In Conversation with Bec Javon, Vocalist and Guitarist of IDestroy
Image credit: Black Arts PR Limited
Vocalist and guitarist Bec Jevon, along with the bassist and backing vocalist Nicola Wilton-Baker and the drummer Jenn Hills, form the all-female band IDestroy with their unique contemporary energy. The debut album ‘We Are Girls’ was released on 12th February, sharing their joy and attitude from Bristol with the world. The album features their singles ‘Petting Zoo’ and ‘We Are Girls’.
Could you tell us how the trio was formed? What brought the three of you together?
After we finished uni, I just really wanted to get back playing, ’cause we all studied music. I said, “let’s form a band”, and then Jenn said “yeah”. It just kind of happened from there really. We basically just started gigging from there on. Our main aim was to do as many shows as possible in many different places and really get out there. A couple of years ago, we needed a new bass player. Nic was recommended to me by one of our lecturers who said, “I got this great bass player”. She played a few things to start with and after that we formed the band. So yeah, that’s how it happened!
That’s really cool! You guys have a quite distinctive style of music. How would you define the genre of your music?
I would say party-punk. It’s kind of got the rawness of punk music - the energy and the anger of punk music. But at the same time, we like having a good party, we like when people sing along to our songs and just have a good time. I think party-punk sums it up quite nicely really. There are other elements in there, like general rock music. I really like pop music as well. I think that has an influence on our songs.
That leads to my next question: who are your favourite artists and which artists have inspired you the most in creating your own music?
It’s always a tricky question. I try to listen to as much music as possible. But I think in terms of when I was writing this album, say I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Sløtface - it’s a Norwegian punk band, along with Dream Wife - another really good all-girl trio. Other bands like Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes - I really like them. And The Cure for me - I know we don’t sound a lot like The Cure, but in terms of the hook... I absolutely love it. So I think that probably had some sort of influence on me. Whether people can hear it or not, I don’t know [laughter].
Could you possibly expand on what kind of influence there might have been?
Yes! Say The Cure - I love listening to them. They have some of the best pop songs ever. Just the hook in songs, whether it’s the keyword hook or what. I think that really has influenced me. Basically when I write, I try to make the songs as catchy as possible. I know they are punk songs, angry songs, noisy songs, but for me, I want them to be memorable. I think The Cure is really, really good at doing that.
Yeah, totally! Regarding the debut album that you guys are releasing, I am quite interested in its title. It’s a very punchy title! Could you tell us a bit more about the message behind it?
Sure! I guess it kind of comes from the experiences we’ve had as an all-girl band. We never normally say “oh, we are a girl band”, that sort of thing. We are just in a band and we happen to be girls. But a lot of people have preconceptions - I think everyone has their own ideas - but things have happened to us... we’ve turned up to gigs and been treated a bit strangely. For example, we’ve turned up and people have asked us where our tickets were. We are like “We are here! We are the support band!”. Random things like that have happened. So we want to have a really strong and personal message: “Yeah, we are girls!”. That’s where the title came from! [laughter] Of course, there is a song on the album called ‘We Are Girls’.
This is definitely a strong message. Since we are talking about the experiences as an all-female band, what were some nice experiences as opposed to the odd experiences you had?
I think it is a nice way of proving people wrong. You turn up to a gig - this is mainly for the support band, that sort of thing - and after we've played, it's great to see that people’s reactions have changed. People often say that they didn’t expect you to be that good. It’s really odd! It’s a compliment, but not, as well. We are like “Why did you expect us to not be good because we are girls?”, but then they are complimenting you. So I guess it is nice to change people’s opinions and make them realise that “oh, actually girls can do this as well as boys”.
Image credit: Black Arts PR Limited
With regards to the single ‘Petting Zoo’, I especially enjoy the anger and the defiance behind the song. What was the creative process behind it?
The whole song comes from being quite angry. The background behind it is a couple of nasty experiences that happened to me - one of them was just being groped in the club basically. The natural thing for me to do is to go home and write songs about my experiences. So that was what it is. I went home and I’ve written an angry song about it: being groped and how it is not acceptable.
Do you have a favourite song in the album and could you tell us more about it?
I mean it changes all the time. At the moment, it’s ‘Lets Play With Knives’. It’s the end song of the album. I like it because it’s the longest song we’ve ever written [laughter]. Nearly four minutes long, which is quite long for us. I just love the anger and the edginess. The whole song is basically based on one riff. It is the main riff of the song and I just really like playing it. We’ve only done it a couple of times live, but it’s fun because you can make the ending last for ages and then we jump out. And yeah, I enjoy playing that song!
IDESTROY has been so successful in touring across the UK and in other countries, could you tell us about your favourite gig and what has made it so special?
There are quite a few gigs... but my favourite gig was when we played in Frankfurt, in a place called Feinstaub. Basically the gig was completely sold out, and far more people turned up to see it and couldn't come into the venue. The vendor there was like “Oh, do you mind running two gigs for us?’ and we were like “What? Two gigs?”. We ended up having two gigs in one night! So we played an hour-long set, because people had already got their tickets and were already there. Then, they left and all the people in the street went inside, and we played another show. It was absolutely exhausting, but it was really good fun! It was awesome!
That is amazing to hear. Was there a time when the band had some obstacles in making music?
We would always just push forward and get as much success as possible. There weren’t as many obstacles, say the main thing at the moment is Covid - our band relied heavily on touring. So at the moment, it’s tricky. We are not making as much money and that is an obstacle. Hopefully that’ll change and we will be able to do gigs again during the year. And also, Covid kind of impacted the album recording. We did have loads of recordings before Covid, but it just slowed the whole thing down. It took a lot longer, but we did manage ourselves to get it done, which is great.
After the release of your debut album, how does the band envision itself moving forward?
We’ve already talked the other day about how we just want to write more songs and get the second album done. I’ll be working quite hard on some new songs, probably starting in a couple of weeks. And then we will just get jamming again and hopefully record the second album before the end of the year. When gigs get back up and running, we want to tour ‘We Are Girls’ as much as possible. The plan has always been for us to go and take our band to as many countries and cities as possible. We hope we will be doing just that.
Last question, if you were to sum up your debut album in a sentence, what would it be?
‘We Are Girls’ is a chaotic, energetic mix of party-punk songs!
‘We Are Girls’ was released on 12th February as is available to stream now.
website: http://idestroyband.co.uk twitter: https://twitter.com/idestroyband instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idestroyband/
youtube: https://youtu.be/SQH-b9vkBAE
Edited by Emma Short, Music Editor
