Punk rock is more than just a sound; it’s an entire way of thinking. In fact, it’s fair to suggest that the punk attitude is more crucial than adhering to a stylistic criterion. Take Atlanta’s all-girl outfit The Coathangers, for instance.
Sure, The Coathangers’ music is brash, high-energy, and even bratty at times – all key characteristics associated with the punk rock sound. What’s of greater significance, however, is the band’s transcendent ruthlessness. Since forming in 2006, The Coathangers have said ‘fuck you’ to over-thinking and chosen to bash out whatever feels right.
“We don’t really talk about it,” says the band’s bass player Meredith Franco. “We kind of just go in there and do it.”
This attitude hasn’t exactly sent the group on a path toward wayward destruction. Rather, early last year The Coathangers released their fourth LP, Suck My Shirt. Though the band has been together for nearly a decade now, the ‘whatever works’ ethos still calls the shots in the studio.
“We [record] live, so we play the music first and then we’ll do the vocals and then move on to some more songs,” Franco explains. “We’re not just focusing on one song and keep listening to the same thing, because then it all starts sounding the same. It’s good for us to go back and listen to it and be like, ‘Oh yeah, maybe you should add claps,’ or, ‘Maybe you should add vocal parts in the back.’ You just hear different things once you get away from it.”
Almost three years separate Suck My Shirt from The Coathangers’ third album, Larceny & Old Lace. In the intervening period, the band released a series of singles and split EPs. On top of this, album production encountered a slight delay when long-serving keyboardist Candice Jones parted ways with the group in 2013.
“When we first started writing the record, Candice was still in the band,” Franco says. “So then we had to rewrite some of the songs and change some things around. I think we all stepped it up a little bit just because we kind of had to. We added extra vocal parts, or Julia [Kugel, guitar/vocals] would come up with little extra guitar parts that were something similar to what a keyboard would play. Otherwise, everything was the same. We still play the old songs, there’s just no keyboard. It’s a little more rock’n’roll.”
While the keyboard is evidently missing, Suck My Shirt hasn’t suffered from the personnel reduction. Rather, Jones’ departure has opened the way for excellent bass and guitar interplay. On tracks such as ‘Merry Go Round’ and ‘Zombie’, Franco’s bass and Kugel’s guitar interact with a driving, melodic intent that resembles Joy Division or the Pixies. But when it comes to mediating their creative decisions, there’s not a great deal of reference made to other artists.
“For this record we were channeling The Clash with the way the drums sound – kind of really clean,” Franco says. “That was the one thing that we were saying. But we’re not usually like, ‘Oh, I want to sound like this or sound like that.’ We don’t really do that.”
This week, The Coathangers touch down in Oz for the very first time. Following the release of Suck My Shirt,the band has toured the States in support of fellow Atlantans Black Lips and recently completed a headline tour around Europe. Despite these achievements, the trip to Australia is no less of a milestone.
“We cannot wait,” Franco says. “It still seems like a dream. It doesn’t seem like it’s really happening. We’re so excited.”
Suck My Shirt out now through Smack Face Records. Catch them withBlack Zeros and Sloppy Kiss Soiree atFrankie’s Pizza onThursday January 22, tickets online.
