7 Year Bitch Endure Adversity And Enjoy The Simple Pleasures
Elizabeth Davis is excited
about touring with the support
of a major label, but she knows
better than to assume that the
ride will last forever.
"I'm very excited
actually, because we're taking a
bus, as opposed to our little tiny
van," says Davis, bassist for 7
Year Bitch, the Seattle-based quartet whose third album, GATO NEGRO,
marks their debut on Atlantic. "We're bringing a badminton set, lawn chairs, a
little kiddie pool, a hibachi . It might be our last bus tour, so we're going to
make it good."
7 Year Bitch will bring their music — and perhaps their hibachi and lawn
chairs — to Nautica Stage Friday, July 12, opening for Everclear.
If the new album is all that different from its predecessors, the
difference has more to do with the band's personal and creative growth than any
influences from a major label. Davis says she's pleasantly surprised at how
different GATO NEGRO is from the band's 1993 debut, SICK 'EM, and the
followup a year later, VIVA ZAPATA. The band has successfully walked the
tightrope of increasing its degree of sophistication without growing too slick in
the process, she says.
"SICK 'EM was really heavy, and really influenced by metal," Davis
explains. "Then with VIVA ZAPATA, I think we started doing more
streamlining and more weird rhythms. GATO NEGRO continues that. It's more
polished, but I think we're still a really raw band. We put more time into
thinking about how we can make a song rhythmically."
The raw, uncontrolled rage may have been replaced by more subtle and
complex emotions, but if some of the anger of the earlier work still lingers on
the dozen tracks on GATO NEGRO, it's for good reason. The quartet has
endured enough tragedy in recent years to still feel edgy and disillusioned.
Stefanie Sargent, the band's original guitarist, died of a heroin overdose
in 1992, sending the band into disarray until Roisin Dunne stepped in to replace
her. VIVA ZAPATA was inspired by the rape and murder in 1993 of Mia
Zapata, lead singer of the Gits and longtime friend of 7YB. Less close to home,
but just as affronting to the band's stance on violence against women and
women's rights in general, last year's "not guilty" verdict in the O.J. Simpson
murder trial sent the foursome into a collective funk during the recording of
GATO NEGRO. Earlier this year, Davis told the media that the decision made
her "physically ill."
Despite all of this negative karma, the title GATO NEGRO ("Black Cat"
in Spanish) is more of a tip of the hat to one of Davis' personal vices than a
superstitious reference to bad luck.
"There's this cheap wine that I buy called Gato Negro, and I looked at
the label one day and thought, That's a cool combination of words. I just liked
the way it sounded. Then when I brought it up with the band, everyone thought
of different reasons why they liked it. It has a little bit to do with bad luck, but
with bad luck of the past and not bad luck of the future."
The album's liner notes credit Davis as the band's composer and vocalist
Selene Vigil as the lyricist, but the songwriting process is often not so
cut-and-dried.
"Selene completely does her own thing," Davis explains. "She writes her
own lyrics, she writes her own vocal lines. As far as the songwriting is
concerned, I've started playing some other instruments, so now I think about
songs as a whole rather than just bass lines. Fortunately, that's really cool with
the band. Everyone puts their own style into it. The skeleton and some of the
meat of the song is coming from me, but other people are garnishing it . What I
think it's going to sound like and how it turns out are usually quite different.
But that's OK, because we're a band."
Most of the themes and subject matter come directly from Vigil's
personal experience. While Davis admires the courage of this philosophy, her
own is somewhat more whimsical.
"It's a lot easier to sing about someone else's life, and something outside
of yourself, than it is to lay your own personal stuff on the line," says Davis.
"On this new record, Selene definitely sings about some very, very personal
stuff. She's usually really sad when she writes, and I can't write music unless
I'm happy. Usually, it's because I've gone to see some really great band play,
and I'm in a really good mood, but I'm too drunk to drive. So I go over to our
practice space, and that's where the majority of our songs are written."
The bumpier part of the ride may be behind 7 Year Bitch, but beyond
the badminton set, the lawn chairs, the kiddie pool and the hibachi — and the
tour that goes along with those — there is no long-term plan to speak of, says
Davis.
"I think we frustrate the hell out of our label and our manager, because
we can't seem to come up with a long-term plan," she says. "We just want to
keep touring as much as possible."
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