Pop Quiz: Daddy Issues

Before we dig into this Pop Quiz with Daddy Issues make sure you’ve given a listen to their brand new EP - Double Loser. The Greensboro foursome has been a TGE favorite since the release of single, “So Hard” and we’re excited the ladies took some time to answer a few digital Pop Quiz questions!

The Grey Estates: How did the band form?

Lindsey: Lo and I started playing music together in the Fall of 2013 when we were both going through breakups. Our first song was just this list of all the things that sucked about our exes. It was like “you don’t read! you don’t recycle! you think it’s dangerous to ride a motorcycle!”
Lo: It also had a ukulele strumming under Lindsey’s Epiphone because I didn’t play the guitar at that point…it was sooo gooood I can’t believe we didn’t put that one on the EP.
Lindsey: Maddie worked at the food co-op and I would always try to get in her line because she was my secret friend crush. We actually decided to form a band when we were all at this showcase put on by Tom Tom Magazine. We asked Maddie if she wanted to be in our band and she was like “Yeah okay cool, I play bass.” We had no idea what a total shredder she was until we actually practiced, though. This is actually everyone’s first band. We got together and practiced and didn’t really know what to expect.

TGE: What’s been your favorite part of forming Daddy Issues?

Lindsey: Probably realizing that there’s a whole network of people who are choosing to live their lives in the same way, a lot of people from small towns who are making things that are cool and creative - being in this band has been a great way to meet those people. It’s also made things that previously seemed really hard - like putting shows together - seem totally doable. Things that were mysterious or intimidating, just doing them has been eye-opening.
Maddie: Having a reason to create and make stuff all the time, whether it’s merch or writing new music - having a driving reason to create.
Lo:  Being able to travel a little, learning to play new instruments, and meeting new people.  The musicians we’ve met have been so talented and open-hearted and it’s really moving that people come up to us after shows and tell us they love what we’re doing, especially younger women.    

TGE: What’s the go-to snack for band members?

Li: Wendy’s. We’re so gross.
Lo: Peanut M&Ms
Hannah: Starbursts
Maddie: Two or three chipotle burritos.

TGE: What’s been your most memorable moment as Daddy Issues?

Li: Maybe the first time we played in Wilmington and we drove straight to the beach and went to the ocean at 3 AM.
Hannah: I really liked recording.
Li: Also the T0W3RS record release show in Raleigh was really memorable.
Hannah: Playing with Bloodshot Bill was a great moment, that we could play with him so early on
Lo: Yeah he’s incredible.
Hannah: The shows we play at Hellraiser are always special

(side note: Hellraiser is the house where Maddie lives. It’s our practice space and they also have house shows all the time. It’s one of the only places to play in Greensboro and it’s really amazing. Out of town bands are like “whose parents live here?” because it’s actually really nice)

Lindsey: When Maddie finally got Chipotle an hour ago and she was just so happy.
Lo: Our EP release show was last weekend and the room was just packed with friends and new faces.  We filled the bill with some bands that are really special to us so that was a little Valentine’s Day magic.  

TGE: If Daddy Issues was putting together a festival who would be on your lineup
These are basically all Maddie’s suggestions. 

Maddie Fest: Everyone from 1954-1967, Jay-Z, Rihanna, everyone who lives in Iceland, the choir who sang in the Facebook movie commercial, the naked cowboy (doesn’t he carry a guitar?), a few drunken sailors, 500 caged birds (mostly parrots), Tupac’s hologram, Ryan Gosling singing that one song he sings in Blue Valentine but nothing from his terrible band, Clang Quartet, a man trying to emulate the sound of the ocean from a shell that’s against his ear, Skrillex cursing at the crowd and crying softly, the literal calm before the storm, Lou Reed and Metallica’s “Lulu” played directly from the CD at a terrifying volume, a woman breastfeeding, The Flaming Lips covering Nickelback, some brick layers, ladybugs performing Fiddler on the Roof in it’s entirety, someone asking directions for 30 minutes because the didn’t mean to be at this festival or on stage and must have taken a wrong turn a few miles back, Hannah farting, Fred Durst doing solo acoustic renditions of Limp Bizkit songs, and a stage that will be playing nothing but John Cage’s 4:33 all weekend.

TGE: What would you say to aspiring females who think they wanna start a band?

