Tigress: Practice What You Preach

Pura Vida is a Costa Rican way of life. At a basic level, it evokes a carefree, laid-back, and optimistic spirit that embraces life in its purest forms. After a year and half spent holed up in our bedrooms held prisoner by a pandemic, some politicians, and the power of the news, it’s a lesson we could all benefit from learning from our Latin America friends. Following TIGRESS vocalist Katy Jackson’s life-changing trip to Costa Rica, the band – completed by bassist Jack Divey, drummer Josh Coombes, and guitarist Tom Harrison – have fully embraced the way of life.

Inspired by the real-life disconnect Katy experienced during her days spent between a beach hut and the Central American jungle, their debut album Pura Vida explores the social and technological crutches we’ve relied on, and how we’re better off when we disconnect from it all.

“Information is just shoved down your throat constantly until you choke, and there’s so many flavours of the week all the time, it’s like, do we even have an original thought anymore?” ponders TIGRESS’ Tom Harrison over Zoom, disillusioned with our reliance on social media, when there’s so much life to be lived away from our screens. “We’re trying to take a step back away from all of that and live a more purer life, and having a break from all the technology that gets showed in your face.”

They’re set on practising what they preach, soaking Pura Vida in every shade of the sentiment, from its songs to its artwork. Depicting a tape popping out of a human head, it represents the reset button TIGRESS are trying to tap. “It symbolises us trying to reset everything, like what if we just lived a life without all this stuff shoved in our faces and be more present, because it’s really easy to get distracted by everything.”

Having pulled themselves away from the hypnotisation of modern culture, they’ve taken up the mission of opening the eyes of others. Pura Vida is a commentary on the growing pains of modern life, exploring everything from the gap between the digital and the real, the separation between what women are shown online and their true bodies, and this constant overload of information. They feel a responsibility to share their thoughts, as we’re all human at the end of the day.

“We’re all real people, and we’re all the same as everyone else. We go through all the same anxieties, struggles, and body image issues, like sometimes you wake up and you’re like ‘my hair looks like shit’ or ‘I don’t look good today’ and we want to tell people, that’s okay, and if you want to eat, just eat, don’t starve yourself.”

For TIGRESS, technology is a double-edged sword being held to our throats by ourselves. They recognise their reliance on it as a band in the digital age, and appreciate it’s advantages yet worry about its long-term consequences for young people. “I’m really glad that I grew up with barely any technology, I didn’t have a phone until I was 14 and even then it was one of those little brick phones so you weren’t too stressed out but now it’s so different. It’s no wonder there’s so many cases of anxiety and depression happening these days, because social media mostly shows the stuff that’s really good, like the best parts of our life and no one talks about how they felt like crap today, so all you see is these perfect lives,” he explains. “We’re old enough to know when enough is enough online yet the younger generation might not and everything’s got a filter on it as well, and for us, that goes back to Pura Vida, like don’t put a filter on, show us what it’s really like.”

Funnily enough, filters are something TIGRESS don’t put their music through. They encompass elements of pop-punk, alt-rock, emo, grunge, and synth-pop, synthesising it all into a unique sound that celebrates their individuality. From BILLY TALENT and GREEN DAY to NIRVANA and ALICE IN CHAINS, they’re a product of alternative music in the late nineties and early noughties. “We don’t listen to stuff and rip people off, it’s all by process of osmosis,” Tom explains. “It’s like we listen to stuff non-stop for years and then we just create our own style from that.”

For an album that’s been six years in the making, TIGRESS have taken the time to throw some curveballs across Pura Vida. Most notably, they’ve taken a thing or two from shoegaze pioneers MY BLOODY VALENTINE’s playbook, thanks in no small part to the wisdom of Grammy-winning producer Adrian Bushby, who worked on their 1991 classic Loveless.

“In our song Hungry, when the chorus comes in, Adrian gave us loads of good tips for layering, like he wanted to do this wall of sound and do all of these Kevin Shield – the guitarist from MY BLOODY VALENTINE’s – techniques like where you grab the whammy bar and strum at the same time, but dip the whammy bar so it goes out of tune and it’s meant to be this shoegaze thing that hypnotises you – and that was really cool to add in.”

For a band who’ve been around the block, but only just put together their debut album, the influence of Adrian Bushby – who’s won Grammy’s for albums by THE FOO FIGHTERS and MUSE – was invaluable and so influential to Pura Vida’s finished product. “His energy is amazing, he’s always jumping around the studio getting really excited about how it sounds and stuff,” Tom enthuses, clearly over the moon at bagging such a well-respected producer on album number one. “It’s the first time we’ve worked with a producer who’s really excited about everything we’re doing and we weren’t butting heads, like sometimes you end up butting heads with a producer and you get through it but deep down you’re like ‘I was right’ but he really aided the songs in such a cool way.”

All in all, Pura Vida is the sound of a band who’ve been through two variations of a band and have withstood the test of time. TIGRESS are the band we need in times like these, the kind who open our eyes to the world around us, no matter what.

Pura Vida is out now via Humble Angel Records.

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