Photo by Christopher Patrick Ernst

For those somehow not in the know, Screaming Females is a 3-piece punk rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey. Over almost the past ten years, they’ve built a reputation for throwing together one of the best live shows you will ever see, whether you see them in some random basement show or a huge outdoor festival. They’ve played with bands ranging from Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Dinosaur Jr., and, only a few months ago, The Julie Ruin. On the verge of wrapping up a five-week national tour, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with them for a bit before their show at TT the Bear’s Place last night. Topics ranged from their new music, playing rainy shows, dealing with song requests, and MTV vs. VH1. Good times were had by all. Yay.

Allston Pudding: As kind of a fun icebreaker for people who don’t know you, do you wanna introduce yourselves, what you do in the band, and then follow up with two truths and a lie?

Jarrett Dougherty: My name’s Jarrett. I play drums in Screaming Females and two of these are true and one is a lie: I can unicycle. I am strangely good at yo-yoing. And I hope to one day have a tailoring business.

King Mike: Hi. I am Michael. I play bass in Screaming Females and three things about me that you might care to know is: I own two businesses. I went to college. I graduated from college.

Marissa Paternoster: My name is Marissa. I play guitar and sing in Screaming Females and here are three facts about me, one of which might be a lie: I got my first yeast infection at the age of 28. I drank a cup of coffee made with bleach once. I have a parrot but I don’t even like birds that much.

AP: I’m super psyched to see you later. I actually saw you back in April when you played with The Julie Ruin. How did you end up with that gig?

MP: We have a mutual friend with Kathleen Hanna. This lady named Kate Wadkins who interned for Le Tigre when they were making the tour documentary. I think, in the midst of making that documentary, Kathleen might have been planning on forming The Julie Ruin again. So, she asked Kate to write her a list of cool punk bands.

AP: And you were on that list, I guess?

MP: I assume so. I mean that’s what I heard. I’m just a messenger. Maybe Kathleen just used the Internet, I dunno.

JD: Maybe she just liked our band.

AP: How did you guys like doing that gig?

MP: It was awesome. We were received really well. I got the first Julie Ruin record when I was a kid so it was fun to hear some of those songs. And they played some Le Tigre songs too, so it was cool to watch. And they’re all really nice people.

AP: I also heard you’re are putting together a new record?

JD: We just did a new single for this tour, which is new material. We’re pretty excited about it. It has two new songs on it, “Wishing Well” on the A-side and “Let Me In” on the B-side. It’s the first new music we’ve released in quite a while. We did a single last year that had one new song on it, but it had been sitting around for a little while.

AP: I noticed that a trend you have with singles is doing splits with other bands. Is there a band you have in mind if you were going to do that again?

JD: It’s fun to do splits when you’re on a tour with a band to have something new for the tour. There’s a really great band from Long Beach, California called Benny The Jet Rodriguez. A while ago, we covered a show at Corazon and played on AV Club’s thing where they have bands do covers. And Benny The Jet Rodriguez recently started playing a Sheryl Crow cover. We got into a conversation with Lauren from the band the other day. Some friends of her went to Japan for their first tour in Japan. She was saying that both of our bands should tour in Japan and release a Sheryl Crow cover 7″. So, I guess that would be the best answer to that question. What were the songs?

KM: We did “If It Makes You Happy” and they do “Soak Up the Sun”.

AP: That’d be fucking awesome.

JD: *laughs* Double A-side.

KM: Clearly.

MP: With just a fine etching of Sheryl Crow’s face on the other side.

AP: One of our editors actually wanted me to ask this. If you could bring back to life one dead musician and have a chat with them, who would it be and why?

MP: My favorite dead musician is Édith Piaf. So we probably wouldn’t be able to speak to each other that much. She probably knew way more English than I do French. I know how to say one thing: Please do not squeeze my ferret. Maybe I’d say that to her, I dunno. *laughs*