Quick interview with The Coathangers

by Rose Blanton

I was able to have a quick chat with Julia Kugel of The Coathangers. We were able to discuss the latest release comin from the threesome and short, west coast tour they’ll be doing with Burger Records via the Burger A Go GO tour.

Rosie Blanton: I love Burger Records, their headquarters are not too far from where I grew up and this tour is super female centric. How does that feel?

Julia Kugel: When Burgerama first started they did Burger A G Go and it was the first one that was all girl based stuff and we played that and it was awesome. So now they made a tour out of it and they asked us if we wanted to be on it and we were like hell yeah. We know most of the people on the tour so it’s going to be super fun and relaxed. It’s awesome to be a bankable band and not discounted. Burger is kind of the first one to do this, in a rock and roll kind of way.

RB: For a long time the punk genre has been a male populated genre and you guys have been doing this for over a decade, what kind of evolution have you witnessed in the genre, what’s changed?

JK: Yeah it was mostly all guys, but little by little more girls are coming. I don’t know how much the genre itself has changed. We made that music because it was our lifestyle. All the kids were drinking and partying and playing rock n roll. It is really cool to see way more girls playing. There’s some really badass girls though that started when we started too, like Thelma and The Sleaze. They were the craziest bunch of people and that’s what that scene or genre is about. I’ve seen the scene changed into more commercially based stuff.

RB: Do you think it’s become more welcoming to women?

JK: Yeah, but I also never felt like it wasn’t welcoming. But maybe that’s because we came from Atlanta. I remember in the practice space I used to get nervous because I was the only girl but later on I would see more women. All the bands in the genre were really encouraging though.

RB: So you guys never really felt ostracized?

JK: Dude, the girls were actually the meanest thing. One of our first interviews, it was girl and she said “well do you think you’re only popular because you’re cute?” We weren’t trifling. We just wanted to party. But I like to think things have changed. There’s more women in every genre.

RB: Parasite is the latest release from you guys and I’m sure that’s what your supporting mostly during this tour but is there anything else you guys are working on?

JK: We just recorded a live album actually. We played two nights at Alex’s Bar in long beach (I live right by there) My husband actually records and he really wanted to do this record and he encouraged us to do this. We ended up only using the second night. It’s trippy though because the songs span our entire career. It’s trippy to make a record in one night that spans your entire career. It was awesome, I loved recording in one night, so perfect. Which is great because we’re really more of a live band, studios can kind of be pressure rooms.

You can catch The Coathangers Friday 2/23 at Dante’s in Portland in support of the Burger A Go Go tour.