Bully
Bully is Alicia Bognanno.
Though the project has always had her at the center, the singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer and engineer worked with collaborators as official band members through most of the 2010s. Following a slew of life changes, Bognanno became the sole member and took full control of Bully for the first time as she made her third album, 2020’s Sugaregg. She still frequently works with other musicians in the studio and on tour, but she is the sole creative mind behind the music. Bognanno says this evolution freed her from self-doubt about the creative process.
“When I’m in the room with other people, my inner dialogue is like, ‘You’re gonna think that’s stupid,’” she says. “[Now I’m] able to just kind of play the role of, like, ‘It’s fine, you don’t have to hide behind anything. You can just do what you want and not have to worry about what has been.’ … I kind of thrive when I’m alone.”
Bognanno’s uninhibited command is evident on her newest Bully record Lucky for You, out Friday via Sub Pop. The album is thematically heavy — unsurprising to those familiar with Bully’s discography — but the subject matter covers something entirely new. Much of the record deals with the death of Bognanno’s dog Mezzi, who died in March 2022. Bully’s music has always been honest, but this is Bognanno at her most earnest. Even the title rings with sincerity, despite its layered meanings.
“That title came from … that moment of realizing how lucky I was to have Mezzi, and how much she truly elevated my life,” says Bognanno. “I would go through the pain all over again times 20, just to have two more minutes with her, for sure. But I think just realizing [my relationship with Mezzi] wasn’t owed to me — that was a gift that I was able to receive.”
All of Lucky for You stings with the stale yellowish haze of grief. Bognanno has a lot to grieve, as it seems most of us do. She entered the pandemic lockdown in 2020 newly sober. While she says that choice has helped her manage chronic health conditions and grow in important ways, it was a massive challenge. As the world slowly burned, she realized that the support mechanisms she relied on were gone.
“When I was drinking, a lot of it was to cope in social situations,” she says. “I would get really anxious and uncomfortable, and that was kind of my way of getting through it, and making friends, and being like, ‘Look, I’m not socially awkward. I’m so fun.’ It was like, ‘No, but you’re crazy right now.’ But yeah, I think that that is just another particularly strange thing about that is having to navigate [sobriety] in a city where you’ve been in so long, and my house in particular — and just driving past all those old places that kind of, like, give you the chills a little bit, and remind you of not-great moments.”
Bully
Lucky for You also tackles the collective grief compounded by the attack on LGBTQ communities and women’s rights in the United States over the past year, especially in the South. For Bognanno and many others, these rulings were personal. On Lucky for You’s penultimate track “Ms. America,” Bognanno sings: “All I wanted was a daughter / Try my best to raise her right / But the whole world’s caught on fire / And I don’t wanna teach a kid to fight.” Bognanno says the feelings she experienced as these changes rolled out mirrored the doubts she felt working in previous iterations of Bully.
“I just felt like, over that time period, there were so many different emotions I was thinking about while that was all happening,” she says. “I feel like I’ve fought a lot to have myself taken seriously and to get over impostor syndrome — which I’m not, but I’m a lot better — and find my own confidence. And that just felt like such a slap in the face, like, ‘Am I even taken seriously as a woman?’ It was baffling to me. Especially as somebody who has benefited from having an abortion, and I know that’s like a controversial thing to talk about.
“But I think it’s way more common than not — 1 in 4 women experience that. You don’t know people’s circumstances. And living in a place where there isn’t enough support, or child care, or people trying to, you know, get by, it’s just like, I felt so like, ‘How can you not see the effect that this can have on people?’ … This feels like a universal thing that we should agree on, because this is something that can benefit everybody regardless of their views. And the idea of choice and thinking about, ‘OK, if you’re not in line with it, don’t do it.’ But how dare you think you can make that choice for somebody else.”
Bognanno headed out for a run of solo dates in Europe in May, before health issues unfortunately cut the tour short. But she recently opened for The Breeders in Nashville and will support the Pixies on a summer tour — both bands who are fundamental to her musical background — before returning to headline Brooklyn Bowl on Aug. 31. Upcoming Bully shows will also be on a scale beyond anything fans have seen before, with each touring musician working double- and triple-time to bring the explosive new record to life. Even more so than her previous works, Bognanno’s writing and instrumentation on Lucky for You echoes the best of the ’90s, but not just grunge: Britpop, dream pop, shoegaze and feminist punk influences create the best and brightest Bully sound to date. Hope somehow shines through all the grief, assuring that the new songs will bring a new level of catharsis.
