Infiltrating the scene: Daisy Grenade at When We Were Young Fest 2024

DAISY GRENADE, a powerful duo from New York City made of Dani Nigro and Keaton Whittaker, have dubbed themselves as a “punk bubble grunge band that serves a bitter punch with a lip-glossed kiss on the side.” With a refreshingly honest and collaborative approach, they are helping to pave the way for a more inclusive and equitable future in music from the inside. Off The Record met up with the duo at When We Were Young Festival for an interview.

You guys just released a new song, "How To Hide a Body," how did it come to be?

KEAT: We worked with some really cool producers out of L.A., Courtney Ballard and Stefano Puglia Poco, which I love to say, and they kind of had this idea, a revenge fantasy of killing a shithead. Then, we went in and fucked with it a little bit-- fucked with it a lot.

It's my dream every night, to be honest. Kind of along the lines of that, how does it feel to be women in this music genre, in this scene?

KEAT: It can be really tough, you know? And it's moved forward a lot, which is really great. But I always say there's so much more to go, you know? We took out a lot of bad shit. We started pulling out a lot of really bad shit. There's a lot more things that I feel are really more insidious, they kind of live under the surface of the scene. I do think it's changing. There are some amazing people, that are working for a better future.

DANI: We have a really great support system with just other female and non-men artists. We kind of all just look out for each other and talk about things when we need to., we're all friends.

KEAT: It always cracks me up when anyone tries to pit any one of us against each other, I’m like “We’re all friends, nice try.”

And that's how it should be, that's awesome. I mean, it's good to hear someone's doing it. What would you guys say to your younger selves, growing up as a fan girl?

DANI: I'm pinching myself every day still. It's so hard, every time we have something like today, I try to take a moment and say, “Wow.” There's so much stuff to get stressed out about, there are so many other things on my mind, but I try to take a moment and be like, “Hey, this is fucking awesome. You should be proud of yourself.”

KEAT: We always joke that we accidentally infiltrated the scene, we never really meant to. Then all of a sudden we were just like, “Oh, okay.” But yeah, it's crazy. I didn't really think this was ever possible. I think a lot of what we do is fulfilling and healing the inner child in me because I just never felt comfortable to fully go for it in any way. So, I feel really lucky to get to lay it out and be able to do it.