Hey, my name is Coco and I am the front-woman for Winona Fighter. The band consists of myself, Dan Fuson (guitar), and Austin Luther (bass/producer). I grew up pretty immersed in the Boston area punk scene. Whether I was actually playing the shows or just being a spectator, it shaped me into the music lover I am today. I thought it was the coolest community ever and was like “everyone should get to experience something like this”. That was pretty much the catalyst for Winona Fighter. I moved away from home soon after I turned 18 to a town that had no punk or alternative scene at the time (Nashville, TN). There being no scene I had 2 options: try to fit the country mold or do whatever the hell I wanted to do and figure it out as I go. I’ve never been one to fit the mold. I met Dan via a Craigslist ad for a different band. He was going to play guitar and I was going to play drums. It was kind of a shitshow but we hit it off immediately. Didn’t take more than 2 rehearsals for me to ask him to come play for this new band I was working on. We did whatever it took. Playing honky tonks on all country bills, DIY touring, anything just to play and build a community. Less than a year later, I met Austin and we became co-writers. The joke is after a few years of writing Winona Fighter songs together, he showed up to rehearsal one day and never left. Which is true, but we had been waiting for that day for a long time. Dan and Austin are my best friends and two of the most skilled musicians I’ve ever met. It’s a true honor getting to be in a band with them.

We say it’s punk music for all music lovers. Like I said before my biggest influence was showing the music scene I grew up in and loved so much to literally everyone. I think people have a hard time deciding what to make of us. You’ve got the listeners who call us pop punk but our live show is a completely different beast from that world. I mean, the audience is out there beating the shit out of one another haha (not literally but the moshing and crowd surfing gets intense). It makes me feel like I’m back in a church basement seeing my favorite local punk bands.

The 3 of us come from all different backgrounds, which I think makes our sound special. As far as punk rock goes: I am heavily influenced by 90s punk and rock. Dan loves big guitars from 70’s-80’s rock. Austin takes from early 2000s rock and alternative. It’s a really nice melting pot that makes us uniquely us. We pull from so many bands that inspire the music it’s hard to name them all. Our debut record, My Apologies To The Chef, specifically took drum and guitar tone inspiration from Turnstile, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, and a little bit of Limp Bizkit to name a few.

I always like to start by saying it is not a Phoebe Bridgers diss track, in fact it has nothing to do with Phoebe at all! I wrote this song about a situation someone the band is extremely close to was in. They were in an industry plant band and the manager was a god awful person. Manipulative, narcissistic, and emotionally abusive. You know those music industry horror stories you hear about sometimes? This is absolutely one of them. A disgusting human with too much power and an ill fitting suit. It really killed me there was nothing I could do, so I put my frustration and anger into this song. I was irrationally nervous this manager would piece together the song was about them so I didn’t name it. Later that day I went to meet some friends at a bar. While I had not even ordered a drink yet a guy came up to me and said “has anyone ever told you, you look like the drunk version of a Phoebe Bridgers?’… uh sir… that’s an amazing song title. It was the perfect alias for the perfect song. Today, I don’t care if that manager found out the song is about them, however, the song title was too iconic to change.