Bio

Like most good stories, this one begins with a Craigslist ad.

This particular ad starts with an honest confession: Let’s get this out of the way first- I have no official music experience. While it’s now lost to the Craigslist graveyard of TVs and blowjobs, that ad—which, in reality, was a lot more sprawling—was the beginning of New York’s Groupie.

Groupie has shown that sometimes all you need to start a band is heart, moxie, and something to say.

Ashley Kossakowski (bass/vocals) submitted the Craigslist ad the same week she read Sara Marcus’s Girls To The Front, during a summer spent immersing herself in riot grrrl culture and DIY shows in NYC. The likes of Bikini Kill and The Raincoats proved all Kossakowski needed to start was heart, moxie, and something to say. It was an extremely welcome epiphany, after an adolescence spent attending emo shows in her home city of Chicago—where many of the morose, swoopy-fringed boys onstage evinced the idea that you needed to be white, male, and raised on expensive guitar lessons to form a band.

Kossakowski attended so many of these shows that her mother began to refer to her as ‘groupie.’ While she eventually left Chicago, Kossakowski, a queer, first-generation child of Polish immigrants, never grew out of the nagging feeling of being on the outskirts at shows she attended. She brought this feeling forward to Johanna Healy (guitar/vocals) when they met for the first time in the fall of 2015. Healy, a long-time lover of punk music who started playing guitar as a teenager, was already a skilled songwriter. She spent her early 20s creating bedroom recordings and wanted to give her dream of playing on stage a shot. Without knowing where to start, she met various people through Craigslist over the years, but none clicked as well as with Kossakowski. Healy welcomed Kossakowski’s passionate energy and provided gentle coaching along the way. The pairing of aficionado and fan has proved to be an interesting one, and has evolved into an energetic, hard-working band.

Photo to the right by Alex Kapowski; banner photo by Sydney Tate

Groupie crafts a sound that nods to the past while exploring contemporary themes.

Drummer Aaron Silberstein and guitarists Eric Rubin and Eamon Lebow now fill out Groupie’s sound with textural guitar lines and dynamic percussion. The group has roots in punk, post-punk and new wave acts of the 70s and 80s. But where many of the bands that typified the punk genre exuded a masculine exclusivity, Groupie gracefully blends in more feminine influences like Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, and The Breeders, crafting a sound that nods to the past while exploring contemporary themes.

After harnessing their sound over two EPs, Groupie introduced themselves to the world proper with the release of their debut album Ephemeral in 2021. Ephemeral is a ten-track introspection on the ephemerality of life, memories, and heroes. The listener will find Groupie fully evolved on Ephemeral, honoring their punk and riot grrrl foundation on energetic, punky tracks like “Half Wave” that nod to 70s NYC punk, while showing a more intellectual and contemplative side on textural, brooding, experimental songs like ‘Waiting’ and ‘Critic’s Eye’.

Ephemeral searches for a feeling of home, deftly navigating the mental health challenges that come along with the ebbs and flows of belonging and displacement. For example, on ‘Daleko’—which was mostly written in Polish, alongside Kossakowski’s mother, who penned the second verse— the immigrant herself and her first-generation child offer two different viewpoints of immigration, but both long for family far from America. With warm, yet dissonant tones and energetic, impassioned vocals strengthening this theme - it’s a sound that drives right to your heart.

Photo by Sydney Tate

Groupie invites you to not only listen, but to scream alongside them.

After years of practice from humble beginnings, their music stands up to their influences, in a way that almost opens up an alternate reality. What if the music industry of the late 20th century had been animated by feminine vigor rather than masculine angst? What if the music was still as good, only the intentions were kinder and more inclusive? Groupie provides the answer.

“We try to digest complex issues through music and hope that our music offers a similar catharsis for our listeners,” says Ashley.

Healy, now a new mom, is taking a hiatus from the band. Though Kossakowski misses her artistic soulmate, Groupie has been re-invigorated by the return to live music and is writing material for a new release. Expect great new things from Groupie in 2023.

Photo by Sydney Tate