Quick-fire Questions: 10 minutes with Chastity Belt
If you don’t like Chastity Belt, seek help. The chill indie four-piece have been serenading us with sweetness now for over a decade, and they’ve never lost any of their charm, hooks, or subtle poignancy. The Seattle band have always embodied all that was best about the indie boom from whence they came, and that is typified by their latest split seven-inch single that they share with Holy Wave, showcasing the talents of their peers in a fittingly hip way.
Their offering for the Suicide Squeeze joint, ‘That Guy’, is a dreamy walk through the park late September. Kissed with an orange sunset hue, the track looks at malingering or juicing life down to the pith in equal measure with clever, twee lyrics like, “Maybe quitting is okay, but I don’t like giving things away”. There is a wholesome sense of contentment to be found in the sonic sigh that follows the busy murminings of the narrator, akin to the warm feeling of overcoming a hangover.
The narrator in question is Julia Shapiro, and speaking about the track, she explained: “We recorded this song in LA in November 2022 with a bunch of other songs that ended up on Live Laugh Love. It didn’t quite make the cut, but I’m excited to release it now! I really love Lydia’s meandering lead guitar line. I remember her having so many different ideas of what she could do, and we were like, do them all!”
Shapiro added: “I wrote the lyrics after Chastity Belt had just come back from doing a bunch of touring, and I had to go back to normal life. It’s always a rough transition for me. I feel so alive on tour! There’s this one line in the song about this habit I have with music where, when I find a new song that I love, I listen to it on repeat until it no longer makes me feel anything. Like I’ve drained all the blood from it.”
There’ll likely be a few diehard folks out there who cosy up to the comforts of ‘That Guy’ in a similar way. On the seven-inch, it is backed by Holy Wave’s equally hypnotic and gathering ‘Time Crisis Too’. Together, they showcase the beauty of the quirky old split single, and we’re here for a lot more of them.
To celebrate the release, we caught up with Chastity Belt and twisted their ear on all things great and small; from the lauded status of The Beatles to tearing up at Joanna Newsom concert, their answers were fittingly jangly in nature. They remain indie legends, fighting the good fight.
Quick-fire Questions with Chastity Belt:
1. What song would you want played at your funeral?
“Hmm, I don’t know… maybe all my loved ones could add songs that remind me of them to a playlist or something.”
2. What one song does nobody appreciate the true complexity of?
“It seems kind of crazy to claim that I alone understand and appreciate something that NOBODY else does. So, I’m kind of drawing a blank here. I’ve been listening to The Idler Wheel by Fiona Apple a lot recently, and I never get tired of tuning into all the different kinds of percussion in that album.”
3. What album are you proudest of to date?
“I would say that I’m most proud of the fact that we’re all still playing music together after over 10 years. I feel like each album holds a different, sweet set of memories. In a way, though, I’ll always be especially proud of No Regrets because we had no idea what we were doing. It was so pure, like all those songs were written just to entertain ourselves and our friends when they were drunk at college parties.”
4. When are you at your most creative?
“Probably anytime I’m not pmsing and have like five hours alone, which it turns out is kinda hard to achieve with a full-time job!”
5. What one ‘classic album’ would you happily delete from history?
“Whatever Queen album has ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on it, specifically so no one could sing it at karaoke.”
6. What is one unknown album that should be a classic?
“Joint by Gang.”
7. What is your favourite Jonathan Richman lyric?
“I, unfortunately, am not cool and have never listened to him.”
8. Who the fuck is Mark E Smith?
“Sorry, also not cool enough to know who that is.”
9. A book is being made into a film and you’ve been asked to create the soundtrack, what book do you wish it was?
“I’m reading All Fours by Miranda July right now, and I feel like that’d be a fun one; there are lots of different kooky and more serious emotions to explore there. By the way, we are dying to do a soundtrack because we have endless instrumental jams that need an outlet, so hit us up if your next major motion picture needs some soundscapes.
10. Have you ever been blown away by a musician during a recording session?
“Yes, I’m constantly blown away by my bandmates because they are all geniuses in their own way.”
11. Have you ever cried at a concert?
“Not like full-out tears because I have trouble expressing emotion, but I’ve definitely teared up. I can’t remember what show it was cause my brain is @.@ maybe Joanna Newsom? It seems kind of inappropriate not to cry at her concert.”
12. Where is the best bar in the world?
“This past tour, we were at a bar in Paris where we met so many friends, and everyone there seemed like they had known each other for years but also had just met that night. And the bartender kept saying he was closing and we’d all go outside, but then after a few minutes, everyone would go back inside and get another round. I swear that happened like four times. I think it was the best bar in the world.”
13. What is the most annoying song ever?
“‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.”
14. What has been your favourite album of 2024 so far?
“Gonna need my Spotify Wrapped to come out to tell you that for me… joking… BRAT… also joking, though I do love it… Psychotic Spew by Black Ends.”
15. Are The Beatles overrated?
“Ok… yes, but it’s not their fault. It’s the way people talk about them… too much dude worship that’s out of their control.”
