Kathleen Hanna

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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.

00:00:15
Speaker 1: I'm here this Quest Love. You know, ever since that.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Willow episode, I gotta say, I'm kind of liking this more intimate one on one thing. Nothing against the Supreme fan, but you know, these are kind of fun for me, and this one especially holds dear. I will basically say that this conversation is probably thirty years overdue. I'm almost certain that our Yesterday doesn't even know the silent impact she's had on my entire organization.

00:00:48
Speaker 1: She'll find out right now, Right Surprises.

00:00:51
Speaker 2: The Bell Right surprise as a bell Our guest is legendary, of course, name it bikini Kill. Latigue of the Julie Willing pioneered the Riot Girl movement. Magazine publisher, poet, fan of cheesy seventies variety shows like Myself, spouse of my very first online scrabble rival, New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Rebel Girl, My life as a feminist punk.

00:01:24
Speaker 1: You know, if you are a fan of the show or.

00:01:27
Speaker 2: You're familiar with my history, she probably doesn't know it, but she was the seed that helped start the Black Lily movement that I guess I'm famous for or associated with. From my side of the fence, What can I say? This is long overdue, Kathleen Hannah, thank you for talking to me. I know your husband's going to be upset because I know he feels like I'm having everyone but him on the show. He will get his turn. He will get his turn. How are you today.

00:02:01
Speaker 3: I'm good. I'm so thrilled to be talking to you. It does feel like a thousand years overdue. Like I feel like you're like Superman and we're always you know, you're like Clark kentying out on me, Like I'm like where he was just here, Like I feel like we've had that for like the past thirty years.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: I lived a life where I used my work and my occupation to avoid life.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: And oh really.

00:02:25
Speaker 3: Is that? How come You've like done like three thousand things and you're like the total like you know, renaissance man goal for every other artist.

00:02:33
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, on paper, it's nice, but.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: You know, I've gone through uh kind of a life transformation in the last three years where I now know the power of no and vacation and you know, make time with my girlfriend, and I think date night, you know, game night like things that have nothing to do with working, which you know is nothing but distract So let me just let you know. And you know, I work on a talk show, and oftentimes I know that, especially when guests write books or memoirs, I'm almost certain that they are under the impression that the person interviewing them has not read the entire piece or the entire book. Usually like a producer and an assistant will do such a thing.

00:03:26
Speaker 1: This is absolutely not the case.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: I probably finished your book in a record like six days and was rather surprised at how parallel our journey from here to there sort of ran. There are a lot of times in the book in which I was like, oh wow. At times, a person thinks that they go through something alone, and I was one of those former people pleasers that sort of made career decisions based on the perception of other people or their approval. You know, what happens if we signed this label? Oh god, what happens if I do this commercial? What happens if I'm seeing with this particular You know, I actually like the work of Blah Blah Blah, who's massively popular, but I can't be seen with them in public cause people think i'm alf you know. Yeah, every aspect of your story really really impressed me, which is weird because I mean, I want to talk about it so much, but I also don't want to alert it for your audience that hasn't read it yet or you know, make this the paraphrase version of it. So I'll figure out ways to ask you specific questions. But I you know, I want to start off this episode by letting our audience know that this this book's a must.

00:04:47
Speaker 1: Read, an absolute must read. I'll start by asking you what is the process.

00:04:52
Speaker 2: Now, I'm a person that's written nine books, but even in writing those nine books, I.

00:04:58
Speaker 3: Realized it's like just nuts.

00:05:01
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, no, I'm gonna tell you. Well, the thing is is that I journal kind of to keep my sanity.

00:05:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know me too. I journal every day.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: Right, and then now that their social media, like oftentimes I'll overspill in a post, and if I do it too much, then yeah, my publisher is gonna call and be like, hey, dog, can you not give the milk away for free? Like all that you did in the last three posts could been in the book and usually that's the point where they're telling me, like, channel that energy into your contract fulfillment instead of giving it away on Instagram. And one of the last things that my ex told me was, you know, I can't wait for the day in which you write your real first book. And I was like, well, I got nine already, Like what else can I write about?

00:05:55
Speaker 1: Ouch?

00:05:56
Speaker 2: And she said, come on, now that she's like writing about records and breakbeats and you know art, that's your distraction. You know when you're going to write the real book. So I'll ask you, when.

00:06:10
Speaker 3: Am I going to write the real book?

00:06:11
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, oh my god, no, But I want to know if.

00:06:14
Speaker 3: There's another real book behind that real book, it's going to be really scary. It's like a horror movie. I'll just make a horror movie.

00:06:20
Speaker 2: So there's two books I've read this year that were memoirs, musical memoirs. One of them nicely danced around specifics to sort of protect relationships or maintain them. Yours was very blatant and very honest on how you felt about specific people. What is the first step in realizing that you're going to overspill and share with us your life, and how does that affect the people that you write about?

00:06:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never thought about it. I just sat down and wrote. I really just sat down and wrote and wrote and wrote. It was really for me. I didn't think about an audience at all, Like when I first started writing, which was like, you know, years ago, and I knew it was a book, Like I wrote the introduction like ten years ago and then ended up I changed it all, of course, but I was just sort of writing it a little bit, and I didn't have a publisher or whatever. And then finally I was like, I just need to do this to get to the next stage of my life, you know how like there's different like things that you've made that you're known by, Like you know, people walk up to you on the street and they're like, you know, this is the thing, and it's annoying because you're like, I don't want to talk about that. Actually, my real love is directing, or my real love is you know what I mean. It's like you get known as you know, if you're in a commercial and someone's like you were in that VW commercial for the rest of your life, and it's like I was sort of like really trapped in this like riot girl thing and like the like you wrote the smell saxteen Spirit line or you know other like weird mini scandals I was involved in, and I was like, you know, I just I don't want to like not talk about that anymore. And part of that is me getting over stuff that I never dealt with, and so I really kind of wrote it just to get it all out on the page, and I wasn't I knew that I got to edit it later. You know, I'm an adult. I've done like a lot of projects, so like I know, I'm not writing this and everybody's going to see it, and having the same confidence that I had with it that I have with my journal, where it's like no one's going to read this, so I can write whatever I want. And I had fun with it. I was like I would think of a title like Benjamin Franklin's Glasses and then you know, you have like catchphrases in your life that you used to talk to your friends with, where like for me, like the smells Like teen Spirit story, which is like I wrote Kurt smells like teen Spirit on his wall and then he used as a song Like people have asked me about that a lot, right, and so it's I started calling it the you know smells like Benjamin Franklin's glasses, and I would be like, it's like I found Benjamin Franklin's glasses in the trash. And everybody's like, ooh, there's the girl who found Benjamin Franklin's you know glasses in the trash. And I was like, I'm actually like a feminist artist who's been working for thirty five years and like, I have a lot of projects I'd love to talk to you about, but they're like, but tell me about Benjamin fraid tell you. So I didn't specifically actually write that story like to you know, get people off my back or whatever, but I did write everything, like everything, and then I edited it later and that's when I thought about it and I changed. I did change names. I changed almost everybody's names unless they were in a positive light, and so they were okay, okay. And there were people there's a particular person who who is really messed up in the book and basically commits crime and against me, and uh, I called that person and said, I'm going to tell this story and you need to get a therapist and be prepared. I changed your name, but some of our friends are going to know its you. So I want you to prepare yourself and I don't want to make kill themselves, you know what I mean.

