Interview: Five Questions For Nashville's Bully

Acclaimed Nashville grunge-pop artists Bully are hitting Auckland hard this week, with a headline show at Whammy Bar alongside local guitar wranglers Spawts and Human Resource teed up for Saturday. Hot off the press is news the Sup Pop artists will also play a very limited capacity all-ages event at Auckland's Flying Out store before that gig! In advance of this weekend's sure to be scorching shows, recent Bully convert Fluffy hit up singer Alicia Bognanno with a few quick questions via email, read their electronic correspondence below and catch the group in your area...

You’re playing in Australia and New Zealand very soon! Have you ever been here before? Will you get any time to have a look around?

This will be our first time in New Zealand and our second time in Australia. Australia has been to this day the best place we have ever toured so I have high hopes for New Zealand. We should have some off time and plan to do some sight seeing.

Your video for ‘Running’ feels pretty candid and fun. Could you please tell us a little about the making of the clip?

I worked on the idea of running with a director named Alan Ortiz and he was amazing. I sent him over movies, aesthetics, and other music videos that I really admired and he took it from there. We had some friends who lived in Nashville take part in it and we did the whole thing in a day and half I think?

Last year you released your latest full length record Losing, yet it seems like the band is on a winning streak. Could you talk about the ideas you're exploring with the record?

I wanted to be a little more patient with the songs and work on developing them instead of settling with whatever was most natural for me. I also wanted to challenge myself a little more with guitar so I ended up doing a lot more lead guitar than the first record. It was a learning experience and I think the third record will probably be a mixture of the two as far as approach goes.

I understand that you completed an apprenticeship at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studios - what was that experience like?

It was great, most of my knowledge of tape machines came from the engineers at Electrical Audio.

I saw a photo of a large mural in Nashville that features your image (see here). How did that come to be?

I honestly have no idea, my friend sent me a picture of it when I was on tour and that's how I found out about it.

Bully are playing at Auckland's Whammy Bar on Saturday 14th July with support from Spawts and Human Resource, for tickets and more info head along here.