London-based Alien Chicks have a whole melting pot of influences in their music – and it works. They generate a sound which seems to emanate from a band double their size. They marked the release of their latest single ‘Cowboy‘ with a gig at the Windmill in Brixton.
Welcome Alien Chicks! Could you introduce yourselves and explain your role in the band.
Joe – guitar and lead vocals, Stef – bass and backing vocals and Martha – drums.
How did you come together to form Alien Chicks? Great band name btw!
Joe and Stef have been friends since they were at school and have been writing songs together since then (they met at a tap dancing class when they were 10). After writing loads of songs over lockdown, they moved to London to pursue music (they moved to Brixton to be near the Windmill Brixton, where they had been going to gigs for years) and met Martha by chance in Peckham.
Congratulations on single ‘Cowboy‘. Love the raucous vibe. Could you share a little on the inspiration behind the track?
The themes of ‘Cowboy‘ are quite personal – it’s a song about regret and how this can haunt you in your dreams. Musically, it combines a few different riffs and ideas that were swimming around in Joe’s head and he brought them all together. A lot of our songs start like this, and then we play the song over and over again together and re-work bits until it’s a cohesive (but still chaotic) whole. The opening words “chicha morada” (we’ve been asked a few times what this means) is a dark red drink from Peru (“chicha morada, crimson spit“) – Joe is half Peruvian.
How was the single launch gig at Windmill Brixton?
Brilliant! It was a Monday night but it was sold out and it all kicked off – and it being Independent Venue Week made it even more special. The crowd was wild (the mics got knocked over loads of times) and there were lots of sweaty people crowd surfing and singing along. John Kennedy from Radio X came along and was right near the front – he said he loved it which was exciting for us cos we used to listen to him on Radio X when we were kids.
You have a wonderful mix of sounds in your music, wild gypsy, jazz, post-punk, indie even a smattering of funk…..all in the one song! Is your music an amalgamation of all your music influences, or is it just improvisation’s to create the fantastic energy?
Bit of both really! We find it really fun to have songs that switch up genres often. We enjoy playing around with different time signatures, rhythms, and chords. We all have some similar but also some different interests. Sometimes instrumentally the songs are parts that Joe and Stef have written separately and then put together – other times they’re written at the same time, and then the vibe of the song can be switched up quite a lot once Martha adds the drums.
Am I right in saying there is an EP on the way? Any idea when it was be released? And are you looking forward to the run of gigs you’ve got coming up?
We’re releasing another single in April before our headline at the Lexington, and then we’re hoping to release our first EP around September time. Yeah we always look forward to playing, we’d do a gig every day if we could! We did a great run of gigs in Brighton, Portsmouth and Southampton last week which was great as there were people at each gig who had seen us last time we played that city and brought friends along, or had heard about us from a friend in London and came to chat to us to say they loved the set. That makes the long drives and sleeping on floors all worth it!
If I looked in your fridge right now what would I find?
A load of mould, and the cardboard packaging for a dairy lea dunker 4 pack (the herby ones obviously).
