The election is over and the internet is safe again. No more having to tread lightly over what you say in fear of defriends, un-follows and downvotes. We can get back to being ourselves.
Cheap Girls, out of Lansing, Mich., was one step ahead of all of us, spending their election night playing a show in Kansas City. A rigorous tour schedule puts other priorities above live tweeting election coverage. When I spoke with the band’s bassist/vocalist, Ian Graham, the three piece that incudes drummer Ben Graham and guitarist Adam Aymor were just passing by Holmwood, Kan. — still quite a hike from their final destination of KC's The Record Bar.
Graham says this is how they spent the last presidential election night in 2008, and they were just fine doing it again: “I know the show is half-off for people with ‘I Voted Today’ stickers. I think we’ll just watch it on TV at the bar. We actually played a show on the last election night in Ohio. It’s a whole other way to take it all in.”
The election was just another Tuesday for Cheap Girls. They’ve been touring for the last four weeks, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for standard election season clichés like pseudo-drunk political arguments with your girlfriend’s uncle.
Their tour is still in full-swing, and the guys will be playing at Slowdown tonight, Nov. 7, at 9 p.m. with New Jersey punks The Front Bottoms. Cheap Girls are excited to be playing their third show at Slowdown. “We absolutely love playing in Omaha,” Graham says. “We’ve been fortunate having great crowds there. Slowdown is kind of an ideal place to play a show for us. We’ve met a lot of really cool people there.”
Saying Cheap Girls are no strangers to touring is a massive understatement. Graham says the band has learned a ton over the years, though that might only show in the details.
“It’s not all that different," he says. "I mean we were in a Blazer then, and we’re in a van now. It’s more organized — when we were first starting, we were in our early 20s for the most part, so we weren’t organized enough to be going out for like seven weeks with no plan. We all get along, though — we’re adults. Nobody really fucks with each other.”
Although their style is not punk rock, they've been embraced by the nation's punk scene. In fact, they've been called “an authentic Midwestern rock band in the vein of the Replacements, Soul Asylum, Sugar and early Smoking Popes, [and have] an incredibly talented lyricist and songwriter in Ian Graham.”
Who said that? The producer of their recent album, Giant Orange, which came out in February, none other than Laura Jane Grace (formerly Thomas James Gabel) of Against Me! Graham says working with Grace brought more structure and technical steps to their creative process.
“We started the process of the record in the stripped-down way, where the songs stand alone — like acoustic versions with more structure," he says. "It worked out, and we saw the fluency of songs: what should be added, what should be repeated, what should be cut — pretty standard pre-production stuff. And then she brought more organization to that side of it. Before, we just would have a song, play it at practice and be done, but with this [album], we did a lot more with it.”
Graham says the band’s connection with the punk rock scene has come through the friends they’ve made and other bands they’ve played with over the years.
“I think it’s because a lot of our friends are in punk bands,” he says. “That’s how we started — touring with punk bands that are in that environment. It stays true to this day. Most of our touring is booked through friends, which a lot of the time is related to punk rock. I think a lot of bands who aren’t necessarily punk rock bands do the same thing — it’s a community we’re fortunate to be involved with.”
Graham's part of another passionate community, having worked in a great beer store in East Lansing since he was 21. This developed his beer palate early on, and although he’s a big fan of craft beers, and Michigan’s Dark Horse Brewery in particular, he says being a beer connoisseur while on tour is kind of tough to do.
“I’ve been working around it for a long time and I really appreciate the culture, but on tour you just kind of get what you get as far as beer goes," he says. "So we’ll typically go for the middle-ground Tecates.”
Bryce Wergin is a Hear Nebraska contributor. He's anything but cheap. Reach him at brycewergin@hearnebraska.org.