Rainbow Girls Play New Noise Fest

Until now, the world has only been able to see rainbows, but what about hearing a rainbow? Luckily, on Saturday, October 17, the colorful quartet, Rainbow Girls, is coming to SOhO for the New Noise Music Festival. I spoke with two members of the group, Erin Chapin (guitar/keys/vocals) and Savannah Hughes (drums), to find out more about them.

Rainbow Girls have just returned from touring their second studio album, Perceptronium, in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2010, the band originally started by busking in the European streets to sustain their travels, but nowadays they are more organized: they have managers, booking agents, and videographers to set things up in foreign countries. Of their U.K. tour, Chapin had said: “It was awesome! We played 20 shows, festivals and radio spots in 25 days, and we called it the ‘We’ll Sleep When We’re Dead Tour.’ It was quite an array — from sit-down older crowds to young boisterous, super-drunk really fun crowds.”

Not only are the women shining stars, but they have a lot on their creative minds and are well versed in subjects from quantum physics to feminism: “Perceptronium is actually the concept of consciousness as a state of matter,” said Hughes. “We’re always talking about space and it kind of just went along with our first album The Speed of Sound.”

Ask them about their femininity and you’ll receive a tactful and poignant mindset: “It’s really special to play with a group of ladies who are passionate about music and sharing it with the world, and I feel like this time is really need for women musicians to come out and say we can rock out just as hard,” said Hughes. “Erin will say, at our shows, that to be a feminist only means that you think women should be regarded as equal to men. There are extremists out there that think men are bad and women are better, but that’s not what were talking about.”

Rainbow Girls’ shows are always a good party, take one listen to the song “George Lassos the Moon,” and the reason why becomes clear — soulful violet organ, indigo harmonica solos, cerulean blue vocals on high, and then a ripping scarlet red drum solo, yellow guitars, green bass, and a creamsicle orange breakdown of rambling talking heads that all melds into one rainbow dance party in your head. Psychedelic man!

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Rainbow Girls perform as part of the New Noise Music Festival, Saturday, October 17, at SOhO. For tickets and information, call (805) 962-7776 or see sohosb.com.