Interview with Russian Girlfriends: ‘We’ve always walked a line between catchy and heavy and ‘Serf Rock’ is the centre of that Venn diagram’

Albuquerque, New Mexico punk rockers Russian Girlfriends released their self-titled third LP earlier this month, giving us seven tracks about love, losing a loved one and society falling apart.

The band comprises Ian Jarrell, who has become the main vocalist since Adam Hooks departed the band in the autumn of 2019, Colin Dowell (guitar), Jeremy Keith (bass) and Greg Silva (drums). Jarrell and Dowell both grew up in Albuquerque but didn’t meet until they were older on the downtown punk scene and Dowell played bass in Jarrell’s former band. Dowell and Hooks were also previously in another band together, Stabbed in Back. ‘That band fell apart but we wanted to keep the energy, so we started Russian Girlfriends,’ Dowell said. ‘I wish we had a cool story behind our name but we were hanging out with our previous band on tour in Toronto…’ Jarrell continues: ‘We were staying with my friend Ginty from The Creepshow and his crazy Russian girlfriend, and that’s where we got our name from!’

One of the standout tracks on the album is ‘Serf Rock’, a high-impact, hook-filled rocker about society flailing in disarray and the indifference of previous generations who should have seen it coming. Jarrell describes it as having a ‘dancing into the apocalypse energy’, which perfectly sums it up: ‘We’ve always walked a line between catchy and heavy and ‘Serf Rock’ is the centre of that Venn diagram,’ he said.

‘Serf Rock’ erupts with a grungy, in your face riff that pulls you straight in and I ask Dowell what pedal he’s using: ‘That’s not a pedal actually, it’s just the neck pick up of my Gibson SG cranked through an Orange AD30 amp, it sounds amazing! We wanted to write something you could dance to with an aggressive edge. I don’t know if that comes through but I think it’s poppy and scary!’

‘That cult of personality is a weird phenomenon’

As Jarrell puts it: ”Serf Rock’ sort of has some surf rock element and I lean towards a heavier, hardcore strength,’ he said. ‘Colin is the arena rock guy who likes the Thin Lizzie elements. ‘For us, ‘Serf Rock’; is like The Ventures meets Thin Lizzy. The song speaks to how we were feeling in 2020. We were kinda terrified, the election had just happened and we were stuck in our houses because of COVID. It’s trying to express that anxiety. The word ‘serf’ is a play on words and we’re talking about income inequality.’ Dowell nods: ‘It’s about sycophants blinding following the leader, that cult of personality is a weird phenomenon.’ I say given everything going on politically in the U.K. at the moment, that really resonates with me and they agree. ‘People empower each other, don’t they? It’s that mass behaviour,’ Jarrell said.

As the track kicks off: ‘Closed eyes over open mouths. Crowd chants, screaming fears aloud. The wave breaks so they paddle out. I’m feeling safe but I wonder who gets out. Never settled this and now you’re on your own.’

‘Like a Drug’ on the album turns out to be the first song that they wrote for it. ‘I don’t consider myself a very good guitar player, I like the “caveman riffs”,’ Dowell joked. ‘For a lot of the song, I’m playing the main riff on a single string (E) – I didn’t touch an A or a D (laughs) but it morphed into something else.’ It does, the track really builds around the 1.30 mark intro a frenzied outro before reining back in to a single note finish and was inspired by bands such as Soundgarden: ‘I was listening to 90’s stream of consciousness stuff, I got back into Soundgarden, some of their lyrics are bizarre and cerebral,’ Jarrell said.

Jarrell describes ‘Like a Drug’ as ‘about the nightmare situation we were in with COVID and I was reacting to what I was seeing everywhere’: ‘I have a problem with the religious right – I was a catholic until my teens,’ he said. ‘There’s a line in ‘Like A Drug’ that goes “How about a long drive to church, yeah, that should help”, I hope that people see the sarcasm (laughs), it’s the idea that everyone’s addicted to fake hope of some kind.’ Dowell is looking pensive: ‘I had long drives to church as a kid, they weren’t helpful AT ALL!’ We all laugh and Jarrell continues: ‘Religion has been weaponised. I read the rosary as a kid, because I was lonely.’ Dowell was also roped in to help with church activities as a kid: ‘I ran a puppet show for the younger kids called Joy Jungle but I don’t know how joyous it was!’

