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“OHMYGOD. I saw Patti Smith last night,” says Clementine Creevy, Cherry Glazerr’s lead honcho. I’ve met the LA trio this evening at a Vietnamese restaurant – a suitable venue after class when you’re underrage. While bassist Sean Redman, 23, has come from rehearsal with his other band The Buttertones, Creevy and drummer Hannah Uribe (both 17) are arriving from school. Allegedly. Clem ditched class today. Instead, she’s been recovering from a Golden Globes afterparty. Anything of note happen there? “Yes,” she says, stirring her pho. “Lots.”

Uribe and Creevy attend the prestigious Wildwood. When they were younger they used to ride the school bus with the son of the director of TV series Transparent. Cherry Glazerr’s track “White’s Not My Colour This Evening” from 2014’s debut Haxel Princess somehow appeared on the show. Transparent won last night, so Creevy was invited to celebrate. There were many “fuck-it-whatever” people around (e.g. John Hamm) – but when P-Smith walked in, Creevy lost it. “That’s a powerful lady, dude!” “I never realised how famous [Smith] was until I told people I met her,” says Uribe about her own encounter with the punk legend years before. “I was in 8^th grade. The bitch seemed crazy. My friend told me Patti Smith was for moms. Now I realise how dope she is.”

It’d be awesome if Cherry Glazerr’s goofy lack of inhibitions was representative of LA. Instead, it’s a by-product of their youth. The band’s fuzzy alt rock might not sound new to the studied ear, but to them it does. Hannah wears a Claddah ring, which reminds me of Buffy The Vampire Slayer – a reference beyond them. Creevy saw Buffy for the first time recently, and likes how “on point” the wardrobe department is considering it aired, y’know, last millennium. It’s possible that Creevy’s birth came after Sarah Michelle Geller’s first televised karate kick, yet Cherry Glazerr’s fight to keep their music dream alive is similar to the moonlighting mission of Buffy’s gang. Minus the vampires. “I don’t want to shit on our school,” says Creevy, commenting on how supportive they’ve been. “But. SCHOOL. FUCKING. SUCKS.”

Cherry Glazerr’s debut came out via indie Burger Records to broad acclaim. The New York Times placed their song “Grilled Cheese” – literally about a sandwich – in their Top 10 of 2014 alongside Beyonce’s “Flawless” and Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”. A 7-inch followed for “Had Ten Dollaz” at the request of designer Hedi Slimane, who sought them for his last Saint Laurent runway. The collaboration resulted in altering lyrics of the song “Teenage Girl” to remove the Redman. “People read about us in Vogue and were like, ‘What is this shit? Where’s the beat?’”

The bass-master left Seattle in 2011 and met Creevy at a music college when she was doing solo project Clembutt. “She told me she was 17.” Creevy, mouth-full of spring rolls, raises her hand. “Dude, I lied!” “I knew she was bullshitting but I’d rather hang out with her than no-one.”  Hanging out turned into an invitation to play bass, evolving Uribe and Creevy’s lo-fi GarageBand jams into beefier slacker anthems. Together they occupy the metaphorical corner of the canteen reserved for the real cool kids who don’t do their homework (“when we got back from SXSW, my grades were fucked”), don’t own televisions (“cable’s totally expensive”), and whose parents go by their first names (Uribe on Creevy’s dad: “Cameron’s the Shit!”). They have an opinion about everything: police brutality, overhauling the judicial system, the desexualisation of women, the NSA… Uribe is convinced her dad’s on “The List”. “After Snowden, he had posts exposing the government taken down from Facebook. I’m surprised he hasn’t been detained.” All three believe in UFOs. “Aliens are real,” says Creevy. “I don’t believe they have visited Earth.”

Now Creevy is more tuned into societal issues, her approach to songwriting is developing. Lyrically, most of Haxel Princess comes from her 14-year-old imagination. They’re ready to let those songs go. First though, Uribe needs to get home to finish her college application. It’s double the length and due in two days. “It’s hard to fit everything Cherry Glazerr have done into 650 words.” Dude, you’re telling me.

Words: Eve Barlow.

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