Punk music lovers will be screaming in excitement this weekend.
Screaming Females will make its first appearance in Athens at The Union Bar & Grill, Friday. The punk band from New Jersey has recorded eight albums throughout their time together, including its 2015 album, “Rose Mountain,” and are still going strong.
Emersynn McGuire, a freshman studying creative writing, said she discovered Screaming Females several years ago when she was attending Athens Rock Camp for Girls. She said she used to be really into punk bands and listened to the band often.
At the time, she thought it was cool to find a band in the punk genre that had a female lead singer because there weren’t many in the media. McGuire said she felt empowered by this female-led band that was popular enough to play at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.
“Punk music has always been populated by women and queers, but media outlets with a lot of clout and power didn't want to give them voices,” Marissa Paternoster, the band’s lead singer, said in an email.
Mike Abbate, the band’s bassist, said in an email finding success has never been the band’s priority. He said not finding mainstream success helped them keep their “cool, calm, well-rounded and grounded demeanor.”
McGuire has relistened to many of Screaming Females’ songs in anticipation for the show. She’s most excited to see Paternoster in real life because she’s someone McGuire respects.
“I really admire her vocal style and the fact that she’s the only guitar player,” she said. “That’s really hard to do, play guitar and sing at the same time like she does.”
There were a few key changes to their creative approach on the latest album. “Rose Mountain” was the first work in which a producer was involved. It also saw a change in the band’s songwriting process. The members would create instrumentals first, and then Paternoster would work out lyrics and melodies.
“For 'Rose Mountain,' we really tried to focus on creating instrumentation that complimented the vocal melody rather than the other way around,” Jarrett Dougherty, the band’s drummer, said in an email.
Screaming Females created that album during Paternoster’s battle with chronic mononucleosis, and the experience influenced what themes she decided to put in her lyrics.
“It was honestly difficult to think of much else beyond how bad I felt,” she said in an email. “I always try to take the listener into account though … so I tried to process those thoughts and feelings through more universal and relatable metaphors.”
At the Union show, Street Eaters and Dana will open for Screaming Females. Scott Winland, a promoter at the Union and owner of Blackout Booking, said in an email the two bands always perform well at the bar, and Dana is a personal favorite for Ohio bands.
McGuire said she saw Street Eaters at a house show when she was a teenager. She owns one of their CDs and said the duo defies expectations for their odd pairing of instruments because their music sounds cool and different.
“They only have a bass player who sings and then they have a drummer,” she said. “(The bass player) distorts it in a way that it sounds like a guitar and then he sings.”
The band was created in 2005 and throughout all its years together, its essence has remained the same.
“I grew up playing in this band and much of my persona is anchored in the music we play, the people we've met and the adventures we've been on together,” Paternoster said. “Mike and Jarrett are much more than band mates, they are my family.”
mm512815@ohio.edu
