Camp Cope: Melbourne punk trio says ‘I want the music industry to own up to their own failures’

Get to know the Melbourne punk trio fighting against industry sexism

Credit: Naomi Beveridge (Credit: Naomi Beveridge)

"Yeah tell me again how there just aren't that many girls in the music scene." Camp Cope ends the first track on their sophomore album on How To Socialise & Make Friends - "The Opener" - with one of the many direct quotes the band has received about being a female musician. The Melbourne punk trio has heard it all: an "all-male tour preaching equality," that their "success" doesn't have anything to do with them and that male bands "worked so hard," but Camp Cope was just "lucky."

Vocalist and lyricist Georgia Maq, bassist Kelly-Dawn Helmrich and drummer Sarah Thompson have had enough with the excuses for music industry sexism. In early January, the band played "The Opener" at Falls Festival in Byron Bay where Maq improvised lyrics to criticise the event for the lack of women on their lineup singing, "It's another man telling us we can't fill up a tent, it's another f****** festival booking only nine women." It's safe to say the women of Camp Cope aren't afraid to take control of their careers.

None of this is new for Camp Cope, but they've made it their mission to use their platform to advocate for representation. Formed in 2015, the trio released their eponymous debut LP just one year later, which generated hype around the burgeoning alt-rock group. Maq had been cutting her teeth as a solo artist for two years, but began jamming with Thompson after getting to know her through the local show scene. When Maq met Helmrich in a kitchen while getting a tattoo, it was the beginning of their collaboration.

Through sharp lyrics and gritty vocals, Camp Cope's latest record How To Socialise & Make Friends is the work of three friends who stick together no matter what, tackling sexism in the music industry, the personal pain of sexual assault, the loss of a parent and the power of lasting friendships. It's harsh guitar riffs and raw confessions that make their latest work both heartbreaking and empowering, recalling the candour of Liz Phair circa Exile in Guyville and the prolific writing of Courtney Barnett.

Because of their impact in the music industry (and their stellar new album released earlier this month), The Independent spoke to Camp Cope's Kelly-Dawn Helmrich about representation in the music industry, the Melbourne music scene support network and getting the respect they deserve.

You’ve obviously spoken up for female representation at festivals. How did you guys become a voice for creating change in the music industry for women?

I don’t know. Thank you so much for saying that - it means a lot. I think it started with us just being really strong, opinionated women before we were a band. Then I think when we joined a band, we just felt stronger and had each other to lean on. At the start we were mostly being a voice for ourselves. We were speaking up when we found that people weren’t giving us the respect that we needed or we saw problems in our immediate scene that we could change and be more comfortable. As we started to do that, we wanted to branch that out to the people at our shows too because we want our audience to be safe and feel good too. That’s so important to us. To have music that’s so self-reflective and emotional that reaches an audience that could be vulnerable to certain things, it feels like a responsibility to take care of the people that are there.

How is How To Socialise And Make Friends different than your previous album?

We’re not doubting ourselves as much anymore and I think that comes from our incredible fan base and our support from that. I think we’ve been really inspired by so many women coming forward. When you look at the new album, there were some subjects we were quite apprehensive to talk about. But in recent times, everyone is talking about it so that makes us feel more confident and brave. We’re definitely more confident and sure of ourselves with this album. I think you can see that lyrically with Georgia and also musically with all of us too we’ve grown up in the past year.

Tell me about the album title.

There’s a song “How To Socialise & Make Friends” obviously. We’re really bad with album titles. We were potentially going to call it "Animal & Real." But I don’t know where we were, but I was like we should call it “How To Socialise & Make Friends” because it could mean so many different things; like it could mean we don’t know how to socialise and make friends because we’re a bit weird the three of us and music is the way we socialise and make friends and the way we’ve become such a tight-knit unit. It’s one of those things that could mean so much and does mean so much to us and could mean lot to someone else.

What were you guys listening to when you made the record?

We all have such different tastes in music. The second album isn’t too different musically from the first album. For this album we were always listening to Hop Along and Cayetana - they’re huge influences for us as a band. We all have our own niche music tastes. TK listens to a lot of Melbourne post-punk stuff. Georgia is really eclectic with her taste - she listens to a lot of old and new music. I really like hip-hop and R&B, and I really like to listen to that to take inspiration for bass parts.

