Magandjin’s/Brisbane’s alt-rock quintet Worm Girlz are all about empowerment and fostering community. The femme punk band comprising Jade Montgomery, Angie Gale, Isabella Wood-de-Melo, Lauren Rowe and Nikolai Bray have further channelled their promise for inclusivity with their latest single, ‘Get Ugly’, a powerful and profound anthem about rejecting society’s toxic beauty standards to celebrate authenticity. This cathartic liberation feels equally impactful when listening comfortably in your room or singing along with the band at one of their thrilling, theatrical live shows.

Worm Girlz have been busy advocating their necessary positive values across Australia, notably opening for UK anti-folk band, Crywank, on their recent tour here. Those gigs exposed them to an entirely new and large audience, welcoming more wormz (their fandom’s name) into their fold after being met with rapturous praise. Now, they’re taking ‘Get Ugly’ on the road in their upcoming tour, bringing local luminaries Fvneral, Maybe in May, Creeping Jenny, Blackout Fan Club and Hypoallergenic for the ride. Ahead of the tour, I spoke to Lauren from the band, who kindly took time out of their day to chat in-depth about the meaning of ‘Get Ugly’, the positive responses from audiences and where the “worm” motif comes from.

I first want to ask about the new song ‘Get Ugly’, which is about unapologetically expressing yourself. What was the idea behind it?

Lauren: Personally, through COVID and lockdown, I realised for myself that a lot of gendered beauty standards felt like a performance. So, when we were in lockdown, it felt like, “Oh, we don’t really have to perform right now.” It was liberating how comfortable I felt releasing the shame of some of those things, like shaving body hair or not experimenting with the way that you look because of fear of judgment or shame. I know a lot of people around me, and particularly women, have done similar things since that time and the confidence and empowerment you can feel in almost defying those beauty standards—that feels really good.

We wanted this song to feel like a celebration of yourself, of being out there, of almost taking that judgment of: “You think that I look ugly? Well, great! Rock on. I love being ugly because if me feeling this good is ugly to you, then hell yeah! Then I love being ugly.” So it's almost trying to reclaim the word a little bit and also letting yourself express yourself in whatever way you feel. We really wanted audiences to feel that celebration, and just letting go during those three minutes of the song.

I love that, it draws upon what Worm Girlz is about and what you all stand for. Did the band initially start to put out such messages more?

Lauren: Absolutely. We talked a lot as friends before we formed the band about what music felt good to us and what music we enjoyed. A lot of it had these similar messages that could relate to them, because either they’re reflecting on experiences we can relate to, or they had powerful messages about issues that we cared about. A lot of those bands were big inspirations for us, Waxx or Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers, and even much bigger bands like Paramore.

We love their messages and feel like we, as people, have a lot to say. We’ve been in and around the music industry for a little while now and are seeing a lot of like the good and the ugly of the music industry and societal issues. We’re a group of people who felt like we had very similar cares and wanted to really channel that into our songs and find a community of people who relate and understand, feel the same passion for what we feel passionate about, because we know that we can only get through all these things together.

In this time where turmoil and weird things are happening in the world, it’s so necessary to face that adversity head-on. It’s amazing how you’re all doing that, and that we have that in Australia. It must be very fulfilling, but do you ever second-guess yourselves?

Lauren: Sure, like we’re all human. It can be really depressing to be on the internet right now, to see war, to see genocide, and to see so many horrible things happening in the world. You're seeing rights stripped away from queer people overseas and even here in Australia, with puberty blockers and trans health care being threatened. It can be really easy for all of us to let that weigh on us quite heavily. But I think one of the beautiful things about the band and also the community that we’re fostering around us is that we know that we can come together and just do what we can. We can all only do what we can to put some good in the world and try and undo wrongs.

Although there’s always self-doubt and trying to promote ourselves at a time where it feels like we shouldn't be taking up media space, it all comes down to how we are all still here and we need community to get through this—to rally action, to actually make an impact. Imposter syndrome can be so real, but we’ve got each other to remind ourselves that we can’t do anything alone. We can only take it one step at a time. That’s why our messages in our music are so important to us because it feels like all we can do to try to make the world a better place. We like to say that our main goal as the band is to “Try to leave the music industry a better place than we found it”, and so far we have really stuck to that. I think the work that we do helps me as a person to process a lot of what’s going on around me.

That’s so great. I’m sure the audience response must be amazing too. How has that been?

Lauren: We get great responses often. You mentioned you saw us at the Crywank show, and that was an incredible experience for us because it was one of the biggest audiences that had never heard of us before. We were playing these sold-out shows in larger-scale venues, and a lot of the audience wasn’t there for us. They had their tickets before we were even on the lineup. The response from those audiences was a real reminder that the work that we’re doing does have an impact. Sometimes you get trapped in your own bubble, you worry that people are supporting you because they’re friends and things like that. It was amazing to get feedback on the stories from people who can relate to our music.

