After hearing their stonking new track, All My Friends Are (Snakes), I wanted to know more about the band behind the song. Thankfully, Matching Drapes were only too pleased to answer a few questions for my blog - and here they are:
Please give us a brief background about the band?
We are an independent post-punk/indie rock band from Berlin and Reykjavik. The project started as a class project for BIMM Berlin (university) until our two frontwomen Arndís Rán and Jacquie Hirt officially formed the band in June of 2023. From then on we were busy writing new material and spending a week in the studio to record our debut EP “manslaughter”. We were joined by our bandmates Liam Harrison (lead guitar), Toby Savill (rhythm guitar), Niclas Liebling (Bass) and Adrian Lizarraga (drums) in the beginning of 2024.
Arndís moved to Reykjavik a year ago for her masters in music, but the rest of us all live in Berlin. She does visit Berlin pretty regularly though for songwriting and recording sessions, gigs and rehearsals.
From pretty early on, we had the philosophy to spread a dramatic and “bratty” image because we want to play on misogynistic stereotypes instead of them having power over women.
How did you get your name? Were there any names you rejected?
It comes from the saying “does the carpet match the drapes”. We thought of “Black Carpet” for a hot second, but it was quickly rejected. Initially, the name “Matching Drapes” was more of a joke to us but as we evolved as a band and determined what we wanted to stand for, the name started to take on a different meaning. As “does the carpet match the drapes?” carries a sexist aftertaste, fully choosing this name for our band, meant to reclaim and subvert the phrase. We don’t want it to have the power to objectify women, so we connect to our music.
How would you describe your music?
A BIG fusion! We relate a lot to mixed media art, where you kind of just mix all sorts of things that conventionally wouldn't match to create something new. Mixed media and the DIY culture itself is so related to the punk scene and since our music is a little political, punk-ish and low budget, we relate to it a lot. It also comes through in all the art we have made for our instagram and our single covers. We can’t really narrow our music down to one genre, but we take a big inspiration from post-punk, alternative, indie rock and shoegaze. This gives all our songs a different feel which we love and also just makes the writing process so much fun!
Tell us about your creative process, who writes the songs and where do you record?
Our creative process has changed a lot since the beginning of the band. In the beginning we relied a lot on jamming to come up with ideas and then, when it was just Arndís and Jacquie writing songs, we would do it on Zoom with Logic since we don’t live in the same country.
Now that our band is complete, we do a mix of both. It’s really important to us that we are all involved in the songwriting process even though we live far away from each other. We record our demos at home and experiment a lot with different sounds and textures. When it comes to lyrics, we enjoy writing them in an ironic and cheeky way that is oddly descriptive of specific situations that we’ve either gone through or imagined to go through. We recorded our debut EP at VibesBuilder Studios near Cologne, where we spent a week with our lovely producer Yannick.
What are your musical influences?
In general, we are inspired by bands that have female frontwomen and are known for their rather “unconventional” sound and lyricism. We love bands that we can relate to musically and personally. There’s a pretty long list but our top five are definitely: Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning, WOlf Alice, NewDad and English Teacher.
Please tell us about your latest work?
Our latest and our first work is definitely our EP “manslaughter”! Overall it’s about feminine energy and aims to empower women in today’s misogynistic society. Here’s a little runthrough of the general meaning behind each song:
“Dramatic” is a reaction to stereotypes women face and is a little play on them.
“Hot Girl Walk” is an empowering song and a big fuck you to the patriarchy.
Lyrically, “Hypnic Jerk” is the odd one out of the EP. It is all about the feeling just before falling asleep and then finding yourself in a dream, basically about dissociating from reality.
“All My Friends Are (Snakes)” is just about doing whatever you want and not giving a shit about what anyone thinks.
“Little Man” is about belittling the voice that tells us what we can and cannot do (who might or might not be a real person).
This EP definitely has a more provocative attitude as a lot of songs were inspired by negative opinions that were thrown at us when we started this project. We needed a place to channel all this jugement into, so we chose to put it into our music. We have been releasing the EP as separate singles since January until the actual release on July 12th. “all my friends are (snakes)” is the last single before “manslaughter” comes out.
Do you play live shows, if so, what do they involve?
We haven’t played many live shows but are getting into it now! We have an EP release gig planned on the 20th of July at Wild at Heart in Berlin. We are playing another one in Berlin on the 25th of that month at Junction Bar.
Our shows are dynamic and playful and we really get into the energy of our songs. Playing gigs is one of the most fun things we get to do as a band and we have always been so lucky with our crowd. We basically just want to create a space where everyone can enjoy themselves free of any judgment. Our shows are full of jumps, dance, screams and laughter. We can’t wait for our next gig in July!
What can we expect from you next?
Our biggest goal as a band right now is to grow our audience and connect with them. We hope to travel together and play shows in many different parts of the world, so we’d absolutely love to go on tour at some point and meet the people that relate to our music as much as we do.
So after our EP is fully out, we’ll be on the lookout for gig opportunities, but also focus on writing new material. Most of our current songs were written before our bandmates joined, so we’d love to write and record more as a band, hopefully releasing a second EP in the fall of 2025.
Which track would you like to nominate for the Spotify 'Sidetrack Jukebox' and why?
We chose the song Sickly Sweet by NewDad because we love the melodic guitar lines and the energetic, harsh sound of the instruments paired with the soft and mellow vocals. We’re also big fans of the word play such as “sickly sweet” and “sweetly sick”, same words but combined in a different order changes the meaning completely. The line “a shiny thing I want to pick, take a bite and spit you out. Done this so many times that I’ve lost count” is something we feel like we could’ve written and even though we can’t put our finger on it there’s just something about it that we love.
Finally, where is the best place for people to connect with you?
The best way to connect with us is on Instagram @matching.drapes or on our TikTok.@matchingdrapes
We’re looking forward to hearing from you<3