I was first introduced to the Austin-based band Die Spitz when they opened for Sleater-Kinney at the Majestic. It’s been almost three months since their set, and to say they left an impression would be an understatement.
Member Ellie Livingston and bassist Kate Halter performed with a cheeky abrasiveness–Livingston asked the crowd to bark for her and Halter incited a mosh. Drummer Chloe Andrews and member Ava Schrobilgen provided a quiet, pensive balance to the group, though, you’d never expect the power that was unleashed from Andrew’s kit nor the guttural sound of Schrobilgen’s voice.
The band was formed in the swells of COVID-19; Livingston relishes in this fact in an interview with kutx98.9 saying “With newfound time, Ava and I went back to our roots after a long pause in that trajectory. We practiced all the time, mainly just to gonk around and drink beers on the boiling hot silent days of the full-enforced pandemic. We didn’t take it seriously till our senior year of high school.”
On Bandmix, the group cites the likes of Kurt Cobain and Veruca Salt as their influences as well as a lot of late punk/early grunge. Despite the heavy hand of punk influences doled throughout their discography, they don’t describe themselves as such–they describe themselves as something more.
“When people call us punk, it’s really funny because it’s like, well, some of it is definitely punk, but some of it is very not,” Livingston said in an interview with Alternative Press, “Die Spitz is definitely not just a punk band.”
The themes of their music are varied, though, they aren’t afraid to get into controversial topics. Their most recent EP “Teeth” gets into a lot of these. The track “Monkey Song” quickly unfolds a metaphor for blind trust in political and religious figures, describing this trust as ‘primal’. As well as this, the song “Groping Dogs Gushing Blood” describes the angrier parts of girl and womanhood–they are not afraid to use gory imagery in this song to push their ideas.
This fearlessness translates into everything they do, from their look to their sound to their performances. Die Spitz currently has shows lined up on the West Coast and their hometown of Austin through October and into early November. You can listen to Die Spitz on Apple Music or Spotify.
