We talked bummer-jams, Taylor Swift and snorting vitamin B12 with Diet Cig
This interview originally appeared on Unrecorded.
Around 4:00 pm we called Alex Luciano of Diet Cig to confirm our interview that evening. Our request must have been lost somewhere between their PR manager and the artists, but although they were unaware, Alex was happy to accommodate us after they finished load-in. We walked up the stairs to find her bringing in the last of her equipment, and we sat down together as we waited for Noah Bowman to join us.
As far as first impressions go, Alex makes a strong one. Her bright and bubbling personality would soon translate seamlessly to an incredibly energetic performance later that night. As the foil to Alex’s boundless energy, Noah was much more quiet and reserved. Sitting back dangerously deep in his bar stool, there’s an effortless placidity in his demeanor. There’s an ebb and flow in their dynamic: cool but not pretentious, excited but in a way that makes you feel like they’ve been here before. Over the course of twenty short minutes we learned about how little things like getting a dolly have changed their entire touring experience, and how touring has influenced their sound and their relationship with the idea of being in a band.
Unrecorded: Is this the first band you’ve been in?
Alex Luciano: It’s the first band I’ve been in ever, but Noah…
Noah Bowman: I’ve been in a couple. I don’t actually know off the top of my head, but I’ve been playing in bands since I was 12 or 13.
UR: Alex, I saw Diet Cig play in Chicago a couple of months back, and I was struck by your stage presence, so I’m surprised to hear that this is your first band. Do you have any other background in performance?
AL: When I was a kid I did like the musical in my school, but I never had any parts. I would do it every year in the hopes of getting the lead, and then would have an awkward side character and be like “Well, I guess I’m gonna be the background dancer in Grease” or something. Although, in Grease I was the Chacha girl who’s the total bitch who stole Danny Zuko, that was like my best role. [laughs] But yeah that was really all the performance background I had. And so when I started being in this band I was like: “Oh my god people are finally going to look at me! I can finally have everyone’s attention on stage.” Playing live is like everyone is forced to play attention to you for thirty minutes, it’s great!
UR: You guys have been touring off the strength of the Over Easy EP released last year. How have you adjusted to life on the road?
NB: It’s exciting. I feel like we’re getting pretty good at it.
AL: We’re kind of like learning how to tour with each other. We’ve done so many tours this year and it was so surprising. We put the EP out and then we were like “Oh my god, wait we can do this, we can tour!” Touring is like our full time job now which is the craziest thing ever. I’m still not over it. A year and a half ago I wasn’t in a band, like, ever and now it’s my job. It’s my job to be on the road which is really intense and I think we’ve slowly started taking it more seriously. We’re like “Oh we gotta get vitamins! Powdered vitamins! Shoot up a line of B12!” You know, like what can we do to make this the best we can so that we’re not like drinking every night and partying crazily. I just think we’re trying to think about it more.
Diet Cig live at Ampersand in Savannah, GA. Photo by Themba Searles
UR: On Over Easy, you sing about keeping up appearances and the concept of being “cool”. Has your growing popularity shaped the way you feel about these things?
AL: I think that I feel even more strongly now, because I wrote a lot of the songs before I was in a band and we have the song “Scene Sick”––and I mean it’s like an inevitable thing, and they’re fine, but scenes like totally suck. And I feel like a lot of people were like “you’re not even in a band in the scene, how do you even know?” and then I eventually was, and was like “Scenes really do suck!” So I think that it’s solidified a lot of the things that I was thinking before, and I also feel like I’ve figured out how to feel without being fake appearance-wise, because a lot of people are looking at us and what we’re doing and being like, “Oh Diet Cig, what’s your brand? What’s your thing?” Like, whatever. And I feel like we’ve gone through it and it’s like more cool to just be you and like stupid shit because you like it.
UR: I picture you writing these songs on an acoustic guitar on your own. Is that how it happened?
AL: Yes, that first EP I wrote the lyrics and stuff on my own in my bedroom with an acoustic guitar. But now it’s different. I kind of write loud, like I would play live, and we write together which is really fun, but it’s definitely a change from writing those songs in my bedroom.
UR: I was curious how that had morphed as you added Noah to the picture; I remember reading you say that was the key transformation, that Noah made them “punky.”
AL: Yeah he made them fun. It’s been so much more fun.
NB: Well that’s what she said when we first started. She said “I just wanna be in a band that makes people wanna move and dance”, and I was like, “All right, well I’m just gonna be as dramatic as possible, let’s turn you up as loud as possible, give her a bunch of OCD pedals and like play the drums really loud and like let’s just see what happens,” and we kinda were like… this is cool.
AL: Because the songs could’ve gone one of two ways. They could’ve definitely been quiet bummer-jams, which I totally fuck with––I think they would’ve sounded really nice that way. The recordings are still a lot more chill than our live set, but I’m really happy that we went the “punk rock fun” direction because as much as I love a good bummer-jam, when I see a show live I’d rather be having fun and rocking out rather than feeling sad in a room full of people.
UR: There’s a communion you can have when everybody is having fun in the same room. As far as bummer-jams––I think at a lot of those shows you tend to be in your own space.
AL: Yes, it’s very isolating. I recently went to a show that was really emotional and I was sitting in front crying and I’m like “Oh my god, is anyone looking at me?” I wanted to be more closed out, I was having an emotional experience, which is like totally awesome but I just wanted to bring everyone into this big sonic group hug and just dance, be stupid! Like, we’re gonna be stupid as fuck on stage, be stupid with us.
UR: Speaking of sonic hugs––are there any specific groups you would call sonic references for Diet Cig?
AL: When we started writing it I was listening to a lot of Best Coast because I really dug that she was singing about really light fucking things like her cats and smoking weed but also had this like “punk-chick” vibe. And that was one of the first things where I was like “I can write about whatever I want and this music can still be fun and goofy”
NB: Also like Frankie Cosmos, not sonically the same but like, writing-wise and lyrically.
AL: And like, now writing, I feel like we’ve been influenced by bands like Bully who are like really rock and roll.
AL: They’re so great we just did a run of shows with them, and they like changed my life. Like, you are the best band ever!
UR: She [frontwoman Alicia Bognanno] is so charming, too.
NB: Yeah, Alicia’s great.
AL: And she’s just so talented, she’s like ripping all the lead guitar parts and singing and producing the entire record! She’s like literally the coolest girl and their live show is so good and so we played with them and we were like “we wanna fucking rip like that.” So I thinks that’s kind of a direction that we’re headed. We wanna keep it fun and light but we wanna like rock out.
UR: So you guys are listening to a lot of new music?
AL: Yeah, we’re not like oldies snobs. We actually probably have the worst music taste. I hate when people are like “What are you listening to?”
NB: Yeah, we’re like “we listened to a little Fall Out Boy today” We put on a Title Fight record earlier this morning. Just like random stuff, we play Taylor Swift a lot.
AL: I think that stuff is good influences though. Like Taylor Swift knows how to write a fucking pop song! So good! I’m like… “girl, I respect you, I wanna write songs like that.” So between Bully and Taylor Swift, we’re trying to write dope songs [laughs].
UR: What’s next for Diet Cig?
AL: So we’re touring down to SXSW, we’re touring with the Front Bottoms in the beginning of April ‘til the middle of May. We are also going to the UK when we get back from there to do the Great Escape fest which, will be dope, and other festivals in the UK––
NB: And then trying to finish the new record in that time.
NB: Yeah, LP, that’s all we can say about it.
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