Interview: Chastity Belt

“Do you know about The Secret?”

A long pause followed and, cialis for the first time in our conversation, no mutually awkward laughter was to be found. For a few seconds, I legitimately thought Chastity Belt singer Julia Shapiro was about to tell me that the best-selling, mom-approved, mid-‘00s self help book about directing positive dream energy towards your personal goals was the reason her band snagged a place opening Courtney Barnett’s North American tour.

“Well, I feel like we thought about [this tour], like, hoping this would happen,” Shapiro added. “So basically, we used The Secret on it and now we’re going on tour with her,” she concluded, finally releasing a low chuckle.

The truth is that a mutual friend tweeted about how well the Australian grunge-pop hero and Chastity Belt would play off each other and the internet took care of the rest, but it’s not illogical to believe positive vibrations or whatever are following the Belt.

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“I was really thinking about what makes people dance at a party. And then we moved to Seattle and it was like, ‘that doesn’t matter, nobody dances here anyways.’”

Rounded out by guitarist Lydia Lund, bassist Annie Truscott, and drummer Gretchen Grimm, Chastity Belt have been rising above benchmark after benchmark this year with the kind of make-it-look-easy pace that most basement show bands would kill for. Beyond having NPR give their latest LP, Time to Go Home, its seal of approval, the band has been on the minds of everyone from R. Stevie Moore to Haim (“Lydia’s dad met them! They were eating at the same restaurant and he recognized them… I don’t know if I would’ve even recognized them!”) Their SXSW sets this year were followed by a horde of adoring press, all of whom couldn’t get over the bucket hat/biker sunglasses resurgence the band was inspiring (“I think we saw twenty dads wearing them”)

Despite locking in the most incredibly hilarious press shots and selfies of the year, Chastity Belt succeed by inspiring the kind of goofy pride reserved for seeing your friend’s band play a packed house show. It makes perfect sense given their first LP, (the intentionally misspelled) No Regerts, was a smirking eulogy to their college years, filled with party-tested surf punk anthems like “Pussy Weed Beer” and “Giant (Vagina)”. If Regerts was the drunken revelry though, Home is waking up hungover on someone’s porch the morning after, convincing yourself of the amazing night with the splitting headache and dry mouth left behind.

“I’ve been listening to a lot of Alex G and Girlpool… you know, that kind of sad, beautiful music. I feel like I like ‘morning after’ music in general more than ‘party music’,” Shapiro offered for the markedly mellower new songs, none of which feature a “vagina”, “beer”, or “nip slip” in their titles. “When we first started playing, I was really thinking about what makes people dance at a party. And then we moved to Seattle and it was like, ‘that doesn’t matter, nobody dances here anyways.’”

Home dials in on darker, more self-realizing themes than Regerts, but it certainly isn’t without joy. Songs like “Drone” and “Lydia” highlight self-affirmation against the domineering attitude of the masculine music industry, while album highlight “Cool Slut” is the summer anthem with a rallying call for slut re-appropriation. Although no critic has been outright dismissive, the occasional sexism in reviews over songs like “Slut” hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“There was [a review] about “Cool Slut” being, like, about us being embarrassed to be slutty. Like, no, this is like the opposite of that… you totally didn’t get the point of this at all.” Shapiro and Co. prefer the “avoid it” route with any negative reviews, but the occasional bad review they see is dealt with in the same easygoing, humorous way they handle their music. “[The reviewer] mentioned us, Lena Dunham… and a bunch of young female [artists] who are popular right now as “fuck ups”. I dunno, [Girls] is pretty successful; I wouldn’t call her a fuck up.”

If anything, Chastity Belt belongs in a similar camp as Girls, benefitting from their experiences and uncertainties as twenty-something women doing whatever the fuck they want on their terms. And though their charm might be working a bit too well lately (their show with Barnett at the Sinclair has been sold out for months), they still manage to know the right thing to say when it counts.

“Actually, at the end of the ‘Cool Slut’ video, we’re eating those chocolate-vanilla swirl pudding cups, so we’re pretty big Pudding fans.”

Honestly, we’re sold; no Secret mysticism needed.

Time To Go Home is available now on Hardly Art Records. If you have any friends going to the Courtney Barnett show tonight, consider owing them a favor or some shit for a ticket. You will not regert it.