INTERVIEW: Bloods release third album 'Together, Baby!': "If you’ve never heard of Bloods before, this would be a great way to get a vibe for who we are."
Sydney based rock-punk-pop trio Bloods, fronted by singer and writer MC, first started releasing music in 2012 with their debut EP Golden Fang landing the following year. They have since attracted critical acclaim alongside a growing number of fans, and have performed at major festivals such as SXSW as well as supporting established touring artists including Peaches, The Preatures and Veruca Salt.
The band have recently released their third studio album Together, Baby! Like their previous releases it is a collection of invigorating pop-punk tracks with MC bringing riot grrl vibes to all the tracks. She also brings her Chilean roots to the album via the opening track ‘Radical’ which is sung in Spanish. With its pared back chanting vocals matched with a full blooded, rocky chorus the song is about the protests and women’s marches that have occurred throughout the world over the past few years.
‘BOSS’ is a ferocious tumble of a song not even two minutes long in which MC declares ‘I’m so done with being a nice girl / That ends today, ain’t nobody gonna stand in my way’ against the kind of punk guitar sound that is almost the perfect representation of the genre. ‘Thinking of You, Thinking of Me’ brings the punk-rock guitars as well, but has more of a traditional pop structure, with beautiful subtle verses teamed with a powerful chorus, both overflowing with delicious melodies.
Lead singer of legendary punk band Against Me! Laura Jane Grace collaborates on the song ‘I Like You’ which is a stirring pop-rock track, while ‘Chasing Constellations’ is a gorgeous, more gentle, earthy acoustic guitar track which allows MC’s vocal to shine.
‘Devo’ is a song that holds the music industry to account. ‘Taking out the trash / While you think about your dirty past…You should know we see you / And we don't like it‘ MC growls against a fiery beat and menacing guitar, and ‘TV Pity Party’ with its thumping beat and prominent, almost frantic electric guitar has a soundscape that works perfectly with the lyrics that explore living with anxiety.
The album ends with ‘Southern Lights’ which starts with a gentle, almost lullaby feel before moving into a pop-rock space. It’s a beautifully warm track that sees MC showing gratitude for her life and the people in it. ‘We got so far / We can face the day…Wе're in this together’. In many ways it is an encapsulation of the whole album in a single song - punk-rock sounds mixed with pop, meaningful lyrics and a beautiful vocal performance - and it is the perfect way to end the album.
Bloods always make music that makes an impact on you, hooks you in and keeps you entranced until the very end. Together, Baby! is no different and in many ways it is their finest collection in their ten year career. We recently caught up with MC to find out more about creating this gem of an album.
Hey MC! Thanks so much for chatting to us. How is everything in your world right now?
Thanks for having me! Everything is great, thanks. Our new album is finally out and I am just coming back from being overseas for the first time in 3 years, which was so inspiring! I forgot how much I love travelling and seeing the world.
As you mentioned, Bloods have just released third album Together, Baby!, it is a great album, congratulations! Can you talk to me a little about the inspiration behind, or the intention with, this album? Was there a particular message you wanted to get across with it?
Thank you! We wanted to make a record that we felt was strong from start to finish. Musically, we wanted it to cover a lot of different areas of punk and pop and I think this album is the best reflection of who we are as a band - if you’d never heard of Bloods before, this would be a great way to get a vibe for who we are.
Lyrically, I feel like this album has the most of me in it of any other body of work we’ve put out. A lot of the songs are very personal.
I believe this album was created remotely throughout the pandemic. What was that process like, and did you find working this way enhanced or hindered your creativity?
Yeah that’s right, the album came together while we were all in lockdown. I wrote most of these songs as a form of distraction, to process the world around me and also deal with the boredom of being stuck at home. I was really opening up and songs just kept coming and soon enough, it started to feel like a record. After a bit of convincing on my part, I started to send the demos to Dirk and Mike and we’d flesh the songs out and come up with our parts separately. It’s the first time we’ve ever not all been in a room together when bringing the song to life.
I think doing it that way gave us a lot of space to think about our individual parts and what we wanted to say.
