If You Wanted Me To

Photographs and Interview by Michelle Lobianco

New York City band Razor Braids discuss their origin story, favorite venues, and their new album, “I Could Cry Now If You Wanted Me To”.

Brooklyn, USA

How was Razor Braids formed and who are members?

HOLLYE: In 2017, I started the band with former drummer Kathryn Turney. By 2019, after going through a traumatic head injury that took me out of the game for a while and moving through many band members, our current lineup was solidified. Razor Braids is Hollye Bynum (lead vocals and bass), Jilly Karande (rhythm guitar and vocals), Janie Peacock (lead guitar and vocals), and Hannah Nichols (drums and vocals). I met Janie through a mutual friend and met Jilly in an acting class at Stella Adler. They both joined in the spring of 2019. That summer we played Punk Island where we all met Hannah (aka we watched her play and became obsessed with her). The rest….is history!

Tell us a little on the origin of the band name and meaning.

HOLLYE: I always knew that when I started this particular group, I wanted it to be a group of badass women. The songs I wanted to write would be incredibly personal and it didn’t feel right to share the experiences that I’d gone through or say “FUCK THE PATRIARCHY” alongside a group of dudes. When coming up with names, Kathryn and I knew we wanted something that encapsulated all sides of us as women, captured our energy, and would stick in a person’s mind when they heard it. We started playing around with words that represented duality. We went through quite a few silly ones, but finally landed on Razor Braids.

How long has the band been playing? Favorite venue or show?

HOLLYE: We have been playing together since October 2019. My favorite show… hmmm. This is tough because most recently we’ve been having such a blast at all our shows. I have to say our first venue show back after Covid at The Broadway was top. The energy that I felt from the crowd, the way I felt about being back onstage and just how present everyone in that room was made it a stand-out for me. Everyone was so happy to be back after a really fucking hard time. It was so pure and so lovely.

JANIE: I love TV Eye, because the layout and environment is perfect for the preparation of a show backstage and the chaotic aftermath. One of my favorites of our shows was our “Don’t Stop!” single release on 11/29 at TV Eye, where we played with Catcher and Blood. It was our most high energy set yet, with Jilly jumping around on stage, Hollye moshing through the crowd, Hannah biting a sex doll and popping it, and myself splitting my finger wide open on my guitar strings. We had a blast hanging out with everyone after the show and making boys try on our screen printed Razor Braids underwear.

JILLY: It’s hard to choose just one but as Hollye said, we had just such a blast playing The Broadway earlier in the summer - it was our first indoor NYC show since early 2020 and the energy was just so positive and supportive.

HANNAH: My favorite venue is T.V. Eye, and one of my favorite shows we’ve played was Jonathon Toubin’s Haunted Hop. We did a Spice Girl’s cover set where we reworked their music to make it work for a four piece rock band, and give it a lil Razor Braids twist. Since there are only four of us, we had to use a blow up doll for Baby Spice, and then later our friend Tyler from TVOD made a surprise appearance as the real Baby Spice.

Tell us about the new album - What is it inspired by? What's exciting about it?

HOLLYE: Oof! A lot went into this one. I felt like I had been waiting my whole life to find an outlet where I could truly be myself and connect with others through expressing some of the really tough stuff that had happened to me. Then RB came along, and we got to write this record. “I Could Cry Right Now If You Wanted Me To”, goes deep and touches on some really heavy topics: devastating heartbreak, sexual assault, the want and need to feel accepted, emotional and physical abuse. But the record also highlights the growth and strength that happens in the aftermath of those things: feeling power and community within female friendships, realizing that you’re a lot tougher than those shitty things that happened to you and that they didn’t break you like you might have thought they would’ve. The record is complex and layered just like the human experience. There is a song for every mood!

I am excited to finally share this part of us with the world and for what’s to come. We’ve basically already written the material for album #2, so it’s exciting to know that this is only the beginning. Buckle up world!

JANIE: For me, this album is about growth and vulnerability. The whole experience of writing these songs, playing them live, perfecting and recording them, and then working to get it all out to the world has taught me so much about myself and forced me to grow in many ways. I am not just a better musician now than I was when we first started working on this record; I am a better friend to myself and to others.

JILLY: When I listen back to it, I get struck by how this is an album that in so many ways is about absences - the absence of a person, the absence of feeling or a kind of numbness, the absence of control. And within these songs I feel like we’re trying to figure out how to confront that emptiness, how to build yourself back up in the face of these absences. Creating it was such a labor of love through a difficult time for all of us and I’m just so excited that other people finally get to hear it. We’ve been playing some of these songs for years and it’s kind of surreal that they’re going to finally be out in the world.

HANNAH: For me, this album was about growing closer as a band through hard times and basically becoming sisters during COVID and the recording process of the album.

Razor Braids is known for very powerful songs and performances. What would you say are the most compelling and personal tracks on this new record.

HOLLYE: The track “42” is incredibly personal, self empowering, and even spiritual to me. It is about my experience being romantically involved with someone for the better part of my twenties. It was a toxic, twisted thing that took a lot for me to be able to walk away from. I sat down one day to write and it just poured out of me. It was incredibly emotional to record as well. I felt like I had released this heavy, heavy weight and I felt like I could finally breathe. That’s what the song is about as well. Feeling so broken in something that you can’t see clearly and you can’t fix it. The only way to come back to yourself is finding strength, even in the most difficult times, and walking away. I think this song really captures that, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, always.

JANIE: “42” feels like our most powerful song, something that has been reflected from Hollye’s inception of the song to the process of us recording it and each time we perform it live. There is no other feeling like when we are each fully present and in our bodies while performing this song. I get goosebumps even when we just play it in our practice space, and I have definitely cried a few times while playing it. The lyrics Hollye has written will make you feel less alone at your lowest points-- it’s a reminder of strength and the ability to overcome. We recorded this album DIY, and right when I was about to record my guitar part for this song, at like 12:30am after ten hours of recording, I electrocuted myself pretty badly on the poorly laid-out equipment. I was in shock, but then somehow did the whole part in one take. It felt like something else had taken control of my body and my guitar, because I had never played the song that well before. That was one of those magical, serendipitous moments where you just know you’re in the right place with the right people (minus the guy who recorded us) and are fulfilling some CRAZY PROPHECY IDK I JUST WATCHED TWILIGHT.

JILLY: 42 is such a powerhouse of a song and was a really special (and just a bit emotionally exhausting) experience to record - I think we have all developed an emotional connection to playing that one. It feels so cathartic to me.

HANNAH: Sharpe Ave and Not Dead, Not Yet are my personal favorites. I love the dynamic drum parts and fuzzy guitars.

What is the most fun song to play?

HOLLYE: Not Dead, Not Yet!

JANIE: Not Dead, Not Yet no matter what ALWAYS ends in chaos. The performance of that song is just as big a part of it as the music itself.

JILLY: It’s gotta be Not Dead, Not Yet. Or Sharpe Ave also always goes nuts - there’s this one really heavy drop that is just so fun to jam out on.

HANNAH: Not Dead, Not Yet!

What's next for Razor Braids?

HOLLYE: We have a couple of really exciting local shows coming up in 2022 as well as a tour in the spring - east coast, the dirty south, SXSW and the midwest. Hoping for the west coast in either the summer or fall! Another album…we ain’t stoppin’! Full steam ahead.

JANIE: Zines, screen printed thongs, physical releases of our new album! MAKING NEW FRIENDS ALL OVER THE WORLD!

JILLY: Getting our songs out to the rest of the country on tour and recording all the exciting stuff we’ve been working on since last year.