Just six days into fall, a brisk wind blows down Cypress Avenue as a white Toyota RAV4 pulls up outside of Permanent Records Roadhouse to begin unloading a drum set for Los Angeles band Suzie True. The three-piece punk group opened for Playboy Manbaby on Sept. 28.
First to arrive is drummer Sarah Pineapple, lugging disconnected pieces of her kit backstage through a dispersing crowd. Shortly after, songwriter, vocalist and bassist Lexi McCoy and guitarist and vocalist G Leonardo round the corner onto the street. They are both covered in tattoos, wearing boots and dresses, decorated with chunky metal jewelry and ribbons.
Record store by day, venue and bar by night, the floor of Permanent Records Roadhouse is checkered black and white, the walls lined with red leather booths. Tiffany lamps hang from the ceiling, emitting an orange glow that mingles with the red and blue lighting of the stage. The walls are covered in posters, photos of musicians and records.
Once on stage, the trio huddles together, heads inclined toward one another, dancing around in anticipation. To catch the attention of the audience, Suzie True begins a brief sound check with “The Little Mermaid’s” “Part of Your World.”
“Who are you people?” G yells into the microphone when they’re finished, backed by a wall of silver tinsel that glints off blue and pink lights.
It seems like the audience wants to know who Suzie True is too.
Their name comes from the song “Bad Man” by the Oblivians. In it, they sing, “I’m a bad man! / But I’m too good for you / My Susie true.”
It began with Lexi, in August of 2017, toying with the idea of putting out a solo EP under the name Suzie True. After just one week in Los Angeles, she met Sarah, who instantly became Suzie True’s drummer. Everything fell into place when G joined the band on guitar.
Their connection to one another is palpable as they joke around, roll on the floor and make faces at the audience. Watching them together is like watching a group of close friends hanging out, rather than coworkers meeting up for a gig.
They open with a few distorted guitar strums before launching into “Backburner,” a song from their 2023 album with Get Better Records, “Sentimental Scum.”
The song “Sentimental Scum” and the album itself tackle topics ranging from getting older to mental health to crushes to addiction to queer identity to romance. Suzie True cites ‘90s grunge as a major musical and style influence on them. In an interview with the New University, they specifically named the Breeders, Hole, Liz Phair, the Pixies, Nirvana and My Chemical Romance as bands they admire.
Lexi does her best to contrast beauty in songs with sweet and light aesthetics through much darker and harsher lyrics.
“To me, they kind of go hand in hand already,” she said. “It just feels like life.”
Lexi writes Suzie True’s songs with bass and melody before taking it to G and Sarah for guitar and drums. From there, songs can either end up very similar to their first draft or, sometimes, the finished product looks entirely different.
Something special about Suzie True is their embrace of what it means to be both hyper-feminine and punk.
“I feel like, when I was growing up, I hung out with the punk kids, and it was really lame to be girly. They’d make fun of you if you were wearing a skirt or a dress or something,” McCoy said. “I just wanted to be like, you can dress super girly or however you want and still play in a punk band, like punk music, and not have to be like ‘one of the boys’ to be able to fit into the music scene.”
G jumped in to agree. “Another big point for me is feeling safe and comfortable with what I can wear. It’s been nice to dress the way I would dress at a show normally and feel good because, you know, I’m surrounded by like-minded people, and in turn, they also feel safe to dress like themselves and express themselves as safely as possible.”
Their newest release, “LEECHES (PLAY DEAD),” came out on April 30.
“This song is about when you’re dating someone,” Lexi begins on stage before she and G squeal into the microphone, like they just found out about a middle school crush. “And they’re like, ‘I’m gonna change, I’m gonna change, I’m gonna change,’ and you know what? I want them to show me.”
Both Lexi and G color their live songs with metal growls that juxtapose their usual, much softer speaking voices. Getting creative with their vocals, using call-and-response tactics to engage the audience and goofing around on stage came with getting comfortable performing together as a band.
“I do really enjoy when bands sound different than their recording, just because they feel special and different after the experience,” G said. “You play enough, you start to think of things you can do to make [songs] different, and it just starts to add up over time, I think. We like to have fun — we like to f**k around and stuff.”
“I think our songs get better when we play them live; we just dial it in even more,” Sarah added.
To close out the show, during their song “Toothache,” Lexi growls desperately, encapsulating what it means to be a woman in the punk scene and the world at large: “I just want someone to f**king understand me.”
Being in the music industry is no easy feat, and it has been hard work to get where Suzie True is at now as they work on their third album. The appreciation the band members have toward one another is evidence of their perseverance and stark honesty as musicians.
“These are my two best friends in the world, and I’m very grateful to be here playing the songs we wrote together,” Lexi said into the mic before clearing the stage for the next act.
Lillian Dunn is the 2024-2025 Arts & Entertainment Editor. She can be reached at lbdunn@uci.edu.
Edited by June Min and Jaheem Conley