Hailing from the storied radical punk scene of the Bay Area, The Furious Tits have been described as the musical lovechild of the Sex Pistols and Angel Olsen, blending raw, nihilistic energy with a haunting melodic vulnerability. Formed during the pandemic after lead singer Zoe began rage-writing lyrics in the shower, the band features a lineup of jazz kids gone rogue, including funk-machine bassist Miju, versatile drummer William, and face-melting guitarist Griz. Their music sits at the volatile intersection of queer identity and climate activism, using punk snark to tackle visceral existential threats like microplastics while demanding that the environmental movement learns to dance all night. Whether they are recording in the same studio as the Dead Kennedys or fomenting revolution from the moshpit, The Furious Tits create a high-octane "aural sex" experience that encourages their fans—affectionately known as The Push Up Bras—to laugh, cry, and organize together in the spirit of resistance.

Welcome! So, the name …

We’re angry, we all love tits, two of us have tits and those tits are FUCKING FURIOUS. It’s pretty intuitive.

You’ve been described as the musical lovechild of the Sex Pistols and Angel Olsen. How do you bridge the gap between loud, nihilistic punk energy and Olsen’s more haunting, melodic vulnerability?

You start by making a bunch of Jazz kids really fucking mad. Zoe’s a trained jazz singer, and because she brought us together, that melodic sensibility is in our DNA. She formed the band after she started rage-writing punk songs in the shower during the pandemic. Miju and William also come from the Jazz/Funk world and as a band, we don’t shy away from our non-punk influences.

But when it comes down to it, we’re all united under the banner of “fuck this!” We want you laughing while you mosh, crying while you mosh, and going “what the fuck did she just say?” while you mosh.

You mention making music at the intersection of queerness and climate. How does your queer identity inform the way you approach environmental activism and saving the planet?

The environmental movement needs to learn to dance all night. We need to revel in nature, to integrate it into our lives and our joy with all the punk snark and wild beats we have. The LGBTQAI movement got it right. Dan Savage has a great quote:

“During the darkest days of the AIDS crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced all night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for.”

Nature people need to learn to dance all night. But when it comes down to it, protecting nature is critical to maintaining our queerness. You can’t hook up if you can’t breathe the air. You can’t bring a snack home if your house has burned down. Being queer in a bunker would be fun for a little bit, but it would be shit in the long term.

Writing songs about microplastics in your brain is pretty visceral. Do you see your songwriting as a form of existential processing, or is it more about using snark to make the terrifying reality of the Anthropocene more digestible?

Both and, baby! The truth is, you have about a credit card’s worth of Microplastics in your brain and that should make you really fucking angry. If we don’t talk about it, we won’t do anything about it, and fossil fuel manufacturers will get to keep making plastic at a rate that will choke out our ecosystems and invade our bodies. Many people don’t even know that plastic is made from oil.

Our goal is to use punk snark as a gateway, because sometimes all it takes is someone pointing out the problem.

When you learn about something shitty that affects your life in the context of a show, you’re not parsing it by yourself in the dark looking at your phone, you’re packed in like sardines with people who are just as pissed and you get to be pissed together.

You talk about fomenting revolution from the moshpit. In a world that has become completely digital and disconnected, what makes the physical chaos of a live show the right place for political awakening?

At a live show, you are not alone. You’re in a rowdy group of people who left the fucking house. If you’re motivated enough to turn out and hear us scream about being gay and doing crimes, you’re ready to get in the streets. At a protest, the best part is the yelling together and the chanting together. A punk show is exactly that but with way better sound quality.

We team up with causes a lot to channel that energy directly into actions.

The Bay Area has a legendary history of radical punk. How do you feel you are carrying that torch forward?

Every time we play the Gilman we just want to lick the walls. We actually record in the same studio as The Dead Kennedys. It’s really special to have that history at our backs as we write about gay shit and environmentalism.

Your sound is described as a mix of funky bass and melting guitar licks. Who in the band brings the funk, and who brings the fire, and how do those two worlds collide?

Miju is a funk machine on bass. She’s walking, she’s sliding, and this girl cannot have enough strings. She’s up to six now but who knows where she’ll end up.

Griz is the face melter on guitar. His solos are melodic and rhythmic and he loves to lock in with the drums. But when it’s time to shred, he pedals on the distortion and leaves his body. It’s amazing to watch.

William is an animal on drums. He can shift seamlessly from metal beats to the syncopated floor tom that gets everyone to start dry humping each other.

Zoe is just plain aural sex. The only thing deeper in your brain than microplastics is Zoe’s voice after a show.

You've been described as jaded punks. Is being jaded a defense mechanism, or is it a prerequisite for staying sane while writing songs about topics like the climate crisis?

Irony is armor. The amount of dumb shit that has transpired at the global and federal level to bring us to this point in the climate crisis is short sighted on a toddler level. But it’s the water we swim in. The jadedness allows us to take a step back and look at just how stupid these systems are, instead of seeing their wreckage as an inevitability.

As you work on your first album, what has been the biggest surprise or challenge in trying to capture the vibe of a high-energy live set in a studio environment?

You get to make moments in the studio that you can’t quite make onstage and we are leaning in. If you put distortion on a toy piano you are sonically in a haunted house. You can overlay guitar parts a few beats apart and have instant shoegaze. And when the space echo goes on over the vocals, you are suddenly in a punk cave. Our sound engineer, Scott McDowell is basically the 5th Tit and he has done an amazing job helping us think outside the box and get creative on the recording side.

If someone walks away from a Furious Tits show and actually quits their job the next morning, what is the one thing you hope they do with their newly found freedom?

Let us plan your whole post job day:

Eat cake for breakfast (you earned it).
Meet all the neighbors on your block or in your building. Like actually go from door to door (preferably with treats) and introduce yourself. We’re REALLY going to need each other in the coming years, so getting to know the people you live next to is key.
Eat cake for lunch (and maybe some vegetables - so like, carrot cake).
Figure out where your water comes from. For us in California, an earthquake in the right place or an issue with the Colorado River could cut off freshwater for a lot of our state. Go online and use your zip code to figure out where your water comes from. What can you do to protect those water sources? What would you do if freshwater stopped coming out of your tap? Just fucking think about it.
Hook up for dinner.

Anyone out there you'd like to thank for their support?

Our partners and our friends who keep showing up to our shows and inspiring us! We call our fans The Push Up Bras because they support The Tits and goddamn are we supported (editor’s note: consider us Push Up Bras now!)

Links

Bandcamp: https://thefurioustits.bandcamp.com/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1fvbroQfM6FqjH2P2AWpEC?si=AYTpBR2OT8eC4kmFAQGPDw

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-furious-tits/1676200361

Instagram: @thefurioustits

Website: https://www.thefurioustits.com/

Live Microplastics video: https://youtu.be/Y01xnUe34E4

KQED Piece: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13979195/the-furious-tits-queer-climate-punk-band-san-francisco-oakland

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