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Music

Drinking with Daddy Issues: Talkin' 'Bout Boners, Feminism, and Having Sex at the Mall

"If you’re a feminist, you’re going to make feminist work, whether you intend it to be or not."

Photo by Hannah Hawkins

Though it’s technically the third-largest city in North Carolina, Greensboro is no longer the massive hub of textile and tobacco industry that it once was. Those industries no longer exist, and areas like Charlotte and the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill triangle have instead become the state’s de facto centers of business and culture. But I find myself out there from time to time to buy records and hang with a friend whose affection for shitty bars and cheap beer matches mine. We usually hit College Hill Sundries, a decrepit dive near the University of Greensboro.

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It’s at this shitty bar that I meet Daddy Issues, a not-shitty band of women who craft tight, upbeat tunes that boast a biting attitude. They’re not so much overt attempts at being edgy as they are honest acknowledgements of the fact that women, too, experience a wide range of emotions. Their recent Double Loser EP features four tracks that tackle sexuality, stealing, sex on the beach and more.

On a Tuesday night, we chatted about their songs and what it means to make art that’s branded as feminist.

Noisey: How did Daddy Issues come to life?
Lindsey Sprague: Lo and I went through some breakups around the same time, and we hung out one night and decided to start a band.
Lo Davy: Over a glass of wine.
LS: That same night, we went to the Tom Tom Magazine showcase, so they had a show with all lady drummers. We met Maddy there. We saw you there.
LD: And we were like, “We just started a band. Do you know anyone that plays the bass?” And Maddy was like, “I play the bass.”
Maddy Putney: Actually, what Lindsey said was, “We just started a band, and you can be in it. Do you play any instruments?”
LS: I had such a huge friend crush on you. I came through your line at the co-op, and I would always try to go into your line at the co-op because you were witty.
MP: I knew we were going to be friends the first time I met you. I didn’t know them very well at the time. I was just kind of casual friends in passing with both of them. I didn’t know they knew each other.

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What made you decide on Daddy Issues as a name, and at what point did you commit to it and go, “We’re going to write these kinds of songs, and we’re going to be called Daddy Issues”?
LS: It wasn’t really a planned thing.
MP: It’s part of the origin story. Also at that show, our friend who we went to school with—
LD:—she was hanging out with Lindsey and I when we were having that conversation about starting a band. She was like, “I always wanted to have a girl band called Daddy Issues.” We laughed, but then we were like, “Okay, that’s our band.” We were kind of joking, but then that’s just what happened. In terms of the songs we write, we didn’t plan on writing those.
LS: Our first practices, we were just figuring out how to play music at all and also with each other. We would figure out some chords that sounded cool, and then we’d be like, “What do we want to write a song about?” And we maybe we were just having a conversation about, like, peeing in our pants or something. So we’re like, “Let’s write a song about that!” or “Let’s write a song about being at the mall!”
LD: Whatever made us laugh.
MP: Our first band practices, we literally were like, “What would a band called Daddy Issues write a song about?” I remember saying that.

How did “So Hard” happen?
LS: I’d just started dating my current boyfriend, and he was in safety class to dig ditches. He was sitting in class and drawing pictures of sultans, and he texted me, like, “I’ve got a boner!” I was like, “Cool! Awesome! That’s great!” I just wrote a song about it, because he was across town.
MP: We had the whole thing finished, and we were like, “Man, this is kind of boring. What are we going to do about that? Let’s speed it up.” And we did. At the time, I was still having trouble on the bass.
LD: We were like, “Sorry, Maddy, you gotta work it out.”
MP: It was so hard for me to play, which is a testament to the fact that I’m getting better, which is cool. But I remember, I was like, “Shit, I don’t know if I can do that!”

That one and “Let’s Go To The Mall” are probably the sassiest. Talk to me about that one some, too—is that one based on a true story? Do you really go steal underwear?
LS: I did a ton in high school. I was, like, a super-klepto in high school. But I haven’t stolen from the mall in quite a while. We were just sitting there thinking, like, “What did you do at the mall in high school?” There was a feeling of freedom—freedom was the mall, basically, where I lived. There was nothing else to do.
MP: I had sex in the dressing room.
LD: Didn’t they drive you home and call your parents?
MP: They didn’t drive me home. They had my parents come pick me up. It was bad. I was crying. We went to the mall to have sex in the dressing room.

What kind of reaction have you had overall to your music so far?
LS: It’s been pretty interesting. I think a lot of stuff we were putting out, we didn’t really think about. A lot of people refer to us as feminist punk or feminist surf-pop. We’re all feminists, but I don’t think we set out to be a feminist band.
LD: The same with sexual lyrics. People are like, “Oh, your songs are so risqué.” No, we just wrote them kind of laughing to ourselves.
LS: It’s what’s on our minds.
MP: I just think because we’re all feminists, we’re inherently feminist. I was thinking about it recently because I’ve been reading a lot of comics, and there’s two comic series that I’m picking up monthly issues of. One is called Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, and the other is Bitch Planet. Bitch Planet is clearly set out to be a feminist comic. It was like, “This is going to be the most feminist comic you’ve ever read,” and it’s fucking awesome. But then Squirrel Girl—the main character is not a regular-shaped super hero. There’s lots of people of color in it, and it’s about this girl, but I feel like it is feminist. The artist came and talked where I work, and I asked her, “Do you consider yourself a feminist, do you consider the comic feminist?” And she was like, “Well, I’m a feminist, but I don’t consider the comic a feminist comic. I didn’t set out for it to be that way. I just tried to make her like a person.” I think that is inherently feminist. If you’re a feminist, you’re going to make feminist work, whether you intend it to be or not.
LS: Yeah, your worldview is that women are equal.
LD: If you set out in the day thinking you’re an equal human being, that’s the way we’re going to act. I can’t believe it’s even an issue.

Allison Hussey is reppin' the Triangle on Twitter.