Wait, what was their band called again?" — Hazmat
The members of the all-female St. Louis-based band Hazmat are angry. They're mad at men. They're calling out misogynistic bookers and fans, too.
"Guys are shitty, period, to us," explains Mal Tockman, better known as Bowie, the band's drummer. "Especially in the music scene. When we first started they weren't coming to our shows, and if they did they were eating Chick-fil-A in the back, like, leaving their trash and cornering us."
"I'm really mad all the time," says Sara Ahmadian, or Envy, the band's vocalist.
Hazmat's '90s grunge aesthetic isn't just reflected in its members' clothes. It's also evident in their riot grrrl energy and ferocious lyrics.
M-A-N-S-P-L-A-I-N I'm stating my opinion baby, I don't mean to offend, M-A-N-S-P-L-A-I-N.
"We put out either heartbreak, super confident or really mad, anti-men songs," adds Bowie. "We were definitely man-haters in the beginning, that was our big thing ... we strayed away from that in our album, but our EP was fully revolving around that."
Hazmat's EP High School Offender came out in 2022, featuring six songs. The following year, the group followed up with its first full-length album, Pins and Needles, with eight.
The band has created some in-your-face head bangers, with song titles that immediately set the stage for the lyrics that follow: "Mansplain," "Not Ur Mommy," "Bad Decisions," "Reckless Abandon," "Envy," "Riot," "Spider Boy," "Gluttony," "20 Missed Calls," "Diluted," "Blood" and "Choke."
They have good reason to be mad — not just at those Chik-fil-A-eating fans, but also at the venues that weren't quite ready to book a band of high school girls.
"I feel like in a way it's definitely gotten better, but only because we've begun to prove ourselves a little bit," explains Envy. "In the beginning it was definitely not fun. It was so hard for us to be taken seriously by venues."
Hazmat first came together in January 2021, when COVID-19 was still raging and many schools were still virtual. During this time, Envy was a junior at Parkway South High School and Bowie was at Marquette High School.
Envy, now 20, says she started getting more and more into music during COVID, first as a way to fight her boredom. She says she quickly realized she could and should start a band.
"I was just singing covers for fun and then I was like writing to YouTube beats, but I thought about it and I was like, 'The band scene is pretty big here,'" she says.
That's when she found Bowie, who had been studying music for eight years and attended School of Rock for one. Envy looked on the School of Rock's Instagram and messaged girls who she thought "looked cool."
"She stalked me," says Bowie, now 20, jokingly. "I was gonna just say no and then be done. I played drums but I was on a two-year break at that point, but I was like, 'I guess I play well enough.'"
"So that's how I found the original lineup," explains Envy.
Three more members followed, also recruited via the School of Rock, although eventually Izzy Rutledge, Lily Belknap and Olivia Haley took time off from the band to focus on school and to travel. They came up with their collective name, Hazmat, using a word generator.
Since first forming, the band has played at least 20 shows — starting off in their own basements.
"We started playing in the basement so we'd throw our own basement shows, and then we started playing in the local basement venues," says Envy. "Our first out-of-basement show was at Tropical Sno" — the shaved ice stand in Ballwin.
As the girls continued to prove themselves in the sexist music industry, they started to book more and more shows. (After three of their original members moved on, Envy and Bowie now rely on a freelance guitarist and bassist to play with them at different shows.)
Even so, it took venues quite some time to get on board.
"[Venues] still kind of don't [take us seriously]," Bowie says. "But the Duck Room, because we've proven that we can sell tickets, was the turning point because we almost sold it out. Then all of a sudden venues were like, 'Oh OK, maybe.'"
"Our emails to venues were so long," Envy adds. "We were literally like, 'Please let us play' and they did."
For Bowie, it's not only the fact that bookers don't take girls seriously, but particularly teenage girls.
"When we're like, 'Hey, please,' half the time they're not even gonna email back," she says.
Though they are still fighting hard to prove themselves to venues, Hazmat has started to find fame on social media, with a following of 3,860 on Instagram and more than 90,000 on TikTok. Being featured in a Spin story on the St. Louis music scene helped — but fame inevitably leads to a backlash.
"Outside of playing music people still love to put a target on your back," Bowie says. "Like we could breathe wrong and we will get attacked for a week. People get over it and then it'll happen again. You can't catch a break."
When first starting out, Envy says she used to get upset over the thoughtless comments, but seeing how far they've come in three years has made it all worth it.
M-A-N-S-P-L-A-I-N, teach me how to play a song, I'll sit here and pretend. M-A-N-S-P-L-A-I-N, I can really fill a crowd while you play for your friends.
Hazmat's music boasts mostly alternative-pop beats with a little punk rock featuring raw, emotional lyrics and contagious, upbeat energy.
"I feel like it's kind of whatever I'm listening to at the moment," says Envy. "But I'm more influenced by rock music and punk music."
Envy notes that they tend to remind people of Paramore, Blondie, the Runaways, Bikini Kill, Måneskin and Veruca Salt — all of whom inspired the band's music.
But the band takes its cues from multiple genres and musicians.
"If I'm into indie pop, which I was when I first started music, and that's where 'Converse' came from," Envy says. "When I joined the band, they listened to a lot of rock, like riot grrrl and things like that, so I started listening to that. You can kind of hear it in 'Riot,' 'Mansplain' and 'Not Ur Mommy.'"
Hazmat has now made appearances at the Duck Room, Red Flag, Off Broadway, Ballpark Village and Delmar Hall.
"Taking Back Sunday at Ballpark Village was one of the biggest shows," Bowie says. "That was like I think the biggest crowd, the biggest stage. It was just so cool."
"It was just like a really different experience to what we're used to, because obviously that's a way professional venue, like everything was run very professionally," Envy adds. "It was just cool, it made it all feel more real."
Let me give you a hand never forgive a lying man and push on all the buttons of his masculinity; go ahead and key his car just fuck shit up and raise the bar let him see what it's like to just be an accessory...
In addition to their work with Hazmat, Envy and Bowie are baristas at a local coffee shop, where fans tend to recognize them from the band.
"I never know how to react because to me, it's not real," says Bowie. "I forget that people can access Spotify."
"I was working and this girl came up to the counter and was like, 'Are you in Hazmat? I just love your music so much,'" Envy adds. "I don't really think that, like, 'Oh, it's out there and people listen to it.' So it's very satisfying and fulfilling."
Hazmat was recently tapped to work with St. Louis City SC and the Grammy-nominated rapper Smino on their new music collaboration Homegrown, which will showcase five emerging St. Louis musicians throughout the year. Perks include access to Smino, performance opportunities, artist profiles and inclusion in a Friday night showcase for the kickoff to the music festival Music at the Intersection.
"We get to work together and then play shows, like, before the games or at Music at the Intersection, things like that," says Envy.
They also hope to start touring in the near future.
"We would really love to, like, not even necessarily our own tour, but just opening for someone, or we want to work on playing out-of-state shows," Envy says. "Because we feel like we've gotten a good amount of success in St. Louis."
But they still have St. Louis goals, too.
"I want to play different states, like, hop on tour with someone. Bigger venues will be crazy — but I want to play at the Pageant," Bowie says hopefully.
"That's a very specific goal of ours!" Envy exclaims. "We want to play at the Pageant, so hopefully we get to."
Then grab some gasoline, a match or two should keep it clean, let's burn the damn patriarchy!
Follow Hazmat's rise to fame on Instagram (@hazmatstl) or TikTok (@hazmatstl), and check out their latest hits on Spotify (@hazmat).
Editor's note: A previous version of this story referred erroneously to the venue that helped the band show it could sell out venues. It was the Duck Room, not the Dark Room. We regret the error.
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