Interview: Bratakus
I think it's very easy to get burnt out by the magnitude of everything that's going on in the world, and I hope that by going out there and spreading these messages, other people who are maybe feeling the same kind of things can feel like, we're all in this together.
Punk rock duo Bratakus have just released their brilliant and long awaited new album Hagridden and it is a fiery non stop barrage of energy laden punk rock anger with a message constrained in its ten songs. Gavin Brown caught up with Bratakus members and sisters Brèagha Cuinn (guitar and vocals) and Onnagh Cuinn (bass and vocals) to hear all about Hagridden and the meaning behind its songs as well as discussing everything from DIY ethics to the punk scene in Scotland.
E&D: Your new album Hagridden has just come out. How excited are you to be to be back with this record?
Brèagha: So excited. It’s been so long since the first record came out, and we’ve had every trial and tribulation come our way, which has meant that we’ve not been able to put this out till now. So it’s such a relief and so exciting to finally have new music coming out. We already have another almost full album written for after this one!
E&D: Who are the biggest influences on the sound and outlook of this album?
Brèagha: I think my vocals have always been really inspired by Brody Dalle from The Distillers. Ever since I was seven years old, she’s been my vocal inspiration. I was watching Kerrang! TV at my Gran’s house once, and I saw a Distillers music video, and I was in awe! Music wise, we’ve always been really inspired by the Ramones. We’re always really inspired by what’s going on in politics around us, and that’s what inspires the main themes of the album as well.
E&D: Can you tell us a bit about those themes and then the subjects you deal with on the album?
Brèagha: Basically, a lot of the themes on the album are feminist themes. A lot of them are like things that we’ve experienced, sometimes in our time in the band, or generally being a woman in the world. We also sing about animal rights. We’re very passionate about animal rights and equality for animals. Basically equality for everyone is kind of what the album is about. We have a song trying to raise awareness for sweatshops and how normalised sweatshops are in our society. There’s a whole range of different things that we touch on. It’s something that’s very important to our band to keep spreading messages like that.
E&D: It must be a powerful thing having that platform to address these issues?
Brèagha: Yeah, for sure, one of the main reasons that we’re in the band is to be able to share these issues. I think it’s very easy to get burnt out by the magnitude of everything that’s going on in the world, and I hope that by going out there and spreading these messages, other people who are maybe feeling the same kind of things can feel like, we’re all in this together, and we can work towards change together, and stand up for each other.
E&D: Have you had much opposition as well as support for your music and the subjects that you tackle, particularly online?
Onnagh: Yeah, I would probably say we’ve had more support and opposition overall, online and at gigs. One of the most common things that we’ve had is people who just generally don’t like how much Brèagha talks between the songs about what the songs are about, which, to us, is a really integral part of the live performances. Because so much of what drives us to do what we’re doing with the band is being able to spread those messages and realistically, with the loud music, you’re maybe not gonna hear exactly what’s being said in the lyrics. So it feels important to us to use part of our live performance to address that kind of thing. I think some people don’t really appreciate that, and maybe want to go and just listen to the music, but yeah, it’s definitely not what you’re going to get at one of our gigs.
E&D: Can you tell us what made you choose Hagridden as the title for the album?
Onnagh: We basically just came across it. It was one of those things that was instant. As soon as we saw it, we were just like, that’s what we’re using. We’re gonna have that as the album name! We’re both definitely drawn to darker themes and we’re both really big horror movie fans, so that seemed to fit. That whole idea of hagridden and the nightmare theme just feels very relevant to things that are going on in the world right now. I was writing about it the other day, how life really is feeling like a nightmare a lot of the time right now. I think the title and the album artwork were us trying to make a reflection of that.
E&D: Do you still think music’s a powerful tool to address the ills of the world, especially with so much going on at the moment?
