Bratakus on their new album Hagridden

Brèagha and Onnagh Cuinn knew all about 'Brat Summer' long before Charli xcx. The Scottish-born sisters have been writing and performing as Bratakus for over a decade now. Surprisingly for the pair, who grew up in a small whisky village on the northern edge of the Cairngorms, the punk spirit ran deep in their Highlands haven. “Our dad has played in bands his whole life,” explains Brèagha from the comfort of her gran’s living room, remembering that he practised in the family dining room a lot when they were growing up. But it wasn’t just the bandmates descending on the family home, as sister Onnagh recalls. “People would read our address on the back of our dad's records, and come to our house. We had punks from all over the world staying.”

Gran’s living room is a significant talking point for Brèagha, who made use of her ample TV channels and stumbled upon a certain LA punk catalyst. “When I was seven, I was sitting on the couch watching Kerrang! TV when The Distillers’ Drain the Blood music video came on.” Frontwoman Brody Dalle’s guttural growl would unleash something in the elder Cuinn sister, who channels a similarly low, full-throttle snarl. “The way she sings, still to this day, inspires me. But also the way that she writes chord progressions, adding notes that are a bit unexpected, gives a melancholy feel to the riff.” The same could be said for Bratakus’ recent blood-soaked, prom song single Tokened, which eases in with a stop-start, bass-driven swagger to descend into a relentless, three-minute thrash out.

For Onnagh, it was the riot grrrl scene that presented music-making as something accessible and achievable for anyone. “There was a strong DIY mindset. You didn't have to be an expert guitar player. Just pick up instruments and form a band.” But the Scottish music scene was a long way from Olympia’s progressive, political movement of the 90s, where lightning rods like Kathleen Hanna were calling for ‘Girls to the Front’. “We were both teenagers when we started the band, but we used to get people coming up saying, 'Oh, have you ever thought about doing this to improve your guitar playing?' That's something I internalised. But as I get older and look back, I'm like, 'Oh my god, fuck that!'"

Image: Lee Lewis

The pair threw the middle finger up to traditional music distribution too, booking their own tours and setting up their own label, Screaming Babies Records, to release 2017 debut, Target Grrrl. “We wanted to have control over putting out our music. We didn't want that outside input. We didn't want our message to be compromised.” Sophomore release Hagridden may see Bratakus team up with Venn Records (previously home to Bob Vylan and Witch Fever), but the band’s feminist leanings are still front and centre, much like Hanna’s hopes for women in the pit. As Brèagha chides on album track, Behave, 'Just because I’m standing at the front / Doesn’t mean I want your boot in my face / We should be in this together / Let me have my space.'

A place that gave the Cuinn sisters a lot of room to roam was Sweden. The pair recorded Hagridden alongside The Hives' bassist Johan Gustafsson, after touring with the fashion-forward fivesome last year. Surely there were some similarities between the spruces of Scandinavia and home? “Sweden as a whole does remind us of Scotland a lot,” reasons Brèagha. “But, and this offends people when I say it, a lot of Sweden is flatter than Scotland.” There was also another stark contrast between the countries when it came to single-handedly booking those tours again, as Onnagh chips in. “I could drive from one end of Scotland to the other in a day. But when we were trying to plan tours in Sweden, we were thinking, 'Oh, we'll go from this city to that city.' Then we started looking at the distances, and we were like, 'Okay, that's ten hours between shows!'”

The country didn’t just make its mark in roads travelled, but also thanks to the addition of Gustafsson’s bandmate Chris Dangerous on drums, who appears on single Turnstile. “Having someone add things that, when I was programming drums, I would never think to have done.” Like the fill between the first chorus and the second verse, I was like, 'Oh my god, the song needed that!'” exclaims Brèagha. Onnagh, too, acknowledges the shift. “The band has always been us in our bedroom, so it was fun to do this collaborative thing and see what another person could bring to it as well.” For Brèagha, she’s just happy to be back on stage with her sister and a guitar in her hand. “To have done it by ourselves for ten years is amazing, but it's hard work. Sometimes when you tour with bigger bands, and you see their whole team, you're like, 'Wow, I'm doing 15 people's jobs, right?'” If Charli xcx’s Brat Summer was a whirlwind of attitude, Bratakus have spent a decade proving it’s about endurance.

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Hagridden is released 13 Feb via Venn Records; Bratakus play McChuills, Glasgow, on 28 Feb; Core. festival, Glasgow, 13-15 Nov