SHAGGO Is So Back - A Q&A

Luci Carvelli: Tell us about the origin of SHAGGO! How did it form? What was the vision? The goal?

SHAGGO: SHAGGO formed at my (Carina’s) 24th birthday party. Lucy had just met Rylie (our original drummer and my friend since we were 9 years old) for the first time, and they clicked and just announced it to me. We bonded over 90’s punk/femme-led rock bands at first and felt like punk was the genre we were most drawn to/it felt more raw and accessible to us We didn’t have much of a vision or goal at first - it was mainly an excuse for us all to hang out and also to have a reason to get better at our instruments. It was a bit absurd, a bit exploratory, and extremely fun right off the bat

LC: Is the whole band from NYC?

SHAGGO: We’re from all over, but all currently based in Brooklyn! Lucy is the only true NYC-gal (she was born and raised in Manhattan) although Christine our drummer is from Long Island; Carina is from Austin; Thea (our lead guitarist) is from Florida.

LC: How have your environments influenced your sound?

SHAGGO: That’s a good question… I think we’re definitely influenced by living and making music in NYC/Brooklyn. Some of our favorite bands have come out of the NYC diy scene and been quite influential on us (like P.S. Elliot, an earlier project of Waxahatchee!) 

Carina: I grew up in Austin - I think at the beginning of us being a band, I wanted to add some twang to some of our songs even though we lean a lot more punk. We kind of ditched that a bit but Thea (who’s also from the South) added some slide guitar on a few of our songs, including Minor League, which I LOVE.

New York City observation inspires us! Such as the Coney Island Cyclone’s game mentioned  in “Minor League”

LC: What, or who, do you hope to inspire with your music – Especially with Young Girls Need Entertainment?

SHAGGO: Young women, especially young queer girls. Now more than ever I think it’s important to be outspoken and critical; I think punk as a genre is such a helpful tool. This song started out as a riot-grrl poem Lucy’s mom wrote in the 90’s; she showed it to us, and we were so drawn to it/how raw and concise it was. With her permission, we took some of the ideas and modernized it a bit into this song. So many themes were still relevant today but the main theme we took from this song was that women, even girls, are so often pushed into a sort of mothering role and forced to grow up fast. Sometimes to quote Cyndi Lauper, girls just wanna have fun (lol). But actually - I think even though it’s a lighter song in some ways like a lot of our songs, it’s definitely rooted in something heavier - we wanted to call out this double-standard a bit. Chores speaks a bit to social expectations of women to “clean up” after others, literally and emotionally

LC: Is there a specific event or situation that inspired this record? Or stories that inspired specific songs?

SHAGGO: Definitely - for ‘Minor League,’ our bassist Carina had quite literally gone to a Minor League baseball game that day, right before we had practice. We wrote that very in-the–moment / spontaneously as a band - it was also the first song we wrote like this, so it was really special; I think there were a lot of visceral details at the baseball game that made it such an easy song to write. For City MD - this was another song we wrote in the moment at practice, but we were drawing on something that happened a while ago - one of us got dust in our eye while on a date and had to go to an urgent care. We sort of combined this story with an experience being in a negative romantic relationship where your problems and emotional/physical pain is constantly being minimized. It felt kind of funny but also fitting to turn this song into a pretty gorey, dramatic blown out story - when you’re being talked down to or your feelings are being minimized, it CAN feel super dramatic - I think that’s why we also wanted to lean into the drama on our upcoming medieval B-movie slasher music video for this song (out 6/12!!). I (Lucy) generally complain about my life into my notes app, turn it into lyrics, so it goes…

LC: The songs on the album vary sonically and thematically. Is cohesion something you strive for / keep in mind when putting together a record?

SHAGGO: I think we always knew we wanted some range on this record - more of our recent songs have been a lot faster, high-energy punk songs (closer to ‘I Wanted Fun) but a lot of our earlier songs that drew on music Lucy wrote when she was 19, 20 (like My House) aren’t straight-up punk songs - there’s a more melodic almost emo element to them. In some ways, My House and City MD feel like anomalies but I think they fit the themes of the record well/tie it together. I believe the songs sequentially go through social critique, friend issues, and relationship issues, all under the themes of “chores” and “messiness” … there’s also some nerd shit about key and tempo cohesion in there!

I want it to have loud and quiet moments under the same indie/garage umbrella - Lucy

LC: Last track “City MD,” seems to perfectly wrap up the album. If you could add anything more to the album, would you? Do you feel as though there are things left unsaid?

SHAGGO: We have a couple more finished/written songs and have been writing new songs as well - but I don’t think there’s anything else I would have wanted to add on to ‘Chores’! I like how we intentionally distinguished this sort of ‘era’ of our songwriting from our newer songs we play at shows - it feels like we’ve said what we wanted to say with this album so I’m glad it’s finally out in the world! <3