00:09:54
Speaker 1: What was his reaction?

00:09:56
Speaker 3: You know, I wish I wouldn't have called. That's all I can say. I mean, he was like, he's like, you know, it's your story and you can tell it. I can't stop you. But it was like a big pity party of things in his life that have gone wrong and that you know, he had a whole new story for why the bad incident happened. I was like, I can't rewrite it. I already wrote it. So the story answer is I didn't think about it. I got my butt in the chair and I worked, and then I would have these long periods of time where it just worked and worked and worked and work, and then I would have periods of time where I had a nervous breakdown and went to crisis counseling, like for three days a week, and then I would get back to work.

00:10:30
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to ask you, because the thing is is that unlike my movement, you know, the Neo Soul movement, both of our movements, I would say start with the the quote the idea of I'm certain there was an actual Seattle movement or Northwest movement, but I, you know, pretty much even I knew that we were responding to the idea of what we thought the Seattle movement was things move on and things subside and things.

00:11:05
Speaker 1: Are in your rear view mirror.

00:11:07
Speaker 2: How did it feel to have to unpack that period in your life because like, literally chapter after chapter, it's one thing to keep a band together, but it's a whole other thing where you also have to keep yourself together and protect your sanity, but also like organize a movement. And I'll say the main difference between you and I, luckily because of the development of the Internet. For me at least ninety eight ninety nine, you know, I thought it was all unique, like the only person in music who allows this fan base to curse him out or criticize them or say whatever the fuck they want to.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: But that's contained in like this world on the Internet.

00:11:54
Speaker 2: Whereas because you're eight years before you know, you're dealing with newsletters and actual people coming you've essentially a pre social media pioneer, although it wasn't invented yet because you came out so damn early.

00:12:11
Speaker 1: But all the things that happened, like.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: The idea of people spewing out their opinions mid show, you know, all the toxic energy you had to have. You're juggling like four or five things at once, and you're learning lessons. You're learning lessons about feminism, you're learning lessons about yourself, you're learning lessons about your health.

00:12:32
Speaker 1: Like all these things.

00:12:34
Speaker 2: But to really put yourself in that position to go back and revisit how taxing was that on you today, to revisit those periods the.

00:12:44
Speaker 3: Way I would say when I would get home from work, because I would be like I just created my face with the cheese grater for eight hours. That's what it felt like. I felt. I really felt. I was like my face was blank, I was dead behind the eyes, like I was going in and out of being present. Like it was awful. Awful, but so is crisis counseling. I mean, And it was basically like I was. I saved myself a lot of therapy because I actually sat there and wrote down stuff I'd never even admitted to myself, and a lot of it didn't There's three hundred extra pages. It didn't end up in the book because it originally was like Ryacral Hobbit and they were six enter pages long. You might get it in a different form. But yeah, a lot of a lot of the stories I cut out were because they were more visual, Like it was like that you had to be their kind of stories where it's like, you know, we're on acid and we're like running towards the sky in the park. Looks like he's juggling. We're like, it's a clown. And then we get close to him and we're like, oh shit, he has not a ninja. It's a ninja turn around, like you know what I mean, Like it doesn't really work in a book. Yeah, it was horrible, That's all I can say. It was absolutely awful because it was like excavating all of the stuff that you know. So I had also suppressed and pushed down to keep going to the next project, and that was part of the reason why I worked so much, you know what I mean. And I didn't turn out like a kazilion albums, but I was constantly doing projects. Even when I went through a long period while I was pretty sick, I was still like I wrote a pilot for a TV show and you know, I could tell you twenty other things that I did while I was still ill, because I just had even if it was from bed, if I had one good day, I had to use it. And part of that is just like I grew up as a kid and I felt like I was really a zombie, Like I had to turn myself off to live in my household. And so when I kind of came to when I moved out when I was seventeen, I was like living with vengeance. Like I was like, I have to pack as much stuff into this one life as possible. And also all the people you know that I've lost along the way to like drugs, suicide aids, you know, it's hard not to feel like you're living for them, Like you know, every day you have a part of their character with you that comes out and you're like, I want to let that part of this person shying today, you know, Like, but then that can become this weird, like toxically positive bullshit that then you have to contend with that. So I just try to be in the present as much as humanly possible, and writing the book, the whole point of it was to get me into the present, was to be like I'm going to grapple with this thirty five years or even you know, my whole life. I'm going to grapple with that. And then I'm going to be like I did that and now here I am. And sure I still like have bad memories of stuff or like whatever. But the thing that was really kind of miraculous was I just realized how much I lead with the negative, you know what I mean, like a lot. It was so easy. It wasn't easy, but it was like I went straight for the juggler. Like I was like, I went to all the worst moments in my life really quick. And part of it was because I needed to. I really needed to do that. But then I was like, whoa, no one's going to read this. This is going to make people just throw up, Like I got to put some joy in here. And then I just started being like they started popping out like you know, Jack in the Box style, like just like joy joy joy, And I was like, oh yeah, that guy in Minneapolis who like said I'll record your band in my garage. I love what you're doing and I and that made me feel like accepted in the punk scene, you know what I mean, Like and It was just a tiny gesture from this one person that probably they didn't even I don't think that guy even read the book or knows or remembers. Right, this guy to Max said I'll record you, and you know, recorded us and my first touring band, Vivchnevl, And it meant the world to me, you know, remembering the first time that I heard my vocals sounding good in headphones, Like literally, as I was writing it, I was remembering it for the first time, and I was sitting in that garage listening to my voice with reaverb on it and going, oh, my god, this is what I want to do forever. Right, What a gift that I had to go through. I had to kind of like, you know, dig myself out with a shovel. I kept seeing in my head when I was writing, like a kind of a newly dug grave, like the soil and stuff, and I felt like my hand was just sticking out and I had to reach it, pull my hand and get me out of the grave. And once I dug myself out, I was like, oh, look at all this awesome stuff that happened that maybe you didn't fully appreciate in the moment, and I'm able to appreciate it now, and in a lot of cases I did. I had a great time, like I've had an awesome life.

