Pop-punk often gets a bum rap for being limited to angsty teens; for those going through an emotional development and needing a voice to help them out. Really though, it’s so much more – the genre offers escapism for everyone, cementing moments in time.
For Stand Atlantic singer and guitarist Bonnie Fraser, the band’s debut album ‘Skinny Dipping’ has offered up a chance to unpack herself on the quest to create this moment for others.
“It was something that I just wanted to be as personal as possible,” she begins. “I went through some things in the past year that affected me; the only thing that I’ve ever known how to do is write how I feel.”
Talking to Bonnie, who’s on tour in the US and currently pitched up in Richmond, Virginia, she holds a refreshing self-awareness for both her position and the genre that she and her band are rooting themselves in.
“We don’t like going with the grain. We go against the grain in every kind of way,” she says defiantly. “From a personal point of view lyrically, there’s no way I’m ever going to sing about ‘getting out of my town’, and all that kind of thing. I just can’t stand it.
“I can’t go and write a song about a friend and how they were crossing the road one time, and they saw a dead bird, and it upset them. I can’t go and write a song about that.
“I can only go and write about what I feel, and so there’s always going to be a lot of emotion behind all the songs we have.”
With ‘Skinny Dipping’, not only is it Bonnie’s unveiling of herself, but it’s an album that finds its backbone in the ethos of the genre – to get lost in a moment and to offer everything up. This sentiment rings true throughout the ten tracks, and more importantly, even down to the record’s name.
“When I proposed the title to the guys they were like, ‘Ohhhh it sounds lame, I don’t know’ – and that was my initial reaction when I first thought of it, like ‘Ugh, I don’t know it’s a bit weird’.
“But it makes so much sense with what I was trying to say with all the songs. And the fact that the title is a bit weird, and kind of left of centre I feel like is something people will think that’s interesting.”
The act of skinny dipping, Bonnie laughs, is “something that kids will do fun, or adults will do for a bit of naughty fun.”
