At the beginning of September, we attended the second Loud Women festival. Twenty plus bands were there, showcasing their talent, allowing musical fans the chance to see someone new or revisit bands already seen. One of the bands I saw was a two-piece punk band, who appeared drinking Red Stripe and proceeded to blast away receding hairlines on people like myself.
I managed to get a few words with them, so say hello to the Twistettes…
Simple things first – where are you guys from?
We are both originally from Dunfermline in Fife, Scotland. I (Jo) live in Glasgow now though.
Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?
Despite being a punk band, we’re influenced by a bunch of the 60’s girl band like the Ronnettes and the Marvelettes, etc so we liked the idea of using ‘ettes’. We want people to move to our music as well so I suppose the Twistettes just worked for where we wanted to go sound-wise.
Of the two of you, who got who into playing and listening to music?
We listened to music from being very young. Our parents were both big music fans with everything from Deep Purple to the Beatles and Bob Marley to the Clash in their collection so they probably got us both into listening to music at the same time. When it comes to playing music we both attended a youth club where they had instruments that we could have a shot of so again…we really got into that at the same time as well. We were in different bands to start off with back in our school days but it just made sense to start playing together in the end.
Which song or album still sends shivers down your spines?
“Maps” by The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs always get me. Its epic!
Describe your music. What makes you unique?
I’m not sure! We just do what we do and enjoy making noise together. We’re not specifically trying to sound like anything, we just wanted to produce something folks could dance about and let go to that was fun to play! We spent a long time when we were younger trying to sound like something or someone and its so liberating not to care!
Who did the art work for the record Jilt the Jive?
A local Glasgow artist called Rebecca Scott who goes under the name Weirdfolk. She does some incredible work. love her stuff!
If you could describe your music in the form of a fictional character, who would it be?
If Tank Girl and Betty Boop had a baby.
What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?
Our album launch was a sold out out gig at Nice N Sleazy in Glasgow. It was an amazing night with a really wild atmosphere. The audience were going crazy when we played and at one point a guy who was crowdsurfing started hanging from the ceiling and head butting the roof. It was insane…what a buzz that gig was!
Recently we heard you at the Loud Women festival. How did that show go down?
We loved it! We seemed to get a good response as well so all good. was great playing on such a fantastic line up…we were really buzzing. We love Loud Women…it’s so good to have a place to find out about other female artists who are rocking it.
What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?
Nicky has an old bashed up jazz kit with no rack toms. We like to keep it pretty stripped back so it works for our sound. I use a Fender Mustang bass and a bad ass turbo rat distortion…I love it.
I notice you’re playing a festival in Seoul in South Korea. Are you excited? How did that come about?
Yeah, Zandari Festival, we’re heavy excited! A friend’s band played last year and had a brilliant time. They suggested we apply this year and we got it. So keen for it!
What are your plans for the rest of 2017 and the start of 2018?
We’ve been gigging pretty relentlessly all year so we are going to take some time to finish writing the new album and get it recorded. Really looking forward to having the time to be creative.
If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be supporting and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!
We both love PJ Harvey…it would be very cool to support her. I play in another band called Girobabies so we’d maybe get them to support. They played before us at our album launch and they did a seriously good job of warming the crowd up. By the time we came on people went mental (leading to the ceiling head butting thing)!
A question from previous band of the day From Thunder On the Left: If you punch yourself and it really hurts, does that make you strong or weak?Â
I think it probably just makes you stupid…
Also, from The Less Unfortunates: Would you rather have gummy bears for teeth or hair that grows straight up and never stops? (You can’t cut your hair)
I think definitely the gummy bears. like, they would leave a nice flavour in your mouth and I think that with a good blender you could still have a nutritious diet. Also, there are options here…you could get gummy bear shaped teeth caps for example or even just eat your teeth then get falsers? The hair thing would be annoying. it’d get caught on stuff and become really heavy. Sore neck, sore feet…maybe it would eventually reach so high that it would freeze off at the ends then start falling in your eyes…hair in your eyes forever…oh no., not for me. No magic hat could fix that.
Finally, is there a question, you would put to the next band we speak to?
Who actually took the Bomp from the Bompalompalomp?