Anybody who hasn’t seen Fox Face perform in a while might be surprised by how pointed their new album, Spoil + Destroy, is. The Milwaukee pop-punk group earned a fast reputation for their sharp live shows and their no-gimmicks approach to punk, but it was only within the last year or so that the foursome really found its muse, singer-guitarist Lindsay DeGroot explains.
“I think when we started out, I was drawing a lot more from the bands I’d been in in the past,” DeGroot says. “I was used to playing a lot poppier, brighter-sounding stuff, but a year or two ago, we started writing darker songs; songs that were a little more sophisticated with key changes and time changes, and then went from there.”
Fox Face’s new music took on a more political edge, with lyrics that lashed out at the patriarchy and its enablers, as well as looming, leering men and the condescension they subject women to daily (women who play music perhaps more than most). DeGroot found the songs started coming even easier than the lighter ones she’d been writing before. “I tend to write better when I’m bothered by something,” she says.
Of course, something else happened about a year ago that also contributed to Spoil + Destroy’s raw-edge: Donald Trump’s election—a previously almost unthinkable worst-case scenario that instantly echoed throughout the music world. It’s hard to overstate the impact Trump’s election had on music. Suddenly even bands that hadn’t had much use for politics became outspoken activists, and women in particular leapt to the frontlines, since the stakes are even higher for them.
“As a band full of women, we’ve had different experiences than the men writing during this same time,” DeGroot says. “We feel it a little different, because things like healthcare will affect us a lot more than men. It’s not that the issues we write about weren’t happening before. We were thinking about them before Trump. They’re just way more present now.”
|
|
Spoil + Destroy addresses difficult issues: sexism, subjugation, sexual assault… the kind of injustices that people would generally prefer not to think about and that male musicians rarely write about. Nobody speaks out about these things because it makes them popular, and they’re not glamorous issues for a band to be identified with. The group has seen people walk out of their shows because of them.
While the subjects that Fox Face address may be depressing, the music itself is anything but. Spoil + Destroy is a feminist album, but first and foremost it’s a punk album, and a great one at that, animated with sharp hooks, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and an infectious sense of mischief. The band loves all things witchy, so there’s a little bit of that in there too, especially on the cheekily gothy “The Moon and the Tide.” There’s even a quick novelty cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” because punk covers of pop songs are fun, and “Toxic” is a killer one. An interest in social justice doesn’t preclude a band from having a sense of humor.
Though it can feel like a burdensome double standard, DeGroot says she doesn’t mind discussing issues like sexual assault. She’s passionate about them. She’s good at it. Still, she admits, she sometimes thinks about how much easier it would be playing in an apolitical band.
“I saw Andrew W.K.—my boyfriend’s band opened from them—and the whole show was all party, party, party,” she says, jealously. “And I was like, ‘Oh man, could you imagine if that was all you had to think about? ‘We’re going to do this party, then we’re going to do that party and then that party!’ It’d be so great!”
Fox Face’s Spoil + Destroy is out Friday, Nov. 3 on Dirtnap Records. The band plays a record release show that night at Acme Records with Red Lodge and Sex Scenes.
