Artist Of The Week #132 - Bully
This week’s Artist of the Week is Alicia Bognanno - aka Bully, who has just released her third album ‘SUGAREGG' via Sub Pop. The album deals with the idea of change and what it results it can lead to - which is this is Bully’s most expressive album to date. Alicia took a moment to talk to us about the release.
It is titled ‘Sugaregg’ - does that title hold any meaning to the band?
I got the name Sugaregg from a podcast called Radiolab, they were telling a story about a man who held onto a sugaregg that he got when he was seven and had for his whole life until they tried to replicate it and it shattered. It doesn’t have any relation to the music that I can think of, I just like the story and the idea of someone holding on to something so fragile for so long.
Where was the album recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the recording process?
The majority of the album was recorded at Pachyderm is Cannon Falls, Minnesota and then a few songs were tracked after that at Palace studios in Toronto. Pachyderm was amazing and the first time I tracked a record in the summer. Also my dog got to come so that helped a lot. There was a lot of discussion about Cheez-its particularly about the big ones and the extra toasty ones and also a lot of conversations about the bullsnake that was found in the room I was staying in the last time John Congleton recorded there.
How does this album differ from your previous two?
I didn’t engineer Sugaregg like I had the past two Bully records, it was great and I enjoyed not having to juggle playing and engineering for the first time.
Before this album came together Alicia was asked to write songs for a movie called ‘Her Smell’ - did the creative process of that pass on into or give you more motivation for ‘Sugaregg’?
Not really, I wouldn’t say it had any effect on Sugaregg, but it was nice to get my gears back into motion after finishing touring for Losing and it was refreshing to write from somebody else's perspective and to be able to write for something other than Bully.
The album was recorded with John Congleton behind the controls - who has worked with such as St Vincent to Modest Mouse. How was that experience?
It was great, he was wonderful to work with and I look forward to working on another project with him in the future.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album? If so - which one and why?
Prism is one of my favorites lyrically, I feel like it’s cohesive in the story it’s telling and there’s not much about it that makes me cringe.
Now the album is out there - what next for Bully?
Hopefully touring will be a possibility in the near future, other than that I’ll be writing and thinking of different things to work on.