Onnagh: Yeah, absolutely, on a personal level, certainly listening to other bands who are talking about it is what’s getting me through this. I think it’s really easy to feel, quite isolated, and, like Brèagha said, quite burnt out at times, and it’s hard to hold on to any kind of hope. It sounds very cliche, but music unites people through all of this, and to be able to have that escapism, where you’re going to a show and maybe having a break from a lot of the stuff you’re dealing with day to day.
E&D: How has the album been received so far?
Brèagha: Thankfully, we’ve had a very nice reception. We’ve had a lot of support and people being very kind and supportive of what we’re doing, which is nice, because, I mean, we’re two sisters from the Highlands of Scotland who couldn’t even find a drummer when we were starting. We started ten years ago and did all the gigging and touring that we’ve done, and then gotten to this point where we’re able to put this album out now and have such a nice response to the singles and things. It feels really nice, and it feels like we’re part of a very nice scene and community.
E&D: How did you start as a band in the first place and start making music?
Brèagha: I’ve been trying to form a band since I was about seven or eight years old, and I would be with all my little pals, like, Come on, guys, if we don’t get practicing, how are we going to book a tour?! Everyone else was not really that bothered. I tried to form quite a few different bands with people over the years, and they never really came to anything. I started to do solo acoustic performances, playing pretty much all the songs that are on the first Bratakus album. I was playing them, just myself and an acoustic guitar, and in my head I could hear them played the way that Bratakus sounds, but outwardly they were being played as this, like acoustic punk act. I was really frustrated, and it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. Then there was a suggestion, me and Onnagh were both really young at the time, and there was a suggestion that she learned the bass lines to some of the songs that I had written, and I made a demo that I could hand out at my gigs, so that if anyone wanted to be in a band with me, then they would have, an idea of the kind of thing that I wanted to play. We plugged in to rehearse together, and I programmed some drums, just to kind of get through and from the first second that we started to play together, we were like, we don’t really need anyone else. This could be the band how it is, and we kind of just carried on from there.
E&D: Are you looking forward to hitting the road once the album comes out and unleashing the new material live?
Brèagha: Absolutely! Touring is my number one favourite part of being in a band, it’s like to me, you do the other stuff, and it’s really fun, but you’re doing it with the end goal of getting to go on tour. So I cannot wait to get on the road again. We’re going to be playing some places that we’ve never played before, and then we’re going to be coming back to play some places that we have. So that’s a really nice mix.
E&D: Are you also looking forward to playing 2000 Trees festival in the summer and then Core festival later on in the year?
Brèagha: For sure. They are two festivals that we’ve never played before, so that’s really exciting. 2000 Trees, we were especially excited for and then we realised that it clashes with the Girls Rock Glasgow, Rock & Roll Summer School for Girls that we teach at this year. So we’re going to miss a day of that to play 2000 Trees.
Onnagh: Core is definitely another one that I’m really excited, not only to play, but the lineup looks amazing! Petrol Girls are a band that we’ve played with a few times over the years, and it’s been ages since I’ve seen this. So I really am looking forward to that. They’re such a powerful live band, and I’m really looking forward to getting to see them again.
E&D: Can you tell us a bit about the Girls Rock Glasgow event that you’re involved with, you just mentioned?
Onnagh: Yeah, from the very beginning of the band we’ve always had a relationship with Girls Rock Glasgow. Our first ever gig was a fundraiser for them. Girls Rock Glasgow is basically a a week long summer school that happens for kids age eight to sixteen, where they go and get to learn a bit of music, and then at the end, they all come together in bands and perform a showcase gig. We’ve volunteered almost every single year that has happened, and it’s just such an amazing community of women and queer people that run it, and such a nice project to be involved with.
E&D: How did your Final Girls tour go last year and what were some of the highlights?
Brèagha: The German tour was really amazing, because we’d never done a headlining tour in Germany before, but we were also cursed with a lot of bad luck on that tour. The first day, the car that our driver had, broke down five times, and one of the times in the overtaking lane of a three lane motorway. We were kind of cursed. The car trouble thread ran through the entire tour. Every one of the gigs was really fun, once we finally got there. It was amazing, and then we would be back to the logistical nightmare of trying to plan how we were getting to the next one. So we had a lot of ups and downs on that tour, but overall, it was really, really fun. We’re going to be heading back to Germany in April this year.
