Today, we sat down with The Lowcocks to discuss their inspiration to write music, heroes, and much more. Be sure to check out the music of The Lowcocks below on Spotify after the interview.
Interview:
What is your inspiration to write your music? Is it your
surroundings?
All of us are big punk rock fans of course, and I know everyone says this, but our band’s musical influences are all over the map, which makes our music interesting and keeps us from getting stale. Nick, our bassist, is obsessed with funk, sludge, and (somehow?) also The Viagra Boys and Devo; Zac is mostly into folk punk and noise; Ryan brings in rockabilly/psychobilly, soul, and Motown; Anne tends toward 60s revolution rock and blues, 80s hardcore, and metalcore.
As a band, we tend to bring in all of our favorites to our music; we probably have most musical similarities with bands like Amyl and the Sniffers, A Global Threat, The Distillers, and The Suicide Machines.
Sometimes there’s events that happen in the world and you pick up your guitar and write about it, sometimes it’s a riff Ryan can’t get out of his head, or a tune Nick’s been fiddling around with, and we build a song around that…a lot of times there’s something going on emotionally or personally and Annie will say “write me something angry so I can scream about this” and the train starts rolling.
A lot of our songs have a political bent, but we have songs about Annie’s scumbag ex-husband, kids in foster care, heartbreak, losing your virginity, police surveillance, fighting with your parents – there isn’t one theme we stick to, more whatever fits with the music and what we’re passionate about finds its way into the lyrics.
What type of music did you listen to growing up?
We all grew up listening to classic rock, especially underground 60s/70s rock.
Annie’s dad was a college radio DJ, and refused to listen to anything on the radio; her first album was Alanis Morrisette, Jagged Little Pill. Ryan grew up with Motown, classic rock, and grunge; his first album was Green Day, Dookie. Zac grew up listening to the Misfits and Iron Maiden. Nick said he liked every genre but country. A couple of us were in school bands and listened to classical, and all of us came into punk from different angles in our teens and haven’t looked back.
Is there someone you looked up as a hero?
Annie loves Beth Ditto, Brody Dalle, Lizzo, Jesse Barnett, Keith Morris, and Ian McKaye on the music side; in life, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, Anais Nin, Rachel Corrie, Fred Hampton, Audrey Gordon, and Greta Thurnberg. Nick said Jimi Hendrix; Zac said his hero is Dale Ernhardt. Ryan said his only hero is “guitar hero.”
If you weren’t a musician, would you be doing today?
Since we’re living in *this* economy, we all have full time jobs and balance our work with our music. Ryan is a UX designer, Annie is a development/fundraiser for a nonprofit, Zac works in food/culinary, and Nick is a welder.
What advice do you have for our fans out there that want to create
music?
Heckin’ do it! The time is now! The Ramones couldn’t even play three notes when they started – what’s stopping you?
Music:
