Drummer Lelah Maupin and guitarist Eric Randall first met in
Longview, Washington while working together at a Safeway grocery store. Randall met bassist Bree McKenna while his band was practicing in the basement of a punk house where she lived. Lelah Maupin met
Emily Nokes in a graphic design class. The four bonded over their mutual affection for 1990s music, the
riot grrrl movement, and
Kevin Costner's
Waterworld. They started making music together, performing at small shows and releasing singles. Tacocat's roots in the DIY (Do It Yourself) culture of indie music embody a spirit of self-sufficiency and innovation. They released their DIY debut album
Shame Spiral in 2010. That year, they also signed with
Subpop imprint
Hardly Art and released their second EP
Take Me to Your Dealer. The ''Woman's Day
EP followed in 2011. The band would exhaustively tour the United States over the next few years, playing basements and house shows. Other notable releases include a Ghost Mice/Tacocat split 7-inch, a riot grrrl cover compilation album released on Teenage Teardrops Records (featuring cover art by Jessica Hopper), and the much coveted DIY tour tapes such as Frenching and Food Stamps
and OMG''. In a 2012 installment of Your Favorite Band, a series of fictitious satirical articles for
VICE, Bree McKenna claimed to be the illegitimate child of
Bob Saget. The band was involved in a controversy involving pop singer
Katy Perry when her Super Bowl 2015 half-time show featured backup dancers in shark costumes that looked similar to Tacocat's in the "Crimson Wave" video.
2014 NVM Tour Tacocat went on a national tour in March 2014 in support of their album
NVM, playing many shows in the Pacific Northwest and across the United States, including in Los Angeles, Tucson, New Orleans, Atlanta, Baltimore, Columbus, Las Vegas, New York City, Miami, Boston, and Little Rock. They also toured Europe in fall 2014 with visits to many major cities including Barcelona, Berlin, London and Vienna.
Lost Time Tacocat's third album
Lost Time came out on Hardly Art Records on April 1, 2016. Their premiere, pro-service worker single, "I Hate the Weekend," was announced in January 2016. On February 15, 2016, Pitchfork streamed "Talk," the second single from the album, and reported that they will record the theme song to the
2016 Powerpuff Girls reboot. Singer Emily Nokes was influenced by the science fiction series
The X-Files during the writing of
Lost Time. The name of the album is a reference to the
pilot episode of
The X-Files, which touched on the lost time phenomenon.
This Mess Is a Place The band released their fourth full-length album,
This Mess is a Place on May 3, 2019, on
Sub Pop Records == Members ==