Astrology Girl Are Getting Personal
Astrology Girl, split between Lethbridge and Calgary, are an Alberta emo band. Blake Cullum, founding member and multi-instrumentalist of the band, sat down with REVERIE to chat about the band’s beginning and their lyric writing.
The band formed, modernly, through a Kijiji ad. Cullum explained that they and Casper Van, the band’s vocalist, met on Kijiji around 2023 and immediately got to writing. But, Van lives in Calgary, and Cullum, in Lethbridge along with the rest of the band.
Astrology Girl. Photo credit: @liminaldisgracesmedia.
At the beginning though, it was only Cullum, Van, and their drummer, Rowan Eveleigh. Cullum wanted to get music out quickly to break a well known local band cliche.
“I knew from the beginning that I didn’t even want to go live as a band until we had songs ready to release. My old band existed for like five years and we didn’t release something for a really long time. I needed to break out of that local band like, ‘big things coming soon’ kind of shit. I find that off- putting as a fan, and I definitely find it off- putting being in a band. I want to have something to show for it and don’t want to be in that weird phase where you’re playing shows but no one can find your music anywhere,” Cullum explained.
Cullum began writing music and driving up to Calgary to record vocals and. Cullum played the only guitar on the debut EP, as well as bass.
“Right out of the gate, I had a couple ideas that I was coming into [the project] with. My old band was dissolving and I knew I wanted to do an emo style thing, but I didn’t 100 per cent know what it was going to sound like. Two of the songs, “Cereal Killer,” and “Driveway Olympics,” I had half written before,” they said.
While emo can definitely be described as the vent-genre, Cullum said there aren’t many uniquely personal experiences within, but not because they want it that way. “It’s kind of a point of frustration for me sometimes because I’m not super good at writing really personal lyrics. Or, I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. A lot of our songs end up being phrases that kind of sound cool, and then building a narrative off of that. I sometimes call it relation-slop where it’s like, some stuff that can apply to a lot of other people’s lives.”
The band’s upcoming release is set to break from this and have some more personal themes on it. “We do have some more personal songs that are actually about something we’re passionate about. Not just because it’s something interesting or sounds cool,” they said.
Astrology Girl.
Cullum added that they and Van disagree on whether to have more personal, meaningful lyrics though. “Van is very much like, ‘no, fuck that, if it sounds cool, it sounds cool.’ I like listening to a band’s songs where I can tell that there’s some personal connection and real passion in the lyrical content. I’ve had this conversation before where I've been like, ‘I wish our songs were maybe more profound or maybe had deeper meanings to them.’”
The next record is set to have songs that detail topics like “working under capitalism and the effect that has on your mind, body, and soul. And there’s a song that’s about a pretty traumatic event that happened to me,” Cullum said. They added that they’re “pretty passionate politically, and that’s kind of been a theme that’s sort of been in our music from the start even though it’s never been like, the focus of a song.”
The song about working and living under capitalism currently has the working title “Awfully Hot Coffee Pot.” Cullum said that their working titles usually end up sticking around.
Catch Astrology Girl at Purple City Music Festival at the Downtown Edmonton Community League on September 6. Cullum said while they’re “sticking to the core songs, [they] think [they’ll] play at least one new one.”
Astrology Girl are playing Purple City Music Festival in Edmonton, AB on Saturday, September 6th with Swimming, Fulfilment, and On My Side at the Downtown Edmonton Community League. Tickets are available for purchase on TicketWeb.