00:17:31
Speaker 2: What I do want to know is, and I know that your story is your story alone, but when you decide to do the journey man of going in the punk scene or the ND rock scene, it's doing what is perceived as you know, major labels and big business and all that stuff. Is this typical of what one can expect in terms of do it yourself? It's twenty four hours a day. You might have a flat tire the next day. You don't know whose couch you're going to sleep on. Next week you might have bubblegum for dinner.

00:18:07
Speaker 1: Like, is that still.

00:18:09
Speaker 2: The modus operandi now in twenty twenty four?

00:18:12
Speaker 1: Is?

00:18:13
Speaker 2: Or did you pioneer it so well that now life is easier for those who are sort of in the space.

00:18:22
Speaker 3: I think it's changed in that I don't really know because I'm not twenty right now, so I have no idea. But we do have really amazing opening bands that have been playing for us on tour, and they'll sleep on people's couches. I mean usually you know, they'll sleep in like a Holiday and Express or a lat Quinta, but or like.

00:18:37
Speaker 1: Would have been five Star does yeah, yeah.

00:18:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they had their like a name brand, so you could trust the towels. But no, it's like they they'll sleep on to them. I think it's different, and it's not every single band, but like this one amazing band, Sweeping Promises, we were touring with, and it's like I think it's also you know, post COVID whatever, people are really excited to see each other and so right now at this moment, it's a different touring experience where it's like, oh, I'm so excited I get to go to Kansas because I have these two people that I've been writing to on the internet that are going to be there and we're going to hook up and hang out afterwards. I don't think, and I also think young bands are they're still struggling, but they're struggling in different ways. I think they struggle with the amount of stuff they have to extra unpaid labor of content production on the web that they have to do that Like I'm lucky that I don't have to. I mean, I have to do exact a business and stuff, but like I'm just not that interested in that, and like I try to figure out I've actually learned from the younger generation, like the way younger generation where they're like, I, you can't call me after business hours, you can't, you know, And I'm like, at first, I was like yeah, I was like exactly. I was like, I was like, how dare you have boundaries? I have eighteen jobs on different index cards, and I look up every day and which one would be funnest to work on today, and I do that, but then I do like the you know, crappy business financial part at the end of the day, and then I was like, no, that's awesome. I should have weekends free. It's so hard for me to be like I'm gonna have weekends free, you know. But now that the book's done, I have to protect my weekends, you know. And I have to say five o'clock that's it. Sometimes it ends up being seven o'clock. But I try to say five o'clock, that's it. And then I try to leave it. And I have a firm role and it's hard. It's really hard. But like I wake up, I write my journal, I drink my first coffee, and I sit in my really fancy Eames chair that I bought myself. That is the most comfortable chair I've ever seen it in my life. With my feet up, and my dog gets on my lap. My dog, who smells like a salm in factory, gets on my lap, and I pet her, and I pet her and pet her and pet her and drink my coffee. And I don't look at the computer, and I don't look at the phone until I've written in my journal and I've pet my dog and she is asleep. So I have to start my day like that with And right now, we're in this apartment where I have a view of the mountains, So I sit in my teams share and look at the mountains. Sometimes do I look at Instagram in the morning, Sure, But like I just actually took Instagram off my phone again because I'm just like, you know, I got to be in real life. You know, I miss pre Internet. I'm nostalgic for it. I'm also really into all the cool things that you can do on it, you know, right, I love that I can, you know, keep up with what you're doing on the internet. You know, Like I don't live in the same city as you, don't hang out, but I can like look and be like, oh, what pants is he you know, listening to and like I can like look them up and you know, it's cool, but it's also like you can get really addicted to. I mean, dud, this is the most boring conversation. You have to cut this part out because nobody wants to hear people talking about the Internet. I'm so bored of it.

00:21:50
Speaker 2: No, I mean, we're two humans having a normal So of my best episodes are just having a conversation.

00:21:57
Speaker 1: I was going to ask.

00:21:58
Speaker 2: Twenty three year old you, like, if someone were to come up, all right, let's go to twenty five twenty.

00:22:06
Speaker 3: Six, I remember what I was doing then.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: Well, I mean just let's let's say ninety two, ninety three, ninety four, around that period in Bikini Hill. Yeah, if someone a Jacob Marley figure from the future where to tell you, Hey, I'm from twenty twenty four. Let me show you a ten minute scissorle reel of what life is going to be like in October of twenty twenty four, like way past the year two thousand, like in ninety three, ninety four, nineteen ninety nine was the future?

00:22:46
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?

00:22:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't even imagine like two thousand and five, let alone twenty twenty five. What would your reaction be if someone shows you in nineteen ninety.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Three where we are right now thirty years later.

00:23:05
Speaker 3: It's the whole world, not just my life. I think if I was looking at if I was sharing my life in particular, I would be so happy. I would be like, oh my god. First of all, I'm alive. Second of all, the.

00:23:16
Speaker 2: Irony that your life is the best has ever been in the most turbulent times whatsoever.

00:23:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm finally getting like my sort of like I have a feeling you at some point have made a pie chart of what you do during the day or what you do during the month, to be like how much of my time is business stuff that I hate, and how much of my time is creative stuff I love? And how much of my time is like friendship time, relationship time, dog time, like whatever your thing is.

00:23:47
Speaker 2: I've hired a chief of staff. There's so much shame in the title. When they're like, oh, you're assistant, I'm like, no, I literally hired a chief of staff because I have seven managers.

