A conversation with Santa Cruz’s Sluttony
Sluttony made it out of the college scene. After a relocation to Los Angeles, they are building up to the release of their very first album. How did the four UC Santa Cruz grads pull it off?
I had the privilege of sitting down with Sluttony in the Aviary green room during their tour in October to discuss their past, present and future as a band before their set.
Briefly, could you guys give me a history of the band: how you guys got together, how you met, how you started playing?
Nina Maravic (guitar): “So, me, Hannah and Sabine met literally on day one of freshman year of college at UC Santa Cruz. Me and Hannah were roommates in the dorms, and Sabine lived down the hall.
We kind of became friends instantly and then having known each other at that point, we were just like jamming together in the dorms during freshman year. COVID started, you know, we all went home for COVID. Long story short, after we got back we were like, let’s start a band.
Things were opening up again, and people were wanting to party again and we were like, let’s start a band and start playing music together because we all realized we liked the same kind of music.”
For any of our readers who are not in the scene but are still interested in your music, how would you go about describing it to someone who just has no idea what you guys are about?
Hannah Goodwin (vocals): “I think that when you see the name “Sluttony” and you see the images of us on Instagram, you automatically assume that we’re a riot grrrl band, which a lot of people frame us as initially when they get that first impression.
Then when you attend our live shows and you get to know us as a band you start to realize that a lot of what we create, especially now, is a lot different than what we started with in our discography and just all of our new music we’ve made a mix of genres with ourselves. It’s rock, some alternatives, some garage songs. No two songs are the same so it’s hard to describe the exact genre you get when viewing our music for the first time.”
Caroline Margolis (bass): “Yeah, you’re going to be hearing a four-piece rock band, but I think we have a fun twist?”
I know since you guys started in Santa Cruz, what was it like coming up in that scene?
Sabine Hovnanian (drums): “Our band growing up in Santa Cruz is very different from what we’ve come to know now living in LA. I think what we often say is Santa Cruz is one whole big scene and everyone knows each other, and everyone has played together before.
I feel like we have a very different perspective of that now, living in a bigger city and seeing more micro-scenes pop up. But in Santa Cruz, there’s definitely a very big sense of community and I think a lot of friendship overall and a lot of common interests with people. Community is a big word.”
Nina: “I would say it’s a really great thing, going to school there and playing shows there because you play a show, and then you look at the front row and there’s people that are in your classes and you’re like ‘Wait, I know you.’
It has this sense of familiarity and that is hard to recreate in a city like Los Angeles. One thing I will say is that for us, growing up as a band in Santa Cruz has been very gradual. We went from playing packed house shows to then upgrading to venues and then playing out of town, at bigger venues. It felt very natural and gradual. We’ve had some time to adjust to how all of that was moving.”
Caroline: “I think the one thing I want to give Santa Cruz a lot of credit for is how much they embrace the local scene. Everyone is so excited about all the local bands and there’s very devoted fans who see every single show who bring the best energy every night that you play.”
Obviously, you are an all-girl band. In San Luis Obispo, the scene is still very male-dominated. I was wondering what your experience has been and if you experienced anything like that in Santa Cruz.
Nina: “It can be a little yeah, bro-y sometimes.”
Hannah: “But it’s not like in your face. It’s these small little things that we’ve picked up on. I love when people are like, ‘Oh, you guys are actually pretty good for a girl band.’”
Nina: “It’s minor stuff like that.”
Hannah: “Or when we have an all-male lineup and then we’re the only femme presenting people, the sound guy will talk to all the guys and discuss the stage plot with them and won’t acknowledge that we’re also on the bill.”
Nina: “Or they’ll think we’re the girlfriends.”
Sabine: “Also, people like assuming that because we’re an all-girl band we’re trying to capitalize on that and our identity is the fact that we’re an all-girl band but we’re just trying to play music.”
Caroline: “Yeah, it’s important. But we’re not selling ourselves on the basis of being women which some people think we are and for some reason, people are put off by that which I don’t really understand. It’s weird, but thank God we have each other. Having each other makes it manageable. I just feel like with a name like Sluttony and just being women on stage together is enough of a statement.”
Tell me about your relocation to LA, how was that for you guys as a band and have you felt anything change coming out of Santa Cruz?
Nina: “We’ve gotten a lot closer. I think we all agree. We all graduated, and I feel like in Santa Cruz it’s just so easy, you’re in school and have other stuff. But I think since we’ve moved to LA, that’s around the time that we started the process of writing our debut album. Because of that, I think we’ve gotten a lot closer because we’ve had to relearn how to exist in this new scene.
We were so comfortable in Santa Cruz, we had already done everything that there is to be done as a musician in Santa Cruz, so then moving here was like, okay, we just have to figure it out.”
Sabine: “We’ve been able to establish our lives separately from Sluttony too, which I think has helped us kind of feel more comfortable as well and get our own footing in our own personal lives but in the band as well.”
Hannah: “It’s nice being in a bigger city, for sure. I think with Santa Cruz, we loved it for college and we loved the community that was there because it was so tight-knit and everyone was close with each other. But then I think at that point, we were just ready for something bigger and to make those new connections and really level up.”
This isn’t your first time playing in San Luis Obispo…
Caroline: “Third time but the first time playing at this venue. We’ve been dying to play here for a long time.”
I saw that you guys played at Shabang, which is very quintessential San Luis Obispo. What was your experience playing that?
Nina: “Well, first, we have to tell you how we got there. There was this Battle of the Bands thing that was being held at five of the college towns in California and we were able to win the Santa Cruz one, which was amazing in itself.
