While singing, Maq’s accent is rumblingly clear. Charmingly she is not interested in showmanship. The singer exclaims to the bassist: Fortunately that seems wrong. On record, it’s an exciting feeling of a band as a gang, on a mission, against the world. And live, it’s a guaranteed hell-raiser. Maq pumped her fists into her phone’s camera and said, “Now it’s become iconic.”
After years of trying to convey her anger in song, Maq has come to focus on an accompanying trauma. “Hurricane” is an album that explores collective pain. “It’s all blue”, Maq sings on “Blue”. “You know I feel it and I bet you do.”
Camp Cope took on “Hurricane” in 2021 between Melbourne’s third and fourth coronavirus lockdowns, having to balance each member’s schedule with Maq’s day job as an essential worker. She had studied nursing before starting the band, but had never worked in the field. When the pandemic led to a shortage of nurses, she went back to medicine; the album sessions took place as the vaccine rollout in Australia began. “I felt like I had a duty,” she said. “I loved my job to get as many people vaccinated as possible and get them as safe and protected as possible.”
On ‘Hurricane’, the ringing, boisterous band isn’t afraid to be folk or gentle, and Maq, who started vocal coaching a few years ago, uses an increasingly powerful voice to roar. She sings about tirelessly texting people without an answer, sex with strangers, the humiliations and tragedies of life – big and small – and getting through it. However, it is not hollow positivity. It is a pride in perseverance. The world is bad, she seems to want to say, but we are still alive. On the album’s title track, about a classic twisty Hellmrich bassline and Thompson’s stronghold, she offers a catchphrase of sorts: “There’s no other way to go / The only way out is up / And I’m sticking with it!”
From an early stage, Camp Cope was labeled a political band. The trio accepts it as an inevitability. “We are the only successful all-female band to ever come out of Australia,” said Maq. “We’ve never had that luxury of just now be seen as a band.”
But the heaviness of that perception isn’t apparent in the band’s interactions, which are full of bits and loving roasts. “It makes me happy that behind this important feminist band are three of the funniest pranksters I’ve ever met,” said their friend, punk musician Jeff Rosenstock. Early in their touring days, when they first visited New York, he took them on a tour to see the ‘Home Alone 2’ locations. He recalls being most excited to see a “wasted person take bites of a raw, bun-less hot dog that was in their breast pocket.”
In an attempt to describe what these days feel like, before the new album comes out, Hellmrich said: “We’re on American television and everyone is saying, ‘Wow, you’re blowing up.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s cool, I think I’ll go hang out with my partner’s kid or go to the shops.’” Thompson’s plans for the afternoon include a pint in the pub. As for Maq, she was on shift at the hospital.”I’m working today,” she said. “Two to 9:30am.”
