Seattle, WA · post-punk · indie

Pretty Girls Make Graves

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Seattle art-punk cult heroes, reunited — jagged and beautiful, dance-punk urgency that a generation of bands studied.

Pretty Girls Make Graves formed in Seattle in 2001, its name borrowed from a Smiths song that itself takes a line from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. Vocalist Andrea Zollo and bassist Derek Fudesco had already played together in the Hookers and in Area 51 alongside guitarist Dann Gallucci, with whom Fudesco also came from Murder City Devils, and the band's other members had roots in Death Wish Kids.

The band paired serrated, interlocking guitar lines with Zollo's declarative vocals, working the space between post-punk, emo and dance-punk that defined much of the early-2000s American underground. An early EP appeared on Dim Mak and Sound Virus before the full-length Good Health arrived on Lookout! in 2002.

The band then moved to Matador for The New Romance, after which guitarist Nathan Thelen left following the birth of his child and went on to form Moonrats. Multi-instrumentalist Leona Marrs, formerly of HintHint, joined in his place, adding keyboards and accordion that broadened the arrangements on 2005's Elan Vital.

Pretty Girls Make Graves announced its breakup in January 2007, shortly after drummer Nick Dewitt left the lineup, and played its final shows in Seattle that June. The band reunited in 2023 and returned to live performance, including a full performance of The New Romance, followed by headline shows in Seattle, Brooklyn and Los Angeles in 2024 with the classic lineup, Marrs included.

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