With spirit and spunk as loud and punchy as their name, Babe Punch want to take the world by storm, and they surely know how to go about it.
BABE PUNCH (Left to right: Carys, Abbie, Molly, Adam)
Having rereleased two new singles in just the past few months (recreating themselves after a very raw first EP from last year), Nottingham punk band Babe Punch have big plans. Compiled of some very strong-willed and forward-thinking people just out of college (the UK’s version of the last two years of US high school), their main goals are to make great music, play as many gigs as possible, and inspire people through their songs. With “Control” and “Stanford” being case studies for this, it’s no doubt they’re on the right track to achieving their goals.
I caught up with them before their gig at the Chameleon Arts Cafe and had a chat about how they’re showing the world exactly what levels they can attain–perhaps “world domination”?
To start off, tell me your names, three of your favorite bands or music artists, and your favorite place to go (anywhere in the world).
Carys: I’m Carys, I play guitar. My favorite bands at the moment are The Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Jefferson Airplane. My favorite place to go is probably Liverpool.
Adam: I’m Adam. I’m the drummer. My favorite band is Led Zeppelin. I haven’t really got a favorite place–I’d say Nottingham and the pubs in Nottingham. Beautiful.
Abbie: Hello, I’m Abbie. I play bass. My favorite bands are The Libertines and Hole. I’ve got many favorites, like–
Molly: Have you?
Abbie: Yeah! I’ve got so many favorite places, Molly! Don’t you know me at all? Ooh, Disneyland Paris, Skegness. I like going to the chip shop.
Molly: The chip shop’s always a good one. I’m Molly, I sing in Babe Punch. My favorite bands are Fleetwood Mac, The Stooges, and–at the moment–The Killers. And Vultures, obviously. My favorite place is Liverpool and Manchester. Oh, yeah, Croatia! My favorite place is Croatia. I’ve never been, but that’s the dream.
Your first two singles, “Stanford” and “Control,” came out over the Summer. How did you like your experience recording it?
Abbie: We recorded them ages ago didn’t we? Like, last October.
Molly: It was really fun because we worked with a guy called Jason and a producer, Dave. I think the first time round, we kind of rushed it because we recorded them and then re-recorded it, and I think we took a lot more time over it than we’ve ever done before. It made it sound a lot bigger. It was really fun to have each of our own day on it. We spent an hour on it each, and it was a really good experience.
What would you say your biggest influences have been?
Abbie: Musically as a whole, Hole. (laughs)
Molly: I think we just have a melted part of influences. We all have each of our own things that we kind of put all together, and, somehow, it comes out with what we sound like.
Abbie: We get compared a lot to Hole, and Bikini Kill, and Babes in Toyland, but that’s just because we’re a girl band.
Molly: Whether that’s because we actually sound like them, or just because we’re women.
Carys: When it first started out, we were listening to a lots of Drenge and The Wytches, and bands like that. As a group, when we were younger… and Deap Vally, and stuff like that, and I think that helped to start off to make the sound how it is.
Molly: We all just have our own personal influences, and that affects the way we perform, and how we play, and the things we write; and then we mix it all together and it just comes out the way it comes out.
What do you hope for people to take away from listening to these songs?
Abbie: Inspiration, I think. I think someone told us that their little girl really loves us, and really wants to be in a band and play music like us, which I thought was really cute. So it’d be nice to inspire younger girls.
Molly: Show girls that they can do it, you know? And actually make a good song out of it. With “Stanford,” the second single that we did, what’s important for me about that song is the message behind it. It’s about rape culture and the Stanford rape case in America, so, if anything to take from that song, I would hope that, not that it’s going to change anything, but I would hope that it makes people think a little bit.
Abbie: That it still is a problem, because I think a lot of the time now, they don’t think it’s a problem anymore because, well obviously, charging rapists is like a lot better now, but it’s still fucking shit. There is still the blame on the victims.
Molly: There is still so much work to do.
Abbie: There is still so much fucking victim blaming–loads. And half of rape cases aren’t even known about to the police because there is this massive problem.
Molly: Basically, there’s still a lot of work to be done, and if that song can help anybody think about change in any sort of way, that’d be the aim. As well as it being a very good song.
Carys: I think, closer to the band as well, big things like–a lot of people look at us and don’t really take us seriously because we’re girls, so just showing that we can do it as well. Like, when we play gigs, a lot of the time, male bands will walk straight to Adam and pass us off. They’ll take us more seriously once they’ve heard us play, so our music’s showing that girls can do it just as well as boys can.
What are five words you would use to describe your music for someone who’s maybe never listened to it before?
Molly: Loud. Loud.
Adam: Obnoxious.
Abbie: Powerful. Punk.
Molly: Raw.
Abbie: Raw!
Molly: In every sense of the word.
Adam: Energetic.
Molly: Just good.
Abbie: Incredible. [counting off fingers] Best band you’ll ever hear. There you go.
What can people expect from you in the near and far future?
Molly: World domination.
Abbie: We are gonna take over the world.
Adam: An album.
Carys: Near future, for an album, I wouldn’t say.
Abbie: Aw, you always gotta put a downer on it, Carys!
Carys: Lots of new music.
Abbie: Gigs all around.
Adam: Big gigs, small gigs.
Abbie: Little gigs, middle gigs, medium gigs, all gigs. Gigs, music, and world domination.
Be sure to keep an eye out for Babe Punch’s next developments, as well as their impressive cover of Hole’s “Violet.” (They do a great ABBA one as well.)