Typically, Jarrell writes most of the lyrics and Dowell is the main melody writer, although they have been know to change bits of a song out at the last minute: ‘Our producer asked us to do something better with ‘Like a Drug’. It wasn’t called that then, I ran out and did the ‘like a drug’ bit, I bug the rest of the band because I like doing things on the fly in the studio, haha.’ Dowell interjects: ‘The original lyrics were ‘I’m running in place’, which was awkward to sing, you had to do a weird break in it.’ Jarrell agrees: ‘I know! I’m amazed we didn’t think of it at the beginning.’

‘I was thinking about how people feel about losing a loved one’

One of the most personal tracks on the album is ‘House Fire’, a much softer rock song with an acoustic guitar intro, which picks up the pace to become something altogether rockier. ‘It’s another of my weird metaphors,’ Jarrell said. ‘When we first started the band, my mom passed away from breast cancer and I was thinking – in a pandemic – about how people feel about losing a loved one. It brought up a lot of feelings. Originally, it was about Philip Seymour Hoffman dying (the Oscar-winning actor who died of a heroin overdose in 2014) while writing it with Adam but it ended up being about my mom.’

As the track goes: ‘We will never be safe and I will find some old way, never held the sustain since you’ve been gone. We will never be safe and you will find your own way.’

Interestingly, their musical direction has shifted since Hooks left the band: ‘I have a very different vocal style to Adam, I think my wheelhouse is the harder, more screamy vocal, I’m still trying to find my singing voice in Russian Girlfriends,’ Jarrell said. ‘Adam has been a solo singer-songwriter, a rapper, and now plays country music. He has such a unique versatile voice and I just can’t sing all of his songs. When he left, we thought “How can we create something really fun?” We want to keep a bit of pop in our songs but make them more riffy and heavy.’

‘After high school, I started jamming with older dudes and they introduced me to bands like Motörhead’

They have been playing music together for around 14 years and both grew up listening to punk rock: ‘Colin’s more Hellacopters (a Swedish garage rock band). I was in a pyschobilly band for a while, Koffin Kats. I bring a little bit of the dark horror influence, bands like Nekromantix (a Danish-American psychobilly band), The Quakes and Mad Sin,’ Jarrell said. Dowell weighs in: ‘In high school, I liked grunge bands like Soundgarden,’ he said. ‘I had an older brother who showed me early Metallica. After high school, I started jamming with older dudes and they introduced me to bands like Motörhead and Bad Brains – our song ‘How Low Can A Punk Get’ is a cover of their song.’ One band Dowell has got really into since COVID is Brooklyn-based The Giraffes, who mash up punk, rock and metal. ‘They’re like heavy rock, between Clutch and something weirder.’ Jarrell has got very into American rapper Doja Cat in the past year and San Diego rock band Rocket from the Crypt and related bands like Drive Like Jehu and the Hot Snakes. 

Their dream line up would be raucous and eclectic: ‘I wouldn’t mind Rocket from the Crypt,’ Jarrell mused. ‘Past or present?’, Dowell asked. ‘We open up!,’ Jarrell said. Dowell nodded: ‘We have to have The Giraffes on there ‘cos they’re awesome,’ he said. ‘And we need Hall & Oates – you can’t have four hours of “crush” (laughs), you need to bring some love into the mix!’ Jarrell is mulling who else to have: ‘The Bronx (an American punk rock band from LA), they’re one of bands, a really inspirational hard rock band.’ Dowell is adding to the line up: ‘We could have Wesley Willis,’ he said. Jarrell laughs: ‘He was a crazy person! Didn’t he kill a couple of people?’ Dowell laughs: ‘Hey, don’t rewrite his narrative! He was homeless and a schizophrenic but he had a keyboard and would play these crazy songs,’ he told me. ‘Tragically, he passed away in 2003. We’re talking with a Brit, so how about Iron Maiden? They’re like the Beatles; everyone loves them but they’re better. Bruce Dickinson (their frontman) is the same age as my dad (63) but in much better shape!’

(Photo from left to right: Ian, Colin, Greg and Jeremy.)