Up-and-coming Essex based four-piece She’s In Parties are positively dreamy...

Words: Jack Press.
Photos: Patrick Gunning.

When your options every day feel to be studying at college or staring out your window waiting for a global pandemic to go away, starting a band seems like a dream scenario. Why stop there, though? Why not leave this messy world behind and hop in a time machine to the late eighties/early nineties? That’s exactly (almost) what shoegaze newcomers She’s In Parties have done.

So, long story short - vocalist Katie Dillon woke up one day wanting to start a band, so she roped in guitarist Herbie Wiseman who she knew from school. Someone in her college music class suggested bassist Charlie Johnson, who she didn’t know and was in the class across the hall. Then their drummer went off to uni, so a friend of a friend from skating saw them bring in drummer Matt Carman. They hung out, they jammed, they made demos… then the world fell apart.

“We’d just formed, and then Covid hit. We were still getting to know each other, so that was a difficult point where we didn’t know each other and what we wanted,” remembers Katie, huddled up with her bandmates in their poorly lit rehearsal space.

If it wasn’t for the pandemic, though, She’s In Parties wouldn’t sound like they do. Imagine Wolf Alice wandering through the Cotswolds with The Cure, listening to NewDad, Slowdive, and The Cranberries. That’s their vibe - so far, anyways.

She’s In Parties are as picturesque as it gets, with glimmering guitars and honey-soaked vocals dripping through your eardrums. But ask Katie’s bandmates, and it’s a collision course of experiences.

“It’s just a wall of sound,” asserts Charlie, as Herbie declares: “If you lucid dream or like weed, then you’ll like this band.” Before long, they’re pitching billboards and t-shirts and collaborations with Snoop Dogg. Don’t worry, readers, no matter how you hear it, it all boils down to escaping reality.

History has taught us well that shitty scenarios send us the greatest songs. But with just four to their name – ‘Mess’, ‘Angelic’, ‘I Follow You’ and ‘Cherish’ – they’re still a band going through growing pains. So, while they’re riding the shoegaze wave, are they planning on surfing to different islands?

With a backlog of songs building up more quickly than the country’s debt and their debut EP on its way sometime this year, what exactly are we in for as She’s In Parties announce themselves?

They’re all on the same page for the future, too. Charlie says it’s “80s coming-of-age mixed with nineties shoegaze,” while Herbie’s convinced it’s even deeper than that. “If you listen to the music and you watch a video, we want it to be like you’re watching one of those films.”

They reckon it makes sense cause they’re all “coming of age” - “except Matt,” they all shout, “he’s of age!” There are few moments in our time together where there’s not a wry smile or bursts of manic laughter, their youthful exuberance tie-dying their band’s timeless sounds. And then there’s their name.

Named after goth-rock pioneers Bauhaus’ final single, She’s In Parties weren’t spiritually resurrecting the cult act as much as they were proffering playlist suggestions. So, why this name, why this song?

They were previously called Velveteen before another band slid into their DMs threatening cease and desists, but it’s worked for the best; they’ve got a band name fans have fumbled with – “it’s really hard to get people to say She’s In Parties, we’ve had ‘Cheese and Panties’ before.” In the end, Katie came to it. “I just went through songs I had on my playlist, and luckily that one’s an eighties song; it all just worked.”

While Herbie’s convinced it’s gone so far, they “might have to walk out to that song at gigs” like a darts player approaching the Oche, their music and their message goes far beyond eighties movies and nineties vibes. There’s a method to the madness. Take the upliftingly spirited shoegaze-injected indie anthem ‘Angelic’, a call-to-arms aimed at the world’s men to stand up and respect women.

“I don’t like confrontation, but if you’ve got a platform, you should always absolutely say something because if someone can’t be heard, be that voice for them,” Katie declares when reflecting on the song’s meaning. “I get a bit torn because sometimes I just like to escape myself, and I write songs to escape into, but it’s important having songs like ‘Angelic ‘and using art as that voice for people. It’s a mix of escaping and forgetting about all those things, all the shit that goes on in the world, but also being like, ‘oh yeah, we should talk about this’, because you can always change someone’s perspective.”

She’s In Parties won’t shy away from saying how they feel, but at the same time, they’re still figuring things out. With ‘Cherish’, the song they feel resembles their next chapter the most, it’s all a little simpler. With everything falling apart outside, they’re making safe spaces to write soundtracks to.

She’s In Parties are bringing the positivity party to a scene swimming in melancholy. And quite frankly, we’re here for it. ■

Taken from the March 2023 edition of Dork.