We first met NYC’s Basic Bitches when they were on tour in the UK, and they came and wowed us at a LOUD WOMEN show at DIY Space for London in April 2018. So we are so excited that they will be headlining our first ever show on their home ground of Brooklyn, for the launch of LOUD WOMEN NYC on Friday Feb 1st! We caught up with them and asked them 10 questions…

We are SO excited to be bringing LOUD WOMEN to Brooklyn! Having played one of our gigs in London last year, how do you think NYC will react to LOUD WOMEN?

NYC will always need people who are committed to supporting DIY music, and more importantly female/female-identifying musicians in the DIY scene. It can be really hard to be seen and heard with everything else that’s going on in the city, but I think people who are already involved and invested in DIY in NYC will be excited to see a new group of people putting good shows together and growing the already strong and very badass community of women and queer/trans people making music and playing shows here.

Is the Brooklyn DIY scene similar to what you’ve seen of the scene in London?

There’s a LOT more shows happening on any given night in Brooklyn so the competition for people’s attention is a lot more intense! Both cities can suffer a little from the curse of the stand still, arms crossed crowds but we’ve only ever seen that as a challenge!

What other local bands should we all check out?

Sister Munch, Choked Up, The Rizzos, Mean Siders, Plaid Dracula, The Royal They, Ellen And The Degenerates

And about YOU! Tell us about how the songwriting process works in Basic Bitches?

Historically, I (Naomi) would write all the songs and bring them to whoever was drumming to add in their parts. Thats all changed with this new line up. Krystal joined the band back in the summer, and we’re now writing things much more collaboratively and it’s really changed the band for the better!

We loved your recent release – How Come None of You Want to Hang Anymore – when’s the next release?

Soon hopefully! We’ve been working on a bunch of new songs this past month and we’re hoping to record a few of them very soon.

What’s next for you?

As soon as the weather turns less arctic, we’re planning much more touring this year. We’ve also made a commitment to not making any more physical music releases. We just feel uncomfortable with how unsustainable (not to mention unrecycleable) all of the physical format options are. We have some old records to sell through but all future releases will be available digitally, with downloads bundled with merch (i.e. right now if you buy one of our T Shirts you get a free download of our record ‘City Slackers’). We’re also getting settled in to our new practice space – the ‘Bitches Bunker’ – and we’ve been playing around with what we’re calling “Sloppy Cover Song Sessions” where we’ll just randomly pick a song and throw it together during practice, then record video of us playing it and post it on social media. It’s been a really fun way for us to loosen up but also to experiment with different styles of playing. Maybe we’ll start taking requests 😉

Find Basic Bitches on Facebook or Bandcamp and catch them live in Brooklyn at the launch of LOUD WOMEN NYC, Friday Feb 1st at The Well!