Griefcat – Late Stage Capitalism

By starrymag | March 7, 2024

By: Lisa Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

 

Annie: We’re like if Dolly Parton and Bo Burnham met up at an Olive Garden and wrote a song while eating unlimited breadsticks.

Louisa: I once heard someone describe us as Lucius meets Tenacious D, and I think that’s pretty accurate! We are a genre-bending music duo with captivating melodies and harmonies, who just so happen to write funny songs.

 

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

 

Louisa: I think some of my biggest musical influences are The Divine Comedy, Ben Folds, The Decemberists, ELO, Belle & Sebastian, Ella Fitzgerald and The Cranberries. I love music that is lush, has interesting lyrics and is maybe a little off the beaten path.

Annie: I have always loved and tried to emulate the tight harmonies of 60s-era folk groups like Simon and Garfunkel, Peter, Paul and Mary and Crosby Stills Nash and Young. But I also love the campiness and confidence of today’s divas – you can tell the Arianas, Beyonces, and Gagas of the world take their music seriously but have fun with it at the same time, which is exactly how we operate.

 

Q) I feel like your new song “Cryptobro” is very timely. Talk about the story behind creating it.

 

Louisa: This was an idea that was bouncing around for a little while, but Annie really brought it home! So, I’ll defer to Annie here!

Annie: We did stew on this idea for a while and had a few iterations, but one day I was listening to Olivia Rodrigo (another Griefcat influence!) and “Cryptobro” kind of just…came to me. I wrote it for Louisa’s voice, and she knocks it out of the park every time.

 

Q) What kind of response have you been receiving to it from not just Griefcat fans but people who maybe see themselves in it?

 

Annie: While we have never directly experienced the heartbreak of losing a loved one to crypto, it never ceases to amaze me how many people have relationships that met a crypto-related demise.

Louisa: People who are into crypto tend to be the ones who love “Cryptobro” the most!! If I see people pointing to their friend or partner in the audience, sometimes I’ll sing the song directly to that person, and I try to chat with them after a show to thank them for being a good sport. We really try not to punch down too hard in any of our songs, so this is more like a little good-hearted roast. We also get a surprising amount of people saying, “This happened to me!! I just broke up with a cryptobro!”

 

Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?

 

Louisa: This video was SO fun to make. A friend of mine, artist Mina Karimi, runs an airbnb on a farm she calls Frolic Fields. She gave us free reign over the farm while shooting, and we used every room we could. They refer to one of the goats as “the host” because he’s always greeting visitors. I think the goat eating out of the banjo is named Spaghetti, which is such a great goat name. As far as how the video plays into the message, we really wanted to show a country epic breakup ballad, and we wanted to play into the tropes of traditional country and pop-country – frolicking in a field, white dresses, cowboy hats, touching grass, twirling, and wistful shots.

 

Q) What is your song writing process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?

 

Annie: More often than not the lyrics happen first! We have a list of song ideas that will one day find the right accompanying music, but in the meantime, we play around with lyrics.

Louisa: It can really vary! When we have a writing session together, we’ll start strumming something on ukulele or guitar, and we start singing over it. When we hit a neat melody or harmony, or we laugh from a lyric, we tend to ride that wave until we have a full song. I always record voice memos, so we don’t forget anything. One of those voice memos is actually on our first album released in 2020 – Eggroll (Demo). It’s a recording from our first writing session together – you can hear us figuring out harmonies (it’s rough, ha!) and lyrics, and just absolutely losing it with laughter.

 

Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?

 

Louisa: We are very involved! We have an incredible producer in Ben Green at Ivakota recording studio in Washington, DC. Typically, we’ll bring the songs to Ben, and we ideate together on what we all want to hear in the final version. Once we have our thoughts together, we bring in our favorite musicians to help us bring the full arrangements to life. Our full band for our upcoming album release includes musicians who were on the album, including Austin Day (keys), Ben Tufts (drums), Kevin de Souza (bass) and Phillip Carluzzo (bass, lead guitar).

