Jen Razavi (The Bombpops)
1. What are your top five albums that were released in 2017? (In order 1-5)
- Menzingers – After the Party
- Odd Robot – A Late Night Panic
- Bad Cop/Bad Cop – Warriors
- Lillingtongs – Stella Sapiente
- The Flatliners – Inviting Light
2. What band did you discover in 2017 (can be a brand new band or an older band) that had an impact on your life? What made them significant?
Odd Robot. They are hands down one of the best new bands I've heard in a long time. They also happen to be from Los Angeles. The album features superb songwriting, dark lyrics with catchy melodies and hooks for days. They have an Alkaline Trio kinda feel and that's a good thing.
3. How will you remember 2017? (In terms of music)
It's been a fantastic year for pop punk. It's wonderful to see some of my all time favorite bands continuing to release great records. Also, it's been a great year for female fronted bands. Our debut full-length came out on Fat Wreck this year, Bad Cop/Bad Cop released their sophomore record on Fat and Fat also signed The Last Gang. That makes 3 female fronted bands on Fat Wreck Chords this year, it's history in the making and we're? proud to be a part of it.
4. What can we look forward to from you in 2018?
A lot of touring and some new music.
5. What records are you looking forward to most in 2018?
I am definitely excited to hear The Last Gang's full-length. Also, I saw on Instagram that Dead to Me is in the studio, so that's gotta be something to look forward to!
6. For most, 2017 will be remembered as a year of political and social conflict. How does that cultural atmosphere influence your own music or artistic life?
It's been rough witnessing what's happened to our country over the last year. But it makes playing music more important than ever. We have a platform to stand up for what we believe in. The cultural atmosphere surrounding gender equality is one issue that definitely influences us as a band. Society puts certain expectations on women and this even translates to the punk scene. If you're a punk band and you're female, you're almost expected to still be a certain way. You should be singing about women's rights or openly about feminism and if you don't, then you're sending the wrong message. But that's not how we look at it. We're women, playing in a pop punk band, doing exactly what we want to do and singing about what we want to sing about, that in itself is feminism.
