For the four girls in Atlanta’s the Coathangers, starting a band
wasn’t about paying homage to any sort of musical deity, nor was it
about some kind of artistic/musical vision. For Julia Kugel, Stephanie
Luke, Candice Jones and Meredith Franco, it was just about doing
something with friends that sounded fun.
“We all went to this anti-Bush rally up in D.C., and it’s like a 10-
or 11-hour drive, so we had a lot of time to talk,” explained Luke, the
Coathangers’ drummer. “We were kind of inspired by the whole event, and
we were like, ‘Wouldn’t it be so much fun to just start a band and be
able to do whatever we want, and say whatever we want?'”
So the four girls, who are all close friends, started gathering
instruments.
“When we got back into town, I stole a drum set from a friend of
mine who owed me money because he had stolen a bike of mine,” said
Luke. “At the time, Julia and Candice were living together, and I set
it up in their living room, and we just kind of started fucking around
with making noise.”
Luke had never played drums before, she explained. Kugel knew
acoustic guitar, but had never really played electric. Jones had played
keyboards “a little bit, but not really,” said Luke, and as for the
bass … well, it was pretty much forced onto Franco. “I had an old
bass that a friend had given to me a long time ago that I’d never
picked up, and so I was like, ‘Here, you play this,'” said Luke. “‘You
have to play bass. You have to because you just have to.'”
So all four girls began learning their instruments, piecing together
original punk, pop and/or rock songs from the get-go.
“I grew up with friends in bands, and they would always practice
other people’s songs, and we did not,” said Luke. “I think that’s kind
of how our sound came to be, because we weren’t taking from anything
else—we were just taking from making up our own kind of sound,
and I think that’s what makes the Coathangers different, and maybe to
some people, horrible. It’s kind of a nonsound sound. It doesn’t really
stem from anything. It stems from us.”
This is something the Coathangers are insistent upon: being
themselves, sounding like themselves and staying entirely true to what
is good and fun for them.
“I think our chemistry is what makes us,” said Franco. “We’re all on
the same level, because we all started in this together, and we’re all
growing together.”
The result is a little messy, a little raw and a little sweet, but
always delivered with an energy and enthusiasm that sounds much more
thought-out and involved than the members of the Coathangers would have
you believe.
On the band’s first, self-titled album, songs with titles like
“Don’t Touch My Shit,” “Shut the Fuck Up” and “Nestle in My Boobies”
gave many the impression that the Coathangers were angry militant
feminists with a very focused agenda. But, explained Luke, the reality
is much tamer: They are just a band of friends who happen to be girls,
singing and sometimes screaming about things that piss them off or that
they find funny.
“I think when a girl is up there screaming, it’s just like, ‘Oh my
god, what? A girl is up there screaming!’ Well, guys scream in bands
all the time, and they don’t get the same response,” said Luke. “…
We’re feminist, but I think that people forget that being a feminist
means equality—it doesn’t mean anti-man. Being a feminist is
being all about equality, and I know that’s not necessarily how the
world works, but I think Julia said it best yesterday when she was
like, ‘Being in a girl band has helped us as much as it’s hurt us.
We’ve gotten positive attention and also negative attention, so it’s
just as equal.’ That’s just how it is.”
Franco added, “People take our lyrics too seriously sometimes. Like
even with ‘Nestle in My Boobies’—people went crazy about that
song, putting all kinds of meanings onto it, but there isn’t anything
even remotely serious about it. It was just about me nestling in
Julia’s boobies one time, because she’s taller than me. Really, that’s
how it came about. It’s just silly stuff like that.”
Silly stuff aside, the Coathangers are keenly aware of what they are
saying and how. They are an all-girl band that doesn’t focus on the
fact that they are all women, but they don’t try to hide it, either. On
their most recent album, Scramble (Suicide Squeeze), the anger
is still there, but expressed in much more focused and muted ways. The
most striking titles on Scramble are “Gettin’ Mad and Pumpin’
Iron” and “Arthritis Sux.”
Explained Luke, “I’m still just as pissed off as I was two years ago
or whatever, but I think we’ve learned to say it in different
ways.”
Which is, after all, why they started a band in the first
place—to say whatever they wanted, however they wanted. And as a
group of close friends who started playing music together, they are an
incredible example of individual equality in action.
“How we are on stage is who we are as people,” said Luke. “It’s
amplified to an 11, of course, because we’re all jumpy and excited and
drunk or whatever, but we try to just stay true to who we are and put
that out in the music we play.”
What this means for the Coathangers is that they try to be a band
the only way they know how: switching around instruments if the feeling
strikes. Shooting Silly String at their audience if the feeling
strikes. Passing out balloons to their audience. Writing punk songs
beseeching the large-footed upstairs neighbor to “Stop stompin’ around,
stop stompin’!” (“Stop Stomp Stompin'”).
“We kind of have a party at every show,” said Franco. “I mean, I
would like that if I went to a show.”
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2009.
