Just Don't Call Them Your Favourite All-Girl Band

There are a lot of bands out there.  A lot.  So, so many. And so, so many of them are similar and unremarkable, derivative or corny.  Punky looking US trios usually sound like pale Green Day/Blink 182 copyists. Not so Hello Mary. They have that indefinable something. Sometimes you can just tell these things from the off. That wasn’t quite the case with me, I will admit. When I came across a Hello Mary single swimming in the sea of dross we get washing up on Outsideleft’s shores each and every week, I wasn’t especially impressed, so when the ‘Emita Ox’ album arrived, I was in two minds. Give it a spin, or move on? 

Luckily, I opted to give it a spin and I’m very glad I did. I was happy to be proved very, very wrong. A full page, five heart, review followed, where I described the melodically distorted, fuzzy, chopped up psychedelia-tinged sounds of Hello Mary as “Teetering On The Edge of Brilliance”, meaning I knew there was more to come and they had more steps yet to take, but that brilliance was already clearly on show here. For a band only five years old, with one member still completing her studies, the album (their second) displays a musical maturity and skill well beyond their years. It is a masterpiece that deserves to be regarded as such.

Organising an interview proved to be a drawn-out task, taking from mid-September until now to make happen, with UK and US tours taking them away, my giving up, and then deciding to try again, before finally succeeding.  That convoluted process mirrored my own false start with the band.  It must be fate.  Thankfully,  guitarist/singer Helena Straight, drummer/singer Stella Wave, and bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer and I finally got to sit down and talk.

Outsideleft: I didn't actually believe this would ever happen, you know, because it's taken such a long time to arrange this, but you've been doing a lot in that time I know, with a 34 date UK and US tour just completed.  I love the album, by the way. You probably can't remember the review in Outsideleft, but I thought it was different because you'd moved on since the first album. There was such variety on the album.  I can see influences in there, but you made those your own as well, which is really good. I'm interested in the process you went through.  How do you stand out from the crowd where there are so many other bands around? How do you make an impression as Hello Mary? That's a hard question to start with, but you know, it's an interview!
Stella: How do we stand out? I mean, I don't know. Are you asking how does one take the steps to stand out? Or, how does Hello Mary stand apart?

Outsideleft: Yes to both!  It’s hard being in a band, isn't it? Because you're one of many, but you don't want to be one of many. You want to have a career, you want to stand out. You've got to do something that's different, and so much has been done already, right?
Stella: I hear you.  You have to be conscious of that, because, first and foremost, you want to be genuine with the music. I think that's always been really important to us, making creative decisions that maybe offer something new or different, but we also want the songs to feel genuine and enjoyable and listenable. So, I think that the nature of our song writing process naturally allows for a lot of those differences to shine through, given that we are three people that are contributing. You know, a lot of bands have one person or two people writing, but to have a trio that's fully engaged and involved, I think is naturally going to sway things.

Outsideleft: What I was trying to get at is, what is the intellectual process you go through? How planned out is it? Do you think "we've got to make this song sound different"?
Stella:  The nature of having three songwriters is that we all have different influences and different parts that we're bringing to it. We're very open minded to a song becoming like a mishmash of all those different things. So I think there is some sort of intention behind that, for sure, and yes,  I think we try to stand out, I think we try to be different. But a lot of it is  also just the nature of having three different writers, if that makes sense?

Outsideleft:  It does. You've been going  now for five years, haven't you? and were friends who formed the band together. Some of the songs on the latest album are about friendship and things like that.  It's a theme that a lot of bands express, but there are also tensions when you are in a band as well, and that tends to increase as you go along because of the amount of stuff you have to do and the amount of time you spend together. Five years into a band is often a difficult point when you get there.  You've done a couple of albums, a bunch of gigs and tours, had a lot of rock star fun, then it starts to feel more like a job, and you have to start thinking about how do we make a career out of this, how can we keep the ideas coming and maintain the energy?  Its tiring and you spend a lot of time away from friends and family. That creates its own pressures, and that means the relationships within the band get a bit more strained. I don't know if you've found that yet?
Stella: I do think that as time has gone on, and the more time that we've spent with each other, the more we've kind of morphed into one.  When we're on the road, for example, we're a lot less likely to take things personally. We've never really gone in for fights, and we're a lot less likely to get into weird, little spats, because we're together all the time and we know those are going to be resolved in, like, 10 minutes anyway, so we let things roll off a lot more.  I think we kind of appreciate that the other two are the only people that really know what it's like to be in Hello Mary, and to be in this position, and our entire journey. So I think, we've all grown together as the years have gone on.

