2017 was an interesting year. While we saw the United States slosh around in political turmoil, we also saw the music community (worldwide) hit strong with terrorist attacks at concerts and music festivals. Shit was, and still is scary. While there was a definite dark side to 2017, there was also a bright side. Our nation, and this world saw an increase in activism, speaking your mind and standing up for what is right. Many of the bands we interviewed this past year all took a brave stance in speaking their mind whether against the Trump administration or atrocities happening worldwide. Below we have highlighted 5 of our favorite artist / band interviews of 2017. While politics and word matters are spoken about in some, there’s also a lot of fun alternate topics covered. We talk sexy stuff, badass stuff, sound evolution stuff, and a lot more.
Check out below, Grimy Goods 5 Favorite Artist / Band Interviews of 2017!
LA’s sexiest new band The Marías is here to soundtrack your love life
Imagine walking into a 70s bar-lounge and sitting in a velvet booth, the air thick with a perfumed nostalgia and smokey intimacy, your head in a spin from the sultry voices and feverishly groovy notes being elicited from the small stage in front of you. Now close your eyes and press play on “I Don’t Know You,” the debut track from the LA-based band The Marías–let it transport you to someplace where sensuality and ecstasy drip from the lips of those around you. Comprised and led by couple María and Josh Conway, The Marías have no qualms about making music that is a sultry, midnight rendezvous of their many tastes, which include jazz, funk, psychedelia, and lounge. With only one song out but their debut EP titled Superclean Vol. I staged for release in the fall, the only real morsel one can get of the band right now is from the members themselves or those who’ve caught them live. Viewers have described their sound to everything from having sex in the 70s to pouring cream into coffee, alone these might seem like arbitrary comparisons–but then you hit play on “I Don’t Know You” again, and it all just oozes out like a fever dream.
David Le’aupepe of Gang of Youths talks his uncompromising devotion to beautiful lyrics
Every few years it seems, Australia manages to churn out another solid indie band or artist that manages to make headlines with a stunning debut–so it’s understandable if you’re having trouble keeping up. However, it would be criminal to continue overlooking one such act that made its damn-near flawless debut in 2015 with The Positions, a gift from the aptly named and soulfully riotous group Gang of Youths. Comprised of a tightly knit group of five close friends and led by the songwriting prowess of David Le’aupepe, the band executes its impassioned songs with a strenuous balancing of poetically dense lyricism and equally complex sonics. Mincing no words and giving listeners a voraciously intimate encounter with his own struggles and demons–of which Le’aupepe is admirably open about–the band mingles bittersweet hopes with crushing realities, while also refusing to engage in any cultural glorification or romanticizing of such griefs.
Not looking back: the U.K.’s Wire still going strong forty-years into their evolving sound
Wire by Matias Coral
Even if you’ve never delved very deep into the historical roots of the budding punk scene that developed in the UK during the 1970s, chances are if you’ve been a fan of rock music in the last four decades, you’ve had a taste of Wire. Attributed to expanding the sonic limits of punk and eventually rock music as a whole, Wire has characterized itself as an experimental force unabashedly capable of timeless reinvention–which has allotted them a never-ending relevance over the course of fifteen albums and forty-years.
An Interview with Austra — navigating through our current dystopia
Austra — Photo by Renata Raksha
Austra, also known as the Canadian vocalist and producer Katie Stelmanis has an upcoming Los Angeles gig on February 9 at the El Rey Theatre. Touring in support of her new album Future Politics, released January 20 via Domino, the 11-track record features compelling songs with Austra’s signature bewitching croon. Noted as her most ambitious album to date and self-described as “optimistic, challenging, and pretty,” Future Politics couldn’t arrive at a better time. As the U.S. endures a tumultuous political climate, that ultimately affects the entire planet, Austra’s new record is a call for hope, “a commitment to replace the approaching dystopia.” Austra delves into politics on her most personal album yet. What makes the message even stronger is the beautiful package that cradles the lyrics of his album: Stelmanis’ incredible voice.
An Interview with Crystal Fighters: using music to fuse differences in an ever polarizing world
Crystal Fighters
Boasting an original story worthy of its own television miniseries, folktronica band Crystal Fighters owes its very name and early inspirations to the unfinished opera penned by vocalist Laure Stockley’s grandfather in the last years of his life. Recovered by Stockley when cleaning out her grandfather’s reclusive home in the Basque countryside, she took his writings and showed them to the band–which led to their fascination and subsequent expansion of his work into their first album, Star of Love.
