When Lili Trifilio shakes off the cold in a Wicker Park coffee shop in the middle of a January snowstorm, her asymmetrical pink hair feels beamed in from a sunnier dimension. Since Trifilio’s band Beach Bunny evolved from a solo project into a regular group, their heartfelt, punky indie pop has built a devoted audience so quickly that they’ve barely been able to keep up.
Trifilio and Vogrich began writing together, forming the short-lived duo Fingers x Crossed. “A lot of our songs consisted of singing of heartbreak and loving guys that didn’t love us back,” Vogrich says. They played shows as a two-piece at Wire in Berwyn and at Bottom Lounge—both sang, and Trifilio played guitar. Vogrich recalls passing hand-burned CDs of their EP to Nashville group Coin at Lollapalooza in summer 2015, hoping that their band name’s similarity to the Coin song title “Fingers Crossed” would catch their eye.
Beach Bunny Honeymoon Eve Party Listening party for Beach Bunny’s new album, Honeymoon, plus DJ sets from Beach Bunny, Chris Salty, and special guests. Thu 2/13, 8 PM, Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont, free with reservation (required by Thu 2/6), 21+
Beach Bunny record-release celebration and performance Fri 2/14, 6 PM, Reckless Records, 1379 N. Milwaukee, free, all-ages
Beach Bunny, Field Medic, Niiice Sat 2/22, 7 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, sold out, all-ages
Trifilio knew Henkels and Alvarado through mutual friends and invited them aboard. (Alvarado was also in the ex’s group.) “I think that we both adored Lili’s songwriting from the start,” Henkels says. “It’s super memorable and charming.”
Beach Bunny had their breakout hit in summer 2019, when the title track from the 2018 EP Prom Queen peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart—it’s now closing in on 39 million Spotify plays, boosted by its popularity on video-streaming app TikTok (which had just helped propel Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” into orbit). The song confronts oppressive female beauty standards using the language of grade school toys and high school popularity contests, which make it an irresistible incitement to lip-synching or singing along: “I’m no Quick Curl Barbie / I was never cut out for prom queen.”
Beach Bunny fan Jimmy Kemper, who lives in River North, describes the band’s music as “powerfully simple, catchy songs that nail the universal angst of the teenage experience.” Meagan Hughes, a fan from Wicker Park, elaborates: “The vulnerability and genuineness of their music is really what gets me. Lili’s not afraid to be called naive or show how deeply she falls for someone. Their music is somehow never cheesy regardless of this, because it’s so genuine,” she says. “Also their live shows are dope, ’cause everyone knows all the words and it’s a big community.”
“Ms. California,” the second single from Honeymoon (it came out in early December, following October’s “Dream Boy”), is the band’s first to center envy. It introduces a third character, beyond the usual you and me, to talk about the pain of learning that an ex has found someone new (and being reminded of it constantly because “she’s in all your pictures”).