We had never played a festival before, so it was kind of just insane being there with these bigger artists that we listen to, and we get to be in the backstage area hanging out with them. We met LA Witch, which we’ve been fans of for a while and we’re just kind of like, hanging out with them in the artist area. I think it was a great first like ‘Oh, this is what it could be.’”
Hannah: “And the sound was amazing. We were in an early slot, and we were fine with that, and we just got to spend the day there and have a good time.”
Caroline: “And they treated us really well. Yeah, like what you said it was a really great festival experience for us, being so new to that.”
Nina: “Yeah, I was like, okay, we’re going to go, get bigger and then come back in a couple of years and play like actually.”
Do you feel like this experience gave you a sense of motivation?
Hannah: “We were just talking about that earlier … I feel like once we did Battle of the Bands and Shabang everything just started opening up for us, and we’re still riding that same wave of momentum.”
Caroline: “We were a little down on ourselves leading up to Battle of the Bands and we worked our asses off preparing for that. I feel like that was the first time where we all put our heads together and were like, ‘Let’s try our best.’ We’re going to walk off that stage no matter what happens and be happy with ourselves and proud because we tried our best and we put so much work into that three-song set. I feel like that kind of ignited the fire of our work ethic as a team.”
I want to pivot a little bit and talk about your new album because I know that you said you guys are working on it. I wanted to know a little bit about the songwriting process and the recording process. How are you guys doing with that?
Hannah: “We’re still in the works with it. We’re on the on the tail end of the album, kind of writing and recording in tandem, and we work with Jim Ward, who’s our producer, and he’s located in Santa Cruz.
So we left Santa Cruz, but in reality, we haven’t really left Santa Cruz just yet because we’ve been there anywhere from once a month to three times a month. We’ve been going back and forth writing, recording, writing, recording with Jim Ward. And just like driving up to Tom Cruise, coming back down for the weekend. We’ve been doing it in a slightly chaotic way.”
Nina: “We’re so excited to have it released. I think we’ve been sitting on this for such a long time, and it’s been evolving throughout this time and we’re just so excited to release it. I think we’re all very proud of what we’ve done.”
Caroline: “Also for the songwriting process, I think every single song — and there will be 10 songs — has started differently and was put together in a different way. We don’t have a formula for how we write songs at all. It’s a chaotic thing, but I think that makes them magical, and they all have their own character.”
Nina: “You listen to this album, and you can hear influences from all four of us. I feel like this album is equally everyone’s if that makes sense … You can tell who initially started writing which song because of the instrument that plays the most important role in that song.”
Hannah: “It’s like we’re having a baby together.”
Would you say that there’s anything driving the inspiration for the songs in the album?
Hannah: “What I love is that I feel like when we wrote each of the songs, one part especially would stand out to us like a guitar riff or a bassline or a drum pattern or lyrics. I think that’s really been like a defining factor in each of the songs that we’ve written were just like, “Oh, yeah, I really love what you’re doing there, let’s create a whole thing around it.”
Caroline: “Usually, we kind of get a little bit of the instrumental going first and then it’s like, OK, what’s the feeling of this song? What should it be about? We have those conversations on a song-by-song basis. I think now that we’re done with all the songs, we’re seeing some through lines and some last common themes, but that wasn’t what we set out to do.”
Nina: “A lot of times we like to give Hannah a journal entry of what we’re feeling.”
Hannah: “Sometimes I have very set ideas for what the song should be. But then a lot of the times I’ll be like, ‘What do you guys think this should be?’ And then a lot of the time they’ll lay those feelings out for me … then I kind of combine everyone’s thoughts into my own personal thoughts into the lyrics. It kind of encapsulates my own feelings, but also it can be applied to all of us.”
Have there been any serious changes to your writing process or the music that is coming out of that process in this new era with the new album?
Nina: “We’ve matured a lot as musicians … I think we started figuring out who we are as individual musicians. Figuring out our own styles, I think that’s been the biggest change because it has made our work so much easier, and we have just been working with each other for so long. We’ve learned how to work with each other and to write with each other and how to create together.”
Caroline: “None of us were songwriters before we started doing this, and so that was a challenge in and of itself, you can certainly hear that on the album. I think we get more intentional as the album matures. Like Hannah said, we were recording and writing at the same time, so we started to understand the studio environment. We’re writing in the studio so, now we’re writing for the studio whereas before we wrote for live [shows] and then translating that in the studio which is weird. It’s just been a huge learning curve. We had no idea what this album was going to turn into and I could not be more pleased and surprised.”
I assume that you guys want to go on an album release tour. What are your hopes?
Nina: “There’s things in the works that I’m not sure we can discuss. But we’ll definitely be going on a tour in spring. We did a little tour this past spring. It was very DIY, we booked it ourselves … but we definitely have bigger plans for this upcoming spring. We’re excited to just play these songs live for audiences that have never seen us. We have so many people that listen to our music that are outside of California and they’re like, when are you guys coming?”
Leading into that, what makes you guys feel passionate about making music, and how has that changed the longer that you’ve been a band?
Caroline: “I think we all on an individual level have always felt passionate about music and playing music, and then we’ve all talked about our own respective childhoods and our relationships to music and stuff. But I don’t know, at least for me, it’s them. I want to play music, but I want to do it with them. I don’t really want to do it with anyone else. The longer we’ve been doing this together, I mean, my first day with them, I auditioned to be in the band, and it just felt like lightning in a bottle and that has never gone away. The longer we’ve been doing this, the more I believe in us.”
Hannah: “It’s just so fun to perform. I’ve always been a performer. I grew up in theater and like, this is another version of theater for me. That’s what really drives me, that I still get to perform.”
Caroline: “I’ve always just wanted to play bass in a band of all women. Now It’s happening.”
