Interview with Chris Eck of Shaved Women

 Shaved Women are a band of oiks from middle America currently kicking up a fuss with their stinging strain of hardcore. Their sound anchors itself to a whole host of footholds. The Black Flag vein of influence props up the overiding guitar cuts, which nod every now and then to the stylistic indulgence of noise rock, whilst the dry cured rasps and grumbles of their frontman Ben pool together Jack Kelly's sense of urgency with Judd from Sex Vid's overbearing lack of subtlty. The following is an interview we did with their guitarist Chris Eck.

Can you tell us a little bit about how Shaved Women came about?

Shaved Women started in the late summer of 09. It started with John (bass), Ben (vocals), our previous drummer Erik, and myself (guitar). The four of us were all looking to do something different. I think our original idea was something along the lines of mixing Swans and Black Flag, at least those are the bands I remember Erik and I mentioning when we were putting things together. Erik and I also used to switch off playing guitar and drums, which was a good idea at first until it was apparent that we were not really drummers. Last summer, our friend Tom replaced Erik on drums, which is the lineup we have now.

With your name being a reference to Crass, would it be fair to say that they influenced you a great deal?

Actually, our band name isn’t a reference to Crass. At least, not on purpose. The name was something we agreed on very early on and I thought of it as a reference to Nazi occupied France; when French women were suspected of helping the Nazis, they would have their heads shaved and would be taken through the town for people to yell insults and throw things at them. We really didn’t think about the Crass reference until other people mentioned it to us, since none of us, besides Ben, listen to Crass. As far as my musical inspirations, I would say late-era Black Flag, Drunks With Guns, and The Jesus Lizard are the big three. We all have pretty varied tastes too, which definitely keeps things fresh and interesting.

What was it like to record your self titled release?

We recorded with Jason Hutto here in St. Louis, who Ben had recorded with in another band and knew Jason would be great for Shaved Women to record with. None of us are really into the whole blown out, feedback coated recordings that seem to be popular now, so there was definitely a conscious effort to avoid that at all cost. Jason definitely got the best out of us and got our sound to come across perfectly on the record.


Personally I am always interested to know what other people listen to, so could you give us an insight into some of your favourite bands?

Some all time favorites of mine would be Black Flag, The Jesus Lizard, Siege, No Comment. Current favorites include Double Negative, Wiccans, Low Threat Profile, Pollution.

What does the future hold for Shaved Women, any plans to tour or get back in the studio?

Our immediate plans are to record again in late spring, we’ll probably have another six songs or so to record. No tours this summer but we do plan on playing out of town on weekends as much as possible. We have a live tape which will be coming out in the near future on Sacred Tapes.

Check Shaved Women out on last.fm here

- Josh