Post-punk rockers Agender beg for details they don’t want with track + video “Jeans” out now
LA-based post-punk band Agender share grungy, playful track and video “Jeans,” out everywhere now. On “Jeans,” the band beg for the tortuous details of their new lover’s romantic history, with white-and-denim-filled video to match that pays homage to 90s-era jeans advertisements and friendly sleepovers.
Out today, “Jeans” sees Agender trade in the all black outfits for denim and white as they embrace a new, lighthearted side. Lead singer Romy Hoffman calls the track a “desperate but endearing love song for modern times.” Signature pounding drums and distorted guitars open the track with lyrics that cut to the chase, “I wanna know where your jeans have been / Oh baby, please tell me everything / I wanna know what your lips have done / give me the names of everyone.” Essentially, the song asks, “what’s your body count?” a rather crass question more common in recent years, but Hoffman isn’t a fan of this term. In Hoffman’s ideal world, the word “jeans” would signify the juicy–”how many places have your ‘lucky’ jeans been?”
Sung from the artist’s internal monologue, Hoffman wrote the song in the early stages of a new relationship, naturally a time when one might want to learn of their past, though it may hurt to hear. Hoffman adds, “I’m over-thinking out loud, and I want to torture myself. It’s not fun being an anxiously attached individual but it is a fun song!” Describing its sound, Hoffman says it features, “Fast downstrokes a la the Ramones and nice harmonies mask a messed up love song, akin to that of 60s girl groups.” The track’s credits include production by Hoffman and David Scott Stone (LCD Soundsystem), as well as mixing by Phillip Broussard (The Replacements, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System of A Down), and mastering by Bob Weston (Shellac).
The video, directed by Hoffman, is a departure from the group’s usual format of abstract visuals of the past. Hoffman says, “We’ve made a lot of music videos but none feature us, solely, playing as a band, in a studio. We thought it was about time we let the band shine and allow the song to pop.” While the band performs the song, a pillow fight of sorts breaks out, but using jeans instead of pillows, putting the band’s whimsical side on display.
Most recently, in October 2023 the band shared a fresh, striking homage to women, “Damaged Girls” that caught the attention of several leading tastemakers. Post-Punk wrote, “..amidst this vast soundscape, it’s the tenacious throb of the driving bass, the cool cadence of the monotone vocals, and the sharp clarity of the cutting guitars that offer a center—a nexus of steely intent and passion.” GrimyGoods echoed this sentiment, calling the track “scorchingly fervent” and “fittingly sizzling.”
Agender formed in 2011 as a solo punk project for lead singer and primary writer Romy Hoffman. Just two years later, it morphed into a trio, and by 2014, the band became known for their thrashing punk shows. The group’s first album Fixations arrived that same year, and eight years later, the introspective, tongue-in-cheek second LP, No Nostalgia was released. Buzzbands LA called 2022’s celebratory disco-punk anthem “Top Bottom Top,” “deliciously throbbing.” The band expanded on the track with an EP of remixes with the help of friends and queer icons–Le Tigre’s JD Samson as well as Harvey Sutherland. Made up of Hoffman, Cristy Michel (bass), Christy Greenwood (drums) and Sara Rivas (synth), the quartet carves out a space that is uniquely their own–filled with fierce pride, a delicate balance of satire and earnest observations of life, and a piercing sound that energetically empowers and uplifts voices that are often stifled. Now, the post-punk pioneers look ahead to 2024 to bring an elevated sound that re-imagines their roots and promises to go where they never have before.
Donning denim and asking for painful details, Agender grills their new love with “Jeans” out everywhere now.
Agender Bio
It’s hard to put Agender into any box: With Australian songwriter and musician Romy Hoffman at the helm, the quartet makes schizo, synthy, paranoid, post-punk with a dash of dysmorphic desire. And fans? They revel in their sweeping existential terror that comes with a fetish for femininity.
