#AlternativeFacts Podcast: Bleached Talks Zine-Making, Touring With Paramore, Writing New Music

Around the time Bleached were wrapping up touring for their rip-roaring, catchy-as-hell sophomore album Welcome the Worms, they got fed up. Not with their fans or their sound -- both were on the upswing -- but with the questions they got asked in interviews. Enter the irreverent title of the L.A. garage rockers' latest EP and its accompanying zine.

“It’s called Can You Deal?,” says Bleached vocalist-guitarist Jennifer Clavin, chatting last weekend at New York's Panorama Music Festival. “We constantly were asked, ‘What’s it like to be a girl in a band?’ I’ve been playing music for over ten years and I get the same question repeatedly… I was like, dude can you ask us about the guitars we like to play, or the amps we like to play through, or what these lyrics are about? It felt like we were being turned into this novelty of girls with guitars.”

The zine (which is sold out, but available digitally here) wound up including an eye-opening array of testimonials from female musicians, including Kate Nash, Lizzo, Liz Phair, and Hayley Williams. Lo and behold, Bleached just got off an otherworldly European tour opening for Paramore.

“It was amazing,” Clavin says. They’re so cool with all of us and all their fans…We all would hang out every night and have dance parties.”

For more on what it’s like to tour with Paramore, organizing the Can You Deal? zine, and details on the follow-up album they’re already working on, listen to Bleached’s interview with #AlternativeFacts host Chris Payne in the podcast below. It features Clavin, her sister, guitarist-vocalist Jessica Clavin and bassist-vocalist Micayla Grace. 

And that’s not all! On this week’s episode, we also check in with Billboard staffers -- and returning podcast guests -- Lyndsey Havens and Taylor Weatherby, who recount their experiences covering Lollapalooza last weekend. Lorde’s onstage witchcraft, Lil Yachty’s bonkers crowd, the Blink-182 vs. Killers debate — it’s all here!