Words by Grace King
Alien Chicks are a high-energy trio from south London – consisting of Joe (lead vocals and guitar), Stef (bass) and Martha (drums) they stay undefined and unbound by genre creating a chaotic fusion of all of their influences. ASBO caught them at their latest show at Voodoo Daddys Showroom in Norwich after a couple of months of touring.
Q: So, it’s the last day of your tour, how are you feeling?
S: Pretty fulfilled, pretty tired. We were in Europe the other day, we went from Europe, to work, to Norwich, so it’s been a pretty busy week – but really fun.
Q: And there was a sold-out show in Europe, how does that feel?
J: SICK!
M: We were just shocked that it sold out in another country, it was on a boat, it snowed really heavily before and we were shattered – but they gave us loads of beer as they always do in the Netherlands so we got quite drunk, then there was a mosh pit and Stef crowd surfed…
And then we went to a gig in Germany after that and played to 12 people and I fell down the gap between the train and the platform.
Q: Where did the name Alien Chicks come from?
S: That’s on you, man!
J: I just thought it was funny. It was at uni, it was ages ago. I used to be in a surf rock kinda thing with a guy that’s in the band Dude, My Dude – Alien Chicks started out just me and him. Then we were like ‘let’s get Stef in’ because I was already jamming with him
Q: Is that how you guys met?
J: I met Stefan when I was 10 years old – in a tap dancing class and then we went to the same schools and the same uni.
M: And now they live together and Stef wakes up jo every morning cos joe doesn’t wake up with his alarm clock…
J: And I do his flies up when they’re down
S: He pulls me out of my many meltdowns that I have on the way to gigs – so we help each other in a way.
The band’s music cannot be put in a single box – they gave us 8 possible genres it falls into – including – shit jazz, crank wave, post-punk, and Joe’s personal favourite “poop rock”. But they’d mostly like to keep it undefinable…
J: everyone has a different take on it
S: It’s kind of just a mix of all our influences, we all like quite different music but there’s also quite a lot of overlap as well – so a lot of the songs are sort of pieced together from what we were into…I think we just get bored of playing the same thing for more than 20 seconds”
Their latest single ‘Babe’ is testament to this, a chaotic mix of pace and style matched with an equally unhinged music video which you can watch below…
This isn’t the only new music either – ASBO can confirm that there is a shiny new Alien Chicks EP on the way – but that’s as specific as we can get at the moment.
Despite our best efforts the energy of this band cannot merely be contained in a feature so it’s our recommendation that you should definitely catch them at their next show on the 13th of December at the Brixton Windmill in aid of Brixton Soup Kitchen.
You can buy tickets here .
