As I listen to the latest record from Massachusetts' Potty Mouth, Hell Bent, every teen movie's slow-motion montage of the cool girls walking down a high school corridor flashes through my head. Potty Mouth is the band those girls would be in; Potty Mouth is the band that's poker-faced and confident in an enviable way. (And yes, for the record, Potty Mouth is also the name of an album by riot grrrl outfit Bratmobile, but that's not where they got the band name, despite some people's urge to link all-female bands together forever.)
Songs like jangle-pop album opener "The Gap" and the persistent, apology-mocking "The Better End" boast a "whatever, I'll do what I want" attitude, while the music buzzes with distortion straight off a CMJ sampler circa 1994. But Potty Mouth — featuring singer-guitarist Abby Weems, bassist Ally Einbinder, drummer Victoria Mandanas and guitarist Ali Donahue — isn't shoving its rebellion down your throat. The band's message relies more on catchy choruses and simple but effective guitar hooks than on screaming and stomping their feet. Not that foot-stomping isn't fun sometimes too. It's a vibe that comes naturally to the band, which started back in 2011 on a carefree whim despite the fact that some members didn't yet own a musical instrument.
"We didn't have any purpose beyond, 'Let's do a band together!' " Einbinder tells the Scene via phone. "I've also attempted to start a million bands that haven't gone anywhere. Potty Mouth just happens to be one that gelled right away. That was surprising to all of us. As things started to unfold we were like, 'OK, this is cool,' and we just kept rolling with it. Now there is purposefulness to it, and it's really changed the way we think about ourselves and our lives."
Weems' dryly delivered, nearly monotone vocals and Hell Bent's colorful album art covered in toys and candy wouldn't suggest it, but Potty Mouth shows no mercy with their biting lyrics. On "Shithead," one of the record's (ever so slightly) more passionate songs, Weems sings, "You're a shithead / And you're gone / You're possessed by a dick / And your mind's in a ditch / I see that you're bewitched / Thank God you're gone."
"Wishlist" isn't much friendlier, even when paired with a melodic guitar line that sounds like something from one of The Cure's happier songs. As Weems insists, "You want your wishes? / Well you've gotta work for it bitches!" it's difficult to decipher whether that's her genuine message to others who might think achievement comes easy, or a sarcastic response to what people told the band when they first started out. When asked, she stays mum on the exact meaning.
"That's is a complicated song, because I want people to interpret it however they want," says Weems. "I never want people to feel like I'm just singing my diary. I want people to feel like they can appropriate it for themselves. There's something I call 'The Taylor Swift Syndrome' — I don't want people to listen to my songs and try to analyze our lives through that."
Even when playing songs about life's shittier moments, the band still has an effortlessly rebellious air about them. "That's our lifestyle," says Weems. "We're all very independent young people, but we're not the type to go out of way to start a ruckus or anything."
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