Meet SHAGGO, the Brooklyn-based queer femme punk band turning everyday chaos into cathartic anthems. Inspired by the outsider spirit of '60s oddballs The Shaggs, SHAGGO pairs humor with heart—writing silly songs that hit surprisingly hard. Their latest single, "Lost a Sock (Need a Friend)," is the final preview of their upcoming album Chores on Atlanta Zone Records. It’s a fuzzed-out ode to indecision, growing pains, misplaced priorities—and, yes, laundry. But don’t be fooled: SHAGGO might make you laugh, but they’re dead serious about their sound.
How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
SHAGGO formed at my (Carina’s) birthday party in 2023, the same night Lucy met Rylie, my childhood friend and our original drummer. They walked up to me and basically declared that the three of us were starting a band, and that was it.
Our name is a play on The Shaggs (check them out if you hadn’t); they’re a group of sisters from the 60’s who made really odd discordant music that’s now considered outsider art. When we first started playing together, we talked about how we were getting more comfortable on our instruments, and a couple of our male friends joked that we were kind of like The Shaggs (three sisters who famously did not really know how to play their instruments). Whether this was an insult or not we think The Shaggs rule and are forever indebted to our foremothers
Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
Lucy: I’m very lucky that my dad got me into music from a young age, teaching me how to sing. My uncle also taught me guitar. I grew up singing a lot, from talent shows to choirs to really competitive head ass a cappella groups, but I always dreamed of being in like female fronted - and female backed - rock band. I went to an art camp as a teenager and like to say I was the Regina George of that art camp, even though I was kind of a misfit at my actual school, but that’s where I got into singing at in like a band setting. I got super into artists like Mitski and Frankie Cosmos in high school and I went to a lot of shows at DIY Brooklyn venues growing up in New York City and it was always a dream to be like them. I was really moved by artist sharing their very personal stories in a way that audiences could connect to. I also listened to a lot of ABBA growing up; I am half Norwegian. I love their melodies.
I was struggling to release my own kind of indie singer songwriter bedroom pop EP for like, four years. I just said in a job interview, actually, that I really believe great people working together make projects like this happen. I’m immensely grateful for Carina being so organized, motivated and always being like a friend to collaborate with and bounce ideas off of; for really getting this project to the finish line. I was also in this weird kind of math rock band for a minute. I think SHAGGO does have humble roots - not all of us started with a lot of musical background, but we had a lot of raw musical talent in the group that has driven our success versus that group was a lot of like dudebros (and even one girl!) coming in like, I’m really good at music, this is gonna be awesome, and then they just weren’t that good
Carina: This is the first official project I’ve been in. Before this, I had a brief stint trying to teach myself bass in my room during the pandemic, but was much more energized to learn it in 2023 after Lucy decided we were starting a band together. I did choir for years growing up in Austin / went to a religious school, so I think harmonizing has actually come more naturally for me in that sense. But I’ve always been a huge fan / still consider myself first and foremost a fan; growing up in Austin, music is everywhere and everyone has a special appreciation for it.
First concert that you ever went to? (Locally and National acts)
Lucy: U2 with my dad, 2008, New Jersey. Locally? Um… Vampire Weekend, with my dad again, 2013. Foreshadowing Carina…
Carina: I remember very clearly that my first concert was going to the American Idol cast tour with my mom (shoutout Adam Lambert and Chris Daughtry). I remember plugging my ears with my fingers because it was too loud lol. We were huge Idol fans. But I feel like one of the first concerts I saved up for/went to on my own/had been excited about for MONTHS was Vampire Weekend playing at Stubbs Barbecue in Austin in 2013. I was in middle school and was a huge Vampire Weekend fan (I consider them the first band I got into ‘on my own’/started to form my own taste around them); we stood for hours and were in so much pain by the time we saw them but they were AMAZING. I think they were touring Modern Vampires of the City.
One of the first local (Austin) acts I saw was Suzanna Choffel; she’s an incredible singer-songwriter based outside Austin. I’ve never heard anyone with a voice like hers.
What's your writing process like?
Carina: Our first couple of songs we wrote kind of on the fly/in practice, not intending to go into practice and come out with a song. That was true of Minor League, and also true of this single, Lost a Sock (Need a Friend). With Lost a Sock in particular, Lucy was playing the chords to “Apologize” by OneRepublic and one of us just said the words ‘I Lost a Sock/I Need a Friend’ and we kind of ran with it; it turned into one of our more ‘emo’ songs we’ve written. It came together really naturally.
