When asked where the Coathangers developed their supreme confidence onstage, drummer-vocalist Stephanie Luke laughs and tells Orlando Weekly, "Girl, I do not know. ... We're just at this point in our lives where we're like, if you like it you like it, if you don't you don't and you're the one who paid to come here, so if you don't like it then the joke's on you." It's a good lesson, not just for aspiring musicians, but for the rest of us, too. "We don't really second-guess ourselves anymore. And we've gotten older, too, so I don't really give a crap what anybody thinks of me. We don't got time for that anymore."
It's a confidence the ladies from Atlanta have possessed since the very early days, a strength onstage that is almost political in its power. It's what gives them the guts to stop playing mid-song to scold an overly aggressive dude in the pit, as they did when they played a fiery show at Will's Pub last year. "The whole reason that happened, that we stopped playing, was because we legitimately care about the people who come to the show and we don't want anyone to get a broken nose – because that's happened before," Luke recalls. "We just kind of go with our gut and if we see something going on that isn't quite right then we react to it just like if we were walking on the street, you know? We just like to be as interactive as possible with our fans and, hopefully, we end up friends."
So, rest assured, the Coathangers have got your back, but if the threat of a broken nose is too much for you, there's a live album on the way. The Coathangers: 2 Nights of Magic, due for a June release, encapsulates all of the fun and fury of the band's live show and features songs dating all the way back to their manic 2007 debut. "We're not as angry but it still works ... we're just angry about different stuff nowadays," Luke laughs.
These days that anger is getting channeled into writing their upcoming album, due out next year. "We're dipping into a bit of a political stance about things ... with all this crap that's going on now, there's no way that we can NOT talk about it. We're just as mad as everyone else," Luke says. "We just want to make sure that anybody who's going through anything right now knows that, you know, you're not alone. We have to stand together in this, that's the only way to move forward ... to bond together and to listen to people."
All that rage will be funneled through the Coathangers' unique filter of quirkiness, with the result having "a positive vibe to it, but also kind of a weird Coathangers-y vibe to it. We try to remain consistent, but get better with every record and try to keep it interesting so that you guys wanna keep listening. That's the point, right?"
