BeatRoute Magazine BC Print Edition February 2018

BULLY
REDEFINING DIY PUNK WITH AN ENGINEER’S PRECISION
ADAM DEANE
69 LOVE SONGS
REVISITING THE ROMANCE OF THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
ALEX BIRON
MUSIC
Alicia Bognanno, frontwoman of Bully, started her career as an audio engineer.
After a year like 2017, the needle on the collective
emotional pressure-gauge has reached the red
zone. More and more humans are desperately
searching for a voice to call home, a safe asylum,
a place to shake off the proverbial dust of all
the everyday realities and stresses we breathe.
Alicia Bognanno is no stranger to this feeling.
She is human after all. Though, with a voice
like hers and a brain capable of concocting and
constructing the framework of the Nashville punk
band Bully, she just may have the answer to the
worries and woes of yesteryear, hidden within
their Sophomore release, Losing.
Given a brief window to pick at Bognanno’s
brain, we did just that. We found her and her dog
at home in Nashville, which Bognanno assured us
has a yard, a sidewalk and space for her van and
trailer.
“I’ve been in Tennessee for almost 10 years
now. I grow to like it more all the time. I’ll
come back from tour and just realize I was not
appreciating the simple pleasures of living here. I
have sidewalks on my street and I can go and run
with my dog whenever I want. There’s always a
lot going on. Nashville is somewhat central and
it’s easy to tour out of, which is a plus for playing
music.”
Bognanno has got one of those sounds that
resonates with every cell. You know, the kind
that keeps you up at night because you’ve
unintentionally mopped up every lyric — and
there are a lot. With songs that touch on matters
of depression, anger, relationships, resentments
and regrets; no one can really relate. Makes you
wonder if she creates anything else you can inject,
inhale, ingest?
Photo by Alysse Gafkjen
“I recently started just writing to write. It’s
weird because I get really self-conscious about it
and I’m not sure why. I write lyrics knowing that
someone will be reading them. I’m trying to write
a lot more to help work things out emotionally.
There’s poetry I like but when I try and write it I
just can’t take myself seriously enough to do it.”
With backing vocals, bass, and drums thrown
into the mix and Bognanno producing and
engineering her own sound, Bully is an irrefutable,
incomparable force to be reckoned with. Having
studied under the infamous producer Steve
Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, The Cribs) for years as an
audio engineer, Bognanno not only found her
niche, but ran with it.
“I always wanted to get into music. My first way
in was through audio-engineering, which I started
in high school. I ended up going to college for it.
I picked up electric guitar while I was in college
and eventually started Bully. I was playing piano
before and I just couldn’t stand it. I felt stuck and
felt like I couldn’t express myself. Then I picked up
electric and was like ‘oh I found it!’”
With blistering punk-esque vibes,
unapologetically confident howls, feedback that
could take down a bear and a little pop thrown
in for good measure, Bully’s sophomore release,
Losing, will most certainly keep you coming back
for another handful. Bognanno’s Bully appears
to be precisely what we need in uncertain
times such as these, a bloody fist bashing its
way through a crowd of bullshit to address the
feelings everyone has, yet seldom voice.
Bully performs at the Biltmore Cabaret
(Vancouver) on February 26.
Whether you’re heartbroken, starting a new
romance or just a plain cynic when it comes to
love, 69 Love Songs is the record for all shapes
and sizes. Since its release in 1999, the sprawling
conceptual indie album released via Merge
Records has become legendary. 19 years after
writing it in New York, the album is still just as
relevant and poignant today no matter your
mood, gender or sexual orientation. Looking
back on the album just in time for Valentine’s
Day, Stephin Merritt was kind enough to reflect
with us and answer some of our questions about
the L-word. And since he refused to answer any
questions containing the word favourite, it made
our interview fairly short and sweet — just like
most of the songs on the album.
BeatRoute: Hi Stephin! Thanks for taking the
time to talk to us for this feature.
Stephin Merritt: Thanks for having me. As is
my policy, I have ignored the questions about
favourite things..
BR: This year marks the 19th anniversary of
69 Love Songs, which means it’s finally legal in
Canada!
SM: In the US we are taught that practically
nothing is legal anywhere but the US, which is the
land of the free...all of them. Everywhere else is
North Korea.
BR: Music has changed so much since the late
‘90s. How do you think 69 Love Songs would be
received if it was released today?
SM: Really? I don’t think pop music has changed
at all since the late ’90s. There’s rock, disco and
country, slowly merging. Since no one listens to
music anymore — why would you? — And since
nothing ever happens, 69 Love Songs couldn’t
be released at all today. If it were, no one would
notice.
BR: 69 Love Songs has undoubtedly helped a lot
of broken hearts through breakups. Do you hear
from a lot of these people?
SM: My manager Claudia does. She reads the fan
mail. I had to stop reading the mail decades ago
when I got a love letter from a lunatic, enclosing
a photograph of himself that he had cut into tiny
triangles.
BR: You wrote 69 Love Songs in New York. What’s
the best place to take someone on a date in the
Big Apple?
SM: A bar. If they don’t show up, you can just get
drunk.
BR: In your experience, what’s the secret to a
happy relationship?
SM: Brevity!
BR: Do you think animals fall in love?
SM: Oh yes, I just saw some stupid clickbait
article about a dog pining away with love for the
neighbour’s cat. Essentially the same chemicals
are sloshing around in their and our little brains.
Love doesn’t require language skills.
BR: If you had to make another album of songs
about an emotion other than love, what would
it be?
SM: Love is much, much more than an emotion,
and I would never make a whole album about
only one emotion. The only one feasible would be
boredom, right? A zen album. I’d happily listen to
it, if only once, but I sure wouldn’t want to make
it.
BR: When are you more creative — during times
of happiness or heartbreak?
SM: Neither! If I’m happy I don’t want to work
(fortunately this is rare), and if I’m heartbroken I
can’t. I like to work when I’m tipsy and otherwise
a little bored, so I write mostly in bars.
BR: How do you plan to spend Valentine’s Day
2018?
SM: I think I’d like to blow something up. I gather
there is a sexual fetish for that, and it just sounds
like a lot of fun. Maybe at the Eagle, which is the
only remaining leather bar in New York, and has a
nice big roof deck.
BR: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. All
the best in 2018 and beyond!
SM: Ta.
Photo by Marcelo Krasilcic
69 Love Songs is the sixth album by The Magnetic Fields and was released in three volumes in 1999.
February 2018 19