00:24:03
Speaker 3: I mean, I have a part of business, partner now you know I have my bands have never had a manager. We had a manager for like fifteen minutes, and Ladra.

00:24:09
Speaker 1: You were the manager. I mean you did everything.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Kind of well, we split it up. I was I don't do all the work, but my band split up all of the work. And it's like, you know, we have a to do list and we each rip it off into three parts, like I don't, I haven't. I didn't have a manager until a year and a half ago, and it's like more of a business partner. Yeah, who's amazing and absolutely adore her, and I couldn't do I couldn't be doing this stuff I'm doing right now and have finished the book and done the book tour without her at all. But like it took me to age fifty five to set that up, Like that's how behind the times I.

00:24:44
Speaker 1: Am fifty two. We talked about boundaries and.

00:24:51
Speaker 2: And I do feel pathetic that, like yes, even for date night, for a movie night, for hangover my friends' night, like everyone has to a ask Amy.

00:25:01
Speaker 1: You com to come by the studient?

00:25:03
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, let me ask my mommy first, which is basically asking my person show me the pie chart, Like where can we fit this in, like yeah, but I'm also dead serious about boundaries, and the amount of nos I've given this year is the most knows I've ever given in my life.

00:25:22
Speaker 3: I did a year of no around ninety two when Bikini Kill first started getting all of this attention, and I was like, I had this extreme guilt because I was like, you know, from this kind of tighten it feminist community, and the whole idea is no, you know, anti hierarchy, and also in the punk scene, anti hierarchy. And I worked behind the scenes like long before I was ever in a band, like I didn't see myself. I wanted to be a singer, but I didn't really think it was possible that i'd be in a band because I just always dated people in bands. It was best friends with people in bands, but it just didn't seem possible. And so I was always like setting up shows and doing stuff, you know, the rape relief shelter and doing you know, art shows and you know, running out random warehouses and putting on doing projects. And then when I started doing them, it just rolled and rolled and rolled and kept going, and then all of a sudden, I was the front person and I was the lead who was in the spotlight, and that was very uncomfortable for me.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, were your nose based on the fear of getting the attention and being the obviously everyone was looking for a Ronald McDonald or a figurehead to peg like leader of the movement or that, and that comes with imposter syndrome and all that stuff and all that.

00:26:42
Speaker 3: Stuff, and if you like you, it's like I've had friends who got famerly quick and didn't have you know, the counseling and stuff, didn't have a team of therapist with them and ended up you know, leaving this surf the way way way too soon. And so I had all these cautionary tales that was like, don't go down that road because you're going to die. Like I literally was like, if you get famous, you die, Like that's what I thought, or like, you know, people are always like sneaking around the corner trying to get you, and I was like, I can't live that life and be in community. It also took me out of community. It made me a star, so that then I started to feel unwelcome in my community because they're like, oh, you think you're so great, You're so conceited. You know. I got some girl walk up to me in a grocery store and I was like on my period, carrying an thing on ice milk, like Neapolitan ice milk, you know, beautiful Neapolitan ice milks, like carrying it. And I had a bag of JoJo's. Do you remember those from the Pacific Northwest. They're like really big French fries and they're covered in like shaking bake material. You could get them at like Safeway. So I had my JoJo's, my tampons, my Neapolitan ice cream, and I'm walking in safe way and it's about ninety two, like the time period we're talking about, and some punk girl walks up to me and she's like, you're ruining the punk scene. You think you're so great, blah blah blah. And I'm like having cramps and I'm carrying like a pretty embarrassing assortment of items, and I'm just like, really right now, you know. And so it was that kind of stuff that made me like, you know, everyone's going to throw water on your shine, so throw water on your shine first. You know, like someone's gonna punch you in the face, so punch yourself in the face first, like I don't know what the hell I was thinking. So I like I pulled back and I was like, I'm just going to do community stuff. I was like putting on you know, benefits for harm reduction and like doing all this behind the scenes stuff. I was answering all my mail, as I always did to these kids who are writing, and they're like, I'm going to kill myself because I just came out to my family and I was rejected or you know a lot of people who had rape in and messing violence, you know, stuff going on in their lives, and like I just put my nose down and did that work, you know, And that's why I said no it So I said no for the wrong reasons. But I also ended up in this really weird predicament where because Bikini Kill got so famous so quick for like five minutes, and we got put in like all of these like feminist academics wanted to like put make classes about us and like put us in their books and stuff. I ended up being an unpaid assistant or like five different feminist professors without my knowledge. They were like from big ivy league schools and they call me and they'd be like, oh, you know, I'm really trying to put together this you know, syllabus or blah blah blah, and I'm like handing.

00:29:12
Speaker 1: Down to research.

00:29:13
Speaker 3: I was doing all this research for them and stuff, thinking I'm a part of feminist community and I and then one day I was like, wait, they're getting paid and they also have an assistant or or ta who's getting paid? Why I make music? Right, I'm write, but I'm not doing that. I'm doing their job. And so I just the next day I woke up and anybody asked me for anything any favor. No, no, no, And if they weren't jerks about it, and they didn't keep I found out everybody in my life who was a total toxic nightmare by saying no to everybody. Yeah, and then everyone who was a toxic namare was like why why not? Why not? What? You don't care about me, you don't care about community. And I was like, yeah, you're now I'm not only not doing any favor, but you're out of my life for ever and I'm never returning your calls. And then I found all the people who were cool about it. A couple months later, if I was like, you know, actually that sounded like fun. I'm going to call that person up and see if they still want to do something together, and so you circle. But I didn't do it for the right reasons at all. I took a year off. I could have written a great record in that year, but I was really too damaged. And this was right after also, like you know, a lot of people in my life had had just passed and I was just really messed up.

00:30:31
Speaker 2: Can I ask, Okay, so you said something in your book, So right now I'm working on two projects in which and let me start off by saying that, wait, that's it.

00:30:42
Speaker 3: Your only work on two projects? Was wrong with you?

00:30:44
Speaker 1: This two?

00:30:46
Speaker 3: You're in a good community member.

