An Interview with Girlo, July 2022
MASON — bass
Natalie — singer — joined october 2020
JACK — guitarist 1
Who/what inspires your music?
To list them off, it definitely started with Deer Hoof, which is on all of our favorites list. I would also say The Go Team, and The Talking Heads.
I think the way that we work is kind of funny because we all have really different tastes and leanings, for example Natalie has a bit of a softer music taste, a bit poppier.
Kadens in a noise band, so it’s quite the grueling process of compromises to get us where we need to be, as we all have different artists that we look up to and then we bring all of it to our practices, and it eventually all gets mashed up into one song, so our songs sort of emanate all different areas of music!
usually if one person writes, another will come in and splash shit on it and someone else will add something and come in add their own flavor or vice versa,
but usually one or two of us will be writing a lot more aggressive and driving stuff, and natalie will add a lot of melody and make it softer and it all culminates into one big Girlo song.
We’ve been told by listeners that they can’t put us into one genre!
How did you come up with the name?
This is kind of a story, it started with just a couple of us, and we had our friend McGuire in the band at the time, who was the bassist.
We ran through a bunch of really lame band names, a notable one being “Leather Frank”.
It started with the name “Girl”, but we knew we needed to change it. We were all together with our drum teacher and we were talking about the name and I (natalie) said “girl is stupid!” and I remember suggesting Girlo, along with Our drum teacher, with his reasoning being “I wear a shirt for a band named Girlo, but not Girl.”
There was also a strong liking of the feminine word “girl” with the masculine suffix “O”, which ends up giving a very androgynous ring to it.
Overall, the band name was quite a struggle, but we were able to come to a happy medium with it.
How did the members meet?
We all met at a music program! Before Girlo, two of the members were in a band called “The Goofs” that started roughly 5 years ago.
After that band ended, I (Mason) was playing bass and I wrote this song, which was our first song called “Muscle Man”, and Humberto recorded it, and then me and Jack all got together and realized we were a pretty good writing team!
It went from Humberto on keyboard to me on drums, Jack on guitar and we had McGuire in the band, and it all came together after that.
It fell into place in a pretty odd way because most of the members met at the same music school at different times.
If you had no choice but to become a cover band, who would you cover?
We all have different answers, and have argued about this in the past.
We could never come up with a single answer.
One idea that was widely agreed upon was that we would absolutely love to cover 80’s pop hits, I think that would be a lot of fun.
Blondie would be another great one.
Overall just going more synth pop/80’s new wave.
We actually covered Madonna’s song Material Girl back in January!
What is the hardest part about being in a band?
The HARDEST part of being in Girlo is the fact that there are 5 people in it, all with very different tastes and preferences.
We recorded an entire album not too long ago, and then proceeded to completely scrap it, and almost kill each other in the process.
The most complicated part is just balancing all of our different interests/general musical direction, which we also tend to consider to be our greatest strength as we get tons of different musical combinations and new sounds out of our disagreements.
Another large part of having 5 people in a band is making sure that everyone feels heard and understood, and that everyone’s personal needs are met in regard to scheduling shows and other events.
If someone wrote a book about your band what would it be titled?
“Shut Up Jack!”
“Where Is That Buzzing Coming From?”
It would probably be called “Stop Noodling!” Because I (Natalie) say that constantly; we’ll be playing a song and someone will start talking and explaining something and everyone else will just be quietly noodling on their instruments (sometimes NOT quietly) while that person is talking, so I have to constantly tell everyone to stop noodling!
It could also be about our break up. Call it “The Death of Girlo”
If a middle aged white man wrote a review on your band what would it most likely say?
Actually, this middle aged white guy took photos of our set at a show this one time and he described us as “avant garde indie rock”. Which I think is the closest thing we’ve gotten to being put in a genre so far.
We can cook up a super pretentious review. -
“The spastic styling. They were really fun to watch with a lot of movement and stage presence, they don’t have a genre because all their songs sound different with a bunch of different sounds smashed together”, and he would say some weird genre name, and then compare us to some band that none of us like, but apparently sound like.
That would probably be the review.
What is the craziest thing you’ve experienced as a band?
One of the coolest things recently happened, we all looked up to this band called Starfruit, and when we first started out we dreamed of playing with them, and then we ended up getting a show with them later on into our career as a band!
That was one of our most fulfilling moments.
Going from Leather Frank where we played our first house show and had no mic, to now when we get asked by bands that we go see live in our own personal time to fill up their venues was truly a crazy thing to experience.
Venus Twins has asked us to fill out, because they like us, Starfruit shouts us out when we play live with them, just the feeling that comes with watching your idols think you’re cool is an amazing thing.
I feel like it’s very unusual to have such a large scene with such great bands in such a small area, so it’s crazy to be on the same playing field as some of the specific bands we looked up to.
Which song of yours was the most fun to write & make?
I think our song Battery. It was the second song we ever wrote after we first started in 2019.
When Natalie joined the band, we went back and revamped the songs because we started as a four piece and later figured that having a dedicated singer would help us mellow out our sound a bit.
Battery was one of our harshest/most abrasive songs, so we cut it from our set.
But last summer, we went back and revisited it and realized we could really make it work.
Having that click into place and come into its own was really cool to watch happen.
It’s definitely our favorite so far.
What helps bond you as a band?
Going to Guitar Center.
Simply spending time together! With many members having been in a multitude of bands, simply spending time apart from music together where you just get to know one another truly helps to bond.
I feel that’s what makes a band truly worthwhile, it’s what brings your music from being just “good” to being a genuine piece of music and to have the ability to perform it live with a shared energy on stage that people pick up, whether its conscious or subconscious.
I would also say that I (Natalie) started off as friends with Humberto, Mason, and Jack and we would hang out all the time before we became a band, so at least having a good knowledge of who you’re playing with and their general personalities is a big help.
I would also say having similar interests, especially music wise, makes the band part a lot easier.
What is the dream venue?
I (Natalie) think any show in New York would be cool, just starting to play outside of Texas would be a lot of fun, I don’t really think we care about anything stadium wise.
We would love to move around and explore small venues and small scenes.
I (Jack) am moving away to Chicago, so I think it’d be cool to do a tour there and New York.
Humberto currently goes to school in New York, so we take hiatuses during the school year, but we’re thinking of doing a mini tour from Chicago to New York due to our members going to schools there. That is currently our closest achievable dream.
Any large venues in Deep Ellum like Trees or Three Links would be really cool.
We personally prefer any smaller venue, as close and as low as possible to the crowd as we can get, so people HAVE to look at you and pay attention.
We always love any house show we play.
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