Diva Cup: Saviors of Sincerity (Published in Five Cent Sound Magazine)

It’s another Friday night house show — low ceiling, stifling air, and a perfectly dismal headline act. So, this is the underground scene as it exists today. Playing host to a coterie of bands imitating other bands and music insisting desperately on its own importance, the scene may as well be asleep. What is the youth to do? Where are the saviors of sincerity? Simply put, who on Earth can kick the scene awake?

Enter: Diva Cup!

Formed only two years ago, this all-woman punk outfit has already smashed through the milestones that well-established bands still aspire for. They have gained a loyal following, produced scores of merch, mixed and mastered an entire album, and they have done it all in a blindingly authentic rage. 

Now, as Diva Cup steadily joins our Zoom meeting, it becomes immediately apparent that this band is not defined by any barriers, much less time zones. Two Diva Cup members are presently abroad in Berlin — guitarist Maxx Goodman and drummer Maggie Kempen. “Everybody drinks beer here,” Kempen jokes, toasting her laptop camera. “They’ll just carry it on the street, and I felt like being German today.” The remaining members — lead singer Polly Torian and bassist Addy Harrison — join from Boulder, Colorado, where the band originated. 

As a sidenote: Harrison joined the Zoom slightly late. Yet, without overstating it, nothing could have displayed Diva Cup’s unrelenting authenticity better.

“What’s up, girl!” Kempen exclaims, the moment a fresh-faced Harrison appears on the screen. 

“How’s Berlin?” Harrison asks at once. 

“So good, mama. We miss you!”

Setting aside the performing and the music, Diva Cup instantly feels like nothing short of a family. Evident in every remark, there is a distinct warmth within the band. Even separated by an ocean, the members spent the time between questions catching up and joking as though they were all still together, rehearsing in person. 

Born of an unlikely “right time, right place” meeting at Radio 1190, CU Boulder’s student radio station, Diva Cup has not wasted a single moment.

“I had met Polly a few times before,” says Goodman. 

“And I knew Polly from a different show,” Kempen chimes in, “I literally ran into Polly and Maxx at the radio station and I was having a tough time, so Polly asked me, ‘Do you play any instruments?’ Obviously, I fibbed a little and told her, ‘Well, yeah, I’m a drummer.’” 

It would seem that this happenstance meeting occurred not a moment too soon. When asked about the state of Boulder’s underground scene, Torian delivers a resounding assertion: “It’s flopping!” Without Diva Cup, Torian paints a picture of the otherwise lukewarm scene, “It’s all just men with jazz masters, and they all have a fucking saxophone player, and they all have moustaches and beanies, and I just don’t fucking care.” 

“I got so sick of the circle jerk in music of ‘Oh, I know this band,’ or ‘I play jazz chords’ …  Nobody fucking cares. Just be who you want to be,” Kempen adds with another toast. 

These last words speak volumes to Diva Cup’s raison d'être, as it were. The band, quite simply, doesn’t care what anyone thinks. 

It should, then, come as no surprise that Diva Cup’s forthcoming album will be an unapologetic ode to everything the band stands for. Split into two EPs “divided by thematic concepts,” the full album will encompass both EPs, delivering fans a complete picture of Diva Cup in all its glory. 

“As a little spoiler, if you’ve seen us live you will have heard all the songs,” Goodman explains, “It’s essentially our setlist from all the shows we’ve played.” 

While videos of the band’s electric live performances do circulate across the internet, the EPs will contain fully mixed and mastered editions of the songs fans know and love. 

Speaking on this process, Torian says, “We got [the album] produced at Mighty Fine Productions in Denver. Loren Dorland was our producer because we really wanted to work with a fellow woman on the project.”

“Working with women is important to us,” adds Kempen. “Or really just working with cool fucking people, honestly.”

Another eye-roll-inducing tendency within other bands is to safeguard the details of their future projects carefully. Here, Diva Cup couldn’t be bothered to waste time on anything less than complete transparency. 

“I will leak all of our shit right now!” Kempen declares. 

As it stands, the two EPs will be titled The Revenge of Sassy and The Rise of Sassy. 

“Addy, you have to take the mic and explain that,” says Kempen. 

“I had this childhood horse named Sassy,” Harrison explains. “Apparently, my grandma found her in a field in Kansas, where her mom had been struck by lightning. Sassy was still hanging around, trying to get her to wake up … And I think it was Maggie who basically said, ‘We’re actually not going to let this concept go.’”

Without fail, each member unashamedly encourages their fellow bandmates with a passion that comes from the shared belief in everything Diva Cup is.

“At the end of the day, even if we’re having a rehearsal and it’s really shitty and we’re all in bad moods, we all still showed up. At its core, that’s what keeps us going. Sometimes we’re all exhausted and are like, ‘Fuck this,’ and ‘Fuck each other,’ but the fact of the matter is we pulled up, and we’re all here for each other,” says Kempen. 

This could not be more clear in every endeavor Diva Cup puts itself to. In particular, the band’s headlining at Boulder’s Fox Theater in June of 2024, posed the largest test to their combined talents — a test the band passed with flying colors, packing the venue and delivering another iconic Diva Cup performance. The event also marked the largest merch release from the band, entirely produced by the members themselves. 

“We all put blood, sweat, and cum into that shit,” Kempen says. “We had Diva Cup shirts, pins, thongs.”

“And kazoos,” Torian chimes in. 

Completely organic creativity suffuses itself throughout everything Diva Cup touches, extending even to their choices in collaboration. Their upcoming music video for the iconic single “Public Venmo Porn Girls” was shot by Kempen’s own sister. Visuals for the band’s album cover were designed by Ha Pham, a fellow artist friend of Torian. Diva Cup acts much like a conductor, attracting artists and creatives into the “beautiful Diva Cup soup,” as Kempen phrases it. 

Amidst a milieu of cheap copyists and pretentious wannabes, Diva Cup is the much-needed slap in the face. They are everything that music can once again stand for: a return; a homecoming to authentic, furious expression. 

But no one could say it better than Kempen herself:

“Regardless of the songs or this next album, it’s about keeping the energy of, ‘Fuck you! We’re women, and we’re going to do whatever the fuck we want!’”

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