Cherry Glazerr Are Coming Into Their Own As A Band, Still Don’t Care What You Think

For its upcoming album Apocalipstick, which comes out January 20, Cherry Glazerr signed to fabled indie label Secretly Canadian, but judging by our 20 minutes together, they’re taking things anything but seriously. In the NYLON office photo studio, the band—made up of singer/guitarist Clementine Creevy, multi-instrumentalist Sasami Ashworth, and drummer Tabor Allen—licked each other’s elbows, detailed the "Fibonacci sequence of snack games,” and told us about being a horn star, not a porn star. But the playful attitude belies its sleek new sound: recent singles “Told You I’d Be With The Guys” and “Nurse Ratched” show off polished riffs, incisive lyrics, and urgent vocals miles ahead of the band’s garage rock origins. Like Hole updated for the Tumblr era, Cherry Glazerr are the grunge-pop darlings to soundtrack your war against the patriarchy. 

You guys have worked with some pretty iconic labels, such as Burger Records. What prompted the shift to Secretly Canadian?Clementine Creevy: Secretly is a great label with really cool music lovers and wonderful energy. They've allowed us to do what we want creatively so far and they loved our record. We wanted to have some variety and explore all musical pathways.

Did you try out a load of weird stuff when you recording?CC:

We definitely did a lot. It was night and day with how this record was crafted. This second record was much more, I don't want to sound like we know what the hell we're doing, but slightly more sophisticated and focused and deliberate and exploratory. We had two producers on this record. It was produced by Joe Chiccarelli and it was co-produced by Carlos de la Garza, and they were really great partners to have in the process that pushed us to explore a bunch of different shit, tonally and structurally.

Sasami Ashworth:

They were kind of good cop, good cop. They were very positive and wanted us to explore different things and were very patient with us, which is pretty awesome. To have people that are so experienced and have seen so many different methods.

On lead single "Told You I'd Be With the Guys," you're singing "Where are my ladies?" I can see one lady right there.

SA:

Here I am. I'm over here, Clem! No, that actually happens in the video, though. Where Clem is being absorbed by males, and she's looking for me, and I'm like, "I'm just going to keep playing my synth because no one seems to care about me over here."

CC:

It's just an ode to female solidarity and how important that is socially and economically and politically and in every facet of the world. So female solidarity is something that I strive for in my everyday life and, both of us, in our everyday lives.

How does it compare to the rest of the record tonally and stylistically?

CC:

Kind of just sounds like the rest of them.

SA:

Well, I think it has a duality that a lot of the songs have. Even the old record has a lot of duality where it's very sweet and all of a sudden you get smacked in the ass. A lot of the songs are like that, where they have two very distinct personalities or characters, and "Told You" kind of has three because it ends with this hectic, fast-paced double-time thing. A lot of the songs on the record are like that, where you're taken to a different place in different parts of the song. But the record has a pretty big variety of styles on it, I think.

Tabor Allen:

Moods.

SA:

Moods, yeah. We're some moody bitches.

You guys keep posting about "slaves to the glaze." What does it mean to be a slave to the glaze?

CC:

Do you know Grace Jones' record "Slave to the Rhythm"? It's a riff on that. My dad came up with it. It's my dad's internet password... the internet password at my parent's house.

How have fans been responding to the new single so far?

CC:

I don't care, really. I don't know what they think, and I don't really care.

SA:

The video has been very troll-heavy, which is awesome. It's really funny. Maybe we're just living in this progressive L.A. bubble so the things that we thought were like, "Oh a nipple. It's just a pink, fleshy piece of your body." Then people are just going nuts on it on YouTube. People are just so trolly. It's so funny.

CC:

It's hilarious. It's very funny. I don't give a shit. It's not important to the music, what other people think about it.

SA:

And also, we're pretty much like, "Here's the record and the single, and we're way over there in terms of music." You make the records so far in advance of when you're like touring on it and when it comes out so, we all have musical ADHD.

CC:

We are very much past that in terms of writing.

SA:

It's fun to play live.

CC:

Very fun to play live. It just gets funner and funner because we just get more free with it. Our shows are improvisational, slightly. We stick to the songs, but I'm usually fucking up, which means they get improvisational. Improvisational meaning I fuck up and the rest of the band needs to figure it out. It's fun. We do whatever we want.

How was your New York show?

SA:

New York was a really good crowd. They were so fun and energetic.

TA:

I couldn't see them. I thought they were bored.

CC:

You say that every time. It doesn't matter.

TA:

You can't see the crowd when you're at the drum set, really. And it's always like, "Do they like this? Are people leaving? I can't see.”

SA:

I spanked Clem with a giant flip-flop, which turned out to be dangerous. I threw it into the audience. It started very playful and then it got weirder.

TA:

It was a like a giant flip-flop.

SA:

It was your flip-flop.

CC:

He has huge feet! 

SA:

I have pretty big feet for a girl, but his are still twice as big. Damn, you got some big clodhoppers.

CC:

I love using "clodhoppers." I've never heard that except you saying it the other day.

Sounds elvin.

SA:

It's so old timey. I'm kind of old timey.

CC:

Yes, It sounds totally elvin. That's hilarious.

SA:

That's what a grandma would say like, "Oh, get your clodhoppers off the table." I digress.

CC:

"Get your clodhoppers off the mantelpiece."

SA:

"Get your clodhoppers out of my mouth, Clem." That's what I have to say a lot.

TA:

You weren't allowed to put your clodhoppers on the dinner table?

SA:

No. I didn't come from a liberal Orange County house like yours. My parents weren't even stoked that I wanted to go to classical music school at first. So, now, them liking me being in Cherry Glazerr is a total sign that they've given up. They're like, "Are you sure you want to be a classical french horn player? That's pretty edgy.” "I don't know, are you sure you don't want to be a doctor or a dentist?" and I was like "No, I want to be a french horn star. I want to be a horn star."

TA:

It's every parent's dream to hear their kid say, "I want to play rock 'n' roll, and I'm not gonna have a backup plan."

SA:

Jobless. Like, we're jobless if this doesn't work.

So many of your song titles are related to snacks. What are your favorite snacks?

CC:

It's more like what do I not want to snack on.

TA:

We have this game that we play called "What Would You Eat?" And basically, we ask each other to think of any food and it goes on forever. There's no end to the game. You just ask, "Would you eat this? Would you eat that? Would you eat a pineapple slice?"

CC:

Yes.

SA:

It's the Fibonacci sequence of the snack games.

TA:

Would you eat a deviled egg?

CC:

Yes.

TA:

Would you eat a black bean?

CC:

No.

SA:

I would. So, see, I move up to the next level.

TA:

That's our tour game, "Would You Eat That." Most of the time the answer is yes.

CC:

Would you eat a banana?

TA:

No.

SA:

You wouldn't eat a banana right now?

Why?

TA:

It's just how the game works.

SA:

It's too patriarchal. Fuck patriarchal foods. No more phallic foods.  

CC:

No more phallic foods. That would block out a lot of foods.

SA:

Yeah, it would. Like no more eggplants.

TA:

Mmm, eggplant.

We've learned many things today, but the readers of NYLON need to know one more thing. What is Cherry Glazerr's deepest, darkest secret?

CC:

We have no secrets. We're an oversharing band.

SA:

Way, way oversharing. Too far.