OC Weekly: What's the band's story?
Brenna Bishop: At a party, I met Garrett Clance, the drummer. He was perfect. We got another guitar player, Devin D. So Garrett knew somebody whose band was breaking up. It was this guy named Johnny. The weird thing is that me and Johnny started dating and we ended up getting married. Which will lead to the end—why we're looking for a bass player. It's a sad thing, but I just fell out of love with Johnny. There was no drama or anything weird. I try to be as political as possible, but he has his own band and he's doing his own thing, which is rad. So, we're looking for a new bass player. It was funny, because we kept the marriage secret from Garrett and Devin for like a good two months. Our insomniac friend—who's a registered reverend off the Internet—did it at four in the morning like three days after we got together. But we were together a good two years.
Your MySpace page says the band is from Stanton.
That's me. We all grew up in Orange County, but I hate being one of those “Orange County bands.” I just want to be from California. I had to put something, and I thought Stanton was pretty funny because no one knows where Stanton is.
It's sort of a lost Orange County city.
Exactly. And it has Crow Village, which is . . . [laughs] the funniest gang ever.
Why do you say that?
I don't want to get in trouble, but they were mostly a lot of kids when I knew about it, and they all had guns and it was all proving who's who. And then I heard that a lot of the seniors were released from prison and they just went nuts. Gangs are kind of funny, but in a sad way.
Which is kind of funny, considering your band's name.
Exactly. [Laughs.] Because we are the last gang. We have to represent our turf.
Are there any other bands from Stanton?
That's the problem with Orange County—everything's so spread out. There are so many cities. There's no one centralized home. There's no cool local place for all the kids to hang out at and just go nuts.
You said you don't want to be thought of as an Orange County band.
Yeah. It just seems to me that a lot of bands from Orange County think too much of themselves. We just want to play music. We just want to have a good show. Making it big and not working ever is kind of a pipe dream. All the kids from Orange County are like, “Yeah, I'm in a band. Are you in a band?” I work at Guitar Center, so everybody I know is in a band.
Is it beneficial to work at Guitar Center and play in a band?
At the beginning, it kind of stunted my growth with writing because I was around music all day and I didn't have a space in my brain to get introverted. I've slowly regained my creativity and my soul. After me and Johnny broke up, I got a lot of my creativity back because I spend a lot of time by myself now . . . and drink a lot. [Laughs.] But working at Guitar Center is addicting—all that gear all the time. I've spent so much money there.
Who are your favorite local bands?
The Hudson Drags—they're like the Clash got together with the Angry Samoans. And the Johns and ADHD are rad.
Now for the questions about being a female front person in a band . . .
I really just want to be a good musician. I tend to notice that a lot of girls don't try to be good musicians. They feel complacent. “I'm good enough, and I can pull off an okay show, and I've got boobs, so it's cool.” That's not me. I'd rather be this gnarly looking crazy chick that can just wail and blow people's minds and knock their faces off than some pretty thing. But it doesn't hurt that I've got boobs, and I'll totally use them to my advantage.
VISIT WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THELASTGANG FOR MORE INFORMATION. IF YOU WANT TO PLAY BASS FOR THE LAST GANG, CONTACT THEM VIA MYSPACE OR TH*********@YA***.COM.
