OPPOSITE PAGE: HAIR BY STARILINA. MAKEUP BY MEGAN KELLY. STYLING BY INDIANA PIOREK. CLOTHES BY THE MARC JACOBS.62
ROLLING STONEROLLING STONE
’VE ALWAYS
wanted to
work with a
girl band,”
Charli XCX says. “Not a
classically pop girl band, but
a girl band who have a rock &
roll-type energy.” Enter Nasty
Cherry: a new four-piece outfit
with members from both Lon-
don and Southern California.
Not an actual member, Charli
instead played the role of
old-school impresario.
“She had her birthday party
in Palm Springs with about
50 people, then the next day
we went out to a Mexican
restaurant and she said, ‘I have
this idea,’ ” says Nasty Cherry
guitarist Chloe Chaidez, who
first met Charli XCX when her
other band Kitten opened
for the “1999” singer on tour.
Charli also recruited her own
touring drummer, Debbie
Knox-Hewson, and singer
Gabbriette Bechtel, a model
and photographer who,
Charli says, she was “basically
Instagram-stalking for visual
references.”
Bechtel had never sung
before but recorded herselfROWING UP
in Newcastle,
England, Sam
Fender ob-
sessed over Bruce Springsteen.
“Newcastle is a coastal town
that’s like a rundown theme park,
like Asbury Park,” the 23-year-old
says, drawing a parallel between
himself and the man he calls a
“superhero.” In the years since,
the singer-songwriter’s own fu-
sion of Brit-pop and early-2000s
indie rock — heard on his upcom-
ing debut, Hypersonic Missiles
— has taken him from tiny clubs
to massive fests like Reading,
and earned him the Brit Awards’
coveted Critics’ Choice honor,
previously won by Adele and
Sam Smith. He’s still a club act
in the States, but he can’t wait to
get back. “I fucking love playing
there,” he says. “It feels like start-
ing over again.” ANDY GREENEand sent Charli a clip. “I was
floored,” Charli says. “She has
this gorgeous, sultry voice.
It sounds so bruised and
beautiful, and I was just like,
‘OK, Gabbriette’s the shit.’ ”
The group's bassist, Georgia
Somary, was also new to her
instrument. “I loved music and
performance, but it never felt
like an option for me before,”
she says.
The musicians moved into
a house and began practic-
ing. On the first night they
shared an “awkward pizza,” as
Somary describes it. “It felt
very natural even though it’s
a ‘manufactured’ band, as it
were,” Knox-Hewson recalls.
Nasty Cherry debuted in
March with “Win,” a wiry punk-
pop song with tinges of Sky
Ferreira and gothy Eighties
New Wave. Charli helped write
the track, but in general, she’s
keeping her distance as the
band works on an upcoming
EP. “If they need me, they call
me,” she says. “Otherwise, I
like to watch them do their
thing.” BRITTANY SPANOSFTER MOVING
to Nashville
from Ohio,
where she
attended college, in 2011,
Caroline Spence spent her
first couple of years in the city
nannying, waiting tables, and
writing songs every day. In
2013, she finally came up with
one she felt was good enough
to play around town: “Whiskey
Watered Down,” a gently sav-
age kiss-off to a flaky musician.
“You think you’re a big deal
with that guitar in your hands,”
she sings. “But you’ll never be
Parsons, Earle, or Van Zandt.”
“I had been making myself
a student,” says the 29-year-
old, a key voice in the next
wave of roots-leaning Nash-
ville country. “That was the
first time I wrote the type of
song that I love.”
Growing up in Charlottes-
ville, Virginia, Spence idolized
songwriters like Patti Griffin
and Lori McKenna more than
singers. When she first heard
Faith Hill sing one of McKen-
na’s songs on the radio, she
had an immediate realization:
“I want to do that.”
But Spence’s plan to
remain in the background
didn’t quite pan out. After
two self- released albums, she
recently signed to Rounder,
which put out her third LP,
Mint Condition, a gorgeously
rendered reflection on finding
peace amid upheaval and con-
fusion. “The artist thing kind
of just grew out of the need
for someone to be singing mysongs,” she says. “And [that
person] was me.”
She’s also had to grow com-
fortable with her near-angelic
croon. “I would love to be able
to rock a little bit, but there’s
no denying the tenderness
and softness of my voice,”
she says.
Spence’s quietly potent, un-
flashy sound feels like part of
a movement, also exemplified
by Kelsey Waldon, Erin Rae,
and Michaela Anne, fellow ris-
ing artists who share her mis-
sion of stripping country back
to its core elements. “That’s
the greatest joy of living here,”
says Spence. “Seeing anybody
rise up always feels like a vic-
tory.” JONATHAN BERNSTEINNasty Cherry
Caroline Spence
HOMETOWNS London and L.A.
SOUNDS LIKE Sassy Eighties-MTV girl pop guided
by Charli XCX’s rebel spiritHOMETOWN Charlottesville, Virginia
SOUNDS LIKE A lifetime of weary memories distilled
into shockingly pretty roots-country tunesA
‘I
G
Sam
Fender
HOMETOWN Newcastle, England
SOUNDS LIKE Bruce Springsteen
if he was a millennial from
the U.K.MUNACHI OSEGBUMOLLY MATALONJACK WHITEFIELD