The FEVER Issue: Momma
by amelia zollner
Photo by Sophie Hur
“I’ll get big, I’ll take off / And I’ll be a household name,” Momma sings on “Rip Off.” In the track, which leads the band’s latest album Household Name, members Allegra Weingarten, Etta Friedman and Aron Kobayashi Ritch yearn for fame — a level of fame where their names are known “in every homе across the States.”
Opening up for Snail Mail, one of the upcoming indie rock staple’s initial inspirations, Momma played sold-out venues to crowds of feverish fans this fall. Momma’s members bonded while touring, too, getting matching tattoos and partying after playing packed shows.
The tour supported Household Name, released at the beginning of July to near universal praise for its powerful hooks and choruses. Critics have compared the album to those of grunge acts like Veruca Salt and Nirvana, which has become a point of frustration for Weingarten and Friedman. If there’s anything they want people to take away from their newfound success, it’s that they’re their own band.
In August, I had the chance to speak to Weingarten and Friedman via Zoom about tour tattoos, escaping the frustration of being associated with the grunge acts of the '90s and becoming their very own household name.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Can you both introduce yourselves?
Allegra: My name is Allegra, she/her/hers. And I play guitar and I sing.
Etta: My name is Etta, I use they/them pronouns and I play guitar and sing as well.
Right now, you're touring with Snail Mail! How has that been so far?
Etta: Literally the best tour ever.
Allegra and Etta together: It's so fun!
Allegra: It's really unexpected. Hotline TNT is with us too. And we are literally all like family. It's crazy.
Etta: Yeah, we keep on saying that it feels like we're at summer camp. And like we never want it to end. Seriously.
Aside from playing shows, have there been any super notable highlights of the tour?
Etta: For sure! There's been so many. We do some dumb shit.
Allegra: What would you say is the highlight? Saxapahaw?
Etta: Saxapawhaw was amazing.
Allegra: We played in Saxapahaw, North Carolina, which is in the middle of nowhere. After the show, we were just outside in the forest for hours dancing to Lady Gaga, it was awesome.
Etta: It was so funny. We were all getting pretty trashed. Birmingham was great. In Birmingham, we played this place, The Saturn. They have this apartment upstairs, so we just had this huge slumber party. We stayed up forever. It was awesome.
That's so fun! On Instagram, you guys posted about potentially getting tattoos together on tour. If I might ask, are you guys planning anything super special to commemorate the tour?
Etta: I'd say it's pretty special.
Allegra: We have this phrase, I'm pretty sure I coined it.
Etta: I think you may have.
Allegra: It's called “hang out forever,” and that's when you just don't want to leave someone else's side. So I think we're gonna get that tattooed.
Etta: Which is just such a funny tattoo in general, but we need it. Badly.
I love it! I know recently, especially with the release of Household Name, a ton of publications have been praising your hooks and your choruses. In your eyes, what's the key to writing a catchy hook or chorus?
Allegra: Oh, that's a good question. I think we don't overthink it… that much. A lot of our hooks are just the first thing that we thought of. They're meaningful because they're pure, not because they're deep.
Etta: Right. And on top of that, having something that's universally understood, even if that's secretly something super meaningful for you.
Allegra: Yeah, totally. We also listen to our own music a lot, especially when we're writing, so if you can listen to something 10-15 times and not get sick of it, then it's probably what you should keep.
Especially with the release of Household Name, I've seen a lot of people drawing comparisons between your sound and bands from the ‘90s. Do you have any more modern inspirations that you can credit for the sound of Household Name? Or do you just tend to draw more from the past?
Allegra: We've said this a million times before, but Beabadoobee was a really big influence for us when we were writing this record. She has a really glossy but big pop sound that we were really, really into. This is ‘90s, not grunge, but we love Frou Frou. Those were two big, really, really big influences for us that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily know because it's not Nirvana.
Etta: Yeah. The grunge needs to chill. Those bands have influenced so many other people. It's just funny to be attached to it because we name drop. There's plenty of other people that we listen to.
Allegra: Alex G is probably one of our biggest influences. Obviously, he's everyone's. I feel like a lot of our guitar playing, we owe it to that guy.
Etta: Yeah, totally. And Speedy.
Allegra: And Speedy Ortiz.
So do you get frustrated when people consistently compare you to Nirvana or other grunge bands?
Allegra and Etta together: Yeah!
Allegra: Maybe it's hard to get outside of it because I'm so inside my own music, but even if I was an outsider listening to us for the first time, I don't think it sounds exactly like Veruca Salt or The Breeders. I think we have our own style.
Etta: Yeah. I mean, those people are definitely super influential, and the Nirvana one I get a bit more. A big theme for us writing this record was studying the rise and fall of rock stars and Kurt Cobain. So I guess I understand that, but it's just so funny.
I always love to ask bands about their local scenes and if they draw any influence from their hometowns. Where are you both from and how has that impacted your music?
Allegra: We're from LA. A lot of people still think that we live there. We don't, we live in Brooklyn. We were Smell kids, so we grew up in a very specific DIY community with a lot of bands that were coming up, like Girlpool, Cherry Glazerr, Current Joys, Surf Curse, that whole vibe. That was also the height of Burger Records. Not that any of those are directly influences on us, but we definitely grew up around loud punk garage rock.
Etta: Yeah, it was really cool and inspiring to go somewhere in the middle of downtown LA and see people who are your age or just a little bit older who go to your friend's high school or whatever it is rocking the house down at the Smell, selling out, everyone wanted to do that.
So did you both grow up going to or playing a lot of house shows?
Allegra: Not so much house shows. The Smell was this DIY venue in downtown LA that was where everyone went. I was there three or four times a week. That was the one big one. There was a time in LA where there were just DIY spots everywhere, literally in strip malls, just random ass shit.
Etta: It was cool because those places allowed people — I mean, LA is freaking huge — it allowed kids from all different pockets of the city to meet up over one common thing. Places like The Gym, not necessarily in the center of LA, kids who lived on the outskirts were able to easily go there. Kids who lived in the center of LA would want to go there. It's a good way to explore the city.
I'm guessing you have been asked this a ton in the spirit of your new album, but, as you gear up for your first headlining tour, and as your music is kind of picked up for more publications, I know a lot of people are kind of saying, “Oh my god, Momma is becoming a household name!” Do you want to be a household name? How do you feel about growing as a band?
Allegra: I mean, I think if we're a household name in indie households, that would be pretty cool.
Etta: Yeah, that'd be sick.
Allegra: But we definitely don't expect Phoebe Bridgers level household name.
Etta: Although that would rock.
Allegra: That would be epic, I would love that.
Etta: Yeah, that just comes with a lot of other territory. I mean, we'd love to, obviously. I feel like that's what everyone strives for.
Allegra: I feel like we've been doing this for so long. We've been doing this since we were teenagers. To finally get to the point where we're like, “The bands that we grew up liking are our peers now, like Snail Mail. We saw Snail Mail in high school when Lindsey was literally 18 years old, and we fucked with it. And now we're all hanging out. And we're good friends.”