Initially formed in 2011 as a solo punk excursion for Hoffman, Agender was born when she decided to get sober. “It started as impulsive, a way to cope with all these new, raw feelings. I played every instrument myself on the first Agender record.” But as quickly as it started as a solitary endeavor, it evolved into a trio just two years later. By 2014, the band had become known for its intense punk shows and had released its first album Fixations via Desire Records. Since then, the queer post-punk outfit has now become a full-fledged quartet with bassist Cristy Michel, drummer Christy Greenwood and synth player Sara Rivas rounding out the band. Still, Hoffman still remains its focal point as the primary writer in the group.
Agender, however, has taken its time with releasing a new record. It’s been seven years since the band released Fixations. In that 7-year time span, Hoffman moved from Melbourne to Los Angeles, built a life for herself in a new city, released a solo record of dark, driving electronic music ,starting running two of L.A’s biggest queer parties (‘Homoccult’ and ‘Lez Croix’), and situated herself as a respected DJ. The process of No Nostalgia, the band’s second album, has also been slow and steady: the songs were penned pre-pandemic and partially recorded then, but finished during COVID. No Nostalgia came from Hoffman reaching the crossroads of oscillating between bouts of extreme nostalgia and extreme amnesia. With the record, she wanted to strip it all away. “When we live in a world where everything is nostalgic, I’m trying to imagine a world with none of that, but it’s impossible. Even if I’m just commenting on society, it’s still referential to something, therefore relies on memory, therefore I’ve thought myself into a corner. It’s from this corner that I write,” she says. In spring 2022, fans of Agender will get to experience Hoffman’s reality.
While Agender’s last two records took themselves a bit more seriously, No Nostalgia is rooted in satire. “This record is poking fun at modernity and postmodernity,” says Hoffman. “It’s satirical. It’s a bird’s eye view of where we are and the absurdity of everything.” Inspired by everything from The French Situationist Movement to Wire and Buzzcocks, No Nostalgia is a canvas painted with singular post-punk.
Introducing No Nostalgia, Agender has shared two singles ahead of its release. Last Fall, they unveiled “Preach,” an eerie, synth-heavy single laced with guitar stabs that transforms God into Goddess energy. And in May, they shared “Astro Tarot,” an ode to divine intuition and the cosmic roadmap that intrigues the psyche. The title track ‘No Nostalgia’ was Agender’s third single, and most emblematic of the record: “For me, it’s imagining a world of no memory.”
With No Nostalgia, Hoffman finds herself meditating on existentialism. On the urgent, self-referential “Avoid A Void,” she nods to her own journey of maintaining sobriety over the last decade. “Exist in a slippery dip/Spits you out into a big abyss,” she drones. Similarly, the heart-racing “Trouble And Desire” shows Hoffman ruminating over the push-and-pull of love addiction. Over spazzy guitar riffs, “Woah Life Wow” digs deeper into searching for answers in introspection: “She’s done enough of pray, this incarnation’s saved/Waiting in a waiting room, nothing to do but wait.” Songs like “Pastiche” and “Mother Simulacra” tackle the death of originality — the former, a tongue-in-cheek parody on postmodernism, and the latter, a realization that Hoffman’s relationships are a copy of her relationship with her mother. Agender, however, takes a moment from life’s big questions to celebrate queer love with the disco-punk anthem “Top Bottom Top.” Politics don’t escape Hoffman’s focus on the record. With “Rusher,” a track penned at the height of “Russiagate” when Trump was in office, Hoffman interprets the absurdity of politics as theater: “Space race, space race seemed so fun/Dr. Strangelove press buttons.” Over bursts of guitar fuzz, “Fact Fuck Fiction” contemplates the insanity of political doublespeak: “Welcome to the news today/Don’t know if it’s true or fake.” By the album’s closer “Extinction of Handwriting,” Hoffman is yearning for simpler times over spacey synths — an analog future instead of a digital one.
While Agender is Hoffman’s current focus, her experience in music spans more than two decades: She began her career as a teen playing guitar in Ben Lee’s pop-punk band Noise Addict and later became the first hip hop artist (and second Australian) to sign to Kill Rock Stars, as Macromantics. Later, Hoffman began making dark electro pop and house music under ROMY.
No matter what project she’s working on, Hoffman believes she’s a medium for a message: “I’m delivering something that needs to be said.”
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