SUB*T // ASTERISK
Sub*t seems to represent more than just music but also a sense of community and feels part of the renaissance of DIY culture in NYC. How has playing live shows and bringing that online circle into something tangible been integral to what Sub*t is?
Sub*T wouldn’t exist without Twitter. We met through mutual internet friends and spent years invested in online fandoms, travel, and going to shows. Those things are still a priority. We’ve gone all over the country and abroad with our friends to go to shows. Connecting through music is important to us, it's inevitable that it would influence our band identity. We make songs to play them live so we’re constantly thinking about how it will translate. And the fact that the friends we made online come to our shows makes the live experience even better for us. We feel really lucky to be associated with a music scene in New York. We always hoped it would happen, but it has come so organically over the past 6 months and that’s been really cool to experience.
Being a duo means having a really special relationship with one another - especially based bicoastally, how do you split all the duties that come with being in a band?
You have to be close to soulmates to be in a band with someone. We are. One could never do this without the other. Being bicoastal is easier than you might think, too. We’ll both be Brooklyn-based soon, but when we’re apart, we send each other lyrics, voice memos, and project files a lot. We love to build off each other that way. We have similar tastes and instincts, so working alone isn’t intimidating, and we handle all the lyrics and instruments ourselves. Only having one other person to collaborate with on the music is important to us. Not even really in a control freak way. The producers we’ve worked with haven’t been banished and not allowed to adjust stuff, you know? But we know what we want Sub*T to sound like, so that process will probably never change.
You’ve had fans from the likes of Alicia Bognanno of Bully and Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice. What about your music do you think resonates as part of this ongoing legacy of musicians making powerful, emotive indie rock very self sufficiently?
If you can’t do it for yourself, who else is going to? We were never going to let the stuff we lackedbe a reason not to do something. That attitude is pretty apparent when it comes to us, just a kindof scrappy, rough approach to a lot of things. We’ve always been self-sufficient in that way.Maybe that’s appealing? But it's nothing more than us just being ourselves. We just want to carryon the legacy (huge shoes to fill here) by always being ourselves unapologetically. Alicia and Elliehave both been hugely inspirational to us over the years, so recording our EP with Alicia andhaving Ellie at our second show ever just felt like full circle moments. Sometimes it’s hard to fullyacknowledge yourself as an artist - so moments like that are extremely validating and exciting.
SUB*T
MIX
What’s next after this single & the ‘So Green’ EP?
Keep playing shows! The only time we’ve played outside New York was in Boston, so we wanna branch out. Playing live is so addicting. It would be great to go to the west coast or get on a tour. When it comes to music, we have so many songs written. Logically, the next step is another EP or even an album - and maybe we can get signed. Right now we’re so excited for people to hear our new single!
Tell us more about the recording process/inspiration behind this new track!
We love giving each other writing exercises as a way to start songs. Asterisk was done that way. It was based on a certain movie, that’s all we’ll say. It started as a bit of a joke, but it’s interesting when random topics become very personal. The goofiness fades but we always like keeping tongue-in-cheek phrases and double meanings to offset the seriousness in our songs. We recorded in January with our friend Aron, who’s also in an awesome band called Momma. It was our first time in a real studio. We felt like children. We’ve been lucky with the producers we’ve worked with and love how this song turned out.
Any under the radar musical peers we need to know?
Zilched - she’s a rockstar. We recently were on a bill with Fat Trout Trailer Park and they’ve become a local favorite. Definitely need to know about Trophy Wife, Charles Irwin, Billy Star, Slow Fiction, and Tchotchke.
What’s special about the mix you’ve made?
We included a bunch of music made by people we know. Friends forever.
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