Shopping

Photography by Matt Draper. Interview by Heather Hawke.

 

The Los Angeles / Glasgow-based, queer post-punk trio Shopping are comprised of Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Billy Easter (bass, vocals) and Andrew Milk (drums, vocals). The trio first formed in 2012 after meeting through the London DIY scene and have since put out four albums; their self-released debut Consumer Complaints [2013], a short-run, DIY-distributed release that sold out in a matter of months and was subsequently reissued by FatCat; Why Choose [2015, FatCat], which saw the band touring the States for the first time; and The Official Body [2018, FatCat] – produced by indie pop legend Edwyn Collins – which landed the band a main stage slot at San Francisco Pride 2018 and a coveted publishing deal with Sub Pop. They put out their fourth album All Or Nothing on February 7, 2020 via FatCat and it sees the band take a dive into a slicker, pop production that features rapturous 80s synths and electronic percussion.

I want to start from the beginning. I know you each hail from different U.K. towns (Andrew from Dunstable, Billy from Tring, and Rachel from the English countryside)…What was your childhood like growing up in those cities? Did creativity play a big part of your childhood?

RACHEL: My dad’s a painter and mum and brother both draw comic books so I grew up in a super creative household – I’m aware I’m quite lucky in this way but I learned to entertain myself through stuff like drawing and making music from a really early age, it’s very normal to me.

ANDREW: Dunstable was rather uninteresting, and what it had going for it (huge indoor/outdoor Market, small independent businesses, some small factories and local employment) were killed off during my childhood. I was a fairly creative kid thanks to comic books and my obsessive redrawing of superheroes. I became very good at art.

BILLY: I guess I grew up in Tring but it doesn’t feel like it tbh, my dad lived in London so I spent a lot of time there. I went to multiple secondary schools in Tring, I think I actually went to them all. It’s a very small market town surrounded by countryside which is fun when you’re very young but a problem when you’re a teenager! Creativity was a big part of my childhood, I did a lot of dance, drama and art but then entered a time of “mis-spent youth hahahaha I left Tring as soon as I could at the age of 17 and moved in with a group of likeminded “weirdo” friends in London, that’s when life became really fun, we were part of the whole mid 90’s club kid scene.

Tell me about your musical upbringing. What music did you grow up to? When did you first become aware that music was going to be a part of your life? What was your formal / not formal music education like growing up? 

RACHEL: I’ve played folk music with my dad since I was really young so I’ve always known it would be a part of my life even if just as a hobby. I had music lessons on violin and piano but only started playing guitar aged 18. I taught myself to play and I found that experience really empowering, it was like everything I worked out how to play was totally mine because I’d discovered it on my own. I was getting into riot grrl, punk and queer core at the same time and it was a no-brainer to me to start a noisy guitar band (Trash Kit). Andrew put on our first gig and it was really key to me finding my community, starting other bands, all of us learning to play on stage, making a mess.

ANDREW:  My mum liked some disco and pop stuff, Boney M, I remember loving this one Boney M record and dancing around as a toddler/before school age. My dad was a bit hard to pin down, he liked classical music and Queen. And Meatloaf. To be honest neither of them were that fussed by music and the house was more into TV and videotapes as a pass time. I got super into Tina Turner and drove my family mad by playing the cassette of Private Dancer on repeat for hours.

BILLY: My mum listened to a lot of David Bowie, Tina Turner and Roxy music all of which I loved. We also shared a love of the Pet Shop Boys and Pulp. My first cassette singles I bought on the same day from HMV were Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under The Bridge and Snoop Dog – Gin and Juice. As a teenager I was really into classic indie and grunge bands Elastica, Hole, Nirvana, Bjork. This was a time when I became dedicated to buying music publications each week/month (NME, Melody Maker, The Face) and buying vinyl. I was also into a lot of dance music like the Prodigy, and a lot of happy hardcore/house stuff.

