In celebration of the 10th anniversary of their first EP, “It Hurts,” Minneapolis-based band Bad Bad Hats played two sold-out shows at 7th Street Entry on Saturday.
The concert embodied the band’s talent for exciting live performances and showcased the Bad Bad Hats’ songwriting skills.
Bad Bad Hats released “It Hurts” in 2013, three years after meeting at Macalester College. The band features Kerry Alexander (guitar and lead vocals), Chris Hoge (bass and guitar) and Connor Davison (drums), though Davison will soon part ways to pursue other musical endeavors.
Bad Bad Hats released their latest album in 2021, titled “Walkman,” and the band will be releasing their fourth album later this year.
The band makes high-energy alternative music that features a traditional rock sound while still incorporating modern production. Lead vocalist Kerry Alexander combines her voice with sweeping pop melodies, and the band backs her with strong rock rhythms.
In 2021, Bad Bad Hats started a Patreon, a content creation platform where they uploaded new songs every month with a different theme. This process of expanding their style of music rewarded the band with new creative processes, according to Alexander.
“For example, one month we did a pop-punk song and another one we did a song with a key change,” Alexander said. “It really pushed us to do something we normally wouldn’t. I think bands get in a trap, where we will be writing a song and we’ll say ‘oh this sounds too pop punk,’ but in some ways, why do we have to cut ourselves off from that?”
In the years since the release of “It Hurts,” the band toured with Hippo Campus, released three full-length albums and found success within the Minneapolis music scene.
“The first time we sold out a show was for the ‘Psychic Reader’ album release party at the Icehouse, and that would’ve been about 2015,” Alexander said.
Alexander started the writing process of “It Hurts” while studying abroad in Europe. She said she found the isolation of living alone in a foreign country helped her develop her songwriting in new ways.
“Most of [the songs] were written in a six-month period while I was studying abroad in Paris in 2011,” she said. “It was actually the first time I had been completely alone in my living situation. It was scary because of that feeling of silence and solitude. I began to enjoy it though, and it became my routine to write music in my free time.”
During the concert, Alexander expressed her gratitude for the Minneapolis music scene’s support over the past decade. The band played their hits, as well as all of the tracks off “It Hurts.”
Bad Bad Hats showcased the intimacy that Alexander described in her creative process throughout the concert on Saturday. On tracks like “Super America,” the band told stories about the former gas station chain before breaking into the catchy melodies of the song.
At the concert, the sold-out venue reverberated with Bad Bad Hats’ lively music and the crowd’s enthusiastic dancing. The concert ended with a kazoo-filled rendition of the titular track, “It Hurts,” with the crowd singing along to the playful melody.
