Potty Mouth (band)

Potty Mouth is an American pop rock band, formed in Western Massachusetts, in 2011 at Smith College. The band's original lineup was Ally Einbinder (bass), Phoebe Harris (lead guitar, vocals), Abby Weems (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), and Victoria Mandanas (drums). Following Harris' (and later Ali Donohue's) departure, Potty Mouth has continued as a three-piece, with Abby Weems on lead guitar.

Potty Mouth
OriginNorthampton, Massachusetts, U.S.
GenresPop rock, punk rock, pop punk
Years active2011 (2011)–present
LabelsOld Flame Records, Marshall Teller Records
Websitewww.pottymouthworld.com
Members
  • Abby Weems
  • Ally Einbinder
  • Victoria Mandanas
Past members
  • Phoebe Harris
  • Ali Donohue

History

Potty Mouth was formed by Ally Einbinder and Phoebe Harris, two Smith College students, in 2011. Einbinder played bass while Harris learned to play the guitar. Another Smith College student, Victoria Mandanas, joined the band to play drums, having played in a punk rock band in high school; Abby Weems, a high school student at the time, also joined to play guitar and sing lead vocals. Like Harris, Weems did not know how to play guitar before joining Potty Mouth. In September 2011, the band recorded four demo tracks.[1] According to Einbinder, Harris thought of the band's name while on the toilet, unaware of the Bratmobile album of the same name.[2]

In 2013, Potty Mouth released their first full-length album, Hell Bent, to positive reviews from critics.[1][3] In 2015, they released a self-titled EP, which was recorded without Harris, who had departed from the band. The band's tour to promote the EP featured various guest rhythm guitarists. During this time, they made a distribution deal with Alternative Distribution Alliance and gained attention from Atlantic Records.[4] The band continued to tour in 2016, supporting Beach Slang's spring tour. For their 2016 shows, Potty Mouth was joined by guitarist Aurore Ounjian of Mean Creek.[5] In July, the band played at Lollapalooza, their first music festival.[6]

Potty Mouth's second album, SNAFU, was released on March 1, 2019, preceded by two singles: "22" in January and "Starry Eyes" in February.[7][8] The album received significant praise from the critics. Pitchfork's Nina Corcoran awarded the album a 7.2 rating and labelled it, "an arena-sized follow up that sounds like a major-label effort without all the compromises." [9] Writing for i-D, Nick Fulton called it "a career-defining moment for the Massachusetts band."[10]

Style

Einbinder and Weems have expressed disapproval of the labeling of the band as riot grrrl. Einbinder stated that "Slapping the riot grrrl label on us just because we happen to be women playing a type of music that happens to be reminiscent of another era in time seems like a lazy conflation."[1] Weems speculated that the association may have been due to the low fidelity of their early recordings.[11]

In a Pitchfork review of Hell Bent, Jenn Pelly described Weems's vocals as a "Liz Phair-style monotone", delivering "deceptively simple lyrics".[3] Writing for the Toronto Star, Ben Rayner wrote that Weems "sounds like she's perpetually rolling her eyes at everything and everyone in scorn".[12] Jenn Pelly and Liz Pelly also compare the band's sound to pop-punk and post-punk with vestiges of surf music.[1][3]

Members

Current members

  • Abby Weems – lead vocals, guitar (2011–present)
  • Ally Einbinder – bass (2011–present)
  • Victoria Mandanas – drums, backing vocals (2011–present)

Current touring musicians

  • Kate Meizner – lead guitar, backing vocals (2014–present)

Former members

  • Phoebe Harris – lead guitar, backing vocals, occasional lead vocals (2011–2014)
  • Ali Donohue – lead guitar, backing vocals (2014)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays
  • Sun Damage (2012)
  • Potty Mouth (2015)

Singles
  • "The Spins" (2013)
  • "Black and Studs" (2013)
  • "Damage" (2013)
  • "Cherry Picking" (2015)
  • "Smash Hit" (2016)
  • "22" (2019)
  • "Starry Eyes" (2019)
  • "Favorite Food" (2019)*

Live releases
  • The Wild Honeypie Buzzsession (single) (2019)†

Notes

* Non-album single
† Non-album single (single's title is not the title of a featured song)

References
  1. Pelly, Liz (June 18, 2013). "Band To Watch: Potty Mouth". Stereogum. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  2. Einbinder, Ally (February 28, 2013). "Potty Mouth: 'It Is Not Our Job to Teach the Rest of the World How to Not Be Assholes'" (Interview). Interviewed by Elliot Sharp. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  3. Pelly, Jenn (September 25, 2013). "Potty Mouth: Hell Bent". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  4. Ruiz, Matthew Ismael (October 20, 2015). "The New, The Hyped, The Totally Random: Every Band We Saw at CMJ 2015". Flavorwire. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  5. Marotta, Michael (April 6, 2016). "Former Mean Creek guitarist Aurore Ounjian to join Potty Mouth on Beach Slang tour". Vanyaland. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  6. Kot, Greg (July 31, 2016). "Lolla's 4-day marathon: At 25, a festival defined, for better or worse, by the youth brigade". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  7. "Potty Mouth Announce Sophomore Album SNAFU and First Single "22"". Ventsmagazine.com. 10 January 2019. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  8. "Potty Mouth announce new album 'SNAFU' with video for 'Starry Eyes'". Diymag.com. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  9. "Potty Mouth: SNAFU". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2019-10-15.
  10. Fulton, Nick (2019-03-12). "the return of potty mouth's riotous pop-punk". i-D.
  11. Einbinder, Ally; Weems, Abby (November 30, 2015). "premiere: potty mouth's 'creeper weed' video is a vhs teen dream" (Interview). Interviewed by Emily Manning. i-D. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
  12. Rayner, Ben (November 1, 2015). "The dream of the '90s is alive in Potty Mouth". Toronto Star. Retrieved February 24, 2016.
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