Five high school pals form a band, release an EP and share the stage with the likes of Wilco, The Drones and The Dirty Three. But as Bridezilla tell A.H. CAYLEY, their meteoric rise has been surprising to say the least.

For one of the country's most talked about young bands, Bridezilla – or at least, the three members I speak to today – are surprisingly down to earth. We sit together in the trendy Pocket Bar in Surry Hills, Sydney, where lead singer Holiday Carmen-Sparks, saxophonist Millie Hall and drummer Josh Bush have been giving interviews for hours and will continue doing so after I leave, sipping drinks and speaking over equally trendy background music. Transcription will be a nightmare. They will later modestly tweet about how tiresome it was to talk about themselves for so long, but I'm not shown any hint of weariness.

The trio are warm, very polite and incredibly forthcoming. They speak over each other and cut each other off with the ease and lack of apology only acceptable among true friends. Hall speaks calmly, Bush speaks rarely and Carmen-Sparks speaks the most. It seems that both on and off the stage, she is the natural frontwoman of the group. All are dressed causally, Carmen-Sparks with an orange scarf around her neck and the welts of her laddered black stockings and their suspender clips clearly visible throughout. I can't tell if it's for my benefit, or if she's even aware of it at all. I suspect she is. I also suspect it's most likely that she just doesn't give a fuck. Fair enough.

Bridezilla are a band that have come a long way in a very short time. Since forming in 2005 during high school, they’ve released an acclaimed EP; supported big name local and international bands including Wilco, The Drones and Cold War Kids; played at Australia’s inaugural ATP, curated by Nick Cave; played at ATP in New York, curated by the Flaming Lips; and recorded a debut album, the aptly titled The First Dance. Together, they have already seen the world outside of this country, and have also seen a considerable backlash within it, many having deemed their success to be less about talent and more about connections (Carmen-Sparks is the daughter of actor/singer Loene Carmen). Certainly a harsh appraisal, but honestly, who'd have ever guessed a group of Newtown High School of the Performing Arts students could go that far in only four trips around the sun?

Not them. “We feel undeserving a lot of the time, when we get these great things. We're like, ‘Oh, why?’” admits Carmen-Sparks. “It's like we've got to constantly catch up with what we're doing. It's like, ‘OK, this is what stage we're at now. Just deal with it.’”

They seem to be dealing rather well. Their debut is a sprawling blend of styles and contradictions: soft, delicate rock tunes meld with jazz and folk twists. Melodies are enhanced by intertwining saxophone and violin, and are further heightened by Carmen-Sparks' curiously fragile-yet-powerful voice. Mostly produced by Kramer (Ween, Butthole Surfers), on first, second, third listen, it's a total bore. This is exactly why it's unfortunate that music critics get so little time in which to form an opinion of a release, as reflected in some of The First Dance's early press. This is an album that needs time to steep. Soon, the intricacies of the work start to shine through: little flourishes here and there, previously missed lyrics suddenly heard and appreciated. The First Dance is actually a thing of complex beauty and incredible talent. It seems much more mature than the EP, both musically and in terms of lyrical content, and as a group, Bridezilla seem more focussed on instrumentation as a whole than the more pop-styled melodies of their first release.

“When we were writing the album,” says Hall, “basically Holly would just bring in a song, or I would bring in a song, and we would just basically improvise until we got something that would be suitable to our ears. I guess that because we've been working like that together for so many years it's going to end up becoming quite mature.”

“On the EP we didn't have any Millie songs,” offers Carmen-Sparks, “so learning to write with Millie's songs is a different process as well. She has completely different guitar playing, and also vocally – I'm having to work off something else.”

“It's great,” Hall interjects. “I'll give Holly a vocal melody to work with, and Holly will write the lyrics. We often try to be really mathematical about our music. We'll have patterns and things like that, and so I think it kinds of links in with what Holly's doing with the vocals in some of the songs.”

“We got our first show, wrote a song for that show, and from then on it's just been like a ball, it's just rolled down that hill. It's out of our hands.”

Carmen-Sparks says the songs on The First Dance feel like a natural progression from those on the EP. “I think that's just how we've evolved,” she suggests. “Things have become more complex but also more concise, I think. Honing in on what we want, rather than just a shambles … We were quite young when we did that EP. I guess as you change as a person your musical style will probably change as well.”

The issue of age is one that Bridezilla have to constantly face. Their younger years are often a focus of interviews, and – even with the best intentions – I can't avoid mentioning it. It must get annoyingly patronising?

“The only thing is, you see yourself staying at a certain age for a couple of years [in the media],” states Bush. “You're just like, ‘What's going on?’ They like to kind of say that we're younger than we are.”

“I think they like to romanticise it,” adds Carmen-Sparks. “When we first did interviews for the EP, Operator Please were around at the same time, so it was all about pushing the young thing, but no one around us who we work with has ever tried to push the age thing. We certainly haven't, 'cause we don't want to. It's like a novelty. But then, so is being female, apparently.”

And here we have the second issue that Bridezilla have to combat: they're not just a band, they're a “chick band”. Like an international delicacy (Belgian chocolate) or a species of animal (the brown bear), the word “female” or some variant is almost always used as a qualifier to describe them, while any other band would never be described as “male” - it's just assumed. What's it like to always be an Other in the industry, to always be known as a female band?

