness will always be there no matter what we're playing.
This record reflects the essence of childhood very strongly in terms of the sonic elements of it. Were there any particular childhood memories that you drew upon when writing the music?
Gigi: Absolutely. I have distinct memories of being in a concert band and playing our songs and I would get goosebumps from just feeling a group play a song well together. I think that that has really resonated with me as these songs have sat with us. There is such a power to just figuring these things out with other people and a song can just exist if everybody in the space knows how to play the parts.
Nora: The whole idea behind “2468” was that it's kind of a song that has three strange parts, and the first shift is very extreme and then it never goes back to that part. The idea was that it's kind of like a little girl writing a song in her head and just going on and on and then never coming back to it just like the playfulness of a child, the natural song that a child sings. Then the violin part at the beginning, we thought it sounded kind of like a child recital of like four kids on violin for the first time playing in front of their parents. I mean the violin was being played by me– someone who doesn't know how to play violin, so I feel like some of that came through.
Penelope: Yeah, I would just add, I don't know if it was something I was thinking about as much when I was writing, but I feel like once we were in the studio, I felt really connected to my girlhood in a really strange way that I was not expecting. I've been playing guitar since I was six and I have loved music– [music] has been a part of how I saw myself since I was a girl– and I think that writing guitar parts… I felt this responsibility towards my younger self in a way that I didn't expect to feel, but it was really beautiful. I just wanted to make a record that I would have loved, that would have tapped into something really joyful… I don’t know, I think trying to be creative on the guitar reminds me of my childhood in a sweet way.
How are you translating that childhood energy into the live setting? Because I imagine you're not going to have everything used on the record– do you play the violin during the new tour?
Nora: Yeah, it's been something to figure out because we always want it to just be us three on stage, unless a friend plays tambourine at some point–but we really wanted to maintain the three of us playing everything that we hear. So like the violin part we're doing in a different way, I'm doing it with my voice! We're trying to be faithful to the songs, but translate them in a way where they still resonate in the live set, so they don't sound exactly the same.
Gigi: I think that in the ways we've rearranged the live setting, we're still really getting into that playfulness of it. I think that you singing the violin part in itself is very playful and unexpected. It was also the first thing that made sense to us in how to arrange that part for a live set up.
If you could describe Phonetics On and On as a childhood game– like hide and seek or hopscotch, whatever!–what do you think would represent it the best?
Gigi: Wow, I think something with intense repetition… Maybe like [demonstrates the game Miss Mary Mack] I was big on all that. Oh, and the one where you have to count up more and more!
Penelope: Yeah, Slide! Slippery slide for sure.
Gigi: Also, I never played this one because It just wasn't a thing where I was, but I feel like Double Dutch– the way that you jump over and over and it's the same motion that you have to dance in and out of and hop or jump… you have to coordinate with the other person when to jump in and hit the same things. It's all about the give and take I'd say.
Nora: My childhood friend who was more into classic rock and stuff went to our release show and then afterwards when he went to see me he said “I love the hopscotch rhythms,” in a way where he thought this was just a commonplace normal thing to say.
Penelope: Totally hopscotch rhythms!
Could I get some of your thoughts on New York's independent and DIY scene in terms of the music and shows– which, I know comparing anything to Chicago is somewhat futile–
Penelope: Well that's a really sweet thing to say about Chicago, but I don't even know… I feel like both cities are beautiful in their own way. I love Chicago, but it's not perfect.
Gigi: Nothing's perfect. I think about this a lot, of course, I mean it is natural. I think that there is something that is really motivating about the energy–we all chose to move here to New York. In the situation we're in, you know, everyone we know are transplants and came here for college and stuff. It's really motivating to feel like everybody made this choice and that they're here to explore art and are here to meet like-minded people because maybe you didn't find that in the place you were in before. It feels like such a hub for that, not even in just America, but all over the world. I think that that is something that is really exciting about New York. People come to New York to see what America is up to and I think to feel like you're part of that is really exciting and motivating. But it also beats you down because it can feel like it is extremely commercial and it can feel like it is all about who you know and how to get ahead and that is never how we functioned. I feel like we were so lucky to get into things so young to a point where we didn’t have to hustle as young adults living on our own because we have this infrastructure around us. But it can be really scary to be around, and you don't totally know where everybody's coming from and how they make art and what their intentions are. I feel like when we were all kids in Chicago part of what made it feel so perfect was that we were all kids, we were not tainted by anything that came before and we didn't really have many inhibitions about declaring ourselves as artists where sometimes in New York and just as young adults it feels like you don't want to say or do anything that's so bold and opinionated or you only want to do something that's like so bold and opinionated. Do you guys think I captured that?
Penelope: Yeah. It can be hard to tap into something sincere in New York for some reason. But at the same time it's a really fun place to live in a way that I don't really think any other city is. I feel really lucky to have these experiences around music in New York. I think moving here turned us all inwards in a way that was really great for creativity.
Would you say that any of that was reflected in Phonetics On and On?
Penelope: Totally, yeah. I mean I think like we all had to lean on each other in a crazy way because we felt very destabilized and I also think sonically we didn't feel very connected to anything in Chicago or New York so we kind of just turned self-referential in a way. If we were living in the same place we had lived when we made the first record maybe that would have been harder. I think there's a loneliness on Phonetics On and On that can only come from moving somewhere new.
Can I ask about Danger Boss? I know you've been playing some shows under that moniker… where did the name come from and how did “Danger Boss” come to be?
Nora: Well I'm convinced it's from the show The Mighty Boosh, if you know what that is–
No…
Nora: It’s Noel Fielding, the guy on the Great British Bake Off…
Penelope: I don't think it's from that show–
Nora: No, it is!
Penelope: I think it has to do with Jello. My family's cat is named Jello but his nickname is Boss.
Nora: Right! Well yes…
Gigi: I mean, I feel like it can exist as both, they don't have to disagree with each other.
Penelope: Or I feel like it could have been really instinctual. We just wanted a stupid name. We didn't want it to be pretentious or cool and I feel like it could have been just like “What if it was Danger Boss?” Maybe I have no idea. I believe you though, I do believe you.
Nora: But it's such a specific thing. There's like a box with a kangaroo in it that someone had to fight and then I feel like on the crate it said “Danger” and then they said Boss somewhere else… So maybe those words were just floating around and then we needed a fake name.
Gigi: –And they're two strong words that reflect the three of us perfectly. It's our evil alter-ego.
What is your favorite part about being on the road and what are you most looking forward to in the next couple weeks and months?
Gigi: Spending time with these guys ayy! It’s just fun!
Penelope: Yeah mine’s hanging out in the hotel room! Eating better food than we eat here.
Gigi: Feeling like you have a reason to get up and fuel your body every single day because you're exhausting so much energy I think is really motivating. It's a very strange space to put yourself in. It's kind of like, right now I am my instrument and I am my money-maker so I need to make sure I'm eating three great meals a day and drinking water and not messing around. I don't think every band would particularly say that about touring, but that's very much so how we function.
Penelope: I feel like tour has a way of making you feel disconnected from every other place on earth. You're just traveling, you don't know where you are, so you become locked into your own time zone that's moving across a large expansive land and it brings you really close to the people you're traveling with. Like our tour manager and sound engineer Jesse is a beloved friend but we don't really keep in touch with him and then we'll be on tour and it feels like family has reunited. It’s really sweet because we all obviously spend a lot of time together in New York but there's nothing like the hive mind time zone that tour brings about. When we haven’t toured for a while, I become really excited to tap into that and it's nice to like be able to feel excited instead of feeling exhausted about going on tour.
