Page 34 - the Noise November 2017

FRENCH VANiLLA – SoCal feminist punks hit Flag
BY BEVERLEY NAPALM
French Vanilla is a feminist art-punk band based in Los Angeles consisting of members Max Albeck (drums), AlI Day (guitar/bass), Sally Spitz (vocals), and Daniel Trautfield (bass/ sax). They regulate the dance floor with socially sensitive lyrics, vocal freneticism, punchy basslines, and a catchy sax. Half-driven by a desire to challenge the established SoCal music scene, dominated by a few influential (male) tastemakers, and half by a desire to hang out with friends, French Vanilla started in LA’s queer punk underground. It is in these spaces that they feel the most at home, but the songs are infectious and vibrant enough that there is undoubtedly a crossover potential.
The band’s ideology assumes the generative nature of women’s and/or BFF’s collaboration. More importantly, French Vanilla wants you to have fun at their shows and they deliver perfor- mances filled with infectious energy and enthusiasm. Beverley Napalm caught up with guitarist and bassist AlI during the band’s preparations for tour.
Stylistically, your music has a post-punk vibe, in particular, with the dancier funk-punk ele- ments that you bring to the mix. Revered feminist ‘70s punk bands such as Delta 5 and Kleenex spring to mind. Did you have a clear idea of your musical direction from the start? Or did you develop your style as the band progressed?
Yeah, you pretty much nailed it on the influences, those two bands were huge for me when we started out, and I still think about them a lot. But our sound has definitely evolved over time. When we started I had never played an instrument before, so there’s been a lot of growth over the last few years, and I think a lot left to do. We’ve incorporated influences from more genres like dance music and disco. A lot of that will be more evident on our next album, maybe sometime in 2018?
Recently there seems to be a renewed and welcome visibility toward female fronted bands within the indie and punk communities. How do you see French Vanilla fitting in with your local scene, and also nationally? Who do you consider your peers?
I think in some ways that’s true, but it also still feels like “female fronted bands” is con- sidered some kind of niche or a genre in itself, or once a band gets famous filling that hole, then there’s no more room for other female fronted bands. Like, “there can only be one” type deal, or we all get lumped together. We’ve played so many shows billed as “ladies night” or whatever with a focus on female fronted bands, which on the one hand is great, but on other the hand – why isn’t it just a regular night? Why pigeon hole us, or imply that only women would enjoy the music?
We have so many peers in the LA music scene, not necessarily because we make the same style of music, but we’ve met so many great people through starting French Vanilla and playing shows at venues like Pehrspace (RiP but hopefully not for much longer) and The Smell. Some bands that come to mind are Post Life, Heller Keller, Roses, Moaning and
French Vanilla | PHOTO BY MATTHEW JAMES-WILSON
Mo-Dotti, but there’s so many more. I also feel some camaraderie with Bay Area bands like Preening, The World and Rays, who sound a little more like us and some of which we’ve been fortunate to play with. Touring is amazing because you meet so many people across the country who are into what you do, want to help you, and also make awesome music themselves. This last East Coast tour we did in August we were lucky to play with amazing bands like Future Punx, Bless, The Wants, Ursula and many others.
i’ve read that one of your tag lines is “Destroy Dude Rock,” a sentiment I whole heartedly agree with. Your band contains male and female members, so you are presumably anti-dude, and not anti-men. How do you see your personal politics fitting in with pop music and your band’s development?
Hah yeah, that’s great distinction, anti-dude versus anti-man. I think it’s natural for anyone to address issues that affect them in their art, and French Vanilla is a punk band so it’s not a surprise that a motivating factor in our formation was an outlet for frustrations. Sally and I both minored in Women’s (Gender) Studies in college, so feminism and our experience as women is something we’ve thought about a lot. They say write about what you know, right?
Your self-titled debut full length is released as a cassette. Is this a DiY-art statement or simply the most economical method to get your music physically out there?
Cassettes are relatively cheap to produce and that’s great, but it wasn’t really a statement. It was more the label’s decision, we would’ve loved to have a vinyl right off the bat. Cas- settes are pretty unwieldy and break easily, we wouldn’t consider them a favored format. Fortunately there is an upcoming vinyl edition of the album in the works!
Your current tour is quite lengthy. I am always fascinated how DiY musicians balance “real life” commitments with making art. How do you make it work on tour?
It definitely gets difficult. Some of us have full time jobs, so it’s a balancing act of saving and using vacation days wisely, taking unpaid time, etc. without jeopardizing our employ- ment. It would be great to be self-employed and just leave whenever we wanted, but un- fortunately that’s not the reality for us. We only started touring last year, so right now we’re kind of starting to reach the breaking point on these strategies. We’ll see what happens!
Don’t miss French Vanilla at Flagstaff Brewing Co. November 11. Support comes from Fake Nails (Flagstaff’s latest all-femme newcomers) and Hot Lunch. It will be a corker of an
evening! 9PM, no cover.
FrenchVanilla.bandcamp.com
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