Introducing: Nasty Cherry

Nasty Cherry announced themselves to the world last year with an Instagram post that showed an attempt to balance two champagne flutes on a bare bottom in a swimming pool and some text that stated: “HI WE’RE NASTY CHERRY AND WE’RE THE BEST BAND OF 2019.” It was, if nothing else, an unusual and bold opening statement and made a change from a dull press release that mentioned the word ‘empowering’ or 'empowered' (2018’s buzz word in music biz press releases by a country mile).

Since that time the world has learnt a bit more about Nasty Cherry and there’s even been some music; a song called Win.

Here are the key facts that you need to know about the band so far:

1. Nasty Cherry has four members. They are Gabbriette Bechtel who has worked as a model, Chloe Chaidez who is also in the band Kitten, Georgia Somary who has worked as a movie set decorator including Star Wars VIII - The Last Jedi and Avengers: Age of Ultron and Debroah Knox-Hewson who has previously drummed for Charli XCX.

2. The Charli XCX connection runs deep – it seems that the original idea of bringing the band together was Charli’s and Win was co-written by her. The video (streaming below) was also directed by Charli and she’s been banging on about the band for some time on her Instagram.

3. Justin Raisen has also been involved in the Nasty Cherry project. He was the guy who helped produce and write a lot of Charli’s True Romance album and also worked with Angel Olsen, Sky Ferreira and L Devine on her excellent song Peer Pressure.

4. The Nasty Cherry video for Win, which includes the band dancing like a crazed coven of witches whilst covered in gold glitter paint, was premiered by Vogue – not some two-bit music website, which says quite a lot about pop music and how it's marketed these days.

5. They’ve only played one live show to date and claim they to want to achieve world domination through their music. So they’ll probably be releasing some more songs and playing some more shows at some point. They’ll not manage a global takeover off one track.

So, there’s the info, but what about the song? 

It’s essentially a pop tune masquerading as something a little bit edgier. There’s a hint of Peter Hook’s bass lurking around and perhaps a bit of a slowed down take on Feeder’s tune Buck Rogers as well. I’ve seen several people refer to Sleater-Kinney (which I don’t really hear) and also reference Joan Jett. With Charli XCX being involved there’s the inevitable repeated hook, in this case “I need to win.” If you’re a bit cynical that the whole project seems a little bit too stylised and steered by the music industry, try to push that away and just listen to the tune. It’s a very promising start. Maybe they’re not the best band of 2019 yet, but they are one rung up (a very long) ladder. 

Nasty Cherry - Win