Since then, our process has evolved a bit, though I would like to go back to how we used to write songs in the moment too. Recently, Lucy or I will have an idea, maybe a few chords/lyrics, and we’ll sit on the couch at mine and kind of carve away at the song more, sometimes for a few hours. Then we’ll either send a demo to our drummer and Thea, the lead guitarist, and try it out. Thea always instinctively knows exactly what to add to our songs, it’s pretty wild. I’m excited to try out our process on new material with Christine (our new drummer) and see how things change
Lucy: Notes app is my gospel, melodies are my intrusive thoughts? I will obsess for a week curating a Spotify playlist mood board of how I want it to sound, and then the fabulous Carina will help me hone the idea. Or we’ll find some thing that inspires us such as this poem my mom wrote and then make it our own. In the case of City MD, Lost a Sock, and Minor League, that’s a lot of stream of consciousness riffing between friends with the same weird sense of humor.
What other artists or songs inspire your music?
Sleater-Kinney has been a big influence on our work, especially the more call-and-response vocals we have. I love how it feels like a dialogue or conversation between friends, and we’ve tried to work this dynamic into some of our songs.
LUCY: Sleater Kinney is a great one. I saw them live last year, and it’s so awesome to see like a female duo fronted band still killing it. They really can sing. They really can write. They have some great ironic songs, which I like. I mentioned Mitski and Frankie Cosmos; we love Angel Olsen, we love Lala Lala, and in the case of Lost a Sock we love OneRepublic? Not really, but we were just goofing around once, and Carina said off the cuff, “It’s too late to apologize,” just in the conversation naturally, so I picked up my guitar and we went from there.
What's the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be it's own thing?
LUCY: For me life shows are really about community. Community is super important to me and a big part of why I do this. It’s really amazing becoming close friends with other bands and artists on our lineups in this New York City riot girl scene, and it’s really heartening to me to watch people find catharsis at our shows and scream out things like, “you made it weird!” when that’s how they’re feeling. That’s the experience and space I wanna give them. It just makes me really happy seeing friends and family before or after my show, or making new friends and family there, or seeing the same people come back. I like jumping around and getting a little weird with it. I like to dance like a car wash air dancer at times, and it’s really important to get on the ground at least once cause when else in the day are you gonna do that…
CARINA: We’ve been playing around with our live shows; some of our more recent songs we’ve written, “I Wanted Fun,” are a bit angrier/lean more heavily into noise. It’s a super fun one to play live; Lucy usually jumps off the stage at the end of the song. We end this song live differently almost every time we play it, which I actually kind of like. It was harder to nail down how we would end it when recording because we wanted it to feel wild/capture the live energy but still sound cohesive enough at the end of the song. Overall, I’d like for our recorded stuff to capture the energy of live shows, but I think it’s fun to have some variation when we play these songs live.
7. Has the band toured? What has the touring experience been, best shows?worst shows?
We played our first out of town gigs in Austin, when we got to play a few unofficial gigs this March in SXSW. It was so fun because I’m from Austin originally, and playing something like SXSW is so different because the whole city is full of live music at all hours of the day; it’s cool to try to win people over who are walking around and hear you playing, much different than a NYC venue where you have friends or fans or people who usually come to your shows intentionally. Beyond this, we haven’t (yet) toured but have booked an East Coast tour late this June to support our upcoming album! We’ll be playing Philly, DC area, Baltimore, and Boston.
I think some of our best shows happened this past SXSW. It was also our first time playing with our new drummer Christine, which was a lot of pressure; I think we were forced to get things really tight practicing for these shows, but also it was comfortable for me being back in Austin. In terms of our worst shows, probably some of our earlier shows; we used to be a three piece which was fun, but put a lot of pressure on Lucy to sing, play lead and rhythm guitar. Now we have Thea who filled out our sound in such a nice way.
LUCY: SXSW was a blast. We love carina’s mom. We’re looking forward to playing in DC Baltimore, Philly, and Boston this summer.
What's up next for the band?
Next up - we will be releasing our debut album, Chores, June 6th via Atlanta Zone Records! We’ve been working on these songs for years - we’re so excited to share them. We’ll be playing our record release show 6/12 at Trans Pecos alongside a really incredible lineup we’re announcing soon. And after that (late June) we’ll be touring to support the album! Which will even have cute little cassettes.