Why The Coathangers Don't Want To Sound Like An 'Overproduced Bullshit Band'

Stephanie Luke has a confession to make. The drummer/vocalist for Atlanta punks The Coathangers, when on the band's first tour of Australia in January 2015, developed an addiction to Vegemite. "No, like, seriously," Luke says, from on a mid-tour pitstop in a place really called Truckee, California. "I'm hooked on it. I love it, honestly."

"Going through life playing music, it helps you handle things a little bit better. It's a cathartic outlet."

The trio - Luke, bassist/vocalist Meredith Franco, guitarist/vocalist Julia Kugel - are returning ("there's no way in the world we ever thought we'd get to tour Australia once, let alone do it again; that's insane!") in support of their fifth LP, Nosebleed Weekend. Working with producer Nic Jodoin, the record found their garage scuzz given some polish. "We definitely try to move forward on each record," says Luke, "but we don't just want to all of a sudden sound like some overproduced electronic bullshit band because that's what's in right now. We definitely wanna stay true to who we are, but we've gotten better at songwriting, at playing our instruments. So we should make a record that sounds better."

Like the band's prior albums - 2007's self-titled debut, 2009's Scramble, 2011's Larceny & Old Lace, 2014's Suck My Shirt - it functions, Luke says, as a "snapshot in time. The first one is like elementary school. Then the second is middle school, then high school, then college."

By that analogy, that makes Nosebleed Weekend their adult, all-grown-up record, right? "Oh, god, yes!" Luke laughs. "We have grown up, become more responsible and mature in the way we treat each other. We're basically all sisters. I went to high school with Julia. I was friends with Meredith before the band started. If something does happen on tour, we just give it a minute, talk it over, then on to the next day. Going through life playing music, it helps you handle things a little bit better. It's a cathartic outlet. So, anything I'm going through, bad or good, I can put it into a song, into the music, into the live show."

Over their decade together, the three Coathangers have seen more of the world than they ever hoped, and answered endless questions about their gender as they've gone. "In certain parts of the world, like when we played in Serbia, or in Japan, it was considered weird that we were all female," says Luke. "We get asked about that less these days, but I never know how to answer those questions. We have a bunch of friends who are in bands that're all dudes, and they go through the same shit that we go through, the same ups and downs. So, it's hard to know how different your experience actually is being in an all-female band."

"To us," Luke continues, "feminism just means equality. Everyone should just be treated the same. There should be no difference between people. We're happy being chicks, playing in a band. And if we're inspiring young girls [to pick up instruments], that's huge, but it's not something that we ever set out to do. We never dreamed that could even happen."