Sixth-year music composition major and drummer Caden Primmer’s back porch sits on a hill overlooking a parking lot, tucked back in a thicket of trees. There is a hammock on the porch’s beams, a row of movie theater chairs and bag chairs set up, one of which has a three-quarters-full PBR can in the cupholder.
On Primmer’s porch sit the members of Blush: keyboard player and guitarist Ella Franks, a junior studying visual communications and music business, is scrunched up in the hammock beside guitarist Sophia Butler, a junior studying early childhood development. Guitarist Emma McGowan, a senior studying environmental science and sustainability, and bassist Jenelle Fauber, a junior studying communication studies, sit in chairs along with Primmer.
Though Blush is a newborn project, there has already been an immense draw to the band as a result of the members’ involvement with other local bands. Primmer played in Blue Collar Queer and alongside Butler and Fauber in Plastic Lemonade. McGowan played in Roman Candle, and Franks was in Split and still is a member of Laughing Chimes.
Blush, however, is different. In a heavily male-dominated music scene, Blush is the first all-girl band to come up in Athens recently. Wanting to create a space for women in such a scene was a large part of Blush’s formation.
“It’s not a shade thing, it’s just nice to feel like you’re in a place where you’re comfortable 100%,” Butler said. “Not that most of the men aren’t great.”
Ella Franks holds her heart-shaped guitar (Photo by Megan Diehl).
McGowan echoed the sentiment and said being in Roman Candle with another woman bandmate was massive in creating the stage presence that drew so many to the band.
“Rock is just so raw, it’s so uninhibited,” McGowan said. “I feel like every time I’ve seen a video of Joan Jett or something like that on stage, she’s f—ing losing her s—, and everyone’s eating it up, and she’s just so free and doesn’t give a f—, like nothing matters.”
Blush draws musical influence from many female musicians and bands spanning across the alternative scene. Fauber and McGowan pointed to the role of Debbie Harry and Blondie as a whole. Primmer said Blush’s sound will incorporate Blondie’s influence but lean heavier on the punk side.
“I feel like Dazey and the Scouts is really indicative of the sound we’re trying to go for,” Primmer said. “There are some songs on their one album that do get a little bit slower and sadder … When we’re going quiet and sad that’s how we want to sound, that quiet dissonance and still grungy, still loud.”
Franks said ‘90s girl rock would play a large role in Blush’s sound, and working with a group of women musicians would allow expansion into this sound in a way working with men does not always make room for.
“For me … Juliana Hatfield, I’ve wanted to do a project like her stuff since high school,” Butler said. “I’m like, ‘This is not going to work’ because I couldn’t do it with my other bands because it’s all dudes and it’s very much girl ‘90s rock what (Hatfield) does, and I don’t know, I’m just passionate about her, a lot of her discography.”
There is such a sense of confidence among the band members because they all know what they’re doing and want to expand as musicians as much as they can. Butler said the band hopes everyone gets the chance to play everything. While Blush practiced, the members swapped instruments and switched off who was singing which song.
“I’m going to do some vocal stuff and I’m slowly working on guitar, kind of also hopefully drums, eventually,” Fauber said. “I used to play drums when I was younger but lost touch.”
From left to right Emma McGowan, Caden Primmer and Sophia Butler practice in Primmer's living room (Photo by Megan Diehl).
Along with musical composition, Primmer said the songwriting process will also be collaborative among all members of the band. She also said she feels lucky to have studied music composition for four years and has gotten good at simply putting something on the page. Butler emphasized the collaborative process and said songwriting can be difficult. McGowan said she anticipates much of the songwriting process to occur during jam sessions.
“Everyone has a lot of bits and pieces so we’re just going to work on combining those, seeing where they all fit and figuring it out,” Fauber said.
A sense of collaboration along with an essence of femininity makes Blush. The band’s name alone evokes this: to blush is indicative of feminine sensitivity and emotion that the group encapsulates.
“It kind of gets deep for me because when I was in high school, middle school, I was so anxious and my face was always red when anybody would talk to me,” Franks said. “It was something I was so ashamed of for so long. But then I’m like, ‘Wait, blushing is kind of a cute thing we should embrace.’”
Blush’s first show will be at The Union, located at 18 W Union St., Oct. 26. The band will also play Nov. 7 for ACRN’s Battle of the Bands.
Assistant Opinion Editor
