Recording the new album, did you ever surprise yourself? Was there anything you experienced where you thought, 'I didn't know we had it in us?'
This might sound really silly, but: our structure. We have way more structure in our music, and structure is amazing. When you have a chorus, a bridge, verse one and two. Our previous EP was, like, just, some breakdowns, maybe a chorus here and there, but there was no structure. With this album, the title translates into ‘In Death We Trust’, and we really focused a lot of gloom, darkness, death -- a lot of themes. That, and my vocals. I really pushed myself to do something different.
What are you most excited for fans to hear on the new album?
In general, I’m really excited for people’s reactions. Like, reactions to lyrical content, especially, because I think a lot of people can relate to what I’m pouring out personally. There’s a lot of emotion, and struggling with feeling sad all the time, or when terrible things happen to you, whether it be sexual abuse or when someone is a racist, whatever it is...I want people who’ve gone through shit to hear our music and think, ‘Wow, I can totally relate to this.’
Along those lines, as a racially-diverse band with a female lead singer, do you guys ever encounter resistance or bigotry?
We have had our experiences. We played a show once where I was standing outside with some girl, and a group of guys came up and yelled, ‘Women don’t belong in this, you guys are pussy as far as I can see.’ It was the first time someone actually made me feel like, ‘Wow, is this a hundred years ago? They’re talking to me like I’m not a human being. Because I’m a woman, I’m not allowed to be in this show or play in this band?’ And people will sometimes give us looks when we walk into a show. But overall, our fans don’t tolerate that kind of stuff. We don’t have to fight anybody. We’ll get messages from people online, but those’re just keyboard warriors talking trash. For the most part, people who come out to see us are just there for the music. It is what it is -- it’s always going to happen. We have a lot more support than hate.
How does being from New York inform your music?
Well, we are all very proud to be from New York. We went out on tour with our friends from North Caroline, and we’re yelling, ‘Deadass’ and ‘Word,’ and they’re like, ‘What are you even saying?’ Meeting us as a group, we’re super New York. I’m not sure how it influences our music exactly--maybe that we’re outspoken, and we don’t care what people think.
Check out the video for The Sound Of Shame below: