a few weeks back tiger trap rocked a bookstore here in d.c. and after the show, I had the supreme pleasure of munching snacks with rose and heather, one happening half of the best noisy girlpop band currently in existence. the show was scenester city. food for thought was packed. we tried to order french fries. no dice. the folk singer was in full obnoxious effect. ian svenonius made the scene, as well as the evercharming bridget cross. keep your record-buying eyes peeled for a new tiger trap release available on glorious ten-inch vinyl. interview by pam

TOURING

chickfactor: howza tour so far? is it almost over?

rose: shitty. I honestly have stopped keeping track of time. I don't know how long we've been gone, I don't know what day it is.

heather: we're confused about what show is what show.

rose: we've been out about two weeks now.

heather: no, we've been out about 3 weeks, 3 weeks. I'm kind of tired. it works better for me when I play a lot of shows in a row. once I take a day off and then try to play again, it's really bad. like tonight, because I had yesterday off, we had yesterday off.

cf: any plans to tour europe?

rose: we want to but we don't know if there are any definite plans yet. k said something about maybe in the winter...

cf: who would you tour with?

rose: we want to tour with fugazi for the rest of our lives. if we could, I'd go every single place they went.

heather: yeahhhh. I want to tour with the folk singer, the singer you hear right now.

FUGAZI

cf: do you have a fave?

rose: I love them all for different reasons. I won't say. I won't say because it's going in print.

heather: it will not! I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.

ian: what your favorite who?

heather: favorite fugazi person.

ian: I see them as the justice league or the avengers or something where every one of them has a special unique power.

rose: that's what I saw saying!

ian: the only problem with the avengers was like iron man was a munitions dealer and he had a mustache. and he's always seen battling like hippies and stuff whereas like spiderman was a populist hero, working at a spanish university, and he was hated by the cops, right, so there was a really weird political delineation thing. (slacker!--ed.) like avengers were all against bad people, but I don't know, it was weird, cause different superheroes had different political delineations, like captain america...

heather: fuck captain america, man, green lantern rocks!

HOW THE TRAP FOUND EACH OTHER

rose: angela and I went to high school together. I met jen when we worked together at tower records. years and years ago. and then heather I met because I had a friend that knew I was looking for a girl to play drums with, and she saw her playing at a party.

cf: did you always want to be in a band forever?

rose: always.

heather: yes, always, forever.

rose: my mom's in a band, so I grew up thinking that was the only way.

heather: my mom's a country singer.

rose: her mom wants to be in a band.

heather: she wants a band to be in, but she plays guitar and sings country songs.

rose: my mom supported us...that was her job.

cf: that's way too hip.

rose: yeah, so being in a band was like, you know how you always want to do what your parents do?

cf: do you do anything fun when you aren't doing band stuff?

rose: no.

heather: I quit tower records to go on tour.

rose: I work at a coffee store. sell coffee.

heather: we go to shows, and I do laundry at my mom's house and I hang out with rose and my friend kay. we go to movies a lot.

rose: we go to dollar movies all the time. we see all the worst movies for $1.50. rad. we...ride our bikes around. there's nothing to do in sacramento. there's nothing fun to do. we eat snacks. we snack constantly.

cf: any cool thrift stores there?

rose: not really. there's nothing really raging.

THEIR SMOKES, THEIR TATS

rose: everybody in the band smokes except me. everybody smokes marlboro lights.

heather: everybody in the band has tattoos except me.

cf: why's that?

rose: I won't let her get one.

heather: because they're satanic.

rose: not!

heather: they're of the devil, and...

rose: angela has many. she has a really big, beautiful design on her back and all these different colors, and has a butterfly on her arm, a heart on her wrist, and a heart on her tummy, and a saturn on her finger.

heather: jen has a tattoo of a daisy on her ankle around her mole with a petal falling off.

rose: and a butterfly. girl tattoos. major girl tattoos.

INFLUENCES

chickfactor: are all those fantastic english/scottish girlpop groups that you sound like your influences, or did you just end up playing that way? what did you listen to growing up?

rose: that's what I listened to. that was a big influence for me.

heather: pretty much going into this rose had a vague idea of what she wanted and had an ideal sound that she wanted to put together and that's what we've ended up sounding like.

rose: we all listen to a lot of different stuff. it's kinda my influences that came through because I initially did most of the songwriting, but right now we all do a lot of it. but those are a lot of my favorite bands, all the early '80s british bands, a lot of the girl stuff I listen to.

cf: who are your pop idols?

rose: chrissie hynde.

heather: ditto.

rose: stephen pastel. um, umm...

heather: lois.

rose: but that came later. cause heather didn't listen to any of this music until she met me.

cf: what were you listening to?

heather: melissa etheridge and aerosmith.

rose: no lie.

