photo by Matt Wignall
The Ettes
Tour-weary and still without a label, the L.A. trio makes a little-known gem out of road dust and pure grit
By Emily Savage
Published: March 27th, 2008 | 12:05pm
Until a year and a half ago, vocalist-guitarist Lindsey “Coco” Hames, drummer Maria “Poni” Silver, and bassist Jeremy “Jem” Cohen were living in Los Angeles cultivating their upbeat garage-punk sound. For the past 18 months, however, the trio has been touring Europe and the United States.
Consistent touring is tough on most bands, but Hames’ only complaint is that her dog (a seven-year-old Bichon Frisé named Maxine) might not be able to accompany them on tour. “I miss my dog!” Hames said via phone from her mother’s house in Florida, where she’d been relaxing between tours. “Sometimes she comes on the road in the States, but she hasn’t really been able to come to Europe in the past.”
The Ettes came together in 2004 when Hames met Silver while working at Miss Sixty on Melrose. Both being recent transplants from New York, they bonded over music. While Hames had been playing music for years, Silver had yet to pick up a pair of sticks, but she immediately impressed Hames with her natural rhythm and quick, hard-hitting style. Soon the duo was playing with other lady friends on bass. But when they became serious and wanted to start touring as the Ettes, their friends weren’t interested.
In came Cohen, whose 1960s garage-rock band, the Household Names, had recently broken up. He was ripe for the picking, but there was a small problem. “We were a bit apprehensive about having a boy in the band at first,” Hames joked. “But then we were like, ‘well he’s like a girl.’” To Hames, comfort was more important than gender in finding a new bass player. “We just wanted a friend in the bass position. I mean, we were a gang; we couldn’t just let anyone in! But Jem was totally down from the get-go.”
Once Cohen joined, the Ettes’ sound evolved. “Poni and I respond to music in a primal way — I like this beat, this punk feel — but Jem tries things that are more complex,” Hames said. What they held in common was their combined love for the Rolling Stones and the Stooges, as well as contemporary heroes like Holly Golightly and Greg Cartwright, all evidence of which can be found on their first release, 2006’s Shake the Dust.
Shake the Dust, is a raucous retro-punk and country-tinged debut that produced numerous comparisons to luminaries like the Stooges, Bikini Kill, and even Nancy Sinatra. Hames said the process started with a bare-bones, raw sound and grew from there with layers of styles topping off the record, each member adding their own personal taste.
The approach to their newest album, Look at Life Again Soon, (self-released March 11, 2008) has expanded on this idea. Look at Life starts off roaring with “Subject” and keeps the poppy, garage sound pumping at a dizzying pace all the way to the final track, “Where Your Loyalties Lie.” Stand-out track “Two Shakes” is a stripped-down party jam reminiscent of Kill Rock Stars’ favorites the Bangs. The album encompasses everything the Ettes are: loud, fun, and full of respect for the rockers that came before them.
Its themes are also a bit deeper than those expressed on Shake the Dust. Inspired by Hames’ experiences while touring, the lyrics touch upon everything from complicity to greed to sex and love. “I think we've moved away from the pissy girl stuff and hopefully into expressing more interests and emotions than ‘let's get drunk and fuck because I'm lost and the world's ending’ — not that that necessarily sums up Shake the Dust,” Hames said.
Unlike some musicians who claim that touring’s distractions smother creative tendencies, Hames, who writes the majority of the Ettes’ lyrics, does most of her songwriting while out on the road, and the group tends to flesh out its songs once they’re off the road. But with their schedule, that can’t always be the case, and the band seems to have adapted to the point of being more comfortable on than off the road, including accomplishing their best work in the brief down-times opportunities they’ve had while touring. For an ever-touring, hard-working band, it only makes sense that their sound would evolve as they did – out on tour. Hames is equally positive about these experiences. “We always have surprises. Lots of good music can come out of sound check on the road!”
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The Ettes' Official Web site
The Ettes on MySpace
Issue #26
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