00:30:51
Speaker 2: This is two of the of the eleven I'm trying to whittle down to, you know, a simple one. So there's two projects I'm doing right now. They both require. The shortest way to put it is that both of them require for me to be the doctor Melfie to their tony soprano. Kind of the insane amount of trauma dumping I have to take on getting their stories. It got to the point where I, you know, had to get a second therapist. When you got to the part of the book when you're holding these meetings because you're not only producing and writing, but you're also teen rape counselor you're holding these feminist meetings to the point where even when you discover that there's trouble in Paradise in terms of white feminism, and you're putting on so many caps at the same time, what was the breaking point for you? And I'm only asking this because one of the subjects no, no, no, Well, the thing is is that my version to know had less to do with like, I understand that there's some nos where no, we're too cool for school, we can't do that, But I also know that three years ago I had to discover boundaries. I thought being self sacrificing was like, oh, that a mirror he's he always works so hard. I got tired of being that person, you know, the self sacrificing person, never thinking of myself. Now, in one of these particular projects, the subject is similar to our story in terms of like leading a movement and sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing, and what winds up happening is at the root of this particular person's story sort of lies an undealt with trauma with his parents, and this person kind of has a medical issue with their own life. And I'm always a believer that behind every medical issue is an emotional component that's not thought out or or dealt with. Could you talk about and you know, you're very open about the relationship with your father in the beginning years, and obviously I felt that your need to save people is you seeing yourself in you know, you want to say the version of you that wasn't didn't have a protector, didn't have someone to advocate for them.

00:33:38
Speaker 1: Yes, but at what point did you.

00:33:40
Speaker 2: Realize Now, the fact that you allowed love in your life via Adam was amazing because it took me five decades to get to that place. But at what point did self care become truly important to you and that you had to what everything else is side? As far as like juggling twelve plates at the same time, you know, leading a movement, flyers, meetings, teachers just unpaid teachers, assistant. Yeah, what was that breaking point?

00:34:14
Speaker 1: Like for you?

00:34:15
Speaker 3: I can tell you the exact moment, Okay, Like it's it's so funny because while you're talking, I'm like, oh, yeah, I know the exact moment. I was doing some work for a political organization around uh Freemuma Abujamal and I was working to help put on a concert and I got very, very sick. And this is when I was still living in Olympia and I was in Bikini Hill, so it was still nineties and I had a temperature that was like over one hundred and three and I really I ended up being hospitalized. And I had a like a you know, just a mattress on the floor. Like I don't know what it was that like I thought to be like I thought people who had matt tress frames were. I was like why, you know, like when I look back on how many times I just like threw a mattress on the floor and like that was it? You know? I mean I was really I was that busy that I was like, you know the guy who just like any T shirt that's laying on the floor, I just like throw it on, right. Yeah. No, I mean there were times in my vand where one of us would shoke with lipstick on and be like, how did you have time to put that on? Because we were so busy. It was like, you know, you would sleep and then wake up and then start working in But I was laying on my mattress in my apartment and I had to crawl the bathroom because I was that sick. And my phone kept bringing and kept bring and kept bringing, and I had an answering machine at the time with the mini tape, and this woman from the political organization was like, you need to call me back. We need to get the sun, we need to get the stune. And I had already picked up and said, I have one hundred and three y tent and I'm really really sick. And she kept calling and calling and she was like she screamed, I picked it up, and I was like, dude, I'm like really sick, Like I'm crawling to the bathroom and she's like, then crawl to the fucking fact is I had a fax machine. Crawl to the fucking fax machine and facts Eddie Vedder and Zach de Larocha. I was like, and you know what I did it.

00:36:21
Speaker 1: I crawled to the fax.

00:36:23
Speaker 3: Machine and not only did I fax them, I drew cute drawings on the facts, you know what I mean, Like when you're doing something like as you're crawling and then you're getting out the sharpie and you're drawing the cute dog picture so that Zach de l Rocha notices your facts. I'm like, this is you know. And then my mom ended up driving from Portland to come get me and taking me to the hospital and I was really really sick and I was hospitalized and it was a bad situation. And the other time it happened was when I've had a long term illness which I since recovered from. And that was like I was so driving at a thousand miles per hour with a break on in my life that my body was.

00:37:03
Speaker 1: Like gave out.

00:37:07
Speaker 3: My body was like my drenals were shot, everything was shot. I was having like seizures, like it was like really bad and when you're like kind of staring at death because it was at that point where it was like we didn't know what I had and I was really sick. Yes, I actually do have a verifiable by tests illness. I don't think it would have gotten as out.

00:37:31
Speaker 4: Of control as it did if I hadn't suppressed all of this trauma because my trauma body, you know, And I do have a theory and people will.

00:37:43
Speaker 3: Probably get mad about it or whatever, but about auto because it's autoimmunal oneness. It's like, I don't think people make up autoimmune oneness is I don't think they're fake. I don't think they're in your head. But for me, my autoimmune oness was definitely made way worse by the fact that I completely ignored my body. But I lived in a state of hyper arousal from the time that I was a kid, Like I would look at my how my dad came into the house and be like, what's going to happen tonight.

00:38:11
Speaker 2: And adjust to yourself to the dude, and.

00:38:14
Speaker 3: The same thing, you know, when when as a feminist musician, who would walk into a venue and have to deal with all these men and not have our own sound person, not have a tour manager, we had no one. We would have one roadie if that. So I would have to kind of, you know, select the d of all of these dudes emotionally or psychologically to get them to turn my sound up, you know, And it was kind And then I'd have an audience full of men who were like yelling, you man, hating bitch, you know, shut the fuck up, like whatever, and I'm like, I'm just I just want to be in a band. I just want to be in a band. I really love music. I just want to play music, And so dealing with that also made me walk into situations and be hyper aroused. Every time I would play a show, I'm looking for who has a glass or a bottle in their hand that they're going to throw at me, or chain or even a Setiger wineglass. You know, I had a wine glass seron at me and I was like, I could see it coming, but I'm really I hope somebody taped it because do you know that really famous moment in that Bad Brains video where hr goes like that, it was like that, Yes, it was like that I did that, And I'm like, did anybody get that on camera? Because I really want to like put it next to HRS clip. But yeah, I was like in this total state of hyper arousal. And I really do feel like in a way because what my body does is if I get any kind of infection or sick, it goes to crazy, out of control fever, right, And it's almost like my body's in a state of hyper arousal. So it's like my body sees some cells in my body making a weird face and start my body starts freaking.