“It's,” begins Bush, before pausing to find the right word. “Surprising.”
“There's lots of people who think we're pretty sexual little figures,” adds Hall.
“But when men are sexual onstage it's not like that's a big deal,” offers Carmen-Sparks. “I guess it's good though. I guess it means people are more aware of the fact there are less female musicians.” Later she says with a sigh, “[It's] just cultural. We grow up watching Disney films.”

Still, it's in no way held them back, perfectly exemplified by their recent trip to New York for All Tomorrow’s Parties, which they wrote about for M+N. “Mick Harvey got us to play the Sydney one, and then the directors of ATP, Barry and Deborah, were there and saw us play, and I guess they thought we were pretty good.” explains Bush.

Carmen-Sparks describes the experience as a sort of Disneyland for adults. “It was insane. It was like a parallel world,” she says. “It was kind of like a commune as well. Everyone was free to talk to each other. No one knew each other but they all just congregated in the same areas and chatted about the same shows. It's just, ATP land. Like, playing with Stephen Malkmus is something I'd never dreamed of doing! If I'd been thinking about that when we were playing with him, I don't think I'd be able to play.”

Bush begins to laugh. “She [Carmen-Sparks] said a couple of times [adopts mocking voice], 'I'm so happy to be here.’”

At this point the interview threatens to be derailed by their catalogue of awe inspiring ATP experiences. Hall, Bush and Carmen-Sparks tell stories of the Laughing Clowns watching from side-of-stage at Sydney's ATP; Warren Ellis and Nick Cave watching from the crowd, the latter wearing a Bridezilla badge; Jim Jarmusch wandering around each set at New York; Wayne Coyne handing out lasers; Steve Albini's poker room, into which one could just wander and join the game (Bridezilla's sound guy won $50); and playing with Bradford Cox from Deerhunter and Atlas Sounds.

“Pia's his biggest fan,” says Carmen-Sparks. Suddenly they're all laughing. “And she was SO drunk!” cries Hall, before Bush cuts in. “And you can see. You can actually look up photos of their show there, and it shows photos of the crowd, she's right up there at the front!”

“I was like, ‘Aw yeah, you should give him our CD,’” adds Carmen-Sparks, “and so I gave her a CD to give to him, and she said to him when she met him [adopting a nervous voice]: ‘Oh, my lead singer told me to give you this.’ Oh, thanks!”

But would they have ever had all these experiences if Mick Harvey hadn’t given them the Sydney ATP spot in the first place? Indeed, are such opportunities a product of who they know?

“Well, I mean, I've known Mick since I was a kid,” says Carmen-Sparks. “Why blame someone for who they know? I've grown up with a lot of people in the industry and they're all wonderful people, but at the same time, my mum’s still friends with them and she hasn't had the same success as us … and you can honestly never get anywhere without having something … You need something to back it up.”

Certainly, but with only one EP to your name? “Yeah, that's haunted me too,” she confesses. “It makes you feel awful. That's saying that you're shit, and you're just doing what you're doing because you've got people behind you.

“But ultimately, people aren't going to support you unless they really believe in you,” she continues. “None of your fans are obliged to support you ... I don't know if you could compare our career so far to anyone else's, though. It has been quite strange and not what any of us has expected. We got our first show, wrote a song for that show, and from then on it's just been like a ball, it's just rolled down that hill. It's out of our hands.”

The discussion of nepotism raises the ire of the usually placid Hall. “People say it all the time, and it's really, really rude. And I've had people say that to me before, and I've kind of agreed with them but it's just like, ‘Why would you even bother saying something like that?’ It's a competitive playground,” she shrugs.

As for Bush, he sees no difference between Bridezilla’s unique situation and a band using a manager’s connections for exposure. “Obviously you'd get a manager who has connections of those sorts. What's the difference if you have a friend who knows those connections? It's what you pay someone to do if you're a successful band.”

“But it's not even like we're successful!” Carmen-Sparks chimes in. “I mean, sure we've played ATP in New York, but we don't make any money. We haven't put a record out [at time of interview] so we don't sell records. Only people like Mess+Noise know who we are.”

Ultimately, for a band so widely maligned in a tall-poppy vein, it's both refreshing and incredibly sad to hear how keen they are on paying their dues – even though they don't have to.

“I mean, I have to agree,” concedes Carmen-Sparks. “I think we got so much press for that EP – much more than I thought was necessary, and I feel that I would have liked to have worked a bit harder for it. Just makes you quite self-conscious … especially when you've got musicians in your family, or you're dating a musician. My boyfriend's in The Scare and he wanted to play Splendour, and we got it. All you've got to do is be grateful and do the best you can. But yeah, it's an issue. You hit a sore spot.”

Almost a month to the day after this interview was conducted, Bridezilla released their debut album. With any luck, the sore spot inflicted by dismissals will harden, the poppies shall grow too thick to be cut, and they shall continue to play their music in the face of ageism and sexism. They may not have fully paid their dues, but they're certainly getting there, and if the music's good enough to find such a wide audience, does it even matter? It's called The First Dance, and it's hopefully not their last.

+

The First Dance is out now through Inertia Recordings.