On the Guestlist: WORM GIRLZ
Worm Girlz prove revenge is a dish best served with fart jokes and a haunted house.Worm Girlz have never been quiet about who they are - five friends turning trauma, chaos and a whole lot of fart jokes into razor-sharp, cathartic pop. Off the back of their debut album, the band is about to co-headline a run with Cry Club, alongside FVNERAL and Sunsick Daisy, later this year.
The band have just released their new single Broken Tooth, a haunted, hard-hitting track that digs into hometown ghosts, old wounds and the strange discomfort of revisiting the places and people who shaped you.
We caught up with members Lauren "Loz" Rowe, Angela "Angie" Gale, Isabella "Bella" Wood de Melo, Nikolai "Niko" Bray and Jade Montgomery, to talk grain mixers, ghost stories, ghost stories, and what’s coming next on their upcoming EP, In Loving Memory…, out this October.
Worm Girlz | Credit: Tayla Lauren
Let’s talk about Broken Tooth. What’s the story behind the song, and where did the idea first come from?
Jade: I spent a week in my home town earlier this year doing songwriting workshops. It was such a melancholic trip for me because I love connecting with people through songwriting but it being in my hometown meant that there was a memory around every corner. I felt like a ghost, something that didn’t belong there anymore. It is weird to feel like you know everything about a place, but it no longer feels like a place that you are welcome in. The first lyric I had for the song was ‘I’ll be the ghost in your walls’ which later turned into ‘call me the ghost in your walls.’
Broken Tooth is such a dark and intense listen - the more you sit with the lyrics, the heavier it gets. There’s so much imagery around violence, trauma, revenge and being haunted by what’s been done to you. When you were writing it, what headspace were you in, and what did you want people to feel or take away once they really sat with the song?
Jade: I think music can be such an incredible way to sort through and feel heavy or hard emotions. This song was definitely a way of coping with the unsettling feelings I was dealing with spending time in my home town. When I brought the idea to Loz in one of our songwriting sessions, it was us really deep diving into our relationships with our home towns and some of the not nice stuff that has happened in our lives - which can be really uncomfortable but at the same time, the trust that Loz and I have built with each other makes it a safe space.
I don’t think that it is unusual to feel strange about visiting a place that holds so many memories, both good and bad and I hope anyone listening that relates, maybe feels a little less alone in that feeling.
Loz: Writing this song was a cathartic experience for sure. Jade and I really loved exploring the pieces of ourselves we leave behind in places from our pasts. I imagine the people who remain in these places and they really do feel like ghosts to me. It felt almost playful to dream up this ultimate revenge plan to haunt those who have wronged us forever, even if in some cases the punishment fits the crime. I hope our audience can feel the same catharsis we did when writing Broken Tooth and maybe even find some peace in hexing ghosts of the past with us.
We’d love a little glimpse into the making of Broken Tooth. What did the whole process look like, from the initial idea taking shape to the final version we’re hearing now?
Jade: Like a lot of our songs, it started with Loz, myself, a guitar, lots and lots of sweet treat drinks, fart jokes and at times when the lyrics would not come to us, moments of staring into each other's eyes. We then took the flesh and bones (tehe lyric reference) to the rest of the band and arranged it together at DJ Dirt Studios (our producers home studio).
Niko: There were so many different titles for this song. For the longest time it was called Haunted in our master lyric document. Even Lucas Montgomery who produced the track still calls it Haunted. One of the demos is named: HAUNTED? FLESH AND BONES? GHOST IN YOUR WALLS? BROKEN TOOTH? HAIR STRANDS? LOL?.mp3
Is there a particular moment in Broken Tooth - whether it’s a lyric, production detail, or even an unexpectedly fun, funny, or chaotic moment from making the song - that you’re especially attached to?
Bella: I think one of the things I’m most attached to from Broken Tooth is actually the process of making the music video. We filmed the whole video in one weekend, mainly at night and we were surrounded by friends who came along to help, and 2 sweet dogs (Noodle and Dolly). The concept of the video was inspired by Paranormal Activity and other eerie haunted house horror aesthetics, with the video made up of different POV’s from each of us wormz inside the house. I (Bella) had to sprint what felt like 100km in my section of the video multiple times, and I felt so nauseous afterwards. Despite the running, and lack of sleep, and probably being a little delirious by the end of it, we had an absolute hoot making the video.
Share five things that inspired Broken Tooth.
Far North Queensland
Red dirt
falling off your bicycle at age 11, face down on the bitumen, breaking your front tooth and ending up in hospital for 5 days.
Childhood injury
Paranormal activity
We’ve seen the “trauma dumping” reels you guys have been posting, and honestly, we want in! Give us your best completely random childhood injury, bizarre incident, or mildly traumatic memory. The more unnecessary detail, the better.
Angie: Let’s set the scene - we’re somewhere in the late 2000s, on the family farm, mum and dad are throwing a party - extended family, friends, neighbours. I’m running after my older sisters through the shed where dad stores a lot of his farm machinery. Like the grain mixer - think mini silo on wheels with an engine and a triangular spout where you tip the grain you want mixed in (sticks out a good 50cm and sits at around waist height on an adult, or eye level to a 10 year-old - just a fun fact for later). Now, my spatial awareness is pretty garbage on a good day, I can and will run into doorways, benches, cupboard doors, etc., and turns out I’ve always been that way cause I’m chasing my sisters through the shed (still daylight, plenty of visibility) and I run smack bang into the corner of the mixer spout with my left eye. I think I fell down. I know I got a black eye and a scar across the top of my eyelid. I had to walk back through the party to find my mum and let her know that I gave myself a black eye while running through the shed (I got in trouble for running through the shed, but I also got sympathy for the fact that I had a black eye and probably a really bad headache). Also the only time I’ve ever had a black eye in my life (knock on wood).
If we wanted to get a glimpse into the new EP through your current listening habits, what have you been listening to lately?
Lauren: I’ve been obsessed with newer Australian rock albums such as Angel’s Mess from WAAX, MAY-A’s Goodbye (If You Call That Gone), and High Voltage Anxiety from Cry Club, who we’re lucky to be co-headlining a tour with at the end of this year. Special mentions also to FVNERAL and Sunsick Daisy who are also co-headlining this tour and make some of my favourite music of all time. This year I have also been deeply immersed in the latest albums from Searows, Mitski & Ninajirachi.
Jade: I have been listening to Jensen McRae for the devastating songwriting and for screaming along to in the car, Australia artist, Suzi for when I want to both feel good and bad at the same time, Paris Paloma for when I want to tear the world apart and Noah Kahan for the family trauma.
Soooooo Broken Tooth is our first glimpse into the upcoming EP that’s coming our way this October! Without giving too much away, what can you tease us with and what can we expect from this?
Lauren: Ahh we’re so excited for this EP! It really feels like we’re presenting an elevated version of Worm Girlz. We’re always so excited for any opportunity to learn, create, and grow as artists, and writing a follow up project to our debut album definitely gave us this. In Loving Memory… carries listeners through desire, revenge, grief, responsibility, and betrayal in a neatly-themed package.
Important question: If the EP were a tooth - wisdom tooth, incisor, canine, molar… which would it be and why?
If the EP were a tooth it would be a canine tooth. Canine teeth are strong, sharp and have a vampiric allure… which funnily enough are all traits shared with our EP.