FROM HANDMADE CDs TO RECORD LEBEL DEALS - SHISHI PROFILE INTERVIEW

It's the August of 2018, in the crowded space of an old church in Torun, Poland music fans are waiting for the gig of giants of the national alternative scene - Coals and Fisz.  However before these well-established bands, a small still unknown band from Lithuania is planned to perform, its name is shishi. Not expecting anything I'm slowly finishing my beer, lights are going out, the crowd is going silent, and from the very first chord, I'm stunned. Shishi presented a level of chemistry and showmanship that can be compared to much bigger all-female bands like HAIM. After the show, I join surprised and hyped members of the audience to buy the exclusive pre-released CDs of "NA x 80", the band's debut album. It's a handmade little charming piece of material with a sparkling statue of a lion on the cover and a CD with a marker-written name of the band inside of it. 

A lot has changed over those two years both for the world and for shishi. It’s the 7th of November 2020. As we're logging into the Zoom meeting they greet me with the sentence that perfectly captures the current state of things "it's nice to be on the computer screen". 

Shishi was formed at the end of 2016 by three women under the aliases of Maria Rosa, Victoria, and Francesca. The latter one had to eventually depart to Australia and in December of 2019, the new drummer joined the squad under the name of Benedetta. At this point in our interview, Victoria couldn't really hide astonishment with the fact that almost a year has passed since that event. Victoria described her first meeting with Maria Rosa as "We went to eat soup, we talked and then played guitar". She also humorously described the process of getting Benedetta into the band as "We promised her gold, we promised her diamonds but all we gave her was a sack of potatoes." That straightforwardness and honesty in attitude is something that truly characterizes them as people. Surprisingly, especially in terms of the level of showmanship, they represent during concerts they shared an interesting secret - "We didn't know how to play instruments back then, any of us, so we learned on the go by creating our own songs". And that's nothing to be ashamed of after all that's exactly how greats like Arctic Monkeys started.

In terms of sound, shishi combines the strong influence of 90s female grunge bands like Hole or Bikini Kill with the self-aware bitter-sweet lyricism of modern all-female bands like The Big Moon or Goat Girl. They describe themselves as surf rock mixed with post-punk. There's a big difference in the second album released by them MAFITISHEI is visibly darker in sound which is the result of "a hard year for all of us" as Maria Rosa said. She also stated, "we've been rehearsing, and crying and shouting and playing again, and we put all of it into MAFITISHEI". 

The spectrum of inspirations for the band is just as colorful as its members. Victoria mentioned Fugees and Lauryn Hill as her main role models. Maria Rosa revealed what stands behind this little bit out of tune sound of shishi saying "I've been listening to The Velvet Underground for most of my teenage years". 

Obviously, I had to ask about the effect of the pandemic on the band's life, and while I was expecting a fairly grim answer Victoria said "I think we got stronger on an emotional level, in our heads". She also pointed out the change of the drummer had a big influence on the band's improvement in quality.  

Victoria really wanted to underline that the lack of gigs and trips "f***ing sucks". Even though things seem to slow down for the music industry shishi keeps itself busy. They're currently working on not one but two albums at the same time. "It didn't happen to us before, working on another album right after releasing the previous one." - Maria Rosa has said. 

I asked about the future of the band and about what fans can expect from shishi in the nearest future. The answer to that was "DARK songs about isolation and closure and not going anywhere", but right after the instant laughter of Victoria specified "some leftovers of the psychological bulls**t, some new problems".

The story of shishi is still relatively new and even though times are still tough band members remain optimistic.  Maria Rosa said "if you think our second album is great, the third and fourth will keep getting better, as we continue to learn more about our instruments". MAFITISHEI is available at most of the streaming services right now, and I strongly encourage all of our readers to give it a listen, as it's a sincere soundtrack for the current day and age.