by Jessica Nguyen
Grass Widow is a three piece band from San Francisco, forming in 2007. Bassist Hannah Lew spoke with That Mag, now that the band has a bit of downtime before their East Coast tour kicks off in Brooklyn this November. Lew met the other two members of Grass Widow (Raven Mahon on guitar and Lillian Maring on drums, both on vocals) while on tour with other bands. “Raven and I have been playing music together in several different incantations over the past decade, including a band called Shitstorm with Frankie Rose,” says Lew. “I met Lilly while on tour with another band I was with. I asked her to play fill in drums for the band Shitstorm when our drummer decided to move to NY. Then the three of us just jammed this one day and realized we could harmonize together. We decided to keep it going and start a new band.”
Grass Widow’s newest album, Internal Logic, debuted in May. Two years ago, the girls started their own record label, HLR. Lew has also written and directed a lot of Grass Widow’s music videos.
Some of Lew’s favorite venues to play are “ Todd P venues in NY. They are always fun.” Her favorite songs to play live right now are “Spock on Muni” and “Goldilocks Zone”. But, before the band starts performing live again, their downtime will be taken over by a few side projects. They are “doing a live DJed score for some silent films on October 9th at the Public Works in San Francisco. That’s going to be really cool.”
Along with Grass Widow’s musical talents, they also love the screen. Last February, they appeared on IFC’s Portlandia.
This indie-rock band with killer harmonies and legitimate soul will be playing Philly on Nov 12th. Check your calendar and head over to the Barbary. Maybe you have seen them before, though. The girls have played at West Philly’s Danger Danger. If clubs and smaller venues haven’t helped the world recognize Grass Widow, they recently recorded for Daytrotter– a website that brings you the best of indie music and bands you may not have discovered before, recorded live in Illinois at the Daytrotter studios.
“The only time that made sense to do it was at 10 am after we had played a show the night before and driven an hour or so,” Lew explains of the Daytrotter experience. “We were kind of cracked out, but we rolled with it. Those guys are really cool.”
Last year, Grass Widow was busy with a tour in Europe. I asked Lew how the fans and shows are different over there as compared to the United States. “We covered a lot of ground over there and there was a wide range of different kinds of scenes. We booked the tour ourselves so it was mostly people in our larger community,” she says. “We got to play in some really cool elaborate spots, which we could never have here. It still blows my mind anyone has heard of us so far away! We would love to go over seas again – but for now we are taking it easy.”
At least taking it easy isn’t too hard for these girls. Grass Widow has no real lead singer- they all share that duty. These women know how to play their instruments so well, it’s like they just get up on stage or hit “record” at the studio and go with the flow. They bounce off one another so easily and it’s apparent in their songs. They truly get along and have a good time with their music. This band knows how to enjoy the music- the way it should be.