00:39:47
Speaker 1: Out and you're in a constant state of fight or flight.

00:39:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean like I had to do nine months of IV therapy. This is actually real illness. And it's like I have quantifiable proof that I have it, so it's it's not all in my head. But there's a mind body connection. Who knew? You know, I've been living above my head for so long, you know, to avoid the trauma that is like residual, like leftover room and body. And something I have to say to you, my friend, because while you were talking, I thought of this. And I don't mean to psychoanalyze you, but I'm going to do it fucking anyway, because anybody who said that everyone do psychoanalyze you is about to psychoanalyze you. I think it's really interesting the when we started talking, you talked about your girlfriend, saying when are you going to write the real book and be vulnerable about your own life? And then you've gotten involved with these two projects where especially this one you're talking about, where someone has suppressed something that they need to deal with and they're trauma dumping on you and and and I know that they're probably a super amazing person, and it's not. You're not saying that with anger or anything. It's like they're they're actually telling their lives.

00:40:54
Speaker 1: Oh no, the people I love.

00:40:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, But like I think that that's really interesting and that it's something I relate to because you know, I wasn't getting help for the abuse that I'd suffered in my life, and it kind of went from my house to then, you know, being raped in high school and you know, date rape. I mean, I don't know who wasn't date raped at some point in their lives, but you know, it's not a unique story. But it's like all of these different things happen. And then I have this job where I'm constantly sexually harassed and there's no HR. There's no HR in punk rock. Who am I going to call? You know what I mean? Like HR puff and stuff like who's going to help me? No one's going to help me? And so it's like I'm in a different work environment every day that's abusive, and I can't just be like, hey, can you move Bill's desk away from me? Because he keeps saying if I don't tell him if I'm married or single, he won't give me the report, which is what was happening to me. Where I had monitor, guys wouldn't plug in my monitor unless I told them what my status was in terms of a man. And yeah, and I'm like, why why does that? What does it have to do with my monitor situation? So I started bringing my own monitor and plugging it in myself. And these are extra things that people have to do who get treated poorly. And you know the other thing, though, I have to look back and be like, because of the particular time period and place I grew up in with the nineties kind of pure punk purist aesthetic, which I now am very critical of because I think a lot of it is very classist and it's very like upper white, middle class, like holier than now. And there's a lot of playing. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of cosplaying for and there's definitely like, you know, the Trustafarians at my school, Like there's just a.

00:42:39
Speaker 1: Lot of Trustians.

00:42:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an amazing Oh god, yeah, I've never heard Okay.

00:42:48
Speaker 3: But you know what I'm talking about. The white guy with redlocks on the subway. I don't stop who's singing Marley songs.

00:42:56
Speaker 2: There's a schedule on SNL called ros that Andy Samberg did about Rastafarian.

00:43:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know many of those cats.

00:43:06
Speaker 2: I know many of those cats. So something happened that you're probably not even aware. It's ninety five, so and it's so weird at how our stories are intertwined. You know, we signed to DGC Geffen in ninety three, and this was like kind of the height and the madness of billions and billions and billions of dollars racked in from you know, post Guns n' Roses, residual post Aerosmith residual monies, and of course never Mind was just you know, that was the cherry on top. And what winds up happening is so Geffen doesn't have a black department, a black music division, and in the craziest kind of eleventh hour, one second left in the game, Hail Mary Throw, I know this story, right, They offer this amount of money, Yeah, they offered this deal. But the most attractive part of this deal was the security part of it. And the security part was if we made one album, we would have to make the second and third album. If we made the fourth album, we'd have to make the fourth and the fifth album. Like we couldn't get dropped. Most most like rap groups have to prove out the gate. You must have a hit single or else that's it. And so that's what attracted us. Between the period of December and April of ninety four, you know, we make this record, and you know, as we're talking to the guys that Geffen, you're Eddie Rosenblatz, You're Windy gold Scenes like the people that were our staff members, it became obvious that, you know, Guns n' Roses is not making a follow up record. So called Chinese Democracy is going to come any month. Now, Aerosmith leaves to go back to Sony, and then April comes, and when Kirk leaves us, that's a panic signal to my manager, who says, I think the honeymoon's over and we have to make something happen. So this something straight out of a movie. We like, think of the chase scene and rest of our dogs. We basically kind of stole our budget money out of the bank. So we wind up moving in a panic move because we sense that their excitement of starting a black music department is going to drown out because three of their marquee artists are no longer in existence, and so we moved to London. And we fish out of water. We live in we get a flat in London and we work out the gym. And it takes about a good year and a half before Geffen kind of in a move that's sort of like they lost their.

00:46:25
Speaker 1: Keys, like wait, what some Swiss he.

00:46:29
Speaker 2: Of course, you know, Like literally it's like a year and a half later before they realized like we're the fuck of the roots.

00:46:35
Speaker 3: They're in London right.

00:46:37
Speaker 2: And literally right before panic Hits, were like, ah, look at all the press we got, like we did this all on our own, and they were like, oh.

00:46:48
Speaker 1: You guys did all this.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, we got our own agent, and we got our own tour bus, and we got our own apartment and we just and that's all. We were like the black hip hop version of The Commitments. I don't know if you remember that movie.

00:47:01
Speaker 3: Were you were you working out the material for the album live before you recorded it, or were you doing it simultaneously.

00:47:07
Speaker 2: I mean, because we started off busking on the streets, we kind of knew the songs that were going to wind up on the album, but we made the album. Uh. Literally the day that Kirk Loder reported the news of Kirk's death, my manager was like, yo, we got three days. We're gonna in about three to five days, we made three videos, shot the album cover, knocked out nine songs, like finished the record. We didn't want to get dropped from the label because like, we bet the farm on this moment. And they were impressed enough, and sure enough, as he predicted, they dropped the other eighteen acts. But they were like, well, the Roots already completed their record.

00:47:49
Speaker 1: So keep them. So wow.

00:47:52
Speaker 2: So you know, we we work out in Europe for an entire year and they're like, okay, guys, you're eventually going to have to come back home. And it's like ninety five and we're going to do our first dates in the States. Start off in La go to San Francisco, work our way to Portland and fourth.

00:48:14
Speaker 1: Stop in Seattle and then Vancouver.

