WEALTHY WOMEN

PHOTO CREDIT: NATE KING

1. Welcome to All the Cores and More! Would you please introduce yourself and what you do in the band?

It’s me, Peter Sisk. I play guitar and “sing”. 

2. Fill us in on your backstory: how did you meet, how and when did the band form, etc.?

I met Andrew at a mutual friend’s birthday party in 2024. There was no cake but it was at an excellent cocktail bar in San Francisco called Third Rail. I’m from Ireland originally but I’ve been living in SF since 2017. I’d been hoping to find musicians to play with but it never quite came together. Andrew and I started chatting and had a lot of musical common ground, so we started jamming together. He played recordings of our rehearsals to Don who absolutely insisted he be allowed to play with us. We played our first show about 3 months later.

3. If someone had not yet heard the band, how would you characterize your sound to them?

This is tough! We use baritone guitars which are tuned lower than a standard guitar and a low-tuned bass to match so we’ve got a lot of low end happening. We’re borrowing some of that from Doom and Sludge, but our tempos are higher than bands typically play in those genres. On top of that our vocals and lyrics are legible and very direct (at times uncomfortably so, perhaps) which is a departure from a lot of the Noise Rock influences we have.

People have compared us to Chat Pile, Melvins and sometimes Shellac. We’re big fans of all those bands, so that works out great. One guy said we sound like what he imagined Russian Circles would sound like with vocals, which was lovely but there’s no way we’re anywhere near as technical as those guys.

4. How did you guys settle on the band name? I’m always intrigued by how bands arrive at what they’ll call themselves and what the name’s significance is.

In the early days of the band we were thinking and talking about what we wanted our message to be. Along with everything else we saw the current US administration as being even more overtly hostile to women and we wanted opposition to that to be a core part of who we are. Throughout history reactionary and patriarchal movements have reserved a special hatred for women they cannot control. To us a Wealthy Woman embodies that.

5. I’m curious about what started you down the “rabbit hole” of alternative/underground music in the first place. What did that journey of discovery look/sound like?

Growing up my folks listened to a lot of music. I think in Ireland music is a feature of more public spaces, too, especially compared to America. My family lived in Seattle for 6 months when I was a kid and we would drive around listening to REM, Bruce Springsteen and whoever else my folks liked.

I think that was a jumping off point for me when it came to finding music of my own in the way that all teenagers do. Luckily I discovered Nirvana, Sonic Youth and all the bands that came out of the US underground in the mid to late 80’s. I feel like that musical and cultural ethos has been a part of the music I’ve made ever since.

6. I asked this question of Dave from Baratro, and it seems especially germane to the work Wealthy Women is doing: it seems to me that the ethos of punk rock is more essential today than ever. Can you tell us about how this informs the music and work of Wealthy Women?

I think the part of the punk rock ethos that I still identify with the most is the sense of community. So much of our community is literally and figuratively threatened by the policies of the current US administration. We’ve spent the last two years coming to terms with the possibility of the power of the state being turned against us through no fault of our own. A climate of fear that exists for anyone who does not conform to the white nationalist ideal, either because of race, sexuality or ideology. In this climate the punk rock community is more important than ever.

7. Two of the tracks from your upcoming record Children have been released as singles thus far: “Take It Back” and “37 Days.” What is the subject matter of each song and how do they reflect the overall direction and topical urgency of the record?

“Take It Back” is a song about someone who votes Republican in the 2024 election but ends up as a target for the administration’s immigration policies. It’s written from the perspective of this fictional person because it feels lazy to me simply to throw rocks at people we disagree with. Like a lot of people in the aftermath of the election I was trying to understand why people would vote in a way that seemed obviously counter to their personal interests. I researched the exit polls and the reasons given for their choices. The first part of the song lays out those reasons from the subject’s perspective and the second deals with the consequences.

“37 Days” tells the story of Asaad al-Nasasra, a Palestinian paramedic who survived a massacre only to be imprisoned for over a month. It’s difficult to process the enormity of the war in Gaza. For better or worse, I think the stories of individual people cut through the noise in a way that brings the horror home to us. When we imagine our family or friends being subjected to such treatment, it makes it real for us in a way that doomscrolling the news cannot.

Both songs attempt to inhabit the perspective of someone else in an effort to present their story truthfully. It’s a recurring theme across the record, but it does sometimes mean playing the character of someone we fundamentally disagree with. We had some concerns about this during the recording process but ultimately decided we had to trust the audience to divine our intentions. Satire can be scary!

8. Children will be released August 7th. What was the writing and recording process like? Can you speak to the significance/meaning of the cover art, and also, are there any other (spoiler-free) notes on the record you’d like to provide?

The cover art is by an incredibly talented photographer named Anastasiia Sapon. It’s part of her series documenting the ongoing war in her home country of Ukraine. We felt it really connected with the album visually. I didn’t think it was possible to sing about anything other than the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, about the destruction of US democracy, the rise of Christian nationalism and the theatre of cruelty perpetrated by ICE, so those became the core lyrical themes of the record.

We spent late 2024 and most of 2025 writing and playing a few shows here and there. Early in 2025 we met with Scott Evans whose records we all agreed sound killer. His band Kowloon Walled City is also one of my favourites. I don’t know if they’re an influence because we play way faster than they do but I think we all admire them.

I definitely work best with a deadline so we booked studio time in September to give us something to work towards.

Two weeks out from recording we only had 7 songs but luckily “Atheist Wife” came together really quickly (including writing the lyrics the night before we recorded them). 

The actual recording was a lot of fun. We tracked all the basics live then moved pretty quickly through overdubs. We wanted to make things bigger without adding too many ingredients to the mix, so on many of the songs it’s just the live tracks with a single guitar overdub. Luckily Scott is great at making things huge and the room at Antisleep / Atomic Garden sounds amazing.

Scott has exactly the right balance of encouraging you while also making fun of you. I particularly appreciated his bedside manner during the vocal recording. This is my first time being the main singer in a band (I’ve always done backing vocals or lead on one song) so it was great to have someone I trusted on the other side of the glass.

ARTWORK CREDIT: ANASTASIIA SAPON

9. What do you have lined up for the rest of the year?

We’ve got a West Coast US tour in July building up to our album release show in San Francisco on August 7th. We’ll be back in Portland and Seattle and we have a bunch of dates booked in the LA/San Diego region, too. We’re really looking forward to taking the songs on the road.

Later in the year we’re working on getting over to Europe, probably for some shows in Ireland. If anyone wants to book us, reach out!

10. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions! Any last words for the readers?

Call your mom!