Let’s talk about your formative years. What was the very first concert you attended? Did you play any sports / go to summer camps? Were there posters on your wall when you were growing up?  

RACHEL: I went to a boarding school so my formative years were spent very isolated, not going to gigs at all. I was terrified of all sports and I still am. The first proper show I remember going to I was probably 17, I went to Berlin on my first ever trip abroad without family, I saw Yo La Tengo and it blew my mind. I totally pretended I’d heard of them but actually had no clue, I was really into how Ira played guitar and did this crazy long noise solo. I had the cover of Cat Power’s Moon Pix cd, a huge poster of Miles Davis, one of John Coltrane and a Monty Python Holy Grail poster also. Oh and I had a *secret* film still printed out from my parents’ computer of Chloe Sevigny in Boys Don’t Cry because I had a huge crush on her. I would hide the print out under other posters because I wasn’t out at school and I didn’t want to have to explain why I had it. I hope kids don’t have to do stuff like that anymore!

ANDREW: I was a geek who hung out with cool kids and kinda coasted through school as their friend – I wasn’t into sports and I didn’t like rock/ nu-metal very much so I didn’t really fit in but I got by. I was really into soul and RnB almost exclusively throughout my childhood and teens so concerts didn’t interest me as it wasn’t that available to me. As a white kid in Dunstable opportunities to catch D’Angelo or whoever were thin on the ground. So my first concert was the icon and legend KT Tunstall when I was in high school. I suddenly got very into lots of “guitar music” when I was 16/17 and saw her on Jools Holland using a LOOP PEDAL and my mind was blown. On my wall as a kid I had posters of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Aaliyah. And other images of strong, self-assured women that I pretended I fancied but in reality I aspired to be like.

BILLY: The posters on my teenage wall consisted of Bjork, Liam Gallagher in a football kit (LOL), Blur, Elastica, Kurt Cobain. As I mentioned above I was a club kid and went out to London clubs such as Club Smashing (where the legendary Minty would play each week), Club Skinny, Blow Up. I also started a club called Club Kitten with some friends and I DJ’d weekly at one called Kitch Bitch. Not sure if I remember the first concert I went to was…hmmmm…might have been Reading Festival, where I saw Hole and Radiohead.

When you were old enough to start seeking out music for yourself, where did you regularly find yourself? A certain record store / internet site / friend? Who were some of the artists you found then? 

RACHEL: When I went to art school I used my student loan to pay for subscriptions to Wire and Plan B magazine. Plan B doesn’t exist anymore but it was really great, they would do features on really weird bands that had hardly played any shows, it was a great platform for underground, indie music. That was how I learnt about bands like Electrelane, The Gossip, Le Tigre. I also used to illegally download absolutely tons of music from LimeWire and various music blogs.

ANDREW: There was one little record store (it didn’t stock records but had a great CD selection) in Dunstable in the late 90s that I can’t remember the name of but it lasted about 5 or so years just when I was proper getting obsessed with music and they had an decent selection of American RnB and Hip Hop so I would spend my time browsing for the artists I had heard on Trevor Nelson’s Rhythm Nation that week. That was a late night once a week radio show that played only RnB stuff. I listened religiously and stayed up way past my bedtime. I taped anything he said was new and in my small way helped to kill the music industry. I heard people I loved like Aaliyah, Ginuwine, Mary J Blige, Amel Larrieux.

BILLY: When I started buying my own music on a regular basis before leaving home I remember there being this scam with this weird pre-internet bulk buying system thing that used to exist, like a kind of subscription were you commit to buying 10 CDs over a year or something but you got the first 8 free and some free ones that you could send back if you didn’t want them (I could be remembering this wrong) anyway all my friends used to get the 8 free ones and then cancel the subscription and then move onto another company and do the same. It was great! A load of free CD’s! Then I started with buying records in London from great independent stores, Reckless Records, Flashback, Sister Ray.

