“When people ask us, the answer is just ‘rock and roll,'” explains
Screaming Females drummer Jarrett Dougherty, addressing the one
question no band ever wants to field. The New Jersey trio has come up
with far more creative ways to describe its sound in the past,
though—”queer disco and the moon,” and “lesbian dinosaur space
rock” rank high on the list. But underneath the nonsensical verbiage is
a no-nonsense power trio that cranks out furious, riff-heavy punk-rawk,
taking only a slight breath for a ripping guitar solo from the band’s
lone literal screaming female, vocalist/guitarist Marissa
Paternoster.
Dougherty, Paternoster, and appropriately named bassist Mike
Rickenbacker are passing the phone around as the band makes it way to
Nashville for the final tour stop with Jack White’s umpteenth side
project, the Dead Weather. The grand scale of the operation is a far
cry from the Screaming Females’ small-town roots in New Brunswick, New
Jersey, a town where bands generally have to retreat underground to
shoebox-sized basements in order to get heard.
“There’s a state theater there where people like Paul Simon play,”
Dougherty says. “Other than that, the town is pretty dead.”
The Screaming Females could be poster children for DIY punk, booking
all 300 of their shows and recording everything themselves. Power
Move, Screaming Females’ latest platter, and first for Don Giovanni
Records, is a more finely tuned set than their previous records, not to
say that it’s sleeker. Songs were recorded with no guitar overdubs,
solos rambling over Dougherty and Rickenbacker’s lock-horn rhythm
section. There are plenty of odes to ’60s garage and ’70s arena rock in
the psychedelic-stoner grime of “Skull” and the agit-power pop of
“Adult Army”—each guaranteed to come with an explosive shred
session from the soft-spoken, 5’2″ Paternoster.
Screaming Females eventually caught the ears of the elder statesmen
of Dinosaur Jr. as well as the Dead Weather/Raconteurs bassist Jack
Lawrence, and its members found themselves making out a tour rider,
though Dougherty assured me they didn’t force anyone to remove the
brown M&Ms. “All we have on there is beer, water, and dinner,
nothing too strange.”