00:48:16
Speaker 2: And after our Seattle show, like you know, in every band's history or their folklore, there's that one like crazy person that they meet, like their version of Large March from Pee Wee Herman, like someone just shifting. My manager gets on the bus the day that we leave for Vancouver is like, yo, man, I met the most craziest interesting and he goes.

00:48:49
Speaker 1: On and on and knowing and knowing about.

00:48:50
Speaker 2: He saw someone at an after you know, like we would do a show and then you know, we had critical buzz, so people are there to see and he gets invited to an after party where the other Seattle Luminaries are. He talks to you for about two hours and you tell him the whole story of what and this is ninety five, so everything that you've organized and whatever, and he was like whatever you told him. He's like, Yo, there needs to be a feminist movement. And I was like, huh, we're trying to get on MTV, Like why do we have to start a movie. He's like no, man, it's like you got to come out think outside the box. Like and I was like, what we're rap group? Like there's no women in our Like I could not fathom, Like, okay, so we're going to be a feminist band now, like how does that work in hip hop? Like even I was drinking the kool aid of what kind of what hip hop was supposed to be and all that stuff, and you know, I'm thinking of self preservation. And he never lost that legal pad, like he wrote like a maniac everything you said, and sure enough, starting in ninety seven. The second time I had an interaction with you, the two commonalities of it. The thing that impressed him the most was that you had a plan, you executed the plan, and at both events you famously cussed.

00:50:28
Speaker 1: Out a.

00:50:31
Speaker 2: Figurehead rival of yours that we won't mention her name, you know, at both events. The first night he met you, and then the second time I met you was our last day would tourn with the Beastie Boys and it's this outdoor. Yes, it wasn't bumpershoed, it wasn't the Gorge. It was basically the Beastie Boys, bad brains, the roots, far side.

00:50:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the night when I I didn't cuss out, but I basically, yeah, told them what Ricky Powell was doing behind their backs.

00:51:06
Speaker 1: Yo.

00:51:07
Speaker 2: When when I got to that from their lives and I saw you independent of and Rich was like, you remember what you remember from Seattle?

00:51:16
Speaker 3: On the phone? Rich and I used to talk on the phone. We were like phone friends. I don't remember the I don't remember the legal power or the first time we met or anything. I just remember that.

00:51:25
Speaker 1: We were because he would hang up and literally.

00:51:27
Speaker 3: Just I really know if he liked me like I thought he might like me. But it was like around the time when I was meeting Adam, I know he didn't like me, but I was kind of like, does he like me? Like because and then I was like, oh no, this is just a friendship, so sorry for your loss. But he was. He was great, and we had such amazing phone conversations and.

00:51:45
Speaker 1: It just like you gave us a blueprint. And so when we started just telling.

00:51:48
Speaker 3: Him record stores in Portland, I was like, I hope they went to that one record store.

00:51:53
Speaker 2: Oh well, you know, I'm I'm a constant record shopper, so I'm almost certain that I went to everywhere in Portland, like Portland's I was my all time favorite place on Earth, pre pandemic it was. But yeah, I'll say that talking us into being accessible, being community based, having jam sessions. At first it was the Roots Jam session, and sure enough, you know, whenever the ladies in our circle wanted to get on the mic, it was like they would complaining that, you know, you guys are hogging up everything and we don't have our like where's our agency? And then we morphed it into what we now know is Black Lily, which of course was kind of the impetus of the spark that finally, by our fourth album had caught on and started a movement. But you know, I never ever got to like thank you for kind.

00:52:55
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was like, I didn't even think you knew who I was. I was like, can I get on quest? I was like, I don't I feel like, I mean, we've run into each other, like he came to my movie thing, Like I think he's aware of me, but you just know so many people that I was like, we have friends in common. I was like, maybe if you say I'm married toad Rock. I was like, but yeah, the fact that you that you're.

00:53:14
Speaker 2: Aware even when I saw and you add together, like the various times I've run into you guys, I didn't want to freak you out because I was like, yo, dog, she doesn't even know.

00:53:23
Speaker 1: And sometimes I don't know these things, Like people will tell me things like you.

00:53:27
Speaker 2: Don't even realize that the time you blah blah blah blah blah backed in ninety eight, Like now that's the part of long life that I'm getting. Where people from this college that apparently I did something for that you know, you gave me. There was one person that said, uh, I guess i'd for senior paper.

00:53:46
Speaker 1: I talked to him for.

00:53:47
Speaker 2: Three hours and that wound up not only getting him an A, but that got him like hired at Lucasfilm like stuff that you're you're not aware of the residual effect. So I wanted to say this platform, No, I was highly aware of who you were and follows you throughout the the years, like literally you're you're the first. And I don't mean character in a reductive way, but you know, when we're arriving in Seattle after living in Europe and a John tirolta boy in a plastic bubble way like like I didn't meet a Wu Tang member until nineteen ninety nine. Like we were just we were very much hip hop, but we were just separated from what was happening between ninety three and ninety nine because we were living in Europe and on other tours that weren't hip hop related. And so finally, using your your blueprint in terms of organizing a movement was how we finally like broke through to the other side. So you can add that feather to you, cap.

