DS Band Spotlight: Meet Sweetie, Chicago’s Local Lipstick-Punk Band

Meet Sweetie.

Joe

Bass

Birdy Vee

Guitar and vocals

Ryan

Drums

Sweetie is a Chicago-based lipstick-punk band with a femme fatale ferocity and a French influence. Voted a Top 5 Punk Band in the Chicago Reader two years in a row, Sweetie has found a niche in playing shows in the punk scene and drag shows alike, including venues such as the Metro, Green Mill, The Egyptian Theatre, Reggie’s, Cobra Lounge, Last Rites and Liar’s Club.

Dying Scene is thrilled to interview this local band and talk about drag queens, the queer community, new music releases and some hard-hitting questions that you do not want to miss.

What do you love most about being in Sweetie?

Joe: Honestly, I enjoy the spectacle of our live show. The band is always pushing ourselves to perform our very best and engage with our audience. So many rock songs are pretty simple 3 or 4-chord progressions, but it’s all about the raw power that you play those chords. And raw power is something that Sweetie brings to the table in spades!

Ryan: All the fantastic folks! Making friends with all these incredible bands, venues, and not to mention Birdy and Joe has been an absolute pleasure.

Birdy: I love the wide variety of opportunities to express myself creatively. Writing music is one of my favorite creative outlets, and it is an even bigger high when you take that song you wrote and perform it with your bandmates for the first time. The feeling of that tiny idea turning into such a big sound gives me goosebumps! Also, I ADORE performing. I really love being on stage and interacting with the crowd.

I also love finding new and creative ways for Sweetie to perform. We often perform in spaces that can be considered atypical for a punk band. We’re the house band for the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Dekalb and have performed at countless drag shows. I really like to find ways to take the idea of the typical punk show and elevate it: collaborating with a different variety of artists and performers and giving it that variety show feel.

I also love the connections I have made with people in the scene! I have made some really wonderful friendships with other musicians and performers in the scene, many of whom have been so supportive in so many ways. Sweetie would not exist today without the care and support of these people. AND I LOVE connecting with new people at our shows. I am a huge people-person and love to meet new folks.

How would you describe the music you typically create?

B: If Edith Piaf was reborn as a punk musician, that would be Sweetie. Our music is hyper-emotive, almost to a fault, and is often about love and longing through a female lens, with nods to subculture, queer culture, and the underworld nightlife. All just completely smeared in red lipstick.

Ryan, you were a music major with a heavy background in jazz music…did you ever picture you’d be playing in a glam lipstick punk band?

R: Well, I knew some type of rock band was inevitable, as that’s what came first in my life. I’ve been a jazz guy since high school, and I think that’s really influenced the way I play all styles of music in terms of style, phrasing, improvisation, etc.; so as far as the punk aspect goes, I see the jazz background as an asset to my playing. As far as the “glam lipstick” aspect goes, that’s a new one for me but I’m diggin’ it!

Birdy, you spearheaded the amazing local music fest Hands Off Our Fest (H.O.O.F.), can you tell me more about it, and will we expect it to come back in 2024?

B: Hands Off Our Fest is a music festival celebrating the women, femmes, and thems of the Chicago punk scene, featuring a drag show consisting of some of the area’s finest drag queens, kings, and things. I created this festival to help the women, femmes, thems, and queer folks in the local punk scene to bond with one another, network, and to create space. I have often felt stifled and uncomfortable as a woman in the punk scene, and the feeling can be very isolating. Also, there are so many local femme and queer acts locally that so often get overlooked and replaced with these cis-male fronted bands. I wanted to create a fest to celebrate these amazing talents and voices, while also just having as much fun as possible. The festival was such a success and every time I bump into a fellow HOOF performer when out and about, it’s always such a treat! I’ve definitely made many new friends as a result, and I ABSOLUTELY want to keep this festival going in the years to come. You can DEFINITELY expect HOOF to return in 2024.

Joe, you use an electric bass for your other bands but an upright bass for Sweetie. Any reason why?

J: One of the most important things that I have learned as a hired-gun/studio musician is that you should always serve the song. While there is definitely a level of flash to showing up to a rock gig with an instrument almost matching the size of the drum set, my intention is not to draw away from the songs and compliment them the best I can. I originally joined the group as a “fill in” for a few gigs for the band. When I was sent over demos and videos to learn the songs for these upcoming shows, Birdy was playing a 335/semi-hollow style guitar. This sound instantly brought me back to the classic rockabilly and Elvis records that I loved as a kid, while still being punk rock!

