Why US Girls Likes 'Fucking With People, Confusing People'

On her debut tour of Australia, art-pop outsider US Girls — 30-year-old Chicago-born, Toronto-based Meg Remy — is supporting indie-rock legends Sleater-Kinney at shows in both Sydney and Melbourne. And she's plenty happy about it. "I have a Sleater-Kinney tattoo on my leg from when I was 17," Remy confesses. "It's a ship, and it says 'Bless me with Athena'. It's a lyric from [The End Of You] on The Hot Rock, which is one of my favourite records. Sleater-Kinney were huge for me. Growing up, their power was inspiring. So this really feels like coming full-circle."

"I have a Sleater-Kinney tattoo on my leg from when I was 17."

Growing up in Illinois, Remy was born into a "typical American household" — older sports-obsessed brothers, family celebrations of Chicago Bulls titles — but found punk-rock as a teenager. She played in a run of high-school duos with her "one friend who was also into music", but didn't harbour specific rock dreams. "My overall ambition in life was only ever just to live an unconventional life. I didn't want to punch a time card, work Monday to Friday, get married, have kids. Making art just seemed like an avenue around that," Remy says.

After school she moved around — to Portland and Philadelphia, eventually Montreal and Toronto. Remy settled on a solo model for its portability and singularity, conceiving US Girls as an art-project loaded with provocation. "It started off as me just wanting to do something by myself and grew into me fucking with people, confusing people. Being playful. From the band-name to always changing the way I do the live show, to not revealing too much about myself, and the way that I make the music, and the people I work with, and the intentions behind the music. Making people think for themselves."

US Girls began was more of a noise act, Remy layering her voice and rudimentary percussion into hazy, lo-fi songs on her early LPs Introducing (2008) and Go Grey (2010). 2011's U.S. GIRLS on KRAAK found Remy delivering a symbolic cover of Brandy's The Boy Is Mine. "I loved that song when it came out, I had the CD single and watched the video obsessively on MTV," she explains. "It was an interesting flip of the script to have one person doing both voices. Because when you're in love with someone, and you're going through the motions, you can have a split personality around them."

That cover effectively announced that Remy was embracing pop elements, something that really came through on 2012's Gem, and fully-flowered on 2015's Half Free, her first LP for the iconic 4AD imprint. "My first two records I made completely alone with no help, no nothing, just me playing everything, mixing it all," Remy says. "When I opened myself up to collaboration, that opened up the colour-palette in a huge way. I'm always interested in pop forms, those huge hooks, because that's the music that I grew up loving, that I still love. I have no interest in becoming a pop star, or famous, or rich, or anything. It's just that, through my own experience, and through the people I've met, I now have the capacity to pull off bigger-sounding, more ambitious productions. It's not just me beating on a drum and singing anymore."