The Walla Walla, Washington-born band Chastity Belt is comprised of Julia Shapiro (guitar, vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar), Annie Truscott (bass), and Gretchen Grimm (drums). Together, they form the Seattle-based indie rock group that impresses with shimmering songs and insightful lyrics.
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[Chastity Belt on Tour in 2024: Get Tickets]
The standout band, which is set to release its next album, Live Laugh Love, on March 29, is one of many talented groups from the Suicide Squeeze record label, along with Death Valley Girls, L.A. Witch, and others.
Below, we caught up with Lund and Grimm to ask them a handful of questions about songwriting, collaboration, and their hopes for next year.
American Songwriter: When you’re going to co-write or collaborate with another artist, either for one of your songs or theirs, how do you approach the experience?
Lydia Lund: My favorite parts of collaboration happen in the room together. I like being able to experiment live to see how the sounds I bring to the composition physically fill or leave space in relation to what the other person is sharing with me. There’s something so informative about those vibrations that I’ve never been able to get when I’ve tried to write parts on my own, listening to headphones.
AS: When you write lyrics, what thing or two do you keep in mind—either a technique like alliteration or a way of voicing a story succinctly? Another way of asking this is what tip or trick do you hold close when writing lyrics, if anything?
Gretchen Grimm: For me I mostly just kind of see what comes out. I usually start singing jibber-jabber over a guitar part that I’ve written, and eventually a word or phrase pops out that feels meaningful and I go from there. Sometimes the music does give me a general idea of what the song could be about. I guess somehow the instrumental part of a song sparks a theme or reminds me of an idea or feeling that’s been simmering in my head or that I’ve written down somewhere.
LL: Similar to Gretchen, I find that spontaneity is key in my lyric writing process. I remember listening to a Song Exploder [episode] a few years back where Jeff Tweedy describes basically the same experience Gretchen described. He started with incoherent vocalizations over the instrumentals and the sounds became words, and all of a sudden the words had meaning and the rest sort of congeals around those initial ideas.
It feels a bit like magic really, and I find it also takes a lot of the weight off of trying to write something ‘meaningful.’ And occasionally it feels cathartic because thoughts I didn’t know I had brewing subconsciously get expressed. I guess it’s similar to the way I go about writing instrumental portions of a song – I never have an idea of what I want a song or part to sound like, I just start playing until something comes out that feels right and build from there.
AS: When it comes to news stories of 2023, what was one that really raised your eyebrow when it came to the world of music?
LL: What has caught my attention most in the world of music is rather depressing: Spotify’s recent planned move to stop distributing revenue for songs with less than 1,000 listens and redirect that revenue towards more popularly streamed songs, and a few months back, Bandcamp being acquired by Songtradr and their subsequently laying off half of Bandcamp’s employees.
I feel so grateful that when we started as a band, Spotify was not popular, and many people found our music through independently run blogs. At that point it felt like there was some chance for underdogs to make it in the music world. The world of music seems to have become synonymous with the music industry in the way that it determines who is popular and how they can get paid. Anyway there’s a lot to it I can’t quite sum up in a few words, but let’s just say, I don’t feel particularly hopeful.
AS: What were your one or two favorite songs or artists or albums from 2023?
GG: Coral Grief “Wow Signal,” Black Ends “My Own Dead.”
LL: This year I found myself coming back to Wednesday’s album Rat Saw God again and again. It’s full of solid rock bangers. Stephen Steinbrink’s Disappearing Coin is another album I’m loving.
AS: What are your hopes for 2024 personally, professionally or for the world, looking ahead?
GG: I’m really excited to tour again—hopefully make some new friends and see some old ones too!
LL: I’m also really looking forward to heading out on the road again! I’m so grateful for the opportunity to tour—to see old friends, like Gretchen mentioned, and meet some new ones, to play music everyday, to spend way too much time cooped up in the van, and to hangout with my bandmates for weeks on end. It’s bliss interspersed with exhaustion.
Photo by Jena Feldman / Courtesy Suicide Squeeze
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