Of course, I showed up to the first band rehearsal/audition with all the songs learned on the electric bass, but I asked about what Birdy thought about me playing upright the next time we got together. I’m pretty sure that her response was, “I’ve never thought about how that would sound, but sure”. I fully believe that she was thinking that I was planning this only for the upcoming show to make it a large surprise spectacle, not that I was dead serious about taking the bass role on this instrument. I also don’t think this instrumental change took too much convincing after hearing it in application and has absolutely shaped some of our own Sweetie sound (even if Birdy changed over to her Flying V guitar).

At your show at The Metro with The Lawrence Arms, you brought out a drag performer (who was fantastic!) and I’ve noticed Sweetie does a lot of stuff related with drag performers. Any reason why?

B: That was my drag mother, Sindy Vicious! Since really early on, Sweetie has been collaborating with drag performers as often as we can. It all started out when we had a residency at a queer comedy variety show called T-Time at the Comedy Shrine (Rest in Peace Comedy Shrine). This was run by Penelope Torres and was a quarterly variety show that featured queer stand-up comedy, drag performances, and music by Sweetie, the resident band for this event. At our very first show, we met drag performer Sindy Vicious, who later approached me with an idea for a music video for our song ‘Devil Girl’. Her and I immediately began working together and this formed a creative collaboration and friendship that has persisted ever since. I am actually in the Haus of Vicious now (a Haus being a drag family in the community) and Vicious is where the Vee in Birdy Vee originates! She directed and edited the video for Devil Girl, Mamma, as well as the music video for our new single, Showgirl. The video also features drag performer and my dear pal, Kai Valentine. I love performing and collaborating with the drag community and hope to continue to do so in the years to come!

You are about to release a new single! What’s the inspiration behind the song?

B: The new single is called ‘Showgirl’, and there is so much inspiration behind this song. Firstly, the title is a nod to the movie Showgirls (1995) which is one of my favorite cult films of all time (after the Rocky Horror Picture Show, of course). At the time that I wrote the song, I was starting to feel the isolation and frustration that can come with being a performer. You are putting your whole heart and all of your energy into this thing, pouring your guts out on stage, and then when it’s all over, what’s left? The song also parallels a relationship that is in the same vein- something that you are pouring your heart into and from which you are getting very little back. But in the song, there’s also that tone of resilience, with a focus on women in the music industry. The stress that women in the music industry are under, and well as the constant criticism that they face can be shattering. The statement of ‘this will not break me’, which a lot of times is easier said than done, helps the song end on a high note. Ultimately, ‘Showgirl’ makes it through and comes out stronger in the end.

When can we expect the next album?

B: The new album is called La Vie en Rouge (which means Life in Red), which is a reference to Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie en Rose’. The song La Vie en Rose is about being in love and seeing ‘life in pink’. The idea of La Vie en Rouge takes that idea but intensifies it. When you’re seeing life in red, there is passion, there is rage, there is fire. That is what I’m trying to channel in this album. Also, Sweetie’s most recognizable color is red, so the album title is a nod to that as well. We are so proud of this album and it is projected to come out in June 2024.

Now for the hard-hitting questions…would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

J: While I would ideally not like to cause any harm to these proposed majestical creatures. My gut instinct would be to choose the 100 duck-sized horses to see if we may be able to reach some sort of diplomatic resolution without violence. But on the other hand, a horse-sized duck head would look pretty sweet mounted over a fireplace mantle…

R: Horse-sized duck is out of the question. I’m already afraid of geese and they’re not much larger than ducks. On the other hand, what’s a duck-sized horse gonna do? Kick me? Okay.

B: Do I get some sort of weapon? I’m pretty sure I could fight off 100 duck-sized horses with a broom or a hammer or something. But one horse-sized duck? They’ve got all those little teeth and they can fly and hunt you down… But then the 100 duck-horses could kick you to death with their little hooves. If I get a weapon, I’ll choose the little duck-sized horses.

Lastly, if you went on a national tour, how many pairs of pants would you bring with you?

J: My serious answer would probably be 3 to have a solid rotation, but I would be an advocate for shorts (weather dependent) to require less fabric to dirty up and for a higher level of comfort.

R: We don’t believe in that sort of thing.

B: No.