SHAGGO is a queer femme punk band based in Brooklyn, New York. The band was born out of a shared admiration for the 60s band The Shaggs. SHAGGO writes silly songs but SHAGGO is no joke.
Below, the band shares some of the influences and inspirations behind their first album, Chores, including some great records, visual artists (including a surprising coincidence), and the joy of thrift shopping.
SHAGGO’s Backstory
The Woods by Sleater Kinney
This is an album we keep coming back to. The call-and-response vocals, the raw/inventive/unexpected drumming have been really foundational for us and something we try to emulate in our live shows as well. Carrie Brownstein’s guitar-playing is also super foundational to our amazing guitarist, Thea.
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
Separately I (Carina) got really into The Woods when I was reading Carrie Brownstein’s memoir, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl (one of my favorite memoirs of all time). I think it was kind of unusual for me to get into an album after reading about it in a book, but Carrie’s writing is that compelling – also hearing about how this album differed from their prior albums, how they had to trust their producer to make something a bit more experimental, all really added on to this album for me. Perfect album.
Lex (gay Craigslist)
Pretty much exactly what it sounds like! Some people use Lex for queer dating/community, we used it to find our amazing lead guitarist (Thea) and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Honestly a fantastic app – we’ve (separately) used Lex to cast a drag-king for our gay baseball-themed music video, “Minor League” (they played the referee!). A lot of really cool, interesting, (gay) creatives use Lex and it’s been a fantastic resource/weirdly foundational part of our band.
Annie Clark and Gemma Thompson
Annie Clark, St. Vincent:
The way that she incorporates sporadic shouts of dissonance and noise into otherwise harmonic lines is a huge inspiration on me. – Thea
Gemma Thompson, Savages
I steal everything from her but especially envy her ability to sculpt feedback and float effortlessly between noise and melody, she’s just incredible. – Thea
Pricemaster
This video keeps coming up for us… iconic early 2000’s (somewhat obscure?) Youtube video of this guy in a bizarre outfit hosting a fake yardsale in Denton, Texas. Lucy first discovered/embraced Pricemaster when her younger “filmhead” brother showed it to her entire extended family – four times – one Thanksgiving. The ones who know Pricemaster, KNOW pricemaster. We won’t spoil the video, but we’d recommend everyone reading this watch it. We quote Pricemaster in practice a weirdly significant amount.
This also came up when we were in Austin playing SXSW – a band on the lineup mentioned they’d be playing Denton, Texas after Austin while they were on stage playing, and then Lucy yelled out, ‘Pricemaster,’ – they immediately got the reference and cranked the reverb up on the mic, and quoted ‘ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS’ from the video – it was such a beautiful moment that we will never forget.
One time, Lucy and Christine even watched Pricemaster in synch on the monitors of their jobs, wow.
“Anti-environments, or counter-situations made by artists, provide means of direct attention and enable us to see and understand more clearly. Humor as a system of communications, and as a probe of our environment – of what’s really going on – affords us our most appealing anti-environmental tool.” – The Pricemaster opening text, 2001 (“I really fw this” – Lucy)
I Got Heaven by Mannequin Pussy
Fantastic album. We actually introduced Thea to Mannequin Pussy after this album came out, and she also clicked with it instantly in the same way we (Carina and Lucy) did, which was really special. Our music taste is very distinct from one another’s in some ways; Thea’s always showing us really amazing 90’s bands that are foundational to her sound, like Ride and Boris, so to find this album as it was blowing up and all mutually connect over it as a band was really special. The harsh noise, but also really beautiful, softer and vulnerable moments – so much of this album was the ultimate goal while we were making and figuring out the sound of ‘Chores’.
DIY or DIE!!! Felt / Analog / Crafts / Physical Media
Having a hand-made component / analog and tactile feel to our releases (both in the art and music video) has become really important to us. Our friend Maddy Angstreich (talented designer who made the single art for our first release “Minor League,”) worked with chain stitching on a t-shirt to create the art. We loved the feel of this, and continued with stitching/felt for the next two singles. For the album, we chose to work with Oriane Brunat, an amazing designer/illustrator we really connected with because she makes these lovely handmade drawings, beaded work, and mixed-media that she incorporates into her work. She drew this lovely house that really captures the feeling/chaos of ‘Chores’; she also designed a J-card cassette insert (we’re making cassettes of the album that we’ll sell at our 6/12 release show!).
Having physical media felt really important for this release not only because it’s fun/rewarding to have our own physical copy of this album that we worked hard on, but it also really fits with the diy ethos of this band.
