Cherry Glazerr’s performances are all-consuming.
Cherry Glazerr’s performances are all-consuming.
Video directed by Vice Cooler and Angie Scarpa. All photos by Andres Herrera.

Cherry Glazerr: KCRW Live from HQ

Intimate performances, fresh sounds, and candid conversations with a view.

Written by Marion Hodges

Formed in 2013 by frontwoman Clementine Creevy, Cherry Glazerr — named, of course, after KCRW’s own Chery Glaser — has evolved from the lo-fi, abstract teenage preoccupations that informed early releases Papa Cremp and Haxel Princess, to a hi-def sonic force influential in its own right. 2017’s Apocalipstick — their first for indie stalwart label Secretly Canadian — began the process of the band deepening its Riot Grrrl and garage rock-rooted sounds. Subsequent releases, like 2019’s Stuffed & Ready and especially 2023’s I Don’t Want You Anymore, ushered in complex flourishes like doomcore intensity juxtaposed with dramatic strings. Lyrically, Creevy continues working through her long held fascinations — the complexities of situationships, mental health, loneliness… Put together, Cherry Glazerr’s catalog reveals a songwriter desperate to make sense of existence, both her own and as a concept writ large.

More: Video: KCRW’s Chery Glaser chats with Cherry Glazerr’s Clem Creevy

Beyond these considerable contributions with her own band, Creevy has collaborated with Tyler The Creator, Moon Boots, and Death Grips (to name a few). She also had a pivotal role in the Prime TV series Transparent, modeled for Australian designer Emma Mulholland, and publicly reckoned with the statutory rape she endured in a relationship with a former bandmate.

The 27-year-old Creevy (vocals, guitar) brings Cherry Glazerr’s current lineup — Sami Perez (bass), Luke MacDonald (keys), and Nick Pillot (drums) — to KCRW’s Annenberg Performance Studio for razor-sharp renditions of I Don’t Want You Anymore cuts “Soft Like A Flower,” “Ready For You,” and the title track. Plus, 2021 standalone single “Big Bang” and Haxel Princess deep cut “Whites Not My Color This Evening.”

Thrash along to the full performance video above, and scroll on for Creevy’s interview with KCRW’s Raul Campos, where she gets into evolving her sound, writing about boys, and how she began conceptualizing the next album as soon as I Don’t Want You Anymore hit shelves. 

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Raul Campos: Talk to us about the latest record, it shows so much growth and maturity.

Clem Creevy: I was working on it with Yves Rothman for a while. I think we were working on it for [at least] a year because he was in Yves Tumor’s band. But shout out to Yves — I did a lot of sessions with a lot of producers and they're all great, but [Rothman and I] had a special chemistry and I just loved his style. So yeah, we started working on [this] music I'd been writing throughout the past, like, three years.

More: Cherry Glazerr: KCRW Live From the Basement (MBE, 2019)

Is there a certain someone that the first half of the record is dedicated to? Because it sounds like at first you're talking about somebody… and then you're kind of growing into yourself in the later part of the record.

Yeah, I love the later part of the record, like the title track is one of my favorite ones and has started to become one of my favorite ones to play live … But I think it's definitely a lot about myself in romantic relationships. I'll be honest, it's about boys, it's about a lot of different boys. [laughs]

I kind of got that idea [laughs]. But there's a bit of sonic experimentation to the record as well, what can you tell us about that?

I feel like I've been describing it as being a little bit more patient than the last few records. The two that I did before this were very section by section, very formulaic, and by the books on structure. And for this last record, we were like, ‘you know, let's not do that’ … And I was loving a lot of Deftones.

So what's next? Can we expect the experiment to continue?

I’ve been working on the next album and I'm excited about it. I feel like I can't share too much about it. As soon as this one came out, I had ideas for the next one. So yeah… You'll just have to wait and see.

Explore more KCRW Live From sessions

Credits:

KCRW Music Director: Anne Litt
Interviewer: Raul Campos
Directors: Vice Cooler and Angie Scarpa
Editor / Colorist: Angie Scarpa
Director of Photography: Dalton Blanco
Camera Operators: Dalton Blanco, Vice Cooler, Kylie Hazzard
Recording / Mix Engineer: Nick Lampone
Assistant Engineers: Hope Brush (Front of House) & Katie Gilchrest
Executive Producer: Ariana Morgenstern 
Producers: Anna Chang and Liv Surnow
Digital Producer: Marion Hodges
Digital Editorial Manager: Andrea Domanick
Lighting Design: Jason Groman
Art Director: Evan Solano

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