 

Q) Your upcoming album Late Stage Capitalism comes out on April 19. What are some themes you’ll be exploring on it?

 

Annie: Workplace drama! Exploitation of the masses! Identity theft! The woes of being a band and feeling the need to sell out to corporations in order to be financially solvent! And, you know, breakups, too.

Louisa: Annie nailed it. We also explore how we are all trying our best to live in a system stacked against us – raging against the machine while trying to survive and thrive within the confines of the machine! We also cover climate change, hustle culture and tiny acts of resistance like pooping on the job.

 

Q) Why was our country and its residents’ financial status an important topic for you all to explore?

 

Annie: We are Millennials, a/k/a members of the first generation who are expected to be financially worse-off than their parents, so we definitely have our own first-hand experience of certain economic expectations not being met. As the wealth gap widens in America and abroad, every facet of life is tied up in the struggle to not only make ends meet but to prosper like previous generations. Typical songwriting topics like new love, breakups and relationships in general are all being deeply impacted by financial stressors, so why not examine those topics through a fiscal lens (with a little comedy to lighten the load, of course).

Louisa: What is the saying, write what you know?  Certainly, all these tracks are fun and funny.

 

Q) Which songs on the album hold a special place in your heart or maybe gave you a lingering giggle while creating it?

 

Annie: I love, love, love how “Carbon Footprint” turned out – I never expected to be part of a raucous rock song. It’s just so good. It’s the one song I go back to over and over again.

Louisa: Can I say all of them?! I think the song that put us in the biggest fit of laughter while writing was “Revolution (Poop at Work).” We were howling and didn’t think we’d ever perform it, but since we released clips of it online, we’ve had over 10M views for just that song alone! So, I think other people are getting the giggles as much as we did!

 

Q) With the album coming soon, are there any plans for any kind of tour?

 

Louisa: We will be tackling a mini mid-Atlantic tour in March, and we have an album release planned for April 21st at Jammin Java in Vienna, VA with a full band, which is a rarity and treat for us! More tour dates to come. If you want us in your city, feel free to email us or DM us on Instagram. We love chatting with people!

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

 

Annie: Hey, if Beyonce’s putting out country music, who says she can’t dip her toes into musical comedy, too? We already share a wardrobe aesthetic…

Louisa: Annie’s answer wins. But I will add, a collaboration with Bo Burnham would be incredible – he explores a lot of similar territory, and he is brilliant. Another pipe dream – collaborating with Ben Folds. He has done a lot of work with symphonies (including the National Symphony Orchestra in our backyard in Washington, DC). I would LOVE to do some sort of collaboration with him involving a symphony orchestra someday.

 

Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?

 

Annie: I’ve been giving MUNA a deeper listen recently – we’ve been writing new songs that have a bit of a dance-y, electronic-y vibe to them, so my external listening seems to reflect that. MUNA is a queer trio that writes songs that are sometimes kind of corny, sometimes kind of sexy, with an 80s, throwback-y vibe that always sounds great – and their stage presence is amazing. Definitely taking a lot of influence from them.

Louisa: I currently have “As the World Caves In” by Matt Maltese on active repeat. I love the drama of it, and it’s so fun to sing along to. If I’m not a top fan of Spotify next year, I will be shocked. This is also the only song of his I know, I’m not ready to branch out.

 

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

 

Annie: It’s so much fun!! Adding a visual element to our songs is just another avenue of creative exploration. I know I look at other artists’ social media all the time and I feel like I’m getting to know another, even more personal side of them, so I hope our fans feel the same way looking at our content.

Louisa: My favorite part is replying and connecting with fans in comments and DMs that have discovered us via our content and our shows. We’ve built connections with people all over the world via Instagram and TikTok, and it has been so fun to get to know new people. I love the ability to connect with people we never would have met in our music or life journey thanks to social media. It’s also a great way to find and connect with your niche, or your people!

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

 

Annie: We are so grateful to have found our weirdos.

Louisa: Truly, thank you. We love you and appreciate you!