Chastity blog

Guitarist/singer Julia Shapiro, guitarist Lydia Lund, bassist Annie Truscott, and drummer Gretchen Grimm formed Chastity Belt mostly for laughs at Whitman College, then moved to Seattle and got serious. They visit the Casbah on Wednesday, August 17, touring behind their second album, Time to Go Home. Shapiro took some email queries.

What are your favorite San Diego stories?

“We’ve always had a good time going to the beach and eating burritos in San Diego. Really great burritos!”

Please describe the other bandmembers.

“I’d say Gretchen is cool, calm, and collected, Annie is a great listener and a supportive friend, and Lydia is spontaneous and in touch with her emotions. I think a lot of these traits show in the musical parts that we come up with, as well as our ability to listen and leave space for one another in our music.”

Best, worst, and oddest audience responses so far?

“On our last tour, we played a show at the UFO Factory in Detroit and a really buff bro went crazy at the front of the crowd yelling the lyrics to ‘Drone’ and ‘Dull’ in a super abrasive way. He was wasted and taking up way too much space. It was baffling to see this aggressive dude singing ‘He was just another man trying to teach me something,’ while being completely oblivious to his surroundings, or how he was affecting the women in the audience around him. He actually ended up pushing a girl in front of him and saying ‘Fuck you’ to her, and after that the crowd kind of swallowed him up and kicked him out of the club. It was cool to see that happen.

“For the most part, though, our fans are respectful. It’s special to see an entire audience singing along to songs like ‘Cool Slut’ and ‘Seattle Party.’”

You cut the new album in a deconsecrated church. Were you concerned about spiritual interference?

“We put my amp in a confessional booth, which felt like some kind of metaphor maybe. But no, I don’t think we felt much spiritual interference.”

Which bandmember is most likely to get arrested, and why?

“I don’t know, probably me. A guy from Real World Seattle called me up yesterday and told me he was going to ‘alert the authorities’ and get me arrested for posting his number on ‘The Blog.’ I have no idea what he’s talking about!”