By Jenny Valentish
Sarah Thompson clicks her fingers, as if to say, snap out of it. We're behind the shopfront of Poison City Records, past the walls of vinyl, merchandise and skateboards, in a cluttered back room that serves as the label's HQ. It's where Thompson works, when she's not being both drummer and manager of Camp Cope.
For now, she's put aside the visa issues she needs to fix before the band flies to Los Angeles in the morning, in order to talk about their return to the Sydney Opera House, which they sold-out during their last visit in 2017.
Camp Cope are Sarah Thompson, Georgia "Maq" McDonald and Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich. Credit: Ken Leanfore
It being Camp Cope, discussion of the music has taken a back seat to the dramatic events of the past few months, in particular their protests about sexual assault at live shows, about a lack of diversity in festival line-ups, and about bands with abusive members. Not everyone is appreciative of their efforts.
"You almost don't care when you get comments from men who are misogynistic, but oh, it's a stab when it's a woman. You think –" click, click, click – "I just want you to wake up, because you will'."
Safety and inclusivity are of huge concern to Camp Cope.Credit: Josh Groom
Never mind the hashtags – the Camp Cope method of tackling gender inequality is to agitate. And contrary to the title of the Melbourne punk trio's second album, How to Socialise and Make Friends, they're not making music to be liked.
"I have been called Thomo 'harsh but harsh' Thompson," the drummer admits.
Across from her, singer and guitarist Georgia "Maq" McDonald and bassist Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich are huddled on a bench. The pair first met in a kitchen in Footscray, where Maq was getting a tattoo. Upon hearing Hellmrich played bass, Maq immediately thought of Thompson, a mate she saw around at gigs, and a rehearsal was scheduled. Tomorrow, the US tour begins, but this morning the priority is getting a coffee run out of their publicist, Genna.
"It's really sad when women say, 'you're making feminism look bad'," Maq says. "It's OK if men get political with their music, like Billy Bragg or Bob Dylan. Once women get political, like Billie Holiday or Nina Simone, they get put in jail."
Maq's Twitter bio reads "A complete bitch". It's an up yours to those who persist in portraying them as humourless shrews.
Actually, while they do impulsively blurt out obscenities about various music scene figures – "I'm pretty sure Genna gets a notification every time I tweet," Thompson says, "because really quickly I'll get a message saying, 'Somebody's going to put this in an article'" – they also banter like the last gang in town. Indeed, in the weeks after our interview, their on-tour tweets will reveal them to be having every kind of procurable fun.
Yet Camp Cope's latest album – a raw, vital yell from the abyss – casts a long shadow, thanks to songs about sexual assault and exclusion in a male-dominated music scene. Now they're tasked with solving the problems of the industry in every interview. Which is why they've cut back on press.
It's not that the press has been unfavourable, either. Pitchfork gave the album 7.8/10, praising Maq's emotional range, Hellmrich's basslines ("the aural equivalent of an eye roll") and Thompson's "stoic" drumming. Spin noted their "proudly DIY aesthetic indebted to old-school riot grrrl".
So, it's an annoyance to the band that recently their music has become the collateral damage of their politics, but then Camp Cope can't help being topical.
In June alone, American rapper Riff Raff's Australian tour was cancelled after a rape allegation; LA trio Haim fired their booking agent after finding out their fee for a festival was a 10th of that of a male counterpart; a British YouGov survey revealed that 43 per cent of female festival-goers under 40 say they have faced unwanted sexual behaviour at a music festival; and Sydney band Sticky Fingers withdrew from Newcastle festival This That under pressure on social media, following allegations of racism, transphobia and sexism.
Safety and inclusivity are of huge concern to Camp Cope. Hellmrich was the instigator behind guerrilla strategies such as the It Takes One campaign of 2016, in which the band recruited male musicians and industry figures (including McDonald's late father, Hugh McDonald of the Bushwackers and Redgum) to make a video urging men to call out their peers for predatory or violent behaviour at gigs. "We were deliberately asking men," Hellmirch says. "Julia Jacklin's crowd aren't punching each other in the face."
And then there was the T-shirt they had printed for their Falls Festival dates over the New Year, which read, "The person wearing this shirt stands against sexual assault and demands change". They uploaded photographs to Instagram of every artist and crew member who wore one, and tagged headline acts with, "Come find us for shirts before we find you".
While increasing numbers of venues and festivals are declaring themselves to be safe spaces, Camp Cope are frustrated the action is often performative, or the wording of signage is too vague, such as the "enjoy the festival, don't assault anyone" stickers at Falls Festival. In Camp Cope's view, you literally need to spell things out.
