Vivian Girls interview
HUCK caught up with Cassie Ramone, lead singer of underground punk band Vivian Girls, to talk about the Brooklyn music scene, keeping things in the family and the challenges of being a girl in a male-dominated scene.
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HUCK: What are you guys up to at the moment?
Cassie: We’re recording for the third album. We have a record coming out in February, which is some of our new recordings including an original song called 'My Love Will Follow Me' and a cover of The Chantels’ 'He’s Gone' which we’ve been playing live. We’re putting out a really cool band German Measles, our friends from Brooklyn and we’re putting out a record for my other band, The Babies.
What’s the music scene like in Brooklyn?
It’s huge. It’s funny because I feel like there are at least 20 different music scenes co-existing at the same time. There are a lot of bands from Brooklyn that I read about on music websites that I’ve never even heard of, you know. The scene that we’re a part of is a really wonderful thing: everybody’s really nice and everybody really cares about each other. It’s a super supportive environment.
When did you get involved?
I moved to Brooklyn to go to college at Pratt when I was 18, like five years ago. I found out about Todd P’s website within a month of moving there and I just started going to Todd P shows. Through those shows, I met a lot of people and I got immersed in Brooklyn’s culture.
Did you feel intimidated?
I did but I feel like if anyone is intimidated by the Brooklyn scene, it’s all internal because everybody there is super-nice. If you’re truly passionate about music and art, then you have a place there. It definitely seems like a difficult thing to get into as a newcomer like ‘oh Brooklyn, it’s one of the music capitals of the world. Everybody’s probably so snobby’. But people really aren’t.
What do you think of the music scene over here?
I think there’s a lot of really great music coming out of the UK. Male Bonding are definitely one of our favourite bands right now, and they’re our best international friends. I love those guys so much. We always stay at their house whenever we come to London and we have girl talk all night long. I think they’re a really amazing band and I also really like Lovvers and Veronica Falls.
Do you feel like there’s a sort of an international underground community developing?
Definitely. When we first met Male Bonding it turned out we had a lot of friends in common. I think it’s just the way it works. If you’re passionate about something, you will find the other people who are passionate about the same thing. Us, Male Bonding and all these other bands, all across America and all over the world, are passionate about a certain kind of music, it’s in the stars that we’re going to find each other.
Why is it important for you to do things DIY?
I guess first and foremost, a motto that floats around is ‘if you want something done properly, do it yourself’. We like to have creative control over as much of our band as possible because we have a very defined aesthetic and we like to keep things cheap. We like to keep our merchandise cheap; we like to keep our shows cheap. The more people involved in the process, the harder it is to do that. Also, I think if the band does something itself it feels more personal to the fan or the listener. I’ve always appreciated bands who made something that felt special to me.
What bands made you want to start a band when you were growing up?
Um, Beat Happening, honestly. My first band in high school was called Upholstery and we were really influenced by Beat Happening. I think Katy and Ali, their first bands were really influenced by Bikini Kill, and you know Riot Grrrl, Bratmobile. Those things aren’t necessarily an influence on Vivian Girls but they were an influence on us as individuals when we were younger.
Do you think there's a difference between being a girl or a boy in a punk band?
Absolutely. I’ve read a lot of press about us that says ‘Vivian Girls wouldn’t be as popular if they were men’ or even things like ‘Vivian Girls wouldn’t be as popular if they were uglier’ which I think is so crude and insulting. I just think it’s incredibly lame that anyone would ever think to say that. We’re obviously all women and even though the word ‘girls’ is in our band name, we don’t want to be viewed primarily as an all-female band we want to be viewed as a band of people playing music.
Vivian Girls release their new 7" 'My Love Will Follow Me' at the end of February on Wild World Records.
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Vivian Girls interview (text) by Shelley Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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