Exclusive Interview with 'THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS'

MR. STRONTIUM (DRUMS, TEAPOT, BACK UP VOCALS) AND MEG CRATTY (ELECTRIC UKULELE, LEAD VOCALS) FORM ONE BAND THAT INTEGRATES GARAGE ROCK, PROTO-PUNK, FUNK, AND SOUL TO CREATE A SWIRL OF SLOPPY TRANSCENDENCE.
Why do Mr. Strontium and Meg Cratty collaborate on music? It’s simple; they share a home, and in 2020 and beyond, that is more than enough of a justification. The Who, New Orleans, James Brown, Miles Davis, Soul Train, The White Stripes, Grateful Dead (’68-’72), and Fiona Apple are among the influences they strive to live up to, but their sound is uniquely their own, and that’s the only reason they’re willing to share it with people outside the home.
However, for all of you good fellas out there who are curious about the dull specifics of their collective history, Meg used to play the guitar and write songs to her cereal when she was younger. She had the tip of her left index finger amputated, and she now uses a specially made electric baritone ukulele. Meg frequently performs by herself at ukulele festivals because Mr. Strontium is such an introverted caveman. In addition to Latimer of World Domination Recordings, God Fights Dirty, and Persona, Mr. Strontium has also played drums for other bands, most notably the whirling grunge alt rock band Latimer. They also have four ducks, three dogs, a cat, and a child. On Saturday nights, they attempt to avoid fighting while they record in their basement. Check out their latest single and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how you got started?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: I got started with east coast (USA) suburban doldrums, so something had to change.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: I am not sure what you mean by formal training. We each took lessons at our respective instruments at one time or another, but we are also self-taught. Neither of us attended college for music.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS’?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: For Strontium, it would hands down be The Who. He is also influenced by The Grateful Dead, James Brown, Miles Davis, Lou Reed and New Orleans soul music. Meg is also a big The Who fan as well, but grew up listening to a varied mix of music from church hymns, Ella Fitzgerald, Tori Amos, 90s grunge music, and 60s Motown.

The name thing is kind of an inside joke, but if you follow us, you know we love 70s shows, and that should give you a clue as to where it came from.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: Raw, loose, tight, musical/noisical, energetic and swirly are the best adjectives to describe our sound. I wish I had the perfect micro genre to describe us, but I think we might need to coin our term. We’ve been calling it garage underground dance music, but it’s also a bit of protopunk slop as well.

I would personally like to emphasize that I play an electric ukulele which is usually mistaken for a guitar. Truthfully, we make a lot of noise with very little. We use the overdub process to make ourselves sound a bit fuller than what we could achieve with just the two of us playing live (plenty of artists do this), but we are just vocals, an electric ukulele and drums.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as ROCK?
THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS:
I think it’s natural to just play anything you like. Undoubtedly, it will bleed into the music you create, first as a jumping off point for creation, but later as an influence you didn’t even hear. We are often told we sound like bands I had never thought of as influences, but whom we’ve definitely listened to, so everything feeds off each other in a way.
Rock music has always been an energetic protest against institutions. Both of us are sensitive and angry people, so rock was the path that made the most sense for both of us. While we both listen to an eclectic variety of music, our vehicle for expression is always rock driven because we need something with an edge, with a bite. It’s hard to write a love ballad and sing it with sincerity – it’s just not who we are.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative and entertainment?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS:

Music is undoubtedly influenced by the events us humans live through, and some of the most timeless songs are ones that were a reaction to those events. The best ones, for me, are the ones that are left ambiguous enough that they outlive the time in which they were created. On the other hand, sometimes songs get a moment they hadn’t anticipated – like when Dancin’ in the Street by Martha and the Vandellas became a civil rights anthem in the 60s. It was meant to be a party song.

Some people can write music as a vehicle for social/political change- Bob Dylan is a great example. I just don’t think that’s how we operate as a band necessarily, but we have definitely written music that is a reaction to how we feel about events. Our song Daytime for Blanche from our Algiers double single that came out in March was a song I wrote in response to the George Floyd murder. It’s one of our few straight ahead and serious songs, as I think we prefer to approach most things with a sense of humor to distill the anger that drives a lot of the work. I think for the most part, we prefer to create fantastical spaces in which our emotions and the stories we want to tell about them can live without being overly direct or preachy. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate music like that, but I’m uncomfortable being preachy. To borrow a phrase from Ted Lasso, who borrowed it from Walt Whitman, I prefer to be curious and not judgmental, so using music as a vehicle for change would feel a little forced for me. That being said, I do think everything we’ve created thus far has been influenced by the times we are living in, but we’ve decided to not confront them directly.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS:

The music and the process of creating it are always fulfilling. The promotion and effort of getting it to people is the soul-buster. It’s one of the disadvantages of the new music industry, how much of the work of getting music out there falls on the shoulders of the artist, and we are not the type of people who are best suited for that sort of work. Having people hear it and appreciate is always a positive thing and that’s what we try to focus on without putting pressure on it to be anything other than that.

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: So far we have never not created a song together. I never go in with something already written and have Strontium add drums to it. I think that’s what makes our music more interesting – it’s born from jams we have where we are just riffing off each other – either Strontium starts with a beat and I come up with a riff to complement it or vice versa. Once the music is set, things usually go really well if I have a line or a subject to get me started with the vocal melody – but lyrics are one of the last things I do. This process can take months since we tend to do everything in batches. We will jam for a few sessions and record it, Strontium listens to the tapes to decide what sounds promising, then we play those parts again and develop a song structure, and then I add lyrics. Being able to record at home has given us a lot of freedom to take our time to add overdubs where we need them, and gives us a lot of space to consider the parts we’ve added without feeling pressured by the normal constraints of being in an outsider’s studio.

As far as collaborations go, so far it’s just been the two of us. We hope to collaborate with a few bands we like in the near future.

9.What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: I have struggled with digestive problems for a long time which got significantly worse during the pandemic. Being chronically ill has definitely affected every aspect of life for me, and though I am on the road to recovery, it has been incredibly difficult and exhausting to be sick. Music has actually been a positive thing throughout being sick, as it gave me a creative outlet away from my daily pain.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

THE MARGARET HOOLIGANS: I really don’t have fun doing the social media thing – I find it to be a bit draining and not something I do naturally. It often just feels like I am screaming into the wind for attention and I can never tell if I am annoying people or if it’s worth the effort I put into it.

So, a couple of months ago we released a music video for our song Oh Lord Hit it, which was inspired by the fictional character Sue Ellen Ewing from the 70s/ 80s show Dallas. Our music video was Strontium and I dressed up like idiots (me in a big 80s style wig with lots of make up, a shiny sequin dress, and tons of jewelry and Strontium in a Ewing Oil t-shirt and cowboy hat) against a green screen while crazy, drunken, violent scenes of Sue Ellen from Dallas flashed on screen behind us. I had been tagging Linda Gray, the actress that played Sue Ellen for all of our posts about the song.

One day, I saw in my IG history that she had liked our post with the official video. That was a pretty cool moment because after looking through her official profile, it seemed like she might actually manage it herself and not just have an assistant or social media marketer do it. That was a significant moment only because it gave me hope that I might actually reach people with our music – I am not sure I really believed it was possible before with social media to get anyone to pay attention to us. And one of the worst feelings you can have as a creator is that you are wasting time on promotion when you could be doing more of what you love, which is creating.

But honestly, making all of the music we’ve made and getting out there has been an accomplishment for me. It was something I dreamed of doing as a teen when the only audience I had was a local coffee shop open mic scene, so everything we’ve done so far has been a highlight.