For Cassie, Katy, and Ali of Brooklyn’s Vivian Girls, being in a band began as a fun extension of a life filled with other pursuits. When the band started in March 2007, Cassie was studying illustration at Pratt Institute, Katy was finishing degrees in physics and education at Rutgers University, and Ali, also at Rutgers, was majoring in German. However, after three 7" singles and a limited-run pressing of the band’s debut album—which sold out within a week of its May release—things have been heating up. In fact, Cassie, Katy, and, Ali—who all prefer to be referred to only by their first names—were lucky to make it out of school at all.

“For the first year of the band, we were all full-time students,” says Katy, who finished her master’s degree in education this summer. “Me and Cassie almost failed school. It was very hard. I had to take a month off of touring this summer to finish my master’s program. We still went on a mini-tour with TV on the Radio, and my teachers threatened to fail me for missing a week of school in the middle of summer.”

Vivian Girls’ self-titled debut, which is being re-released by In the Red Records, is a high-energy combination of loud guitar/bass/ drum instrumentation and infectious girl-group melodies and harmonies. The sound has garnered the band comparisons with groups ranging from noise provocateurs My Bloody Valentine to girl group The Shangri-Las.

“A lot of people have compared us to bands that we’ve never listened to,” says Cassie. “For example, we get a lot of Shop Assistants references, but I never listened to them until after people said that all the time. When we started out, we just wanted to be a punk band. We just wanted to play fast but melodic songs….We all love punk. We love shoegaze. We love girl groups. We like rock and roll. And we all love pop hits from the ’60s and ’70s. So if you can have a band that mixes all those things together, then why not?”

Since the band’s first single release in March, Vivian Girls have developed a following through blogs and Internet talk, but this electronic word-of-mouth has not taken the place of good old-fashioned pavement pushing. Only a month after the band’s inception, Vivian Girls toured to Chicago and back, and the band recently embarked on a tour lasting through December, which will take them up and down the East Coast, through the Midwest, and even across the pond to England.

“From the [initial album] release to now, there’s been a lot more blogging and controversial chatter on the Internet,” says Katy. “I felt like before we started this tour, there would be a lot more people at the shows, just curious to see whether we lived up to [the hype]. But that’s not what I’ve felt at these shows. It’s just been filled with really supportive people who have been really into the music. I haven’t felt like I would be judged at all.”