Origin Story

Like most good stories, this one begins with a Craigslist ad.

This particular ad starts with an honest confession: Let’s get this out of the way first- I have no official music experience. While it’s now lost to the Craigslist graveyard of TVs and blowjobs, that ad—which, in reality, was a lot more sprawling—was the beginning of New York’s Groupie.

Photo by Alex Kapowski; banner photo by Sydney Tate

Groupie has shown that sometimes all you need to start a band is heart, moxie, and something to say.

Ashley Kossakowski (bass/vocals) submitted the Craigslist ad the same week she read Sara Marcus’s Girls To The Front, during a summer spent immersing herself in riot grrrl culture and DIY shows in NYC. Bands like Bikini Kill and The Raincoats showed Kossakowski that all she needed to start a band was heart, moxie, and something to say. It was an extremely welcome epiphany, after an adolescence spent attending emo shows in her home city of Chicago—where many of the morose, swoopy-fringed boys onstage evinced the idea that you needed to be white, male, and raised on expensive guitar lessons to form a band.

Kossakowski attended so many of these shows that her mother began to refer to her as ‘groupie.’ While she eventually left Chicago, Kossakowski, a queer, first-generation child of Polish immigrants, never grew out of the nagging feeling of being on the outskirts at shows she attended. She expressed this feeling to Johanna Healy (guitar/vocals) when they met for the first time in the fall of 2015. Healy, a long-time lover of punk music who started playing guitar as a teenager, was already a skilled songwriter. She had spent her early 20s creating bedroom recordings and wanted to give her dream of playing on stage a shot. She met various people through Craigslist over the years, but none clicked as well as with Kossakowski. Healy welcomed Kossakowski’s passionate energy and provided gentle coaching along the way. The pairing of aficionado and fan proved to be a productive and nurturing one.

From humble beginnings, Groupie has grown into a dynamic, hard-working band. Over the past few years, frontwoman Ashley Kossakowski has toured as a bassist, playing to thousands on national and international stages, including Lollapalooza, and opening for acts like Sabrina Carpenter and CHVRCHES. Drummer Aaron Silberstein and guitarists Eric Rubin and Eamon Lebow enrich Groupie’s sound with textured guitar work and dynamic percussion. As talented multi-instrumentalists, they bring fresh perspectives and a playful sense of humor to the band’s creative process. Kossakowski connected with Silberstein during a tour they played together, and met Rubin and Lebow while performing in the NYC music scene. Now, with Healy on hiatus as a new mom, the quartet is driving Groupie’s evolution, pushing their sound forward with renewed energy and innovation.

Groupie crafts a sound that nods to the past while exploring contemporary themes.

The group has roots in punk, post-punk, and new wave acts of the 70s and 80s. But where many of the bands that typified the punk genre exuded a masculine exclusivity, Groupie gracefully blends in more feminine influences like Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth, and The Breeders, crafting a sound that nods to the past while exploring contemporary themes like immigration, injustice, and anxiety. Kossakowski’s identity as a queer woman and the first-generation daughter of Polish immigrants heavily informs her work in Groupie.

After harnessing their sound over two EPs, Groupie introduced themselves to the world proper with the release of their debut album Ephemeral in 2021. The project is a ten-track exploration of the fleeting nature of contentment, memories, and heroes, delving into the complex emotions that arise—where longing and nostalgia coexist with an appreciation for the present. It’s an introspective journey through the ephemerality of life's most cherished moments. The listener will find Groupie fully evolved on Ephemeral, honoring their DIY and riot grrrl roots on energetic tracks like “Half Wave” that nod to 70s NYC punk, while showing a more contemplative side on textural, brooding, experimental songs like ‘Waiting’ and ‘Critic’s Eye’.

Ephemeral searches for a fleeting feeling of home, deftly navigating the ebbs and flows of belonging and displacement. On ‘Daleko’—which was mostly written in Polish, alongside Kossakowski’s mother, who penned the second verse— the immigrant herself and her first-generation child offer two different viewpoints of immigration, but both long for a family far from America. “Thick as Glue” delves into the disillusionment that comes with realizing your childhood heroes aren’t who you once believed, and the profound impact this can have on your sense of self and identity. With warm, yet dissonant tones and energetic, impassioned vocals strengthening this theme - Ephemeral is a sound that drives right to your heart.

Photo by Sydney Tate

Groupie’s music stands up to their influences in a way that almost opens up an alternate reality. What if the music industry of the late 20th century had been animated by feminine vigor rather than masculine angst? What if the music was still as good, only the intentions were kinder and more inclusive? Groupie provides the answer.

“We try to digest complex issues through music and hope that our music offers a similar catharsis for our listeners,” says Ashley.

Expect great new things from Groupie coming soon.

Photo by Sydney Tate