Written by Gabe Fine
The music video for Bully’s “Too Tough” starts with the band practicing in their living room while a dog mills around the floor, and ends with founder and frontwoman Alicia Bognanno casually rocking out solo in a junkyard as used cars are smashed to bits behind her. This final image probably best epitomizes the energetic, and sometimes ironic, fun that Bognanno brings to her music. Songs like “Too Tough” or “Six,” about accidentally breaking her sister’s arm in her youth, take bitter, often unfortunate situations or sentiments and channel them into infectiously catchy, mosh-worthy punk music.
The four-piece Nashville band is scheduled to play CC’s upcoming music festival, Llamapalooza, at 8:00 PM. Bully released their first full-length LP, Feels Like, in 2015, and since then have been written up by flagship music magazines like Pitchfork and Stereogum. Self-described as making “grunge punk reminiscent of the beginnings of indie rock,” Bully’s raw DIY sound has had me and many other CC students listening on repeat for the last few weeks, waiting excitedly for their set this weekend.
On Monday afternoon, I sat down for a phone interview with Bognanno, who was driving through Chicago. Despite a brief interruption caused by a confrontational bus driver, we managed to talk about being on tour, the Nashville music scene, making angtsy music, and… swords?
Gabe Fine: Have you guys been on tour recently, or do you have a tour coming up?
Alicia Buganno: No, we don’t really have a big one coming up, we’ve just been do- ing a couple days with Courtney Barnett and a couple headlining dates. I just got back yesterday, but aside from that, the rest of the summer we have college shows and festivals, so they’re kinda just one-offs, which is cool.
GF: You’re playing a couple big festivals like Bonnaroo and Sasquatch. Have you played those before?
AB: We’ve played Bonnaroo before. All the other ones, we are pretty much doing the ones this year that we haven’t done last year; you can’t play twice in a row. So yeah, none of them… they’re all new except Bonnaroo, which we played when we first got started as a band two years ago.
GF: What’s it like playing at those festivals?
AB: It’s fun! It’s really fun. It’s cool because you’re in the same space as a bunch of other bands so you get to see a lot of acts that you don’t likely get to see very often, or ever, and it can be really motivating.
GF: Going along with seeing other bands, I know Bully started out in Nashville, which is such a hotbed for music right now. What’s it like to be in that music scene?
AB: Yeah, I mean, its okay. I’m not from here, so I don’t have a huge connection to it… it’s fine [laughs]. I mean, it’s cool having a lot of other bands around, it’s got its ups and downs. It can also be really clique-y because there are a lot of people who are really protective of the city and just really want it to be people who are from here, and that’s kind of ridiculous. A lot of times it can be great and supportive and it’s cool that you’re around a bunch of people doing similar things as you are, and sometimes it can be intimidating and competitive and annoying as well [laughs].
GF: The sound that you guys have definitely feels like it goes along with fighting that kind of scene.
AB: Yeah, for sure, I mean, I don’t know, you just should surround yourself with good, nice people all the time and not people who are clique-y or jealous or rude. Not saying that I’m surrounded by people who are like that, it’s just that I know a lot of those people. In general, I think in life it’s good to be around positive people.
GF: If you could ideally be somewhere, would you be back home in Minnesota where you’re from?
AB: Minneapolis is a great city. I think Chicago is probably, if I moved out of Nashville, the place I’d be most likely to go. I really like Chicago, there’s a great music scene, good public transportation. It’s got its similarities to Minneapolis so it’s not too far. I love Chicago.
[At this point Alicia asked to stop the interview for a few minutes because of a traffic problem as she was driving home]
AB: Hey, I’m sorry, that was the craziest thing that ever happened! I have the trailer on my car so I can’t back up or anything like that, and this bus was trying to take a right turn but couldn’t fit, and just pulled right in front of me and refused to move! And there was a whole line of people that––and I couldn’t back up, so the cops came [laughs] and had to tell the bus he had to back up because he was refusing to back up. So I couldn’t do anything. It could’ve been so easily avoided by just not doing that turn.
GF: Sorry about that! Well, getting back to the interview… In the past you’ve opened for bands like Best Coast and Superchunk. Have you had a favorite band that you’ve been on tour with… or a least favorite?
AB: [Laughs] I’m not gonna tell you a least favorite band, that would be… [trails off] I mean, we’ve pretty much had a really good time with all of them. Best Coast was fun, they were really great to tour with, it was really fun to do some dates with Metz, because they’re such an amazing live band, that was really inspiring. Everyone we tour with ends up being pretty fun and cool. Best Coast was one of our favorites because we’re really good friends with them, Metz was awesome––oh, and it was really cool getting to tour with Jeff the Brotherhood, who are our Nashville buddies, so that was really fun. Oh, and I would add the Courtney Barnett dates to that as well. That was something that we had like been looking forward to forever.
GF: The word “angst” gets through around a lot with punk music, but do you feel like your music is angsty? And if so, is there an appeal to that?
AB: Yeah, I guess I would say it’s angsty. I mean, for us, playing live, or for me at least, is a way to release a lot of negative energy and have a creative outlet for that, so I think naturally that kind of comes across in our music. Because that’s a little bit of the reason why we do it. I’m not sure if there’s any appeal in that, but I think it might be somewhat relatable because of that.
GF: Do you have a musical influence that people might not expect when they listen to your music?
AB: I don’t know if people would expect it or not, but I really like the Replacements. I was always a huge Replacements fan.
GF: What’s the weirdest thing that has happened to you on tour?
AB: I bought a sword at the mall of America a couple days ago, so I guess that was really entertaining for us. It’s fun on the road to have a sword in the van.
GF: What are you going to do with the sword?
AB: I don’t know, I guess practice.