Chastity Belt began as something of a joke when guitarist/singer Julia Shapiro, guitarist Lydia Lund, bassist Annie Truscott and drummer Gretchen Grimm were still undergrads at Walla Walla, Wash.’s Whitman College. After the band relocated to Seattle postgraduation, its first album, 2013’s No Regerts, continued in the in-it-for-yuks vein, with songs inserting a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor into the group’s unschooled, spindly guitar rock. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the punchline: Shapiro found something more than merely “funny” to say, and began writing more sophisticated songs that demanded a closer degree of attention. Which, in turn, pushed the band’s latest LP, Time To Go Home (Hardly Art), toward altogether more fertile creative turf. Chastity Belt will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on them.
Grimm: I love playing claw machines at rest stops and rescuing little buddies for us. So far we’ve won at least one on every tour. Annie sleeps with Klomper, a droopy-eyed, hungover-looking horned monster. I sleep with Sheila, the cutest lil koala you’ve ever seen! We just got a happy little duckling that we haven’t named yet. I’m guessing Julia will keep it after this tour because she’s really into mallards.
Video after the jump.
