Band Booking: Jenn Ghetto on Silly Goose, Covering Blink-182, and More

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Listening to her work as part of the ornately melancholy band Carissa’s Wierd, or her solo work as S, you might not expect to find Seattle’s Jenn Ghetto fronting a Blink-182 cover band. And yet. Silly Goose, Ghetto’s latest group, just released their debut seven inch, featuring a trio of faithfully-played covers bolstered by Ghetto’s distinctive voice. For this writer, at least, much dancing in a desk chair ensued. I checked in with Ghetto to learn more about the project’s origin, her fondness for pop-punk, and more.

My first time hearing Blink-182 came on a friend’s recommendation in high school that I check out Cheshire Cat. What about you? And when did you think, “Wait, maybe I should start covering this band?”

Well to be honest when I first remember seeing Blink-182 on magazine covers and such I can’t say that I was even remotely interested. this must have been Enema Of The State era. I was too busy listing to my indie rock bands and Metallica. It wasn’t until 2001 probably…my old band Carissa’s Wierd was touring…and I don’t remember whose idea it was to buy all the Blink-182 records, but I do know that it was all we listened to…months of Blink-182. I was hooked, I mean I had been stuck in a world of shoegaze and doom and deep inaudible lyrics. This band would change the way I write songs. The thought about covering Blink-182 came way later though.

Did the covers start out as something you’d do as part of S shows, or were they always something intended as their own entity?

It was kind of its own thing. I mean I had thought about doing a song for S, but I couldn’t seem to capture the thing that is so great about them, like that thing that makes you want to sing along, even if you have said the words “I don’t like Blink-182.”

Blink-182 wrote some fantastically catchy songs; they also wrote some ridiculously juvenile lyrics. What’s the approach you take when covering them?

I pretty much think all their lyrics are awesome.

How did you settle on the songs for the seven inch?

The 7″ songs were just ones we all really liked playing.

You’re about to embark on a new S tour. Do you find that covering Blink-182 songs has caused any changes in your own songwriting?

Yes! So excited about this tour! I am sure S has been affected by learning all these Blink-182 songs. The things is though aside from down picking, there are a lot of similarities I think,, I’m not really comparing S to blink 182, but kind of. They sing a lot about getting hearts broken and crushes and being confused by girls. These are all S themes. So whatever. All I know is it is totally radical being in silly goose.

And, the ever-present literary question: what have you been reading lately?

Someone just told me to read Dolly Parton’s memoir My Life and Other Other Unfinished Business. This is something I will be into, I can just tell.

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