We also draw from and are heavily inspired by the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90’s, which also leaned into physical media/making and distributing zines; Lucy actually made a ‘chores’ themed zine we’re hoping to copy and give out at the show too!
note: Oriane Brunat also designed the album cover for recent blog fave cootie catcher! – hugh
Big Reuse in Gowanus, Brooklyn
This kind of connects to our last point, but this store has been weirdly foundational for SHAGGO. It’s a giant warehouse / thrift shop in Gowanus that I (Carina) stumbled upon after getting a haircut in the area – they have tons of books, fabrics, t-shirts, home goods – it’s basically a really good, giant Goodwill (but stuff like this is actually really hard to come by in New York!).
They have such a huge affordable selection that’s been so helpful in making the 3 music videos we’ve shot so far; because we’ve made our MVs diy / on a microbudget, this place has been so awesome for helping build the visual world / costumes / props for our music videos, especially the most recent medieval music video we shot for City MD (out June 12!!).
We’ve bought baseball clothes, babydolls, medieval maiden ware, ‘goblets’….you name it.
Early Mitski, Angel Olsen, and female singer/ songwriters of the mid 2010s
There was a very specific time mid-high school for me (Lucy) where I wanted more female voices to relate to in the indie/punk music scene I was getting into. I have some really special memories of seeing Mitski in 30-50 person venues back then, including once when I got to speak with her at length after the show when we’d already been Twitter mutuals. That intimacy and fan connection meant a lot to me. Her quiet and soft spoken personality also totally exploded in her music, which I relate to now and find very cathartic, especially as a woman. 2016 was quite a pessimistic time to even be a woman with Trump’s first election, so it gave me hope to have these voices in music and see articles pronouncing “Rock’s Not Dead, It’s Ruled By Women” come out that same year.
I really looked to Bury Me At Makeout Creek and Puberty 2 as coming-of-age albums with strong, soaring melodies over gritty guitars when I began Chores, and likewise for Angel Olsen’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness and MY WOMAN, which Carina also loves and we instantly connected over. These artists are huge and indie ubiquitous now, but I still see them most for what they meant to me in high school.
David Byrne
I love Byrne’s “benevolent alien” vibe in his songwriting, stage presence and even acting (True Stories is his wonderful self-directed, self-starring road trip critique of American consumerism and religion, I called it “indie Borat” on Letterboxd, etc.). I have definitely thought of his social observational, sometimes ironic tone in his lyrics when writing songs like Minor League or Lost a Sock (Need a Friend) with Carina (my favorite is “Don’t Worry About the Government”: “My building has every convenience / It’s gonna make life easy for me / It’s gonna be easy to get things done / I will relax along with my loved ones”).
Back to Sleater Kinney, I feel the same way about “Modern Girl” (“Happy makes me a modern girl / Took my money and bought a TV / TV brings me closer to the world”). Carina’s mom once said my stage presence was kind of like Byrne’s, and that’s all a small girl like me could ever hope for, you know? And once, my mom, who always played The Talking Heads for me growing up, saw him on her flight and stole and took home his paper napkin. Because he’s so based. – Lucy
Lucy’s Parents
My dad, original writer of “Big Trash Night” (which we contemporized/feminized away from “the tool shed”), who taught me how to sing and is one of our biggest fans (“Very cool! Proud of you!”), critics (“Lucy this sounds like it was written by Republican AI”), and inspirations. He was once asked to open for the Red Hot Chili Peppers (and declined), but our favorite project of his was his avant-garde group The Leopardmen, who wore these fantastic costumes as seen below, had hits including “I’m From the South” and “I Am a Crustacean,” and who usually played in (and were then ejected from) laundromats.
Lucy’s mom, fundamentalist Christian turned feminist poet, whose 90s poem “Young Girls Need Entertainment” inspired our song with the same title.
About SHAGGO
Chores is SHAGGO’s debut album, out June 6th, 2025 via Atlanta Zone Records. It’s a raw, high-energy punk record, with hints of shoegaze. It’s about chores in a literal sense, and also how maintaining friendships and relationships can feel like a chore. Chores is a coming-of-age album; it’s about menial tasks and finding meaning in the mundane.
Review: Chores
Listen/buy: Chores
What’s Your Backstory?
“The Backstory” is a feature where artists share the things that shaped them. I’d love to hear what’s influenced you and your work. If you’d like to share your own story, reach out.
