Girl Power Group- Nasty Cherry

Nasty Cherry Is the Girl Group.

Girl Power Group Nasty Cherry

Charli XCX’s protégés and stars of Netflix’s I’m with the Band.

When Charli XCX first announced the band Nasty Cherry, she hailed them as a badass “girl gang,” which is true if you’ve ever seen them. They’re a group of four young women with ’70s shags who look tough in leather jackets and sing songs about getting it on with your dad. But beneath the rock ’n’ roll facade, the group is more a “sisterhood” than a motley quartet of musicians. “

Featuring model Gabbriette Bechtel on lead vocals, Charli XCX live drummer Debbie Knox-Hewson on drums, Kitten frontwoman Chloe Chaidez on guitar, and set decorator Georgia Somary on bass, Nasty Cherry are a who’s who of diverse It Girl power players. Signed to Charli’s label, Vroom Vroom Recordings, the alt-pop group was conceptualized and A&R’d by the pop heavyweight in 2018.

“She had this idea a long time ago, about putting her friends together to make an all-girl band that actually played instruments,” Gabbriette shares of Charli’s involvement in their formation. “We all knew her at different points in her life. She brought us together to make music and, at the time, none of us even knew each other that well. She’s a curator in that way.”

While the band is autonomous, Charli maintains a deeply collaborative relationship with Nasty Cherry, helping them with promotion and even co-writing on some of their songs. “She’s very much like a pop artist fairy godmother,” Georgia quips. “We all respect her as an artist. She’s included in official things, as well as fun things and music that we work on. She’s part of it. She also has such a great ear and eye, so we all look to her.”

Adds Gabbriette, “She’s always told us to be absolutely and completely ourselves all the time. To listen to each other and not be afraid to speak up—even argue if there’s something we really believe in, but come together in the end. She’s also helped us by showing us the way she writes. I think we’ve all learned a lot from her about writing and how to collaborate.” 

On New Year’s Day 2019, Nasty Cherry was introduced to the world in a way that can only be described as the epitome of group’s irreverent, badass, sexy bravado: with an Instagram video of champagne being poured into two flutes balanced on Georgia’s flawless bare ass in a jacuzzi. 

“We thought it would be a really fun way of getting it out there,” Gabbriette admits, laughing. “I don’t think we thought that was going to be how we announced it, but we decided to tell the world we were a band and that was our favorite moment captured together at that point. So, we thought we’d share the love!”

Three months later, the band released their official debut single, “Win.” The track, a delightfully cocky, glittering, Garbage-esque guitar-driven anthem about not letting shit get you down, offered a promising, instantly-catchy sonic introduction — but by then the four women had already garnered a considerable fanbase online courtesy of their mysterious social media rollout.

“It was quite mental,” Georgia says of gaining a following before the band even knew when they would release their first track. “It was funny to see people commenting, ‘We can’t wait to hear your music!’ We were like, ‘We hope you like you like it! We promise we’re not just putting our asses in front of your face!’ You really want people to like the music when they’ve already been invested. It’s amazing how much people care.”

Aside from coming from four very different backgrounds and not really knowing each other before jamming together for the first time, the women of Nasty Cherry also hail from opposite sides of the pond: Gabbriette and Chloe from the U.S., Georgia and Debbie from the U.K. Their cross-cultural roots lend an expansive edge to their distinct sound, which pulls influence from hallmarks of both American and British pop and rock.