Bully

Bully came together as a loud indie rock outfit that fused pop hooks with a noticeable grunge edge, started by Alicia Bognanno, who serves as the group’s vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist. Equally adept behind the console as she is with an instrument, Bognanno pairs her raw guitar style with lyrics that feel intensely personal and confessional, a method first heard on the 2015 debut Feels Like and sustained on the follow-up Losing two years later. She later transformed Bully into a solo endeavor for the 2020 release SUGAREGG and the 2023 album Lucky for You, both of which plumb her own life experiences in detail.

Raised in Rosemount, Minnesota, Bognanno showed little early passion for music until she learned her high school offered audio-engineering classes at an alternative center housed inside a local zoo. She enrolled, found she possessed a natural feel for recording equipment, and soon began making loops and beats for friends drawn to hip-hop, an activity that ignited her own urge to write and perform songs. While enrolled in the recording program at Middle Tennessee State University, she started developing original material and sat in on sessions with area musicians; after graduation she secured an internship at Electrical Audio, the Chicago studio founded by the outspoken engineer and musician Steve Albini. Although she later called the setting “the most calming, welcoming comfortable environment for me to be in,” limited funds and few acquaintances in an unfamiliar city left her isolated, prompting her to fill spare hours writing and tracking rough demos at her apartment. Once the internship ended she moved to Nashville, joined the power-pop band King Arthur, engineered sessions at Battle Tapes Recording, and handled live sound at the venue The Stone Fox.

Meeting drummer Stewart Copeland (distinct from the former Police member) convinced Bognanno to launch her own group so she could finally use her growing catalog of personal songs; guitarist Clayton Parker and bassist Reece Lazarus completed the initial lineup. Bully began performing in mid-2013, issued the single “Milkman” b/w “Faceblind” in April 2014, and signed with Star Time International, a Columbia imprint, by October of that year; the label put out the five-song EP titled Bully. Following extensive U.S. and European touring that included sets at Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits plus dates supporting Best Coast, the band released its debut album Feels Like on June 23, 2015, which Bognanno helped engineer at Electrical Audio. For the second album the group returned to Albini’s Chicago facility, again with Bognanno engineering, and Sub Pop issued Losing in October 2017.

Shortly afterward Bognanno was commissioned to write several songs for the film Her Smell, starring Elisabeth Moss as the fictional rocker Becky Something; the movie and its soundtrack EP reached wide release in 2019 after further festival appearances. Having parted ways with her bandmates, she recast Bully as a solo project that occasionally enlists other players for recordings and tours without requiring permanent commitments. She brought in longtime touring drummer Wesley Mitchell and bassist Zach Dawes (Lana Del Rey, Sharon Van Etten) for the third album, marking the first time she worked with an outside producer and the first release after she disclosed a bipolar diagnosis in a New York Times profile. Co-produced and mixed by Bognanno and Grammy winner John Congleton, SUGAREGG appeared on Sub Pop in August 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted touring, she turned to songwriting, produced and played guitar on the Mountain Goats’ 2022 album Bleed Out, and contributed vocals to the self-titled 2022 debut from Weird Nightmare, the side project of METZ guitarist Alex Edkins. The JT Daly-produced Lucky for You arrived in 2023, delivering another set of big, crunchy guitar anthems addressing relationships, loss, and personal history; its lead single “Lose You” featured Soccer Mommy, and the album reached the Top 20 of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart while landing on numerous year-end lists. The intimate piano ballad “Atom Bomb” became Bully’s first release of 2024.