A spotlight interview with Cheri, Fliss and Katie of Violet Violet, ahead of their appearance at the LOUD WOMEN stage at Rebellion festival this Sunday.
How did you choose your band name?
We’d like to say this was an ode to a) Hole’s mighty scream-along of the same name or b) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s infamous three-course dinner gum tasting when Mr. Beauregarde says to his daughter, “You’re turning violet, Violet!” But really, we collated a bunch of words we liked together, and this one stuck (far better than fellow contender, Cadillac Moon).
Who’s in the band, and what do you all play/do?
Cheri on guitar, Fliss on drums, and Katie on bass/keys – with all on vocals. violet violet began as a Norwich two-piece in the late noughties, led by Fliss and Cheri. They released two full-length albums and a farewell EP, Ebony and Ivory, before announcing an indefinite hiatus in 2012. Their sound quickly earned critical praise: Drowned In Sound hailed them as “a refreshing kick in the goolies to boring ladrock and post-rocking chinstrokers the land over,” while Stewart Lee wrote in The Sunday Times: “If the 1990s riot-grrrl rock sound had swapped feminist theorising for the happy-hour horror of a Saturday-night city centre, it might have swaggered like this.” During their heyday, they shared stages with everyone from punk pioneers The Slits to Brummie rock icons Fuzzbox. But the roots of violet violet run deeper. When we first formed in the early aughts, the spark was a shared determination to take on the local lads in a Battle of the Bands. Cheri and Katie had been writing and performing together in a fledgling Norwich outfit, but were desperate to find more women to make noise with. Enter Fliss Kitson, discovered in the sixth-form common room. Bonding over a mutual love of Le Tigre and liquid eyeliner, we joined forces — even if we did ultimately lose out on the top spot to the wildly inappropriately named Brutal Abortion.
Where do you call home?
Ah, well, we’re probably your most disparate LW performers this year, with Cheri in Stirling, Fliss in Birmingham, and Katie between them both in Bradford. We’re currently alternating our rehearsals in the lead-up to Rebellion between all three three locations!
Describe your sound in three words.
Dual-pronged riot
Tell us about your music
Our last release was actually our final release, the Ebony and Ivory EP, in 2010. It was only at the end of last year that we literally got the band back together to mark a new era of violet violet — not least as we stride into our fuck-it-forties. That one-off show at Birmingham’s Rock and Roll Brewhouse was met with fierce enthusiasm, and the stack of old records Cheri unearthed from her mum’s loft (originally released on local indie label NRONE Records) flew off the shelves. Because while violet violet may have been dormant, its members have been anything but quiet. We’ve continued championing gender equality across the industry — from Fliss’s work as the one-woman drumming powerhouse with post-punk legends The Nightingales, to Cheri cutting through the Dad-rock noise to spotlight rising talent in Guitar World magazine. The Ebony and Ivory EP, though, is a release we’re so proud of, marking over a decade of touring and releasing music, primarily as a two-piece (Katie was part of the original vv lineup and very much welcomed back into the fold for this latest addition). The title track, in particular, is a dropped D ode to one another and our unwavering friendship:
“You were my missing part, I was falling into ebony dark / Oh, babe, you’re one of a kind, Take my hand into ivory light.”
One of our previous singles, ‘C-c-c-cat’, surprisingly, shares the mutual experience of both Fliss and Cheri losing their cats during romantic breakups. (We miss you guys!) The hardest untangling during a separation, surely?
Oh, of course, we’ve previously mused about ‘Cereal Reflectors’, those little glimmering treasures you’d wrestle your sibling for as you rustled around in a jumbo box of cornflakes over your morning Coco Pops. That song also, wisely and thematically, questions whether or not you can drink and ride a bike (you can’t, but we might have in the past!)
What’s your local scene like — and how do you fit in, or stir it up?
We certainly stirred Birmingham up in October after the reunion and have since been inundated with potential follow-up shows, but we’re saving the set for a pre-warm-up gig in Katie’s neighbourhood, performing at Bradford institution, the 1 in 12, alongside good pals Captain South America and Nervous Twitch.
If you could rip up the rulebook of the music industry, what’s the first thing you’d rewrite?
Probably kicking the male author writing it off his throne and instead passing the pages to some other, much-needed, intersectional voices.
What’s the wildest/strangest thing that’s ever happened at one of your gigs?
We struggled with this one, but did once play a show in Kentish Town, London, where a fight broke out at the pub, and one guy swung to knock his opponent straight into Cheri’s stage mic. Somehow (and rather naively), we continued to play through it all!
What’s the biggest hurdle you’ve faced and how did you overcome it?
Not necessarily a hurdle, but we’re all thrilled to be playing and performing together again. Over a decade apart, there was an unmistakable pull because, as a wise group once said, friendship never ends — and neither do these riffs.
What’s the proudest moment you’ve had so far as a band/artist?
It has, and probably always will be, supporting The Slits, not once but twice, in Cambridge and the Brudenell Social Club, a year or so before we lost the unparalleled Ari Up to breast cancer. They were so supportive and generous, fuelling our twenty-something bodies with their rider while we were touring around as a two-piece in Fliss’ Ford KA.
What’s the strangest gig you’ve ever played?
Well, our first gig was an inadvertent Josie & the Pussycats homage as we took part in a Battle of the Bands competition at the local bowling alley. While we made it through to the final, beating the rival (male) group from school, we sadly missed out on the title to that aforementioned Brutal Abortion bunch.
What’s a dream gig or collaboration you must make happen before you die?
Peaches, please, in any format (production/songwriting/mega stage production). We used to open some early vv shows with a fittingly aggressive version of her stone-cold Noughties classic, Rock Show.
Dream lineup: you + three other acts (alive, dead, or imaginary). Who’s on the bill?
Sleater Kinney Josie & the Pussycats Bikini Kill (especially, since the band’s own 2024 reunion in Birmingham bagged us that comeback gig at the Brewhouse last year!)
Catch Violet Violet this Sunday at Rebellion with LOUD WOMEN
