Inspired by musical icons who came before them, from Poly Styrene to Joan Jett and Kim Gordon, and surfing a wave of appreciation for seasoned feminist punks after the success of last year’s BBC drama Riot Women, south Wales sextet The NaNaz aren’t a work of fiction – they’re the real deal. Three of the band spoke to Emma Way.
What does it mean to embrace your inner punk?
Anne-Marie Bollen [bass]: As an adolescent, I always felt like I wanted to express myself, feel part of something, be creative, vent frustration, and even rage at some things that were going on in life, and I found in punk, people that were definitely demonstrating a way of doing that with total style and massive charisma. I went to see the UK Subs last week – Charlie Harper, the frontman, is 82 and still incredibly cool. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do that when I’m 20 years older than now.
Who are some of your favourite punk icons?
Anne-Marie: We all absolutely love Poly Styrene from X-Ray Spex – we’ve covered one of their songs, Germfree Adolescence. Lots of us like The Raincoats and The Slits. We adore Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, Blondie, all those well-known people.
Jade Ball [drums]: Even the likes of Cyndi Lauper, as well – even though she was pop, she still had that punky edge in the way she dressed and how outspoken she was.
Claire Symons [guitar]: I’m loving a lot of modern stuff as well, like Soft Play and Mudrat, at the moment.
There’s a range of ages between you – Jade’s 30 and the rest of you are between your fifties and sixties – so how did you meet?
Anne-Marie: We practice at a space in Newport. The owner, Julian, gave me Jade’s number, and that’s how we met.
Claire: There’s a little community around The Cab in Newport which is absolutely amazing. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of a barrier or age limit. If you go to one of their days on a Saturday where they have stalls, there’s kids there, 16 all the way up to us, and everyone in that community has been super supportive.
Do you get tired of the Riot Women comparison?
Claire: We’ve been lucky really with the timings! We’d already been doing the workshops [named Nana Punk, and where the NaNaz started] and all this was underway before Riot Women even came out. So it didn’t influence us to start the band. Having the show come out in various countries around the world, at the point we’ve been releasing and doing interviews – that’s been useful. You can’t buy that. People have had a reference for understanding what we’re doing because they’ve seen it in a TV programme.
Anne-Marie: We’re riding the wave of that, I think – we were already happening, because the Nana Punk project happened before us, and then in March last year we formed the NaNaz. So when Riot Women came out, a few people messaged us and said, “This is old news – you’re already really doing this!” We think [the show’s creator] Sally Wainwright’s a phenomenal writer – we’ve all been fans of her work previously, and really enjoyed the series. The scenes that were coming up week after week – invisibility, reckless behaviour, addiction, dependency, caring, all the sorts of things life can throw at people – resonates with us. And of course people can relate to those issues globally. I think there’s a definite need for representation of this age range of women. It is absolutely great to be able to speak your mind, as we’re doing, but it’s also an age I don’t think I was prepared for, in that it’s incredibly complicated.
Your songs touch on pension inequality, menopause, affordable care home fees. How do you choose your subject matter?
Claire: When we did a workshop on lyrics, we started it by writing a list on the board of things that made us cross. That’s the oldest technique for writing, isn’t it, that you write about what you know.
Anne-Marie: Our new songs are on absolutely crap chatup lines from older men to women my age, and also about ADHD symptoms brought on or exacerbated by the perimenopause. They’re things that are happening to us.
The NaNaz play The Weekend Rumble, Great House Farm, Usk (Fri 3 July. Info: here); Caerleon Festival Big Weekend, Hanbury Quay, Caerleon (Sun 12 July. Info: here); Green Gathering, Piercefield Park, Chepstow (Sat 1 + Sun 2 Aug. Info: here).
Info: Instagram
words EMMA WAY