I feel like I can relate to you all in the fact that I also was born and raised in a small town (now living in LA)… I know from experience that some smaller towns usually don’t have much in the way of a creative and / or music scene…did you find a sense of community in your hometown or did you feel a sense of isolation? 

RACHEL: Yeah I was born and raised in the countryside so I don’t even have a hometown! Hmm isolation for sure but when I was a kid any sense of lacking community is more based on growing up queer in a small town. The idea of making music or anything like that was quite alien to me growing up, and to be honest I enjoyed being the best at art in school and that was always a very solo thing for me anyway so in terms of the creative community I didn’t miss it.

BILLY: I did have a core group of friends whilst living in Tring, We started a band called Ambrosia hahaha we got as far as making T shirts but that was about it. Mostly we all just wanted to escape.

I also read that Andrew found Rachel and Billy through MySpace back in the day, how pivotal was MySpace in each of your formative years? 

RACHEL: Very! I remember recording the demo for my first band and instantly uploading to MySpace. Andrew found us almost instantly through mutual friends and offered us our first gig. I also got a message from Billy’s band WetDog and we ended up playing a show together because of that. I do think it was a particularly cool way of connecting small (sometimes brand new) bands with each other.

ANDREW: Yeah I totally agree with Rachel, it was absolutely vital to me getting involved with music / a DIY community.

BILLY: I don’t think MySpace can be classed as part of my formative years but it was vital for my first band WetDog and it was my first experience of an online community.

You all ended up moving to East London around University…how did you feel once entering the music scene there? Was it welcoming?  

RACHEL: Yeah for me it was extremely welcoming, I met Andrew and Billy pretty early after I moved to London and we all would see each other pretty regularly at shows without ever planning to meet up. I was very shy at the time so it was kind my ideal way of socializing, we just sort of drifted into each other’s lives. There was also a really great scene of constant new bands and people trying stuff out, so when we decided to start a band together I remember it being just sort of an extension of hanging out together, it was very relaxed, kind of chaotic at times but really fun.

BILLY: I moved to London 10 years before eventually going to Uni. Once I left Uni I did join my first band WetDog and that really opened up my life, it was like a 2nd wave of meeting like-minded freaks, it was great!

How have you seen the London / Glasgow music scene shift and evolve since the band began back in 2012? 

RACHEL: We’ve all left London now and so have a lot of people we know. It’s become a lot more expensive but there’s also always people trying to find ways to survive and be creative. I feel a little out of touch right now though as I travel a lot.

ANDREW: I feel like the Glasgow scene hasn’t shifted much in the 4 years I’ve been here, but maybe I am out the loop too for the same reasons. Also maybe I’m too old to know what the kids are up to these days.

BILLY: I’ve seen the London scene change and evolve so much over the 20 years I’ve lived there and been a part of music/art, there’s too much to mention, could write a book on it to be honest….maybe I should. In terms of since 2012, London feels like a very different place now in a lot of ways. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m older and more out of touch or that social media has completely changed the nightlife vibe. I’ve been in LA for the past couple of years so it might just be that.

I hear that your newest album All Or Nothing was written across an intense 10-day period. What was that like? Did the writing process change since the last time you sat down to write for a recording? Is that process something that’s shifted for you over time? 

RACHEL: In many ways it’s not changed at all because we have always worked pretty well under pressure and we don’t like to spend too much time on anything. The distance between us meant that writing and recording were constrained to short periods of time and that was a little stressful but I think it kind of made us streamline things in a way that worked.

BILLY: Most of our albums were written during a similar time frame, so nothing much has changed there. We like to kinda get the writing done in a condensed way, it helps us stay focused and not get too precious overworking songs. When we overwork songs we usually end up hating them.

 Do you find it helpful to be intentional when it comes to writing the lyrics / music? Like “I’m going to sit down and work on a song.” Or is it more ephemeral, like you’ve been kicking something around in your head for days, weeks, months, and then suddenly it comes spilling out? Or is it a mixture of both?

