Sure, The Coathangers’ music is brash, high-energy and even bratty at times – all key characteristics associated with the punk rock sound. But what’s of greater significance is the band’s transcendent ruthlessness. Since forming in 2006, The Coathangers have said “fuck you” to over-thinking and instead opted to bash out whatever feels right.
“We don’t really talk about it,” says the band’s bassist Meredith Franco. “We just go in there and do it.”
This way of thinking hasn’t led the band down a path towards wayward destruction. Rather, early last year The Coathangers released their fourth LP, Suck My Shirt.Though the band’s been together for nearly a decade now, they still honour the ‘whatever works’ principle. These days, however, there’s a little more deliberation than in the early years.
“The first two [albums] were really rushed and we didn’t really have time,” Franco says. “This record, though, we actually had time in the studio. [It was like that] for Larceny and Old Lace,too. We actually had a lot of time to write, and then in the studio we would go in and have time to listen to everything and think about it.
“We [record] live, so we play the music first and then we’ll do the vocals and then move on to some more songs,” she continues. “We’re not just focusing on one song. 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 Larceny and Old Lace. In the intervening period, the band released a series of singles and split EPs. Also, album production encountered a slight delay when long-serving keyboardist Candice Jones left the group in 2013.
“When we first started writing the record Candice was still in the band,” Franco says. “So then we had to re-write some of the songs and change some things around. We didn’t want them to sound empty, because the keyboard is kind of loud. So we added extra vocal parts, or Julia [Kugel, guitar/vocals] would come up with little extra guitar parts that were similar to what a keyboard would play.
“Otherwise, everything was the same,” she adds. “We still play the old songs, there’s just no keyboard. It’s like a little more rock’n’roll sounding. I think we all stepped it up a little bit just because we kind of had to.”
While the keyboard is evidently missing, Suck My Shirt hasn’t suffered from the personnel reduction. Rather, Jones’ departure has opened the way for some excellent bass and guitar interplay. On tracks such as Merry Go Round and Zombie, Franco’s bass and Kugel’s guitar generate a driving, melodic duality that resembles Joy Division or The Pixies. Though, 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.”
Punk rock’s irreverent nature demands a hefty amount of resilience from its proponents. Resilience, of course, is an invaluable resource for touring musicians. As rewarding and wildly adventurous as it is, tour life can inflict punishment on both body and soul if one’s not amply prepared.
The Coathangers’ fearless, fun-thirsty personality suggests they’re perfectly suited to life on the road, but this reputation can also work against them. “After a show we just want to relax,” says Franco. “Not all the time, but sometimes, if we stay at a house, they want to stay up and party all night, but we’re like, ‘No, we’ve been doing this for six weeks, we just want to go to sleep.’ But that doesn’t happen all the time.”
Still, there’s no place they’d rather be: “I love being home too, but if we’re home for too long we’re like, ‘Uhh, can we go on tour now?’ It’s not boring, but it’s just like the same thing.”
On that note, this week The Coathangers touch down in Oz for the very first time. Since releasing Suck My Shirt,the band’s toured around the US 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.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
