Earlier this month, Minneapolis punk trio The Bloodies put out their debut record, Salem Bitch Trials. The band is made up of vocalist Holly Axelrod, bassist Kim Crimson, and guitarist Chelsea Oxblood with Jeremy Klash handling drums for recording the record.
Salem Bitch Trials would easily feel at home on a "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" soundtrack with its personal blend of goth, horror, and hooky pop-punk. However, there's more going on just underneath the record than meets the eye. The last few lines of the album's closer, "The most dangerous thing you can be in this world is a pretty girl who knows what she is doing," serves as its thesis. The trio spends the 22-minute run time outlining and challenging the shortcomings felt by femme people in the music industry.
Leading up to the closer, The Bloodies examine the power held by a scene's gatekeepers, specifically through the lens of a woman scorned. The band walks a fine line between the tongue-in-cheek nature of horror punk ("Knife Party in the Bedroom") and the cold reality of the challenges many faces when pursuing any sort of creative outlet.
The band never loses their agency throughout Salem Bitch Trials. Where a track like "Hex (Burn It Down)" recounts being asked if they know how to use their equipment or even how to play their instrument, The Bloodies' perspective never strays from their sardonic take on the situation. They've had enough of the situation and are here to kick ass and take names.
We got a chance to ask the bands a few questions about writing the record and the themes behind its songs. You can read that conversation below.
Ear Coffee: When did The Bloodies form?
The Bloodies: Holly and Kim were in a shoegaze band together back in 2015. Kim and Chelsea were in a pop-punk band in 2016. We were all looking for a new project, particularly with a goth grunge vibe, and so we got together in the summer of 2017 to write some songs in Kim’s basement. The songwriting process is really collaborative and democratic and the songs just come naturally. It feels like we write 3 songs every time we meet up.
EC: Power dynamics play a big role in the songs on this record. Where were you coming from thematically while you were writing this record?
B: While we’ve been playing together since 2017, we really solidified our sound in the last year and we’ve found a lot of confidence in that. As a group we feel we’ve finally reached this point where we are calling the shots, having figured out what we want musically and following through on that.
And maybe it took a pandemic to really find that confidence: The music scene is where we find our community-our family-but it can also be a difficult space for women. We could probably afford to retire tomorrow if we had a dollar for every time we heard a well-meaning “Wow, you can really play, for a girl!”
I think that culture (within the music scene but definitely apparent in American society at large) might have bred self-doubt and a subtle pressure to conform and present in a certain way. Being disconnected from all that noise, and re-connecting online to the powerful and inspiring communities of women doing similar work, has helped us shed those expectations like a snakeskin that no longer serves us. The music directly speaks to some of that frustration, but is also emboldened by it. We hope the songs empower others- Or at least make you laugh about how silly the dynamics of our world are.
EC: The song “Organ Donor” appears first as a single you released in June 2019. Tell me about the changes that the song went through between the 2019 release and being included in Salem Bitch Trials.
B: The song was actually commissioned in 2017 for a specific project, “Pieces” by Spruke, a compilation album exploring a dystopian future wrecked by climate change. We were under a tight deadline for the commission (write two tracks, record them, and turn them around in a one-month window) and so we really threw it together quickly. After it was out there, we thought we could have done more- given it more depth. So we agreed to give it a “glow up” and re-release it, with more time and effort, on Salem Bitch Trials.
EC: The B-side of Salem Bitch Trials feels much more literal than the a-side, especially with songs like “Hex,” “Spittin’ Distance,” and ”Arachne.” Was that an intentional decision?
B: Ha! To be honest, we didn’t really notice that until you pointed it out: we just put the tracks together in a way that we felt was dynamic and flowed well. Throughout the album, we wanted there to be a tongue-in-cheek nod to the woman scorned: In "Two Headed Snake," that woman is scorned by a justice system that continually fails women (particularly when rapists like the Golden State Killer aren’t apprehended until decades later). In "She Devil," that woman scorned is the more stereotypical “abandoned by a lover/society” trope. In "Hex," it’s the woman scorned by a music scene that doubts her. The 'witchcraft' theme is a lens to witness the female experience through. Or, at least our experience of it. The lyrics for "Hex," "She Devil," "A.S.S." and "Spitting Distance" are actually literal pages out of Holly’s diary. Just another day in a white man's world, from the perspective of queer women who are sick of it.
EC: “A.S.S. (After School Satan)” was the record’s single. Outside of having a fantastic name, why did you pick that one out of the others?
B: Honestly, we think "She Devil" is the sleeping star of the album- but "A.S.S" was one of the first songs that we felt really sounded like ‘us,’ and from a logistic sense, it was the first mix/master that was ready to be released while we were waiting for the other tracks to be completed. It's also a song we had written before the pandemic and performed at a few shows, so we thought it would be familiar to those who had seen us live in the past. Plus the name was just too cheeky to pass up as a single. We have also shot a music video for this song which will be released on this Friday (the 13th!)!
EC: Tell me about recording Salem Bitch Trials with Ali Jafaar? Did you do most of it live on the floor?
B: Holly had wanted to record with Ali since 2015, that shoe-gaze band with Kim really considered recording an EP with him before it had disbanded. We had always liked the way his albums sounded. When we talked about recording SBT, Ali just felt like the right fit. We Recorded everything at Flowers Studio in Uptown - that room sounds incredible! We recorded everything live, together, save for the vocals and some extra guitar tracks. The whole experience was just velvety- smooth. We had rehearsed the songs to death, so recording was like a cakewalk.
EC: Do you have a favorite moment from working in the studio?
B: After we finished the last day of vocal recordings, Jeremy (drums, who didn’t have to be at the studio that day) surprised us and rolled up, in his giant creeper-vibe van, sporting bottles of Champagne. Jeremy just has such a contagious enthusiasm: I think his champagne delivery was the moment when we realized, “oh my god, we did it.” He even brought champagne flutes! With a pandemic raging, we had to celebrate in masks outside, but honestly: cheersing out of plastic flutes in an alley is true Bloodies aesthetic, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
EC: Any final thoughts?
B: We are so incredibly proud of this record! Putting our music out into the world during possibly the weirdest year in recent history feels necessary. The music feels timely and fitting for what’s going on. I think we took a Marie Kondo approach to our music and got rid of all the emotional baggage and tracks that didn't spark joy anymore. And what we kept has really shown us where we need to go in the future and what we need to do more of, musically. We feel unstoppable.
Salem Bitch Trials is out now. Listen to the record below.
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