E&D: What are the Bratakus gigs have been the most memorable for you so far?
Brèagha: We got to play a small a tour in Japan with Sedition and Reality Crisis in 2019, and I still brag about it!
E&D: Have you always had a big DIY approach to everything you do?
Onnagh: This new album is the first time we’re starting to work with a label and things. Up until then, we had done everything ourselves. From the start of forming the band, when we were really young, we started our own label with our dad, who’s also been involved in the punk scene, called Screaming Babies records. Our first album. We recorded it with a friend in Glasgow, and then put it out ourselves. So it was definitely a big learning curve, but also really fun to get to do that. I think it meant a lot to us with every part of it, like the gigs and the music and stuff, just to be able to have that control over it, and really to be able to put the messages that we wanted to put out, and do it on our own terms, and that was what drove us to go about it that way.
Brèagha: I think it can be empowering to have the knowledge that you can do these things yourself. You can just decide to start your own label, and you can book your own tours, and you can make your own merchandise. It’s so achievable to do that yourself, if you just believe that you can. It was an amazing thing to have a family who were part of that DIY punk scene and encouraged us to try all these kinds of things ourselves.
E&D: In the BBC documentary RIP It Up about the Scottish music scene, Manda Rin from Bis wore a Bratakus t-shirt when she was interviewed onscreen. Was that a big thrill for you?
Brèagha: She was actually the first person to ever buy one of our shirts on our online Big Cartel page! We’ve met a couple of times, and we’ve kind of become friends with them. They’re super, super nice, but as someone who grew up a huge Power Puff Girls fan, I was very starstruck at first, but yeah, they’ve been very supportive and very nice, and we feel very honoured to have them as part of our story.
E&D: Were there any other Scottish bands that were a big inspiration for you as musicians when you were growing up?
Brèagha: I think we’ve always been really inspired by the Scottish punk scene, even when we first started, there was a really strong DIY punk scene that we played in, bands like Sick Of Talk and Joyce Delaney. We were very inspired by that young DIY scene and there were gigs on every week, basically, so we were either coming down to Glasgow to see those bands play or to play ourselves. I think that was like a really cool thing to see that. People always talk about music scenes in other places, but to see that in Scotland, we had such a thriving punk scene, was always a big inspiration to me.
E&D: Is there still that sense of community today?
Brèagha: I think it’s really cool these days, the punk scene in Glasgow is overwhelmingly really young, and I find that really inspiring as well. There’s some kids as young as fourteen who are forming bands and putting on their own gigs and starting fanzines and labels and things. I think it’s super cool to see the next generation of young people coming through and still being into this kind of stuff and still carrying it on.
Onnagh: Yeah, again, I think it comes back to the Girls Rock Glasgow thing that I was talking about. There’s been a lot of really amazing girl bands come out of that, and a lot of continued events happening, like the actual summer school happens once a year, but the women that run it, keep it going throughout the year, and do fundraiser gigs and open mic nights. So I think a really amazing scene has been born in itself out of that which just feels like a really nice community to be a part of, and there’s constantly super talented new bands coming out of it. It’s really inspiring to be able to be like a part of that and have it so close by
E&D: What are the band’s other plans for the rest of the year? You mentioned having another album ready so will you be wowing on that later in the year.
Onnagh: We don’t have anything studio wise planned, like dates in the diary kind of thing. But I think we’re both kind itching to actually get in the studio and would like to do it at some point this year, but it’s whether we fit in with the gigging and stuff that we have, and we are hoping to really tour as much as possible with the album now that we finally have it out. UK gigs, Europe gigs, festivals and getting the album out there.
E&D: But it won’t be as long a wait for a new record?
Onnagh: Hopefully not! We have people joking with us now where they’re like, is this a trick? Is your album actually coming out? Because it’s been so so long!
