Things to do: Egg Soup, Pachinko Hut, October 20, 2021
According to Sammy Westervelt, you can hear the very moment she knew her band, Egg Drop Soup, had made the right decision regarding their musical future. It comes about half a minute after the debut of their 2018 single, “Partying Alone”. At that mark, she unleashes something repressed and primal and that voice would set the tone for whatever Egg Drop Soup would do next.
The Los Angeles-based group heads to Houston on Wednesday, October 20 to cover a bill at the Continental Club’s Pachinko Hut with Swimwear Department. The sound of The Soup is a mix of punk, metal, grunge and guitar surf. They are an all-female group from LA but refuse to be defined by this trope and cannot be labeled sonorously. And, according to at least one LA Weekly author of music, their intention is bold and intended to frighten listeners.
Westervelt, the band’s bassist and singer, laughed at the idea but didn’t dismiss it. She said that she and guitarist Olivia Saperstein were originally members of a band called The Pinks.
“The project we were in before Egg Drop Soup had, I think, a little bit softer side, kind of garage, kind of ’60s punk and I felt a bit pressured into trying to write in a particular parameter. I don’t know if it was because I was so new to bass or what, but I was really excited to experiment a bit, ”she said. “And, on top of that, I was really sick of people saying, ‘Oh, you’re so cute! “I kind of felt like, in a way, people just weren’t taking me seriously.
Westervelt said a change in philosophy helped them gain the respect they sought for their creative output. Like so many women, in music and elsewhere, they had to literally cry out their intentions to a world obsessed with their appearances.
“I feel this fury about the world and I know Olivia felt it too and we thought we needed to get it out and channel it somehow. Once we wrote “Partying Alone” and that scream came out – I had never screamed before but knew I kind of wanted to try it out – and once that sound came out of me we were like people are going to shit, for lack of a better term. We had a feeling it was going to at least surprise people. ”
Egg soup, they said, is a euphemism for menstruation. Some might call the music “scary” because it is feminist, honest, and unyielding. He boldly challenges listeners to hear Egg Drop Soup’s views on issues that directly affect them. Take the song “Tots”, for example, which is a dazzling track about the politics of the female body. The lyrics of the entire track are, “I don’t want your baby, I just want to bleed / No I don’t want your baby to be inside of me / I left it on the table, it wasn’t for breathing / Get out- the of me. “
Fingers crossed that “Tots” is on the list of dates planned in a state where predominantly male and predominantly conservative lawmakers are pushing back women’s abortion rights. Who better to deal with these issues than a trio of “scary” women – if that’s the word you choose?
“At the end of the day, it’s really about empowerment and not just for ourselves but for other women and also just for humans in general,” Westervelt said. “I think as a collective we really believe that women’s issues are just human issues. It affects everyone. If they take our rights, they will take yours. You are not exempt from it.
“My hope is that something that is channeled through us is channeled to the people who listen to us or choose to listen to us and somewhere in there, that triggers that momentum of empowerment and finding your voice, whatever it is. either, “she said. “It took me a long time to discover that music was something I had to do and even longer to find my own voice. We hear from other bands and are influenced by them and I think it’s easy to try and sound like something that we think sounds really good. But there is something really special about finding your own truth and truly living in it and hopefully lighting the way for others to find catharsis, at the very least, to their own. era.
As she mentioned, music was a saving grace for her. She moved to Los Angeles to act. She and Saperstein are both filmmakers. You can find out about Westervelt’s work by watching the video for the band’s new song “Or Durves”.
“Part of the reason I think I turned to music is because you don’t have to wait for someone to really give you permission. You just wrote a song and released it. I like having the power to allow us to make these creative decisions and not rely on someone else’s deadlines, ”said Westervelt. “We have the skills and we are all visionaries in our own right. It might be a very strong kind of word to use, but we all really have strong creative visions. It’s just cool that we have the skills to do it, so why not?
Westervelt said she was grateful that her group mates trusted her with the new video and that there seems to be a strong chemistry between the group mates, especially with her and Saperstein. They met on a film set.
“I remember seeing her on set and she had that wig on and she took it off, she had that cold blue hair and I was like a man, she looks so cool,” Westervelt said. Saperstein started the conversation and they bonded around their love of movies and the Hole group.
“I sometimes have really weird dreams that look like premonitions so I told her about that dream I had where I gave my CD to Courtney Love but I wasn’t even a musician at the time. “said Westervelt. “We were like oh, it’s like a really strong friendship. We just felt the love instantly. And then I was really disappointed with the acting stuff and I just quit.
“I’ll never forget it because it’s so scary, but I remember lighting a candle and asking the universe ‘What am I supposed to do with my life?’ And not even 30 minutes later, she texted me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to start a band?’ ”
They did and recently added drummer Bailey Chapman to the mix to complete the trio. They started the group with drummer Greg Settino and Westervelt said they had parted ways amicably and remained friendly. They met Chapman, who also played drums for groups like Thelma and the Sleaze and Sailor Poon, at SXSW and invited her out of Settino.
“I knew she was the first person I wanted to ask. She had moved to LA and it was just magical, ”Westervelt said. “I can’t say if it’s specifically because she’s a woman adding to it or if it’s just her mind and her soul, but anyway it opened up to us wide, I think for myself in anyway, in terms of how much emotional range I can really express on stage. It’s a totally amazing energy that we can share and I really feel privileged that we can experience it.
You can also experience it, live and out loud, as the band intended. Their tour runs through the end of the month and includes a date of October 19 at the Daquiri Time Out in Galveston.
“I am very excited to hit the road,” said Westervelt. “We had to cancel a show because of COVID which is still waiting to be rescheduled. I’m not gonna lie, I’m a little nervous. Ultimately, we want to do our part to stay safe and keep everyone around us safe. I know this is a controversial topic, but I don’t really think it’s a bad idea to want to protect the community.
“Wearing a mask, at the very least. Get vaccinated, ”she said of some things people can do before their tour stops. “I mean, it’s a choice we’ve all made. Obviously, this is a personal choice and preference, but at the very least, you just have some empathy for your neighbor. On the contrary, this pandemic has really brought to light the lack of empathy of some people. This is what I want to infect people with. Not COVID, just love, you know?
Their number one love is music. You can hear Hole’s influence and nods to Black Sabbath, Motorhead and Nirvana in Saperstein’s gargantuan riffs. They are aware of Los Angeles’ long legacy of girl groups, all the L7s, Runaways and Go-Goes that came before them and Westervelt said Egg Drop Soup feels no pressure to meet the standards set by these groups. .
“I wouldn’t say we feel any particular pressure about it, but I think our sort of ethics is kind of like ‘fuck that’,” she said. “Any kind of pressure someone wants to put on us, we’d kind of say, okay, go ahead and test yourself, but we’re not really going to buy into it, you know?”
“It’s interesting because I feel like we are compared to bands that I would never have thought of,” she continued. You might hear those influences, but Westervelt said the band leans on “that kind of magical telepathy that we really have between ourselves. We will hear what the other is about to do before they do. It’s just really cool.
“I also think that we go into every song with an open mind and don’t really intend to sound like anything in particular, just knowing that we can’t help but be influenced by whatever is happening to us. influence and let each song take us A round. ”
Egg soup, with the swimwear department, Wednesday, October 20 at 8 p.m. at the Continental Club’s Pachinko Hut bar, 3700 Main. $ 10 to $ 15.