The Bombs Return to Dallas
It’s Wednesday night at a pub in Brighton, England, and Lakehill Prep alumna Carrie Cohen is still hard at work. While patrons around her live it up over a couple of pints, she fields calls from back home in the U.S. inquiring about her band, The Bombs.
“Now that everyone has gone off to college, it’s a little harder for us to play, but we try to do what we can for now,” Carrie said.
The group’s members are scattered across the globe, but will soon reconvene for an August show at the Curtain Club in Deep Ellum. They plan to preview new material from their upcoming album, tentatively titled E is for Egg Over Easy.
Initially billed as an all-girl punk rock band, the group came together at The Sound Foundation Music School in Deep Ellum.
Carrie, a recent graduate of Texas A&M Corpus Christi, plays the bass. She also serves as the group’s public relations manager when she’s not working as a summer intern for a digital marketing company in the U.K.
According to her, none of the band members was musically trained when they first got together. They initially gravitated to punk because they found it easy to pick up. That sound dominated their 2014 debut album Chanel From Hell, a high-energy collection of songs that would have felt at home in the late 1970s or early 1980s FM radio.
The group’s style evolved as the band members grew and honed their craft.
“We’ve become a lot more jazzy punk,” Carrie said. “People can expect a little more groovy and mellow sound.”
A couple of years after the band started, the original drummer left. Carrie enlisted the temporary help of a talented drummer she knew. He just happened to be her brother, and he hasn’t left yet.
“I like playing for them even though they still go by ‘all-girl band’ sometimes,” said Stephan Cohen, who graduated from Highland Park High School in 2016.
Despite admitting that he does not make for the most attractive female on stage, he will occasionally dress up in drag for fun, depending on the mood.
“I’m not afraid of makeup, either,” he added.
Stephan has known singer Katie Duke since the two were in elementary school. While his musical tastes tend to lean more toward heavy metal and hard rock, he enjoys playing in a band with such eclectic tastes.
Katie loves indie rock, as well an array of 1970s music. As for Carrie, while being a big fan of 1990s grunge, her all-time favorite singer is Cher.
“There’s not a whole lot of theory and technique in what we do,” Carrie said. “If one of us brings a part we like, we use it.”
The Bombs plan to continue making music as schedules permit. Stephan is attending Texas A&M Kingsville, while Katie has a couple of years left at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Guitarist Kenley Turner just graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts and will head to the Kansas City Art Institute in the fall. The group plans to do a small tour at the end of the year in support of the new album.
“There’s no specific sound we are going for,” Carrie said. “We just kind of put our parts together and see what comes out.”
