LA-based trio Pinky Pinky have just finished a UK tour. Indie Midlands caught up with the band just before their recent gig at The Sunflower Lounge supporting The Nude Party. Anastasia Sanchez (vocals & drums), Isabelle Fields (guitar) & Eva Chambers (bass) have also played as support to Ruby Fields and played all three Dot To Dot Festival cities (Manchester, Bristol & Nottingham).
Debut album Turkey Dinner is released on June 14th.
Indie Midlands: How did you all meet?
Anastasia: Eva and I met in high school.
Eva: Isabelle and I met in middle school.
Indie Midlands: What ages would you have been then?
Eva: (To Anastasia) You were 15 I was 14. (To Isabelle) we met when we were 12.
Indie Midlands: How did the name Pinky Pinky come about?
Anastasia: It’s a South African myth.
Indie Midlands: About?
Anastasia: A monster who attacks little girls on the toilet who wear pink. But there’s a dirtier meaning behind it and we won’t go in to that…
Indie Midlands: What other artists inspire your songwriting?
Anastasia: We always say Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, Big Star, 10cc, David Bowie…
Indie Midlands: Can you talk a bit about the process of your song writing?
Anastasia: It’s like different every time, so someone will come in with something and we’ll just kind of riff off it.
Indie Midlands: How quickly does that come along?
Anastasia: Some songs are like a year or two and then others are like maybe a week or two. Ideas normally come straight away but then the process takes more time usually.
Indie Midlands: I’m very curious by the name of your debut album, Turkey Dinner. Why is it called that?
Anastasia: We like to say the album is a little taste of everything. But also we wanted an album title that wasn’t too serious.
Eva: It also kind of came by accident. We were in the pre-production phase, we were recording a demo and Anastasia just went “Eva got her turkey dinner last night” and then the title of that demo was temporarily called Turkey Dinner and it kind of started to sound cool.
Indie Midlands: How different is touring the UK & Europe compared to the US?
Eva: We’re legal here! Alcohol and getting kicked out of places.
Isabelle: They are so strict in America. We will play somewhere and venues will be so rude to us and kick us out right after we play.
Anastasia: We had one venue, cus I just turned 21 so I’m legal there, we played in Seattle and there was the biggest blizzard in like 70 years or something and after we finished playing they just kicked Isabelle and Eva out. Not even in to the parking lot, they had to be off the premises and it was really really awful.
Indie Midlands: Any tips for surviving on the road?
Anastasia: Pack a lot of underwear and socks.
Isabelle: Pantyliners
Eva: Think about Vegetables. I’ve only eaten bread and cheese this week.
Anastasia: I’ve only eaten a salad once this week and I felt so good after it.
Eva: I don’t think I’ve eaten any vegetables.
Indie Midlands: Do you feel the fact you are young and female means you are treated any different to your male counterparts? Do you feel you don’t get the same respect? Are you treated differently by sound engineers, promoters etc?
Anastasia, Eva & Isabelle: Yes.
Eva: They just kind of think you’re dumb.
Indie Midlands: Is it something that hasn’t really improved in the time you’ve been playing?
Anastasia: Maybe a teeny bit, but for the most part it’s still the same.
Eva: Yeah, even if it’s a compliment, it’s like ‘oh you’re really good for girls’ in a patronising way. One time Anastasia asked a sound engineer for slapback in the room and he went “only if you bend over”…
Isabelle: It’s definitely more equal in some ways but it’s like, ‘oh, here’s this up and coming girl band’ instead of a band, so it’s better but it’s not equal that way and it’s kind of frustrating as you can’t really break out of it.
Anastasia: And let’s be honest. Other ‘girl’ bands don’t support other ‘girl’ bands because I feel a lot of it is kind of bitchiness.
Eva: Girls are just kind of catty. Jealous creatures.
Anastasia: That’s why we kind of don’t really like being pigeonholed, because people are like ‘oh feminist rock’ or something and like yes, we’re feminists of course, but it’s not like it’s a genre.
Isabelle: It’s frustrating that you can supposedly only play one type of music if you’re a ‘girl’ band.
Indie Midlands: If you could join any other band for the day who would you choose?
Eva: The Electric Mayhem.
Indie Midlands: Don’t know who they are?
Eva: The Muppet’s rock band…
Cue Morph & Eva getting excited about meeting Rawlf, who sadly is not part of The Electric Mayhem. And yes, one of us is 47…
Anastasia: I wouldn’t wanna be in a band but I would want to be in a musical. Maybe The Sound Of Music or something.
Isabelle: I definitely would be in Hairspray.
Indie Midlands: Which character?
Isabelle: Little Inez.
Indie Midlands: And finally, we touched on it before, but how cool is it that you can drink alcohol in the UK?
Eva: It’s so cool.
Isabelle: White wine is on our rider right now!
Anastasia: We’re classy ladies!
Interview by Bryony Williams & Morph