Bully Returns Home in Support of Stellar New LP ‘Lucky for You,’ Tonight, Aug. 31 at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville

It’s been 10 years nows since Alicia Bognanno first sprung onto the Nashville scene as Bully, blowing us away with her fiery early performances at local haunts like The Stone Fox (where she used to run sound before her music career took off) and making a stunning introduction with Bully’s eponymous first EP in 2013. By 2015 debut album Feels Like, Bully had inked a major record deal and become one of the most buzzed-about new artists in rock, and that album still stands as the perfect distillation of the grungy, indie, and ’90s inspired alt rock that Bognanno is so expert at crafting.

Though, in the early days, Bully performed as a set lineup and often featured the whole band in promotional photos, the project has always been chiefly a solo endeavor for Bognanno, who largely wrote, recorded, and produced everything herself, her skills honed both at MTSU and interning under the legendary Steve Albini in Chicago. After moving to famed Seattle indie label Sub Pop- a match made in heaven for her sound and influences- Bully dropped lauded sophomore LP Losing in 2017, further honing the raw, punk spirited, grungy and propulsive style of her debut, and cementing herself as the greatest rock artist to emerge from Nashville independent scene in recent memory.

With 2020 third album, Sugaregg, Bognanno shared production duties with John Congleton and Graham Walsh- opting for the first time not to helm the whole thing herself- and began more clearly presenting the project as a solo endeavor after the departure of her early bandmates. That record would see a bit more sonic experimentation and more grounded, self-reflective lyricism, all of which continue on Bully’s latest- this year’s Lucky For You! Produced by JT Daly of local group Paper Route, Lucky For You is Bully’s most poppy, focused, emotionally complex, mature, and melancholy work to date, and perhaps the best Bully album since Feels Like. Largely inspired by the loss of her beloved dog Mezzi, and conceived during an already tumultuous period of life transition, it feels like the most thematically vulnerable and open Bognanno has ever been, juxtaposed with a new willingness to embrace anthemic pop hooks and slicker production, while retraining her punk spirit and grungy backbone.

Currently in the midst of a tour in support, Bully returns home tonight, Aug. 31 to headline Brooklyn Bowl Nashville– her first local show in over a year! Queer, brash Chicago grunge pop outfit Bev Rage & the Drinks are tapped to open, and tickets are still available while they last right here!

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