"Some people don't understand that grabbing someone is sexual assault," Hellmrich says, "so when we were making the shirts we thought, it needs to say 'sexual assault'. People think, oh, that's a bit severe. It is. It is that severe."
Falls will now forever be synonymous with the Camp Cope name – no matter how little both parties like it – because of an additional protest by the band that made headlines across music news sites.
Objecting to the fact that women were playing early slots and, in general, were under-represented on the bill, Maq changed the lines of their single The Opener, from "It's another man telling us we can't fill up the room/It's another man telling us to book a smaller venue" to, "It's another man telling us we can't fill up a tent/It's another f---ing festival booking only nine women".
In fact, their mid-afternoon slots at the Lorne and Byron Bay dates were so popular the tents were overflowing. Again, they posted photos to social media.
Prior to forming the band in 2015, Maq had been a solo performer, and usually found herself the token female opener. "Every time I'd bring it up I'd get, 'Oh, we just pick bands that are good'," she says. The same explanation is offered by many festivals when challenged as to why their line-ups are almost exclusively comprised of white males (the Instagram account Line-ups Without Males makes it clear how prevalent that is), along with variations of "We tried to book women, but we couldn't find any".
When The Opener – nothing less than a war cry – premiered on Triple J last November, Thompson recalls: "We were like, here we go, this is going to be f---ed. Then I got a text from someone at Triple J saying, 'This is crazy, usually our text line gets the lowest-common denominator of man comments, but there hasn't been one'."
She puts that down to the pre-emptive strikes in the song: it's comprised of all the statements that they, as a band, have heard from men over the years. "It was almost like they were a bit shocked – 'Hang on … how do we tell them they're shit without becoming the song?'" she laughs.
Eventually the temptation became too great and the comments started … and have never stopped. There was another peak in March this year, when Maq tweeted, "Can cis white men stop reviewing our album. it's not for you". It arose around a song she'd written, The Face of God. It's about a musician who wouldn't take no for an answer, but more pertinently, it's about the way that the music scene can protect its most revered male artists. She sings, "Could it be true?/You couldn't do that to someone/Not you, nah your music is too good".
Sending that song out into the world had felt like a personal risk on behalf of those who have been sexually assaulted, so when she saw a review of the album refer only to the instrumentation of the track, she punched out that tweet. Her request isn't an unusual sentiment – it's frequently expressed by marginalised groups who tire of the straight white male perspective. But it prompted another frenzy of online debate.
The past six months have been challenging. "It made me feel like quitting music forever; that's how it felt," Hellmrich says. "It's not fun. It made us feel like being quiet, but Thomo said, 'Nah, f--- this, I've been quiet for ages, we're not being quiet – that's what they want'."
On stage, Maq says, it feels like Camp Cope are an unstoppable force. Hellmrich agrees: "As an artist you have a responsibility to say things through the microphone that people are too scared to say. How can bands not? It's your job and responsibility to discuss things."
Camp Cope think it will take the next generation of musicians, more literate in these issues, to effect real change, but they have hopes for the immediate future. One is that festival bookers will tread more carefully – even if not to get called out. Another is that if journalists are so fascinated with politics within the music industry, they won't limit their enquiries to women, people of colour and trans artists.
"Ask the next 10 bands as well," Hellmrich suggests sweetly. "If it turns out they don't think racism and sexism exist, that's good to know."
MEET THE RESISTANCE
Camp cope's picks of musical agitators
Gang of Youths: This all-male Sydney band are perfect allies to women fighting sexism, Camp Cope reckon. Frontman Dave Le'aupepe, in particular, isn't afraid to leap into an online stoush and argue against inequality, or give interviews about 'toxic masculinity'.
Miss Blanks: The trans MC told the Feed she lived in a world where her body was politicised, so the burden was upon her to have political conversations. "I'm constantly being vigilant of my actions because I don't want to reinforce stereotypes against trans women, against brown women, against women," she said.
Divide and Dissolve: The experimental doom duo from Melbourne made up "Destroy White Supremacy" shirts and recorded a "Resistance" video, in which they're shown firing water pistols of what appears to be urine at colonial monuments. YouTube took it down, then apologised and reinstated it.
Courtney Barnett: The modest Melburnian has steered her own stellar career as a completely independent artist with her own label, Milk!, and – say the Cope – she's one of Australia's most underrated guitarists.
Jen Cloher: Unofficial mentor to many, singer-songwriter Cloher has run I Manage My Music workshops for years and speaks out about sexism and ageism in the music industry. Camp Cope reckon, "If Jen was a man she'd be in the ARIA Hall of Fame".
Camp Cope play the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on July 25.