RudeGRL + CC announce new album ‘Living My Best Life’ to be released October 17th Via Network Music
RudeGRL + CC announce new album ‘Living My Best Life’ to be released October 17th Via Network Music
Watch the video for new single ‘Coming For The Win’ HERE
RudeGRL & CC’s rule-breaking power-pop, punk-hop finds strength in letting go – and letting loose – through an energetic union of rapid-fire rap, twanging surf guitar, fuzz-soaked bass and ‘80s industrial beats awash with euphoria.
Connecting singer-songwriter and prodigious MC Jenna Dickens aka RudeGRL, multi-instrumentalist Chris Constantinou (The Wolfmen,The Mutants) – who started out as Adam Ant’s bassist and has collaborated with Annabella Lwin (Bow Wow Wow), Sinead O’ Connor, Lou Reed and more – and burlesque star Bunni Morretto, this trio of self-described outsiders share a mutual love of punk and a burning desire to get things off their chest. The urgency of the group’s sound mirrors their production style; quick, fluid and instantly gratifying.
For their latest work, found on the ten innovative tracks that comprise new album ‘Living My Best Life’, due for release October 17th via Network Music, producer James Young sent Constantinou a multitude of beats and rhythms to jam with, whilst Chris built up the tracks with bass and guitars, throwing the songs back and forth as they started to take shape and form. At this stage, Jenna Dickens starts to find the right words and melodies to fit the tracks, whilst Chris adds backing vocals and other embellishments, before James mixes each track to its best potential. It’s a team effort that has led to RudeGRL & CC’s finest and most unrestricted work yet.
‘Coming For The Win’ is the first single to be lifted from the album and is, says Jenna “a warning. We are coming to do exactly what it says on the song title, and we won’t stop until we get there.”
“For the single’s video, the main idea I kept thinking was ‘what would I have loved to see growing up as a mixed-race kid in love with rock and punk?’ Back then there wasn’t as much representation of people of colour in bands on our TV screens. I’d watch iconic bands I admired like Slipknot, Papa Roach, Blink 182, Linkin Park and see the odd one or two people of colour and just wish that there were more. I wanted to play on those aesthetics of the indie videos a bit that I loved growing up and also show our unique personalities as a band and what we’re all into. I was reminiscing over the old Tony Hawk’s Video games I used to play as a kid on my PlayStation 2 and the awesome bands of the 90’s and noughties growing up as a kid like Blink 182, Limp Bizkit and No Doubt and wanted to bring in a bit of that vibe visually but in a fresh new way and make something that we all love and feels authentic to who we are as a band.”
Watch the ‘Coming For The Win’ video HERE:
Whilst the music displayed on ‘Living My Best Life’ is gloriously unfiltered and untamed, over-flowering with invention and energy, the lyrics crafted by Jenna equally match the positivity of the sound.
“I wanted to create an album full of back-to-back smashes, in your face catchy melodies and empowering full throttle lyrics,” admits Jenna. “For the lyrics I wanted to make them empowering and something I could listen to to get my mind set ready to smash the day. ‘Coming For The Win’ in particular was written in a time where I was juggling a bunch of stress with the events company me and Bunni run (an Award Winning queer women of colour striptease experience called JuiceBox Events), being at the intersection of being women in business as well as queer and black Caribbean heritage comes with its hurdles to jump and I think some of that absolute determination to break barriers regardless of push back made its way into the song. The message is to hold on to firm belief in yourself to honour your power and pour it into your passion regardless of what anyone else thinks.”
“When writing the tracks for the album I wanted to make them as catchy as possible. I was studying all the timeless classic anthems in rock and indie music over a span of decades, bands like Blur (who I adore!), Oasis, Bloc Party, The Artic Monkeys, The Killers, Queens Of The Stone Age but also even pop classic song writing like early Madonna records and Blondie,” she continues.
All of these influences and so much more can be heard within the melting pot that is ‘Living My Best Life’. It fizzes with pop energy, independent attitude and rock n’ roll strut. Album opener ‘Live Wire (Fire, Fire)’ ignites with a marching AC/DC alike riff, before the huge hook of the chorus embeds itself into your brain, whilst ‘Anything’s Possible’ really showcases Jenna’s objective to use the music to promote and inspire empowerment in every way. With lyrics like ‘we are so powerful, we are phenomenal, anything’s possible’, it’s impossible to not feel uplifted by the song’s pure good vibes.
And really, that sums up ‘Living My Best Life’ best of all. It’s good vibrations from start to finish, shimmering with pop melodies, joyful rhythms and musical discovery at every turn.
We live in bleak times. RudeGRL & CC could be just the tonic the world needs.
RudeGRL - Vocals
Chris Constantinou - Bass Gt / Guitars / Backing Vocals
James Young - Beats / Keys / Producer / Mix
All tracks written by Constantinou/Dickens/Young
‘Living My Best Life’ track-listing.
1. Live Wire (Fire, Fire) 2:25
2. Freak-in Me 2:12
3. Anything's Possible 2:18
4. Coming For The Win 2:19
5. Beautiful World Beautiful Mess 2:22
6. Living My Best Life (Thank-you Myself) 2:28
7. Konnichiwa (You Can't Stop Me Now) 1:56
8. Going All The Way Up (The Time Is Now) 2:27
9. Whatever 2:22
10. Fly 2:30
Find RudeGRL & CC online at:
