NEIGHBORHOOD BRATS
C
INTERVIEW
WITH
VOCALIST
oming off their latest European jaunt, Neighborhood Brats frontwoman Jenny Angelillo speaks about her ferocious four-piece punk band and their latest stunning album, Recovery. When you went to Europe, you had some pressings of the record? Yeah, it’s coming out in North America in August on Deranged [Records], and the European release is on Taken By Surprise. We had 100 test pressings in Europe and blew through them in three days. People were bummed. We got them in Cologne and, three days later, we played a huge festival in Copenhagen called K-Town Hardcore Fest and ran out that night. People were physically upset. I’ve never seen that before – people wanting the record so bad – so I hope it’s a good sign. How has your sound progressed? I definitely think there’s a progression. [Guitarist] George [Rager] and I started this band five years ago in San Francisco, but we both came from the Midwest and we grew up on American punk rock and hardcore. George always leaned towards more the L.A. bands, and I grew up more listening to the East Coast bands. We always just wanted to have a fun, punk rock party band. All of our songs were about San Francisco. I think definitely our earlier recordings and the first formation of the band was more a punk/hardcore-sounding band, but I think as we’ve progressed – especially with this new album, Recovery – we’re exploring other styles of music. George is an amazing guitar player and a really good surf guitar player, so I hear the new album – songs like “Painted and Gutted” and “One Wasted Year” – and there’s definitely some surfy elements. When we finished listening to this record, we were like, “It’s still a punk-rock record, but… it’s like a bad day at the beach. It’s really beachy and summery, but it’s also kinda dark.” I don’t think we’re gonna alienate anybody who likes Neighborhood Brats. I don’t feel like anybody’s gonna listen to this record and be like, “Oh, fuck that. They’re not our punk-rock hardcore band anymore.” We’ve always recorded at the same place here in Oakland, so we haven’t changed. Greg Wilkinson’s been our recording engineer since Day 1. He helped develop our sound, and I really like the way Recovery sounds. Not to say that I wouldn’t listen to the other records, but Recovery is an album I’d actually buy and enjoy listening to. “Painted and Gutted,” is definitely a little bit different. More melodic… Yeah, I think when we wrote that song,
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JENNY
ANGELILLO
George was like, “That’s a surf song I wrote.” George and I wrote this entire record in my living room. We didn’t write it in the studio; we didn’t write it at band practice. It was just me and him sitting across from each other on the carpet in my living room writing songs. He would just play things, and I would literally lay there on the floor with a cup of coffee and a notebook. George can just play and play and play… So I’d have to be like, “Oh, I like that. I like that,” and I would just pick through his brain. Then, sometimes, we would look up X or something, and be like, “Fuck, we’re kinda going this way.” We would write, and then pull out our encyclopedias for reference. Writing this album was like writing a research paper in more ways than one. “Year of the Brat” is such a perfect opener… We really liked that name as a title for the album, but it became evident we wanted to use Recovery instead. “Year of the Brat”- that’s just an opening. It’s saying things are gonna be different. People are like, “The album’s called Recovery; why is it called Recovery?” Just read the lyrics. It’s about shutting the door on the past and moving into the future, and not being resentful or regretful about things you’ve done in the past or mistakes you’ve made, because they’ve all gotten you to where you are now. It’s declaring, “Yeah, it’s our year and our record.” Everything that’s happened in our lives personally and band-wise has put us in a really good place. People are like, “Fuck, I hit a wall.” Things are fucked, but you should always look at life like… maybe you’re running into a wall that’s got a door in it. Have you ever done a totally instrumental track like “Escape the City” before? No. But I felt like it was a nice break. Again, George is a great surf guitar player. He’ll probably deny it, but he’s awesome, and it felt like a fun thing to put on the record. I just picture it in a skate video, or surf video or something like that. And also, it showcases that we are musicians. The boys in my band can actually play their instruments. I know it’s not very “punk rock,” but… They’re actually great musicians. It makes the record more of a story instead of, “Here’s a bunch of songs we threw together.”
BY
JANELLE
JONES
Now we both live in Long Beach. Is “Suburbia” about the city? “Suburbia” was inspired by the movie. We made a fun little video you can see on our Facebook. Like a tribute? You basically don’t have to watch the movie ever because we just did the best hits of the movie. Did you have a little kid on a Big Wheel? Yeah. You should watch it. George was in the living room one day – he and I are roommates – and I’m like, “What the fuck are you doing?” He’s like, “Just wait. It’s gonna be great.” Finally he’s like, “You can watch it,” and I’m like, “This is genius!” [The song] “How We Lost Control” is definitely about San Francisco, how it’s changed so much from when we lived there to now. So different, just because of all the new money in the city, the dot-com industry and the fact that people in the city are really wealthy at a really young age.
meth lab… So this is “Stevie Nicks and the RV”?! There literally was an RV parked outside, and a woman we called Stevie Nicks because she looked like her. There was a fistfight on the front lawn one night. We were hanging out in the house and heard this yelling, and they were beating the living crap out of each other. There were always people working at all hours of the night on cars with blowtorches, sort of “Breaking Bad”meets-“Mad Max” next door. So the main dude who lived there – his name was Scotty B. – apparently had a band, and told my ex that they were writing a hit song called “The Pharmacy is Closer Than the Liquor Store.” And I said, “That’s genius, I’m totally gonna use that.”
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That last song, “The Pharmacy is Closer Than the Liquor Store”… Isn’t that hilarious?! What do you say in between the lyrics, “It’s fucked!”? Basically, I encountered these people who actually live next door to my ex-boyfriend – the guy who “One Wasted Year” talks about – and it was a crazy house, just these people coming and going, we’re pretty sure it was a
When did you guys move to L.A.? I think George moved in 2011, so there was a year that we weren’t in the same city. George and I were both living in Hollywood, and then George moved to Torrance and I moved to Long Beach.
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