By the time she was a senior in high school, Clementine Creevy had secured a supporting role on Amazon Prime’s dramatic comedy Transparent and a modeling contract with Yves Saint Laurent. These achievements, however, can’t hold a candle to her truest product of passion and expression: Cherry Glazerr.
This punchy psych-rock group is the evolution of Creevy’s bedroom demos, recorded under the artist name Clembutt. Her SoundCloud posts found their way into the lap of Burger Records, who reached out to Creevy with a proposal to put out a cassette tape. Creevy drafted Hannah Uribe and Sean Redman—friends from school and the neighborhood—to provide drums and bass, respectively. The newly formed trio, officially united as Cherry Glazerr, soon released their debut Papa Cremp.
Papa Cremp showcased Creevy’s whimsical, crooning vocals, easy melodic riffs, and the tempered, hazy sound space that characterized Clembutt. The musical prowess of Creevy & friends is plain, though perhaps the most revolutionary content on the tape regards grilled cheese sandwiches. Actually, the juvenile topics that permeate Papa Cremp serve to underscore the incredible potential shown by the then incredibly young band members, who at the time had not even attained the status of high school upperclassmen.
Less than a year later, Cherry Glazerr put out another record with Burger, the attitude-infused Haxel Princess. The sophomore production is essentially a cut & crimped version of its predecessor, introducing cleaner versions of three tracks from Papa Cremp that previously only existed on analog. Even so, it’s the new additions like “White’s Not My Color This Evening” and the album’s title song “Haxel Princess” that defined Cherry Glazerr’s increasing notoriety. Many have labeled them as a riot grrrl revival, what with Creevy’s openly feminist stance and the band’s goth-meets-pop-art aesthetic.
However, Creevy prefers to keep their image open to interpretation, stating: “it's not up to me to genre our music. It's up to the listener to do that” in an interview with Dazed. True enough, Creevy would love to fully grace the stage set by the likes of Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill, and nearly does with tracks like the single “Had Ten Dollaz”, which dissects the dialogue behind the male gaze. However, her ties to Yves Saint Laurent and the modeling industry present a barring contradiction. In speculation, Creevy explains this relationship as one she enjoys, but is predominantly continued out of the opportunity it presents for Cherry Glazerr. After all, it can’t be ignored that their breakout tour behind Sky Ferreira came out of the girls’ YSL introduction, “Trick or Treat Dancefloor” blew up after being used by the brand in a 2014 ad campaign, and “Teenage Girl” has a place on the YSL online homepage.
In truth, image is the last thing on Cherry Glazerr’s agenda. Regardless of what the critics say and the fans relate to, they don’t like to identify with any one label, choosing to let their music and production take whatever shape comes organically. And this shape has been though many stages of metamorphosis, changing slightly with each new member that comes and goes, leaving her own creative marks on the band’s discography. Today, Creevy and Redman jam with multi-instrumentalist Sasami Ashworth and drummer Tabor Allen, working towards a new album and finding a full-time manager. Tomorrow, who knows? The one concrete assertion is that Creevy lives for her music. Whatever path Cherry Glazerr takes, this truth will resonate.
Words: Darby Dayton