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*

AP: She also wanted me to ask you Marissa about your fake MTV show?

MP: MTV12 is the first television network video countdown show on the Internet where we count down our favorite top 12 videos in alphabetical order. I'm VJ Misty and I do the show with my co-VJ Dawn Riddle. We just hack music videos off of YouTube and film it on the internal camera on my laptop and make it an iMovie. *laughs*

JD: It's expanding past the countdown now.

MP: Yeah, we have some other segments. An interview segment called "Q&A with K&K" with our two new VJs, VJ Kristina and VJ Kush. And we're working on an on-scene reporting live from the rock show segment with a new VJ, VJ Boo Boo. We'll see, maybe one day we'll get a real camera and a microphone, but I don't see why we should do that.

AP: I didn't even know about it until she brought it up with me. It's kind of ironic, because the first time I heard about you guys was when you were featured on Last Call with Carson Daly.

MP: I kinda miss when TV would actually play videos. When I was watching TV a lot, MTV2 just started and they would play videos all day, which was awesome. And then it abruptly ended and hasn't really come back since. I know they have a million channels now but I don't know what they play.

KM: Yeah, now they have mtvU and MTV Jams...

AP: VH1's still around too, I think.

MP: I always thought of VH1 as the video network for old people as a kid. I was like "Peter Gabriel, ew." *laughs*

JD: And they would always take the 90's R&B songs and edit out the rapper's verse. Like with Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" and they would edit out Ol' Dirty Bastard. I was like this song is just like The Tom Tom Club without Ol' Dirty Bastard.

AP: You have obviously been touring for a good number of years now. More of a veteran live band, I'd say. What would you say is an aspect of the live show that the new bands you're seeing miss out on or don't quite get yet?

KM: When you say we're a veteran live band, it makes it seem like we're nearing retirement.

MP: Do you think we should be on VH1 or something? *laughs*

KM: Yeah, we're fresh young guns. *laughs*

JD: I'd say that watching new bands is usually exciting, because it's usually weird and they're trying to figure out what they're doing. I think there's a place you get when you've been playing a little longer than that where it's like scripted and way less interesting. So it's less advice to brand new bands and more advice to bands that have been playing a little while. I feel like most fans of music don't want to see you play the same way all the time. I know a bunch of bands that when they get together and they practice their set and then it's set. That's it. A lot of hardcore bands do that. The songs are done in the same order with the same amount of time in between them. Every single time.

KM: Yeah, you gotta change things up a bit. Especially when people start yelling out requests and it's a wild night. You start trying to fulfill those requests.

AP: So it's like being able to improvise a little bit.

KM: Yeah, so it's like say I broke my D string. Let's play something where I don't have to use that string. There ya go. You gotta know the entire catalog.

MP: That's so many songs.

JD: We gotta take that advice. I was thinking that when I get home, I might just do some practice sessions myself where I go through all the songs and make sure I know them all.

MP: Damn.

AP: Have you guys had any really random requests that you had no idea how to play?

MP: People ask for songs we don't know how to play all the time.

JD: There's a song "Arm Over Arm", it's one of our oldest songs. On the beginning of this tour, like six different people asked me to play that song. I'm like "Are you kidding me? I didn't even know that song even exists. It's so old."

AP: I feel like it's really weird for fans because a lot of them have that one song from that one single they really like and they want to hear that one song.

KM: I think today, if you asked us to, we could play 85% of our catalog. That's pretty impressive.

AP: I'd say so.

JD: I'd say that's something as a band that we never worried about too much. Displeasing people because we don't play the one song that the most viewed on YouTube or something. I think that our live show is interesting enough and engaging enough that even if you don't come and hear that one song you were looking to hear, you'll leave pretty happy about what we did and be pretty excited about it. The times I've seen bands play and they didn't play their hit was actually kind of exciting. It's pretty gnarly to go up there and be like I know people want to hear this song, not doing it.

AP: Yeah, it's pretty rare nowadays. All the time they save the hit for the encore.

MP: When my friend played with Lit in the early 00's, he said they played "My Own Worst Enemy" five times.

JD: So that'd be my advice to bands. Don't get locked into a box.

AP: You guys have probably been here in Boston/Cambridge area a couple of times now. Do you guys have a feel for the area? What do you think of Boston?

KM: It's tough to park.

JD: Yeah, parking is really hard.

MP: We usually just leave. Like we go to Rhode Island. And it's not like it's because we don't have places to stay.

JD: And I'm pretty sure every time we've headlined a show in Cambridge, it's rained.

MP: Also, I always forget that you can't crowd-surf. It's illegal everywhere. And I always wind up doing it.

JD: And it's not something you do at every show, it's just here.

MP: Yeah, it's just here. I don't know why.

JD: We played a really awesome crazy show on this tour I set up with Waxahatchee and Tenement at The Middle East Downstairs. All the paperwork said in bold letters "DO NOT CROWDSURF, YOU WON'T GET PAID." I didn't mention it to anyone in the band, because it's not something we do regularly. And then I open my eyes at the end of the set and Marissa crowdsurfing. I'm like "Fuck, we're not getting paid tonight." *laughs*

MP: Don't worry, nobody cared.

AP: Are there any Boston bands that you've been following or keeping an eye on?

MP: One band is Libyans. I don't think they're very active anymore.

JD: I think they just kind of broke up. They did a last record and they came through Philly and I saw them play. I'm around a lot of people who are really into hardcore all the time. It's never been a genre that I'm obsessed with, but that band is definitely a stand-out hardcore band.

MP: Ancient Filth is from Boston, right? I think so.

KM: There's a bunch of bands that are kinda sorta like Worcester/Cambridge. The Ringers were cool. They're broken up.

MP: *laughs* We are old.

AP: So, I know it's raining tonight and I have no idea what the turnout's gonna be like. For smaller shows when the turnout isn't good, what do you like to do?

KM: Have the greatest time. I love it when nobody shows up. My favorite shows are when there's like one person there.

AP: Just play for that one person?

KM: Yeah, fuck it. And I usually get drunk. That's pretty cool too.

JD: We've played so many different kinds of shows over the years. I think we're fairly used to that wide range of experiences. It is hard. You wanna be that one band where everyone's like "They were playing like it was hundreds of people even though there was only a dozen!" It's hard to do that, to be completely honest. But, we never go up there like "This sucks." We just go up and try to play our best and do the best we can, regardless of how many people are there.

KM: Tonight's gonna be good though.

(Spoilers: It was. Read the full review!)

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