Outsideleft: It's all been a bit of a roller coaster so far. You've just finished a tour of the UK and US, 32 dates or something, over three or four months - quite a lot. I wanted to ask you about playing the same songs every night. You must get a little bit "here we go again!" about it. How do you keep it fresh when you're playing a song for the 34th, 50th, 100th time, along with recording and rehearsing it, as well?
Helena: We've just been touring the Amita Ox album for only a few months. Starting in the UK was the first time that we played a lot of songs off the record live, so I'm not sick of those songs, and I feel like I won't be for a while, because they're kind of challenging to play. The easier songs, like the songs from the first, self-titled album, which we were playing for four years, we were definitely getting sick of, but I think a lot of that had to do with the simplicity of those songs. A difficult song like 'Three', for example, I guess we've probably played that 40 times live this point, which is not a lot, and every time I'm like, "Oh God, I hope this goes well!"

Outsideleft: Do you think of just mixing it up, and, you know, just doing a totally different version of a song live, improvising stuff, adding stuff in?
Helena: No, I don't, because I'm not super comfortable with it yet, but maybe if I ever get to that point, I'll play around. If I'm nervous my hands shake a lot.

Outsideleft: Yeah, it’s not good for musicians to have shaky hands...
Helena: It's impossible to avoid.

Outsideleft: You mentioned playing in the UK in September.  Did you notice any big cultural differences between the UK and the US in terms of both how you went down, and also your own feelings about the differences in culture as well, not just music, but anything. Had you been to the UK before at all?
Helena: Well, I went to London on holiday when I was, like, 10, but I don't remember it.

Outsideleft: That probably doesn't really count.
Helena: OK, so that was my first time in September, yeah, and there is a lot of cultural differences. Something we noticed is that the audience is much more 'present', I think, than Americans. They're not, like, taking videos on their phones all the time, which is awesome, and generally, I think they're more sociable and calmer, sort of less...anxious.

Stella: Something that we really, really noticed was people's ability to say something meaningful and sweet. You know, if we like played a show or whatever, like, just be intentional about it, be sweet. They would say what they want to say, but they would always wrap it up in a very natural and concise way.  Sometimes, over here [in the US], although compliments are extremely appreciated, it's good to know when to cut yourself off, and say "Have a good night" and not talk my ear off the whole night, you know? Definitely, people in the UK seem to be way more aware of that than over here.

Outsideleft:  Must be our natural British politeness and stiff upper lip!  I did watch a couple of backstage YouTube interviews with some US Youtube bloggers.  Some of those are terrible interviews. They were asking the most stupid questions. I'm not going to be asking those sorts of questions!  One thing I did want to cover, and I'm actually sad that I even have to ask about this, is music biz misogyny. There's always a pressure on bands with a girl fronting them up, or an all-girl band like Hello Mary, to be something that they're not. To be more sexy, to show more flesh, to, you know, smile and pout and be all girly or whatever, for the boys. Male bands don't get that, and it's really annoying when you see that happen. To me, it is anyway. Have you experienced any of that behaviour?
Michaela:  We haven't experienced people wanting us to show more of our flesh.

Helena: That's never happened to us, but people will shout out at a gig, "you guys are so pretty".

Outsideleft: They would never do that to a boy band...
Stella:  They will go "you ladies rock" , like 'chicks' rock. They mean well, you know. It's interesting that someone commented. he other day that we were "their favourite all-girl band"!

Michaela: That's what I was gonna say. People are always saying that all the time. Like, literally every, every, time they compliment us. It's always like, "you guys are such a good girl band. You're my favorite girl band.".  Saying we are one of "the best girl bands they've seen" is just sort of offensive to everyone. It is because, why is that even a thing? You know, it's just a band, right?

Outsideleft: I think some, some bands actually play up to it, and that reinforces it. So, a lot of girl singers particularly feel they have to be semi clad. The Goth genre is particularly bad for that, where the blokes are always, like, fully clad and a bit ugly, and the girls are always writhing around on the floor in a G string for no reason!  On a completely different note, I wanted to ask you about the march of technology. Everyone's worried about AI and about what it might do to creativity. I don't think that right now AI could do what you do, but, you know, it develops quickly. Have you thought about that at all, about where the music industry and creative industries as a whole are going now with technology? Music technology has always progressed, but it seems to be going on a particular path at the moment which is not necessarily very good for creative musicians like yourselves.
Michaela: I feel like I could go on forever about this. I'm doing my senior thesis right now about AI and music, so I have a lot to say. But I don't think it's the end of the world.  I actually think it could be really cool. You know, originally people hated electric guitars, people hated synthesizers. I think trying to define creativity is really hard, and song writing has looked a million different ways over the past 100 years.  I definitely think there's an unethical way to do it, and I don't want AI music to be the number one form of music making, because obviously playing instruments, that's what I grew up doing, and that's what I love to do. But I think there's definitely a place for AI.  I think it could be really exciting, and there are a lot of sounds we've never heard that I'm excited to hear.

