Side Hustles in Seattle: Chastity Belt interviewed
We talk to Julia Shapiro about Chastity Belt’s unconscious maturing and finding inspiration in the banal on new album I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone
Julia Shapiro, lead singer and guitarist for Chastity Belt (along with tongue-in-cheek Seattle supergroup Childbirth) is known for lyrics that span the spectrum of college kid concerns. Covering everything from casual sex, an insatiable appetite for getting fucked up, and getting high as an escape from mundanity, Chastity Belt’s lyrics have always been where the party’s at. But what happens when the party’s over? And in actual fact, did it ever even begin?
Though Chastity Belt’s debut album No Regerts (notice the intentional typo) is littered with puerile antics in places, its undertones are anything but. Never a band to have produced reductive music, it is apparent that the LOLs that were existent, even in the early days, were part fun and part smokescreen. It appears that tracks like Pussy Weed Beer and Giant (Vagina) were tactical inclusions; clever decoys for the drunken masses attending the band’s shows, but also a way to couch the genuine existential musings on the record.
At the heart of Shapiro’s lyrics is an interrogation of sexual power imbalances, a cynical exploration of white guy machoisms, and an analysis of the normalisation of dead-behind-the-eyes teenage drinking culture. “Half the songs for the first record were written in college,” Shapiro tells us. “It was all just still a joke then and we were mostly just performing for drunk college kids. Most of the songs were just silly.”
The silliness that Shapiro refers to isn’t, and has never been, the defining feature of Chastity Belt. Perhaps oxymoronically there’s a pervading despondency to Shapiro’s largely revelrous lyrics. Even the title of second record Time to Go Home is the embodiment of the the band’s thematic complexity, of the clinching together of party culture and the heavy heart that, more often than not, accompanies its indulgence. The album and its title refer not only to the end of a messy night, but also the vapidity of bromidic hedonism, and the band’s move away from gag tracks and towards self-awareness. It feels like a stepping stone to where Shapiro and co feel truly comfortable.
What is most striking in the development of Chastity Belt’s music is that while their playfulness has always remained, their identities as musicians have become ever more self-assured. Certainly, the environment of encouragement and acceptance that Seattle's counter-culture embodies, as well as inspiration from its myriad artists, has a lot to do with Chastity Belt’s growth, particularly in the production of Time to Go Home.
“When we moved to Seattle,” Shapiro explains, “we started making the music that we actually wanted to make. We got more serious. Since then we’ve just got better at writing music together and playing our instruments and knowing what kind of songs we want to make. We haven’t consciously changed the themes of our songs, it’s just that we’ve grown up as artists and as people.
“We’ve been inspired by the music scene in Seattle too, and going on tour and having more experience being in a band. This is our first time being in a band for all of us. And we’re just surrounded by inspiring artists here. I love Jen Champion. She’s on Hardly Art with us and will be playing our record release. And So Pitted are playing our release too, and they’re really good. They’re on SubPop. I also love Versing at the minute. They’re all great bands.”
What becomes strikingly clear on I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone is Shapiro’s reluctance to shy away from the darker, personal depths of experience. In one of our favourite tracks on the LP, Different Now, Chastity Belt manage to marry a late 70s / early 80s easy-listening beat with candid lyrics. As Shapiro sings 'You’ll find in time / All the answers that you seek / Have them sitting there just waiting to be seen', it feels like hearing advice from a friend; the words you should – but don’t – tell yourself in the mirror everyday.
Aware of the tendency among listeners to presume that lyrics – particularly those of female artists – are autobiographical, we ask Shapiro about the inspiration for tracks that are very close to the bone. “In this album all the songs are autobiographical,” Shapiro admits. “On past records I’ve had some songs that weren’t totally like that, but yeah, they’re all from my perspective. Except for the ones that Gretchen and Lydia sing.”
“I go through periods where it’s really hard for me to write a song and I don’t even know what to write about. But then I’ll go through periods where I write like three songs in a week. That hasn’t happened in a while. But yeah, it’s usually when I’m going through a lot of horrible shit that I’m able to write stuff. So it’s actually maybe a good thing that I haven’t been able to write lately!”
Of all that Shapiro reveals about her inspirations and methods of writing, melancholy as a muse is the least surprising. What is mind-boggling, however, is that as well as touring, gigging, and recording, Shapiro and the rest of Chastity Belt are managing to work enough to pay their extortionate Seattle rents, and write, on occasion, three songs a week.
In a 2016 article for The Establishment, activist / poet / artist Ayla-Monic McKay bemoans a so-called ‘time poverty’; the phenomenon creatives face of having little time to rest or expend our creative energies, but no option to cut working hours. We put this to Shapiro – her take on it was quite different. “We hope to live off our music one day, but we aren’t comfortable getting rid of our jobs at this point at all, mainly because rent in Seattle is so high. It’s not a problem though, as it’s nice to have a side thing. ...Gretchen is an on-call nanny, so she just works when she can. She also tutors math. And then Annie is also a nanny – she lives in LA now. Lydia actually has the most legit job. She works for Seattle Parks and Rec. She works at the arboretum gardening and maintaining it.”
She continues; “Work is valuable because I’m actually often inspired by the people that I meet there who I normally wouldn’t interact with. I’d say it’s helpful to have an outside life from just touring, being on the road and playing music, because if that’s the only thing you’re doing then that’s the only thing you can really write songs about.”
Indeed, when Shapro sings 'I should quit my job and get a life / Fuck Friday nights / But I wanna be in the scene / And there’s comfort in routine,' in the aptly titled Complain, there are two things that could be taken from it. The first is a lesson to embrace dissatisfaction – that the glass will likely appear eternally half empty whether you’re a touring musician or a bartender. The second is that there is inspiration in everything – even the drunks who prop up the bar – and you should use it to your advantage. Turn what you hate into what you love.
I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone is out on 2 Jun via Hardly Art. Chastity Belt play Brudenell Social Club, Leeds on 5 Sep; Manchester Star and Garter, Manchester on 6 Sep; Newcastle Cluny on 7 Sep; Broadcast, Glasgow on 8 Sep.