How has the Australian music scene influenced you guys sonically or lyrically?

Georgia’s lyrics are very Australian - there are uniquely Australian things she mentions in her lyrics. It’s all we’ve ever known. It’s a weird thing to think about because we haven’t really spent that much time anywhere else. I don’t know how much our scene differs to other countries and how our scene differs from them.

(Camp Cope. Credit: Allison Nugent (Camp Cope. Credit: Allison Nugent)

One of the songs on the record “The Face of God” is a really harrowing account of sexual assault. How did that song come together?

They’re Georgia’s lyrics - that was written from her perspective. I know what her statement on the song is that she said everything she needed to say in the song. I know she was a bit apprehensive about putting it on the album - she wasn’t confident in how it would be received by everyone. We encouraged her to do it saying it was an important song to put out there. When we were doing the album, the #MeToo movement started, and we were more sure than ever because of that. It goes to show that as more people share their experiences, more people become comfortable to do so. It becomes more important to step outside and step outside to share your insecurities and see it as a bigger picture. That’s what Georgia felt like with the song: that it would help more people and help herself to get it out there.

Since you’ve spoken up for female representation, have you seen other artists supporting you or has there been any backlash?

We’ve definitely had a lot of people supporting us. We’re from a really cool collective here in Melbourne where our scene is really diverse, supportive and forward-thinking so we’re excited to be a part about that little family. I can’t remember the festival name, but Lily Allen called out a festival recently for not having enough women. You can see it’s a global issue: you can see it everywhere which is really cool. I think people are starting to take it more seriously than ever before. There’s been lots of backlash, definitely. Women in general - when they criticise the number of women involved in a festival, ceremony or show - so many people think it’s them complaining they’re not a part of it, which I think is a bit ignorant. When we’ve called out festivals, it’s not saying that we deserve a higher spot or “we deserve this” or “we want this,” we’re trying to make people aware of how unbalanced it actually is. The backlash for women in general is that “maybe they’re not good enough.” It’s a huge problem for women in the music industry: when they question systematic barriers in place to achieve the same success as their male counterparts they’re that maybe they’re not good enough, and it’s such a blow to a lot of women’s self-confidence so they start to believe they’re not good enough. So we try to stay strong and push through that.

How do you want to see the music industry change in the next year?

I think I want people to stop putting the blame on groups of people that aren’t represented properly. I want the music industry to own up to their own failures rather than put it on the failures of women, people of colour, trans people or queer people. I think the industry needs to reflect on who they’re pushing, who they’re representing and reflect on the status quo. Something that bums me out about the music industry is that it’s all about money and I think it needs to change to be about making quality art that’s inclusive to everyone where everyone can enjoy themselves or learn something from it.

Who is part of the collective you’re a part of in Australia?

I see it as our support network. We have our label Poison City Records and we’re really really close to Cable Ties, who are an amazing punk band and a band called MOD CON. We’re also close to Milk Records and they have the same ethos as us - that’s Courtney Barnett and Jen Cloher - so they’re really close to our hearts and they help us achieve a lot of the things we want to achieve.

Can you tell me about the experience of performing “The Opener” and playing that together? It’s such a powerful song about what women go through when they’re playing shows and dealing with inferiority in the music industry.

When we wrote that song, we felt kind of naughty. We were a bit cheeky about it like, “I wonder what people are going to think about this.” With "The Face of God," we were about apprehensive - there were people who told us we should release it, but when we first played it, the reaction from the audience was incredible. It convinced us that we should release it, and women could relate to it. It’s a very cathartic song. When we play “The Opener,” it’s this massive release for all of these things we’ve been holding onto inside of ourselves and weighing on our hearts. It’s almost direct quotes for most of the song. The audience reaction is everything for that song - when we first played it, they cracked at every statement at the end. It was a lot better received than we thought it was gonna be.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

I think our biggest dream world collaboration would be with Lady Gaga! We watched her documentary and we think she’s such a strong force in the music industry and musically she’s incredible as well.