Outsideleft: Do you think it's democratizing as well, in that anybody can produce music without being able to play at all now. They can just say to an AI programme "create me a track that sounds like X"?
Michaela: I think that basically already exists with DAWs [Digital Audio Workstations - the software musicians use to record at home], where you can basically just click on a drum track, click on a guitar track, and you've written a song. A lot of popular songs that we know and love were made that way, we just don't even know it. I also think that being creative doesn't have a prerequisite pf putting in many hours doing a thing like singing. Babies can sing, and it's sometimes so beautiful and so creative. That's my little two cents on it, but I think about AI and music for many hours a day at college. I feel passionately that it could be really cool and that there's nothing unartistic in using tools, even if they make it really easy.

Outsideleft: Do you find being at college and also being in the band quite difficult to manage, because you must have to take a lot of time out potentially?
Michaela: Yeah, it is very difficult. I'm almost done now, which I'm really excited about. I graduated a year later than I thought I would, just because I wasn't able to take all the classes I wanted to, but it's fine. I'm getting it done.

Outsideleft: One of my questions, actually, was whether you see the band as a career? Whether your ultimate aim is to be doing this until you're, you know, 100 years old or whatever, still doing it. Or, if it's part of a creative journey or a personal journey, that is for maybe a period of time? Some people move on to doing sculpture, writing, and other forms of art as well, afterwards, or they have a completely different parallel career, doing the band and something else at the same time.
Stella: I feel like we all might have different answers to this! I think we're definitely taking the steps to have a career with this band. We've put a lot of things in place to try to give us a good ecosystem for success. But you know, so much of this industry is luck based, and we've been really lucky in some ways, and we've been kind of unlucky in others.  I don't want to say unlucky, but just we haven't hit the jackpot, nor are we making the kind of music that really allows for healthy financial stability. I think it kind of depends how this unfolds. I know for sure we want to make the next record, and write more songs and keep playing shows and keep doing what we're doing, and hopefully that allows for bigger and even more awesome opportunities. It's hard to say in a field where it's very financially unstable, because even though that's not why we do it, if you're dedicating all your time to something that doesn't allow you to have another job, it becomes the sole way that you're making money. Right now, that's fine, but by the time we're 30, if we want to be doing more financially sound things, then it might depend on how the band's doing. I don't know, I just kind of talked in a circle, but you get what I'm saying. It'll depend. It'll depend.

Outsideleft: It can feel like a hamster wheel for some bands where they've been doing it a long time, and another tour comes along, and its "here we go again", and they don't feel that they can get off that hamster wheel, because it's just keeps rolling, and they have to keep running on it because they need to pay a mortgage, buy food, or have families to support.  That's quite tough, because it means the kind of artistic directions you might want to go in have to be tempered by what's going to sell. And what's going to sell is not always great artistically
Stella:  Yeah, right? I mean, I really don't see our art ever being compromised, just because we've never been that kind of band.  I think if anything, we are becoming further and further away from the kind of band that would achieve commercial success, but I think there is a niche out there for this kind of music. The people that love and appreciate this kind of music are a very strong and supportive community of people.  If you're actually able to reach that community, and become prominent in that community, then I think in a lot of ways it's like the most unbreakable support, because people are so hungry for art and creative music, especially in a day and age where it is not really the popular thing.

Outsideleft: Take someone like Kim Gordon, the stuff she's doing now, it's really experimental music.  OK, she's got a big following from Sonic Youth, but, you know, she's got a dedicated following, and that's great thing to have, really. I can hear Sonic Youth and Swans influences in Hello Mary, but you put more of a twist on things, rather than just follow the crowd. Always a good thing. I did also want to ask about names and titles. I'm always a bit curious about names, but 'Hello Mary'? None of you are called Mary, so I was imagining maybe it's someone's mom or a friend or whatever, and it just means you can always say hello to them wherever you happen to be! What was the reason for choosing that name?
Helena: Michaela and I started making music together when we were 13 & 14, and we were thinking of a band name, and we wanted to use a two-word combination with the first using the first letters of both of our names, so H, M, and there were some other options. I can't remember any of them, but 'Hello Mary' was our favourite.  That's a pretty boring story!

Outsideleft: So you were just kind of riffing off the initials? A lot of bands do that. They usually go down the pub and get drunk and end up calling themselves the bar stools!
Helena: Much more original!

Outsideleft: The title of the album has another name in there, so there's a bit of a theme coming out here. You've got a self-titled first album, your second album's got another name in it. I know in your press release talks a little bit about an Ox being a strong beast, but what kind of thing do you want to get across with that? What's your thinking about what people will think when they go "Emita Ox, that's interesting" as they are flicking through the racks in the record store.
Helena: I think that album name has minimal meaning. It was mostly just satisfying to say and to hear. A lot of our lyrics have that same process, they are just satisfying to hear and not that deep.  Michaela actually thought of the album title when we were recording the album.  She just wrote it down on her phone and showed us, but the strength of the ox, we didn't really think about that, and we still don't.