When we could finally get together to record the album, we did it in five days, with Mike producing it. Just the three of us. We called the record Together, Baby! because, despite having to come up with our parts in isolation, the whole process of recording and creating the creative elements was completely DIY.
The song ‘Radical’ kicks off the album and it is such a powerful song. You have said it was written in response to mass protests and women’s marches around the world. What does this song mean to you, and was it always going to be the opening track?
Once we recorded ‘Radical’, I think we all immediately felt it had to be the album opener. It’s one that is really close to my heart for a bunch of reasons, but a main one is that it features my two sisters and my mum’s voices on it - they do all the chanting with me. It was inspired by the women’s marches and specifically a song created by Las Tesis (a Chilean feminist collective) called ‘Un Violador En Tu Camino (A Rapist in your Path)’ that became an anthem for women around the world.
I was really moved by the power and the ability of this age old form of song as a means to empower, unify and ultimately incite change.
You are of Chilean heritage and‘Radical’ is sung in Spanish, what the decision behind this creative choice
Technically I’m Panamanian, that’s where my mum’s from and where I was born, but my dad is Chilean and when we came into Australia (as political refugees due to the military dictatorship of Chile) we would attend anti-Pinochet peace marches every other week. Protesting and the concept of people power is engrained in the DNA of most Latin Americans and chanting is the key way to deliver the message and something I have so many childhood memories of.
When I wrote ‘Radical’, I don’t think I deliberately chose to have it be in Spanish to be honest, that’s just how it came out.
The single ‘I Like You’ features Against Me! lead singer Laura Jane Grace. How did this collaboration come about?
That collaboration was like a dream that worked out thanks to the belief of our label founder Cayle. I sent through the song when I wrote it and said “I think this would be a good duet” and he suggested Laura to which, of course we were like “ umm… YES PLEASE!”
Anyway, the story goes that Cayle knew someone who knew Laura and Cayle got her the tune. She liked it and wanted to be part of it. So wild and we are still so in love with the song. She brought so much power, character and fun to it.
One of my favourite tracks on the album is ‘Chasing Constellations’. Sonically it is a bit of an outlier on the album, more stripped back and slower. What was the inspiration behind this track?
Oh that’s awesome to hear it’s one of your faves, because it was the last song that came together for the record. Dirk had written a song with that guitar part around the time we made our Seattle EP. We always loved the song, but for some reason I could not come up with a melody I felt was right – in its original form, it was an up-tempo rock song. When we were in the studio, we needed one more track so we decided to try it as an acoustic. The guys recorded the guitars, working out how to change it on the spot from a punk belter, to something a bit more tender and at that point, I still didn’t have a vocal melody for it. I sat with the instrumental for a couple of weeks and finally realised I was overthinking it and just tapped into what it made me feel. The song is about accepting life is an unpredictable ride and though you change and grow apart from those you love, their love is always with you and vice versa.
This is your third studio album and you have been releasing music as Bloods for ten years now. Looking back at your earlier work, how do you feel you have changed as an artist?
I think we are much better players and writers now. When we started the band, we deliberately chose instruments we didn’t know how to play. We’ve always written to our competency, so I think we’ve gotten better with each record as a result.
There is a strong feminist theme to your music and so much has been going on in the area of women’s rights and gender equality since the advent of #MeToo several years ago. How do you think we are progressing as a society in the area of women’s rights, do you see progress or is it a case of a lot of noise with not much real action being taken?
I can only really talk about my personal experience and I think the feminist and intersectionality of a lot of my lyrics is honestly a result of my very existence being inherently political as a woman of colour, immigrant, mother who is living and working within a patriarchal, sexist and xenophobic system.
I think the great thing about right now is that we can have a dialogue and find those likeminded people who are looking to make things better and find some kind of path towards a more equitable future.
Realistically though, we have a lot of work to do as a society to get to where we should be.
Together, Baby! is out, what else do you have planned for the rest of 2022 and into next year?
We are playing a few shows to see the year out, playing with Wavves in October and then some of our own headline shows. I’m also really keen to get writing and recording again ASAP!
Together, Baby! is out now via Share It Music. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Bloods you can follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
