Spindle Radar: The Aces Discuss “Girls Make Me Wanna Die” and Pride Month

U.S alt-pop quartet The Aces are having quite the year! Following the huge success of their 2020 album ‘Under My Influence’, the band are back and better than ever with a new sound and a new single ‘Girls Make Me Wanna Die’ should be the soundtrack to everyone’s summer and has been a staple across Pride season across the globe. Ahead of the official video dropping earlier this week, we caught up with the band to discuss their peak band era, livin’ proud and inviting a living Horror ventriloquist to be their fifth member.

With Pride Month coming to a close, how did you celebrate this year?

We celebrated pride by playing four major Pride Festivals this month. We played a pride almost every weekend this month and that was fun. LA, Chicago, Indianapolis. That was fun. And we got to celebrate at home, too. Normally we’re out of town and traveling during Pride Month a lot, so it was cool that we got to do that, and we got to actually play prides. We got to play at our hometown’s pride in LA. We got to go out after and hang out with our little gay friends!

We adore your new single, “Girls Make Me Wanna Die.” Would you say it’s a sign of what’s to come on your album and represents it sonically?

Yeah, it is. Definitely. I think, “Girls Make Me Wanna Die,” we picked that song exactly with this question in mind. It’s a nice little taste of what you’re going to hear, and I think the Aces are in their peak band era. 

Was the writing and recording process different on this forthcoming record? What’s your creative process like? Do you create tracks together or do you prefer to write solo? Do you fuse all of the individual elements together in one song?

It’s a mixture of both. We’ll start a lot of the songs together, but we’ll also bring in ideas separately and help each other finish them. We made this whole record with our friend Keith Varon, so it was super collaborative and fun and open thanks to him. We experimented a lot and we switched it up a bit. We started some tracks live. We would just get in a live room and hit play and just thrash. That birthed a couple songs. Other songs were brought in. It was just a combination of the two. 

Where do you find inspiration for your creativity?

I just think from livin’. Livin’ life. That’s truly the best way to get inspired is to go live ya damn life. I feel like a lot of art inspires us too. I feel like we get a lot of inspiration from not just music, but a lot of visual things. Photography, film, things like that, from the ‘80s and ‘90s. I think we find a lot of inspiration from those vibes. 

If you could tell your younger selves just one thing, what would that message be?

Keep shreddin’. Just keep chuggin’ along, girly. You got it.

Honestly, I would say what you have with these girls is special and keep shredding. It’s gonna pan out. Keep shredding period!

We can see you playing so many incredible shows, prides, and festivals this year. Is there anywhere in particular that you are looking forward to visiting or playing?

We’re going on tour with Why Don’t We in the summer for ten weeks and we will be touring the entire U.S. We’re excited to play our hometown. We’re playing the UCCU Center with Why Don’t We and that feels fun. And Radio City in New York, that’ll be cool. 

If the Aces curated their own festival, who would be the top 3 headliners?

The Aces, the Aces, Katie tap dancing with the Aces. 

Paramore. The 1975. Tame Impala. Sign Sealed. 

The Jonas Brothers. The Naked Brothers Band. 

The Aces, Katie tap dancing, and the Aces one more time. 

How do you digest social media? Do you find that it’s more of a help or a hinderance to you as artists and your creative practice? Is there ever any pressure to post content, creative music for TikTok, or share too much of yourselves with your followers? 

I feel that we’re lucky in that as artists and people social media comes naturally to us. We’re pretty naturally on there I’d say, but there’s always a weird pressure that’s annoying and that we have to deal with. Some of us within the band are more easily on social media. Some of us definitely struggle with it sometimes in feeling creative on there because it’s hard to be creative when you feel the purpose of these things is to expose you in a commercial way and that gets in the way of my creativity for sure. I would say it’s definitely both. It’s a double-edged sword. It can be a hinderance, but it can also be a tool as an artist to expose yourself to more people so it’s a love/hate relationship. 

If you had to introduce a fifth member who’s an artist, who would you love to be a member of the Aces? 

I’d say Slappy the Dummy. 

Slappy the Dummy on triangle. 

Slappy the Dummy on keys! 

No, trombone

Make sure to check out The Aces electric track Girls Make Me Wanna Die below.