Hearts and Snow Cones

{mosimage} Everybody loves Annie Hardy, the gutter-mouthed indie rock poster girl of the Silver Lake scene. Her band, Giant Drag, has been the subject of rumors since Annie’s sidekick, multi-instrumentalist Micah Calabrese, abruptly cut out of the picture. “No, he didn’t go to rehab,” Annie says, putting the kibosh on the street-beat scuttlebutt.

After a long period in which fans were left to snack on occasional Indie 103 airings of “Kevin Is Gay” and G.D.’s awesome cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” Annie is back on the scene, writing “shloads” of songs and opening for the Lemonheads at the El Rey on Wednesday, April 25, and for the Coachella-bound, seminal shoegazers the Jesus and Mary Chain at the Glass House in Pomona on Thursday, April 26.

On the eve of her big comeback shows opening for two bands that famously self-destructed, but are now apparently on the mend (insert Freudian analysis), we hit up Annie, fresh out of the sheets in her Echo Park pad at the crack of 2 p.m., for a quick catchup about abandonment issues, the future of Giant Drag and her desire for Sno-Kones.


L.A. WEEKLY:So Giant Drag didn’t break up, right? I see you’ve got some gigs coming up. The Lemonheads at the El Rey and the Jesus and Mary Chain at the Glasshouse in Pomona. Not bad.

ANNIE HARDY: Micah quit the band. I’m continuing on without Micah. I love Micah but I knew he wasn’t gonna be in G.D. forever. It’s my songs and my passion. He just got sick of it... sick of the traveling... of the business aspect. Of being broke and homeless.


So who are you gonna be performing with? Will you be singing a cappella? Is there a new band?

I haven’t got a steady band. Right now it’s the Adored. They fired their lead singer; there’s only three of them.


So what else have you been doing?

Before I found out I was playing these upcoming shows I was just writing for the new album, due out whenever it’s done.


Sounds like you’re busy. Gotta boyfriend?

I don’t do boyfriends. Too much trouble. Too much work. I’d rather be alone. My friend Joe is my imaginary boyfriend. Shopping, television, no sex or making out. I’m harnessing all that sexual energy to write songs.


So you’re celibate?

Dunno. I don’t remember... things happen when I’m sleeping that I might not know about. Just today I woke up and my pants were down! What if someone came in my front door and raped me when I was sleeping?


Exactly. That happens to everybody. Ummm... so no plans in the boyfriend arena, besides imaginary Joe?

Maybe buy a Sno-Kone machine at Target... just something to fill up that void. Because I don’t have a wiener, I don’t have that drive to go sleep with 18th Street gang members.


No, of course not. Not everybody does. Still, those gangsters are pretty irresistible.

I was in a gang called the Woodbridge Hoodlums in Irvine... very dangerous part of Orange County. For initiation we had to shave the back of our heads, key a car and pee on the school.


Well, yeah. So are you looking for a steady band?

Not a regular band, unless I meet someone I really like. It’s like my celibacy thing. I’m gonna do whatever and not get committed; that just leaves me open for people to leave me again.

I think before I was so lazy... That was what made the band stay a two-piece. It wasn’t so much out of choice. Micah and I would have liked to have found the right person and sound for the band. Now Micah has forced me to move on. I just wanna make a really good record.



Sam Slovick previously wrote about Giant Drag inWeird Scenes Inside the Silver Mine .

'Kevin is Gay' by Giant Drag