MUSIC FEATURE
Avalon Recorders in the historic music town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to rerecord a few tunes with the benefit of studio polish and an experienced producer. It’s the first step for two talented and intuitive Black musicians who want to bring something novel to the rock market. Cope Fiend plan to bring their invigorating sound to an appreciative audience. “I’d love to hit the college circuit because I think BY PAT MORAN a lot of kids connect to what we’re saying,” Johnson says. “I feel like it’s fresh and new.” The insistent guitar line is slurring, slinky and duo Cope Fiend, coupling Johnson’s songwriting and If Cope Fiend does succeed in reaching a wide somewhat sinister. The fretwork threads through inimical sound with Young’s musicality. audience, they will have done it the old-fashioned Randi Johnson’s double-tracked vocals, which “The name Cope Fiend sparks from [Young] and way, becoming an “overnight success” after decades duel as much as harmonize. As her voices enfold, I talking on the phone — we’re just trying to get of hard work. entwine and diverge, Johnson navigates unwanted through this,” Johnson says. “We’re obsessed with attention, dodging the male gaze like bullets: “Stop coping, getting through it and getting to the other Motor City inspiration, Queen City watching me / Do your own thing / I’m not here to side of whatever it is.” please /Your curiosity … Give me attention / But only “It’s perseverance,” Young says. “This is the time woodshedding Johnson grew up in Detroit until she was 10 when I ask…” to change old habits.” Johnson’s emotional landscape exists in tandem A few weeks after my impromptu front porch years old, when she moved with her mother and with a suggested reality — impressionist brush listening session with Young, Johnson flies into brother to Virginia. Music was always around her, strokes evoking a street scene, one that Johnson can Charlotte. After a few days sorting through the Johnson recalls. She didn’t know life without it. “We grew up when Michael Jackson was manage and even transcend. voluminous material Johnson has written and moonwalking across the stage, and Prince was “Cross the street / Carry my feet / Floating cross recorded on her own, Cope Fiend heads to East doing splits,” Johnson says. “Cyndi Lauper and David concrete / Floating through sky…” The song, “Sunight,” nods to female post-punk pioneers — artists like The Slits, The Raincoats and Jarboe who deserve to be better known. And yet it’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard. I’m walking past Marlon Young’s Plaza Midwood house on a Sunday evening when he calls me up to listen to Johnson’s low-fi home recording. Young is enthusiastic as he plays the track on his phone. “I like the juxtaposition of the lyrics’ symbolism with the upbeat energy of punk music,” Young says. “She’s clear and her voice resonates, as well as the guitar sound.” He believes he’s never heard a guitar sound anything like the sound on the track. When Young gets bowled over by a song it carries weight. He’s been part of Charlotte’s music scene since the mid1990s, playing drums with bands including Latino Chrome, Moonburn, Interstellars and Hardcore Lounge, and lately he’s been honing his production and recording chops. Detroit native Johnson currently lives back in her hometown, but she is also a distinctive singersongwriter who enriched the Charlotte music scene. Through the 2010s, Johnson developed her distinctive acoustic guitar-based Motor City grunge sound at open mics throughout the Queen City. Johnson and Young crossed paths back in those days, and have kept in contact. Starting in the winter RANDI JOHNSON (LEFT) AND MARLON YOUNG PERFORM TOGETHER AT A POP-UP IN CHARLOTTE. of 2021, they began collaborating as dynamic rock
THE BEST OF FIENDS
Pg. 12 APR 20 - MAY 3, 2022 - QCNERVE.COM
Cope Fiend crafts a soundtrack for survival
Bowie made a huge impression on me because they looked different from who I was seeing on TV and listening to.” Johnson’s first instrument was an electric bass, then she switched to an electric guitar. She moved to Charlotte in 2007, and played her first open mic at The Evening Muse the following year. By this time, she had switched to an acoustic guitar because it was more portable and practical. With her black Taylor acoustic, Johnson became a fixture on Charlotte’s thriving open mic scene, playing venues like Comet Grill, Common Market’s since demolished South End location, Rhino Market & Deli on Morehead Street and more. “I love distortion, guitars and the general look and sound of collapse, a driving beat and lyrics that need to be honest,” Johnson says of her sound. “If it’s not what I’m feeling, it’s difficult to express.” Young was born in Charlotte, but by fourth grade he had moved with his mother to Atlanta. Thanks to college radio there, and his own eclectic tastes, Young grew enamored with soul, classic and current psychedelic rock, and the moody yet propulsive post-punk grooves of Joy Division. In 1989, after graduating high school, Young came
PHOTO BY MARY MASSIE
