Start Listening To: Sub*T
Ready for a Riot Grrrl revival? It already arrived and sounds like ‘So Green’.
Sick of watching other people not getting it right, Grace from Brooklyn and Jade from Oakland have decided to make some musical comfort space for themselves and called it Sub*T. Inspired by 90s Riot Grrrls legendary riding-forces like Hole or The Breeders and fuelled on the feminist scenes and their friends’ infections energy, they made their own explosive mix. It’s melodic, angry and wears a fiery heart on its sleeve. Recently releasing a debut EP ‘So Green’, they’ve set the bar high enough especially with a single ‘Table For Four’, a tale about growing up and not really being ready for it (who is anyway?).
While obsessing over Anorak Patch and working on a zine about the creation of their band, Grace and Jade found some spare seconds to talk to us about the process behind the recording, plans for the future and the enticing word vomit writing technique.
Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
Hi! We’re Sub*T but we usually go by Grace, from Brooklyn, and Jade, from Oakland. We are best friends and have been writing music together for the last two years, mostly while being on opposite ends of the country. Even under those circumstances, we’ve been able to create a catalogue of almost 20 songs that we’re really proud of.
How did it all start?
Honestly, we couldn’t sit back and watch anymore. We love going to shows, but we knew having our own would be even better. About two years ago, we bought guitars and just started writing lyrics. Lots of voice memos, lots and lots of voice memos. It was scary and hard, but we knew pretty quickly that it was right. Now here we are! Releasing our first EP. It’s awesome.
If you were to describe your sound to someone who’d never heard you before, what would you say?
We like melodic, angry, frustrated, happy, euphoric, explosive female rock. We’re obviously pretty inspired by 90s music when writing and even in our visuals, and I think there’s hints of all our favorite bands from that era in Sub*T songs. It seems impossible for your favorite music to not be represented in what you make. The Breeders, Belly, Juliana Hatfield, Hole, Liz Phair. The list goes on. We try to put our spin on it and not depend so much on mimicking sounds, but that is definitely a starting point.
How are you feeling about the release of your new “Table for Four" single?
It feels good. With every song, we’ve become more confident about releasing our music into the world. It’s a bit of an emotional one, so it’s always interesting to see how people react to something so personal. That’s our favorite part for sure.
Can you tell us more about the themes behind this single?
TF4 is a way that we dealt with growing up and seeing that your sweetest memories might not be all that sweet, but wanting to relive them anyways. It’s very nostalgic at the forefront, but also touches on understanding and forgiveness. It’s a realization, “The real world’s just kids who grew up.” However that may apply, it really hits on the fact that we’re all just doing the best we can.
Your EP ‘So Green’ is out soon. Can you tell us a bit about it?
We recorded the EP in Nashville this past July with Alicia Bognanno of Bully. We spent a week with her recording in her house surrounded by her dogs and got these four songs done exactly how we wanted them. We’re super proud of it. Two of the songs, ‘Table for Four’ and ‘Fur on Porcelain,’ are from the earliest days of the band and it’s so fun to hear how they have evolved since then. The other two are more recent. We were writing right before we started talking to Alicia about potentially working with her, and just felt right to include in the project. It was the most productive and comfortable space to work in. Alicia has become extremely important to us and it’s really nice knowing she’s in our corner.
What inspires your music?
We feel really inspired by the environment of live shows and the friends you make in the process. Powerful women, art, music, traveling and wanting to create an environment of our own. We have many musical influences that are always changing and evolving, but overall we just want to have fun and hope others have fun in the process.
What advice would you give for anyone trying to achieve a similar sound to your band?
Word vomit all over a page and then turn it into a melody and then don’t learn anything about music theory. I can’t tell you what chords we play in our songs. Our method of writing music mostly came from learning how to play songs we love and just running with that. But we don’t even 100% know where our sound comes from. We’re really bad with gear too. I looked up some pedals our favorite 90s bands used and then bought them. I literally only bought my Mustang because it’s red and I love red. That sounds so dumb. I have no idea. So that’s a little insight into how we operate.
If your music were a film or TV show which would it be?
We’re obsessed with this question. Maybe ‘My So called Life’ since a lot of our influences were featured in that show. Any 90s teen movie. We really want to make it into a Hulk soundtrack with our single Bruce Banner. So if anyone reading this is connected to Kevin Feige please link him to our Spotify song.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you?
Avril Lavigne’s ‘Let Go’ is simply one of the best albums of all time. We love to listen to it and want to be as cool as her. And all those Disney teen pop stars are absolutely being rediscovered by us right now. Not that we ever fell out of love with those people or that music, but it’s crazy to listen to Miley Cyrus’ first album or Demi Lovato’s or Hillary Duff’s or Aly and AJ now and be like, why is this actually so good. Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking but you really can’t listen without wondering how those sounds actually are ingrained in your tastes towards writing music now. They were rockers.
What do you hate right now?
Harry Styles being in Marvel movies.
What do you love right now?
Board games.
What comes next in the Sub*T story?
As of now we’re just gonna keep writing music and booking shows. Overall we have absolutely no idea what comes next but that’s so exciting to us. There’s nothing we’re scared of. Obviously another EP or a full length album is in the cards for us with all this music we have up our sleeves so we’re defintely working towards that as our next chapter.
Is there any new music you’re enjoying from 2021?
We’re obsessed with this teenage band called Anorak Patch from the UK and their new single ‘Delilah’ is genuinely one of our favorite songs of the year. They don’t know it yet but we’re gonna be best friends someday. We’ve name dropped them so many times when we get asked this question that it’s kind of embarrassing now. So much great music has been coming out though. Been really into Hello Mary and Zilched. The new Kills Birds album is so good. This artist Trophy Wife put out an EP that has been on repeat. Charles Irwin is a cool ass band that just released a great album too. Also loved that Snail Mail single ‘Valentine.’
Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?
We have some stuff coming up that we’re really excited about. We’re working on a zine about the creation of our band and the process of writing and recording the EP which is already looking really cool, but for now we’re just gonna keep on doing what we do best which is putting all our time and interest and passion into this project that we love so much.