RECORDING

cf: how long did it take to complete that masterpiece of an album?

rose: three days, right? heather...heather?

heather: the actual...the stuff that's on the album?

rose: three days.

heather: we were not in seattle for three days.

rose: duh, ask anyone. two days of recording and one day of mixing. three sixteen-hour days.

heather: all right, three sixteen-hour days.

cf: how did you hook up with calvin?

heather: he checked us out when we played up in olympia.

rose: I knew him kinda because I did a song at the [ipu] convention...and plus I had been ordering records from k for a really long time so they knew who I was...and calvin came and saw us and said "oh you guys should play with heavenly when they come." so we kind of hooked up that way and then when heavenly came we all hung out.

cf: so what was the c man like as a producer?

rose: he kinda sat back, because I'm really bossy and I'm really way involved in like...

heather: he was really cool.

rose: really cool. he organized the whole thing and got everything together and he kept us sane, kept our spirits really high, he made suggestions...

heather: he wasn't like mr. let's go in and okay this is what I want.

rose: but we were all like totally involved in the mixing and production ideas and all that. we did it just as much as him, but he put it all together, organized everything.

FAVE NEW BANDS

rose: how new? what about bands I've just come across in the last year? I like small factory and stereolab and...

heather: I just recently heard fugazi, does that count?

cf: counts.

rose: heather hadn't heard fugazi till we played with them. I love cupid car club, we heard a song of theirs, and slant 6...

heather: slant 6...

rose: rad.

heather: I like this girl playing right now. she's rad.

rose: yeah, not! so like...tsunami....

[bridget joins our merry table for a cuppa hot joe]

bridget: java going on in my life?

rose: and unrest is my favorite band in the whole world.

TEE VEE

cf: what's your fave show of all time?

rose: the avengers.

heather: of all time, would have to be, uh, kroft super show. cooking with julia child.

rose: not.

heather: you see, I was in panama...

rose: she grew up, she grew up in, I'm sorry, tell your story.

heather: thank you. I grew up in a third-world country during my most impressionable years. we have one english-speaking station for the whole side. so I lived on this side, and the other side had the mall, the burger king, the hospital. so we only had one english-speaking channel. who's the boss was totally popular and three's company. so I'd have to say that like road runner cartoons cause that's all that I really liked. but now I like melrose and the bev.

rose: the bev's dumb now. I don't watch the bev anymore.

heather: I have to say both, cause they run together, y'know? The melrose and the bev all the way.

rose: dead on the bev.

heather: bev, man. 90210.

bridget: how about that season finale for melrose place?

heather: fucking missed it!

rose: we....missed...it.

bridget: hear about it? heather locklear, fucking buying melrose place?

heather: she what? she fucking bought it? oh my god.

rose: how about the pregnant thing?

bridget: she lost the baby, conveniently.

heather: hey, did the blond take back her dick husband? fucker, I hate him. whatever.

bridget: so anyway, the last scene, fucking heather locklear comes up, knocks on billy's door and says "hi, my daddy and I just bought the place!"

rose: missed that one.

heather: what a bitch. I hate her.

rose: we have this ongoing way intense thing, who was prettier: heather locklear or allison, was her name allison?

heather: was she a dog?

bridget: I hate her.

rose: heather locklear makes me wanna barf.

heather: I thought heather locklear was foxy when she was nice.

DESERT ISLAND DISCS

heather: aerosmith, toys in the attic. black candy. scissors. in on the killtaker. butterfly kiss.

rose: the last unrest album, pretenders one or two, I'm not sure, I can't pick. the shop assistants 12-inch with "I don't wanna be friends with you." the last barbara manning record, one perfect green blanket. I have a lot of singles that I love that I play all the time.

cf: what's your favorite single in the whole world?

heather: oh shit.

rose: "love to know," bridget's version.

heather: ditto to that, man.

bridget: this is wrong, and false, and influenced.

CRUSHES

heather and rose: we'll only do it if they're the same. all of fugazi, lois, and that's all. and bridget, barbara manning, diana rigg, bridget fonda. we are both hot for candice.

heather: and all of slant 6. I want all mine to be girls.

rose: then you can't have fugazi. all of cupid car club. and all of unrest. and heather. put me on your list quick.

heather: rose. so unfair. john malkovich. gil gerard. he's foxy. he's fine. rose: icky.

heather: joan jett's foxy.

rose: as is chrissie hynde. there's a lot more but I don't wanna cause scandal. CF