Stella: I mean, honestly too, like, I think, like when people ask us that question about the album name, I like, we always answer that way, because I think kind of how it came about was more of like a syntax thing. But honestly, I mean, I can't speak for the other two, but I definitely feel like I have my own meanings and associations attached with the album name and the same with the lyrics too.  I do think that there are songs that have meanings on our album. Sometimes, even if something at first is just a satisfying sort of sound, you can also unpack it. Why did I choose this certain phrasing or these lyrics?  Why is this what I was like, drawn to? What does this now make me think of, or make me feel, you know? And also, the strongest lyrics or phrases are when both are at play, you know, like lyrics and phrases that are very satisfying and great to sing, but then also you're thinking about what they mean?  It's like it is multi-dimensional. This does mean something and does evoke an emotion. Having all those traits is really the coolest thing in my mind.

Outsideleft: Do you think music has the power to actually change things now? I mean, maybe in the 60s, you know, when you had big protest movements, it used to have a power.  Now, even Taylor Swift can't affect an election at all. So, music seems to kind of lost a lot of its power. I mean, do you think it still has any power to inspire and change people's lives, or change society, even?
Stella: I think it absolutely does have that power. We were having a conversation with our friend/tour manager in the UK, and he had some really profound things to say about music and the way that it affects people, which I might not recall 100% accurately right now. He was basically saying that just by getting up on stage for example, as Hello Mary does, but it could be any band that you like, that you see getting up on stage, that's influencing you.  Even if that is just on a micro level, or even just one on one. You might only be playing a show to 10 people in a room, but if there's one person in the room that's feeling inspired, that is actually changing the world one person at a time. I think that's really important. I'm thinking of myself going to shows or seeing people play and how that literally changed my life. I mean, now I'm playing shows every night. My whole life has taken on this meaning that it never would have had, had I not been to those shows. Obviously, it's not due to any one show, but those experiences add up, and they change people's lives, and then it's a domino effect. So, even if it's not big political change, like in the 60s, I still think that it is life changing stuff.

Outsideleft: That's true. There's a lot of bands formed after they saw the original Sex Pistols play many years ago. Theres other bands as well that people see them and they go, 'yes, I can do that'. It inspires them to get up and do stuff or to live their lives differently. So, yes, I think it has, still has some power, maybe not geopolitically, but on a more of a smaller scale these days.
Michaela: Totally. Yeah, really, yeah.

Outsideleft:  To wrap up, I wanted to ask what elates you and what depresses you the most? So, what gives you a high and what gives you a low? It could be anything in your life, whatever you like. Go crazy.
Michaela:  Okay, I'm gonna start.  What elates me, and is something that I've been thinking about a lot, is cleaning my sink, because I have a really big sink, and every time I clean it I have a feeling of really deep satisfaction that, this is MY sink. I just moved into my first apartment, so I'm really hyper about it. I'm "this is my sink", and "these are my dishes". Even though I rent, it feels very adult and it's really fun. So right now, I'm loving cleaning my sink! Um, what really depresses me? That's a good one. What really depresses me is the cold, and I'm struggling with that right now because I live in a very cold place.  I'm going to battle that by buying a space heater and a heated blanket. It's literally so cold in my apartment that we had an interview half an hour before this, and we had 20 minutes between the interviews, and I went and took a bath because it's so cold in my apartment. That is getting me down. Yeah, that's it.

Stella:  I'll start with the depressing one. Something that depresses me, on a similar note to Michaela is the lack of daylight, because we just had daylight savings.  Now it gets dark at 4pm, so it will be dark in two hours and 15 minutes, and I will be very sad about that.  Something that elates me is music. I know that's a cop out, but it really is music. Everything about music I love.

Outsideleft: I'd be surprised if that wasn't something that inspired you. Otherwise, why would you be doing it?

Helena: Something that depresses me is conflict with loved ones.  That makes me really upset, because I don't have very many loved ones, so when I'm not on good terms with a loved one, that really gets me down. Something that elates me is right now I'm picturing a hammock in sunlight and maybe a glass of whiskey on the rocks and the sun's setting. That's nice. I'm either alone or with a couple friends. How about you?

Outsideleft:   How about me? I get depressed, or annoyed and frustrated by stupidity.  I see it everywhere.  In the media, on the news, in what some people say to me and the opinions they have.  None of it is necessary, but some people seem to want to be stupid or do stupid things. Things I like,? I just like talking to people, actually. I like a good, smart conversation. This is a good conversation, so I'm happy now and that's the perfect note to end on.  Thank you so much to the three of you for taking the time out to talk to me today and I do hope Micheala gets her flat warm and that sink clean!

Main Image: Photo by Jessica Gurewitz