Lindsey: Do it! We need you! Get together with your friends, announce to the world that you are a band, and then figure everything else out.
Lo: You are innately creative, don’t be afraid, just do it!  Find supportive band mates that you’re comfortable expressing yourself with because creating music together is a really intimate process and you deserve to feel comfortable and open when you’re experimenting.  You’ll probably write some really bad stuff and that’s completely fine– like our first song that we were talking about earlier – but if Lindsey and I hadn’t felt open enough to shout things we hated about our exes over a bad ukulele and electric guitar alone in her apartment (laughing but kind of sincere at the same time), I don’t think we could have moved forward to write other (better) lyrics together.

TGE: What are y'all listening to a lot right now?

Lindsey: I think I’m basically going through a kind of deep winter phase with a lot of psych and kinda dark stuff. Gun Club, Hellshovel, Annabelle Chairlegs, Erkin Koray, Death Valley Girls. I’m also reading Keith Richards’ autobiography right now so I’m re-listening to a lot of the Stones. Like I just learned that Phil Spector played bass on “Play With Fire” so I’m hearing it differently.
Lo: I’m in autopilot 60s/70s chanteuse mode.  It’s been snowing here and I’ve been feeling very reclusive so I’ve holed up listening to a lot of Vashti Bunyan and Sibylle Baier, wishing that I had a cat, a train ticket to Berlin, and a lover that lived closer to me.

TGE: What can we expect next from the band?

Lindsey: Our 7” will be coming out in March on Punk Fox Records in the UK, and that will be a single with “So Hard” and “Sex on the Beach” on dreamy coke bottle green vinyl. We’re making plans to get into the studio in the next couple months because we have so many new songs to record. We’re also really excited about opening for La Luz in Raleigh in March!

TGE: When you’re not rehearsing/making music/living the band life what else do y'all like to do?

Lindsey: Speed eat donuts, curate my 1970s camper van pinterest board, record ideas for songs and guitar parts on my phone’s voice recorder that are basically just like me talking and humming to myself, and explore weird back roads in Greensboro on my bike. There are a lot of railroad tracks here so if you walk along the tracks you can see really cool parts of town. Like the backs of buildings that were not designed to be seen. Mostly warehouses and loading docks and little houses. Lots of stray kittens and tons of flowers.
Lo: I hop around local coffee shops studying organic chemistry, work on a blog I just started on holistic living, go to live shows, dance, read… currently reading Paul Auster’s “The Sheltering Sky.”
Lindsey: Dude I love that book! It’s so strange.

TGE: What’s the band’s go to movie or tv show?

Lo: I don’t think anyone else in the band watches TV but I have Netflix and my go to is Twin Peaks or Freaks and Geeks, and recently Parks and Rec.  For movies I’ve been going on a Polish kick during this snow storm. I just watched Ida by Pavel Powilowski the other night – I think it was nominated for an Oscar. It’s in black and white and is shot so beautifully… it takes place in 1960s Poland and it’s about a woman raised by Catholic nuns who is about to take her vows when she learns she’s Jewish, and I don’t think that’s a spoiler because it seemed obvious to me that had to be the plot twist given the setting.  So she goes on a trip with her maternal aunt, this amazingly complex, intelligent, and tormented character, to find out what happened to her family… it’s such an incredible film, definitely check it out.  Not really my go-to film though because it made me cry really hard, I would usually rather laugh.
Lindsey: I’m kind of a sucker for 80s action and John Carpenter movies, but I think the band’s mission statement in movie form is probably Clueless.

TGE: Give us a Daddy Issues fun fact.

Lindsey: We literally listen to the world’s worst music when we’re driving to shows. It’s so bad. Recently, we’ve been blasting/full force singing Shawn Colvin’s “sunny came home” and Seal’s “kissed by a rose”, although I recently realized I know almost none of the lyrics to that song, just the passionate loud parts (“BAY-BAAAAY amana getta you kissed by a rose on the grave OOOOH the more I get of you stranger the feel YEH-EH,” etc.) and I’m always trying to play the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack from 2001. It would be hellish for anyone who had to share a van with us on tour.
Lo: Yeah Lindsey doesn’t know the words to the Seal song at all, which somehow makes me like her more.  Another fun fact is that Maddie brought a beetle on tour without telling us, she was there for two days when finally someone was like, “Hey what’s in that jar?” and Maddie was like, “Oh her? This is Tank Top, my beetle.”  It was the middle of summer. RIP Tank Top.

TGE: Tell us your dream sandwich.

Lindsey: A pastor taco from Villa del Mar. Or that toasted sesame bagel with olive and pimento cream cheese and sprouts I had at that bagel place around the corner from Baby’s All Right. I miss that bagel.
Lo: Yeah tacos are the dream sandwich.