Shouting Out Loud

Art students Gina Birch and Ana da Silva formed The Raincoats in 1977. Since the release of their seminal early records, the band has been revered by punk, queer, feminist, and indie pop artists alike. The Raincoats reimagined the nature of experimental music and DIY design, and went on to inspire Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and an entire generation of Riot Grrrl and queercore musicians.

Shouting Out Loud: Lives of the Raincoats tells this story, which resonates at the heart of late twentieth century radical art, in three distinct lives of the band. In The Raincoats’ first life, they recorded three full-length albums now regarded as classics and were the first punk band to play behind the Iron Curtain in Warsaw. Nearly a decade later in 1992, the band’s second life took off when Kurt Cobain’s love of the band catalyzed their renaissance, and The Raincoats became renowned as ‘godmothers of grunge and Riot Grrrl’ only to go on hiatus again in 1996.

In 2001, The Raincoats re-emerged in a third and ongoing iteration marked by performances in art museums such as New York’s MoMA, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and London’s National Portrait Gallery. The Raincoats have and continue to be a singular phenomenon and influence for so many.

Featuring exclusive interviews and never-before-seen images from The Raincoats’ archive, Shouting Out Loud is the first biography of this pioneering group of women who paved the way for hundreds of artists who have followed in their footsteps and the must-have account of a legendary band that holds a vital place in twentieth and twenty-first century sonic history.