RACHEL: Definitely a mixture of both for me. I love it when something I’ve been thinking about, a lyric or a concept fits with a song we’ve been working on together, but it doesn’t always happen that way. More often it’s like “We have this song, what are we going to sing?” Musically though, we hardly ever write our parts separately, we have to get together and jam for it to really work.

ANDREW: Yeah I’ve never written a Shopping drum beat thing away from a practice space, for me it’s usually a fun thing I wanna try in the moment, playing around with rhythms or in response to what Billy’s doing on the bass. Usually a mix of both.

BILLY: We never sit alone and work on Shopping songs, it’s always collaborative and in the room.

I read that a lot has happened in all of your personal lives since you last recorded… with that in mind what was your mindset going into the creating / recording process of All Or Nothing? 

BILLY: To be honest when are things not changing? It’s great to have a creative outlet, a place to express feelings, but not have to be explicit about what they mean.

There’s certainly a sense of liberation on All Or Nothing and in this digital age where things can seem to feel a bit curated or calibrated to what people want other people to see / hear about them it’s very refreshing to hear you sing about staying true to yourself. How has it felt now to have this record out to the public? Has it felt freeing? 

RACHEL: Yes! It’s always really great to finally get songs out into the world…. I feel like we were trying a little less to be witty or incisive with these songs, it’s more about being honest and trying to connect with people.. so it’s really satisfying if people tell us they can relate.

ANDREW: I mean I tryyyy and be witty / incisive.

BILLY: It was a great feeling releasing All Or Nothing into the world, I feel really happy that people are still listening and that we have made it to a 4th album. I love that we just write about how it is to be living in the world today and that people identify with that. It feels crazy now that we released the album right before this pandemic, and we are all now globally experiencing a state of life that none of us could ever imagine.

Does traveling influence you as an artist? Are you inspired by the places you go, or do you think your work would sound about the same no matter where you created it?

RACHEL: We travel so much but I really love it, I think when I’m moving my mind is always more porous and I always feel more creative. When I’m trying to write lyrics I find getting on a train or bus is really helpful. I don’t know if the place itself influences us but I think maybe we all really enjoy travelling?

BILLY: I feel like me leaving London has an influence on me during the writing of this album, I felt a new level of excitement and freedom. Much like when I moved to London for the first time. It was very refreshing.

What was your favorite part about the All Or Nothing writing / album creation process? 

RACHEL: I actually really enjoyed the week of recording sessions that we did in LA. I usually kind of hate recording, I find it quite stressful but Davey Warsop who we worked with this time was so much fun to hang out with and something about the setup we had there, maybe being away from home as well, felt really focused and energizing.

With your artwork, how did you interact with the artist/designer? Did you contribute ideas or remain hands-off? Was there a revision process?

BILLY: I took the cover image while on a day trip to Lake Elsinore in California to see the poppy explosion. I just stumbled upon that scene and loved it visually. I proposed it to Andrew and Rachel and they liked it. We then went back with a photographer called Matt Draper to take the other images. I then worked with Dave Thomas who does a lot of FatCat Records’ artwork to compile the whole package. I had a vision for the whole thing working really well as a gatefold and he produced exactly what I imagined! I’m really happy with it!

How important is it to you for the art that accompanies your music to represent the sound and the lyrics? Do you aim for a conversation between the two, or are you more interested in an aesthetically cool package?

BILLY: It’s very important that our artwork relates heavily to the songs and the album title.

How do you recalibrate before getting on stage? How do you get in the correct mindset?

RACHEL: I do a bit of stretching and some star jumps…

ANDREW: I also stretch if there’s time, usually I make time on the way to the drum kit as it’s quite important to warm up. We put a lot of energy into our shows so it can be a real work out sometimes. We don’t have any pre-gig rituals really, we kinda just have to go on stage suddenly and there’s often a nervous energy with that which I guess works with our energy as a band.

BILLY:  Not sure really, I just go out there and see what happens.