We get so many people who come and tell us after our shows which of our songs resonated the most with them and why. Sometimes it’s the really sad songs in which we always think, “I’m so sorry, how are you doing?” But again, we wrote those songs because we felt like we had to, we had to channel that emotion, we had to get it out of us and into the song as a tangible thing, to see how other people connect and how much they also need that release. It’s really touching and goes to show that people are craving community like this. They want to find people who feel the same way, and the internet can make us feel so isolated sometimes. So, the power of the live show and being able to connect with real people in the room is pretty unbeatable.

You probably never would’ve expected to have such a rapturous response like that. It’s almost like you’re writing the songs that you need to hear and bringing that to other people. When the band started, did you ever imagine it would ever reach this magnitude?

Lauren: We’ve always dreamed really big, but again, that self-doubt does always creep in. Like a song’s about to come out and we’re like, “Is this actually cringe? Have we written a little diary page and now we’re releasing it, and no one’s going to like it?”

But again, we follow our own advice, and we kill the part of us that cringes, and we just put ourselves out there. I think when you truly believe in what you’re doing and the messages that you’re putting out there and the behaviour that you’re engaging in, the people that you're working with, it makes all that a lot easier. If I were doing this solo, I don't think I would be able to put out half the work that we're all able to do together.

I love the ‘Get Ugly’ music video with the audition scenario and its clown motif; it seems like you were all having so much fun. Who came up with it? Who was involved?

Lauren: It was pretty back-and-forth between a lot of members of the band. The whole music video was very DIY. I directed it, we had our friend Jordie behind the camera filming everything. They’d very much organised a lot of the behind-the-scenes things to make it work. It was definitely a full team affair.

The clown idea came from a few different reasons. One, we just love concepts and dress-ups, and we’ve been waiting for an excuse to be clowns. The tie in to ‘Get Ugly’, we’re feeling quite down about the trans issues overseas and the changes in healthcare here in Queensland, and wanted to make a slight nod to drag queens, drag culture and our trans community. So, in the music video, we really wanted to incorporate as many of our friends and our queer community, but also uplift the trans community to say, “We’re here, we’re strong, you can’t get rid of us.” I feel like it’s not the strongest message in the music video, but I wanted to make that slight nod and include a lot of the trans colours and imagery.

As well, we had our amazing judges on the panel who are both incredible performers in our community. Ms Le Fay and Drag Lord Sev were incredible judges, and they were so much fun to work with. We were thinking of doing just something really silly and fun that we could make to just complement this song, which again, we wanted to feel like a big celebration, although some of the feelings behind the actual lyrical content can be a bit yucky.

I also want to ask about the whole “worm” thing, which I’m sure you get asked about all the time. I think I read somewhere that it came from someone in the group when they were young. What’s the story behind it?

Lauren: The story of how we actually got the name Worm Girlz is really just Angie, who plays bass. Her twin sister loves composting and has referred to herself as “Worm Girl” because of how much she loves composting and worms. When we were trying to come up with band names, she suggested we should be “Worm Girlz”. Angie was like, “No way, we’re not doing that. That’s ridiculous,” and Jane and I were kind of like, “That’s awesome, actually, we really like it!” Because when we thought about it some more, we already knew a lot of what we wanted our messages to be and what our personal values were, therefore what the core values of the band would be.

We were thinking of worms as these super interesting creatures that are kind of seen as gross or feral or grubby, but they’re cool. They’re just little dudes rolling around in the dirt. The more we thought about it, the more we’re like, “Well, we are kind of like grubby little freaks. We’re rough around the edges, we don’t have to be dainty and pretty.” It's very much like the messages of ‘Get Ugly’. Worms have this reputation of being weird and off-putting, and you know what? Sometimes we do too, so why not lean into it? And challenge that worms can be awesome and really cool, and so can we. The worm puns then just started rolling, and the more we thought about it, the more perfect it became.

That’s so good. I love that!

Lauren: It's the whole getting dirty, grubby, eating dirt, composting, eating up all your scraps… It all works.

It’s just like unabashedly being yourself, you know?

Lauren: Exactly. The law writes itself. Just be you, even if you’re a little worm. It’s the whole “Would you still love me if I was a worm?” Like, yeah, we would. You’re one of us, come on, welcome to the compost!

‘Get Ugly’ is out now on all major music platforms. Keep up to date with all things Worm Girlz on Instagram.

Photography credit: Tayla Lauren