00:54:57
Speaker 3: I hope it didn't cause the problems that it for me, because I definitely took on too much, you know, and I've never listened to critics, like I know you're somebody who like follows what critics say and like, you know, album and sales, and like, I feel really lucky that that was just never I came at music making as an art practice, like from my other art forms, so I had this real thing of like not protecting my creativity. But I feel very lucky, Like with one of the first questions you asked was like, you know, how did you write this book, and like what about the people in it? And like how are people? Were you worried how people are going to react? And it's like I didn't think about it, and like I tried. There's definitely been one album that I made that I was thinking about that and it was not good, And almost everything else I've just been like I'm just making the thing I want to make, Like I'm eitherre's something that I want to hear or there's something I want to read that isn't being written, And You're right, a lot of it ended up being I was writing to me when I was fifteen, as if I was the adult who was saying the things that I needed to hear or I was saying the things that I needed to hear that would validate that I wasn't insane, you know what I mean that like, actually the world's crazy and you're kind of okay. But it's really funny when your music catches up with your life, you know, and then you're actually writing about what's happening now, and you're not still writing about you know, past stuff that you don't even know you're writing about. Until for me, you know, my band didn't play shows, both my downs for like twenty years, and then we got back together, and all of a sudden, I was like, I am the person that I wrote about wanting to be in this song right now. And I've realized what all these songs were actually about, and that they were about totally different things that I were about. You know, like before I ever came out of being having been been raped by a friend of mine while I was in Bikini Kill, and everybody thought I was like a strong, tough feminist and you know, I'm always like you know, yeapin and blah blah blah, and you cut some people out like whatever. But I also was actually assaulted by a close friend of mine during that time, like right before I went on a really big tour and the day before I went on tour, And what did I do? I played shows. And I'm glad I did because I got to throw my whole body and my whole life story into every single night, and so I think that kept me alive. Honestly, it wasn't always me using it as a distraction, because everything else is a distraction in my life. But when I'm on stage, that's the main time that I'm a real person and that I am who I most really honestly, and I'm fully present and I'll bank like every other hour of my life just for that hour and a half or two hour time period, because to me, live performance is the main thing that I crave as a person. So yeah, I was going through that kind of stuff, and like nobody knew about it, and I feel like I couldn't tell people because I didn't want the riot Gral people to come after him, because that just wasn't the story that I wanted. Like retribution for me holds no entry and it's just taking me off of the path of what I want to make and I wasn't ready to deal with it, and so I just shut it off from my brain and I moved along and I was like, you know what, my mission is more important than this person. But eventually it came back to bite me in the ass and I and it came to the fore and I had to deal with it and I had to process it. And you know, through doing that, that was when I finally fell in love with that. That's when I got my cat, David Sue recipes, That's when I finally started. I bought a couch.

00:58:31
Speaker 1: Like I have never heard a cat a mattress, you know what I mean?

00:58:34
Speaker 3: Like I had not only a mattress, but I had a couch too.

00:58:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're adulting. I have two questions to ask, Okay.

00:58:42
Speaker 2: So one, you know, thank you for your your your honesty and sharing those stories in your book about your assault. Knowing what you know now and especially what's been happening in the last five years, is a part of you wishing that well, First of all, if you go back in time. Number one is hope that you never have to experience that ever.

00:59:11
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure.

00:59:13
Speaker 2: But in terms of the one particular story that you shared about, you know, having a conversation of vulnerability and you guys just sitting lying in the bed next to each other and talking, and that was the person that you trusted.

00:59:28
Speaker 1: And suddenly it just went one eighty the other way.

00:59:33
Speaker 2: And you know, as I'm reading this, I'm like, oh God, okay, is the rage going to happen?

00:59:39
Speaker 1: Here is it?

00:59:41
Speaker 2: And I understand letting him go, and I understand the entire ordeal of reliving that trauma through the legal system, and all that stuff was just whatever.

00:59:50
Speaker 3: I mean, I forgot it the second I left.

00:59:54
Speaker 2: Right the way that you painted it, I was like, oh, okay, she It was almost like a struggle.

01:00:01
Speaker 1: Oh no, big deal. Okay, well, goodbye, see you later.

01:00:04
Speaker 2: Are you fine with the process of how you put that in your past?

01:00:08
Speaker 1: Oh?

01:00:08
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I'm mad that he hasn't had to pay for my therapy because it keeps coming up. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, when will this person go away? You know what I mean. It's not the person, it's like the abuse of trust. And you know, I was also at a place in my life where like I needed to find a good man. I needed to find a man in my life who was a feminist and who read books about it and cared about it to prove to me. I've been so disappointed by so many men in my life who i'd gotten close to. Like I had for a lot of my life, a lot of guy friends, and I hung out with guys, and I was like the kind of person who was like, let's go, you know, break bottles down by the railroad track. Yeah, well let's go. Yeah, let's go break into the you know, the old prison and you know, smoke pot like stuff like that. And so I have these guy friends and like the second I wouldn't have a boyfriend, they'd be like, okay, let's have sex, and I'd be like, I don't like you like that. And then it'd be like you know, either stock er behavior, they're really mad, they're ego is bruises, this whole thing. And I was like, God, this is so awful. And so I thought I finally thought I met this guy who was you know, he's so smart, and we're like, you know, Briny Angela Davis books together and like talking about it and I'm like, this guy's so cool. And then he hands up sexually assaulting me. And I was like the fact that I could ever trust anybody again in my life. But you know is kind of like I feel like I'm a walking miracle.

01:01:40
Speaker 2: So well, part two of my question is how did you allow yourself the space to open your heart to Adam? And kind of part three of that question is behind every punk persona is there a cheese ball?

01:01:56
Speaker 1: Because the fact that because the fact that.

01:01:59
Speaker 2: You are corny right now got well, the thing was, you gave yourself away with Donnie Marie.

01:02:06
Speaker 1: I fell into you backwards, right your persona.

01:02:10
Speaker 3: You started with Donnie Marie.

01:02:12
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, I fell into you backwards. And so then when I started reading the pool You're us weekly Stars are just like us moment, I was like, oh, she lived for Donnie Marie on Friday nights like I did, like me and my sister did on Friday nights.

01:02:26
Speaker 1: That's crazy.

01:02:27
Speaker 2: So no, but the fact that your go to thought was Okay, I need a mattress and I need peanut butter and jelly, and like I was like, yeah, And behind every punk persona is a cheese ball and you brought this poster and oh, Dolk and Mike.

01:02:52
Speaker 3: I couldn't make up. So the story is I can tell it from the book just so you know, is that I was in love with Adam. I brought CORVI It's from Dusty Boys, and it was pre internet, so I couldn't just look up a picture of him to drive apart because we were apart because he lived in LA and New York and I lived in Olympia, Washington. So I went to the Sam Goodie at the mall. I couldn't go to the cool record store.

01:03:20
Speaker 1: I shopped at Sam Goodies.

01:03:21
Speaker 3: Well, you're from Philly. Did they have Waxy Maxis?

01:03:24
Speaker 1: No, because the first the.

01:03:26
Speaker 3: First single I ever bought was pop Music by m at Waxy Maxie, and I always loved that name. I was like, if I ever started a record store, I'm my name of Waxy Maxis. Anyways, I went to like Sam Goodie at the mall because I was like, nobody will recognize me. It was like the punk like in you know, nose and glasses, sneaking into Sam Goodie instead of the store.

01:03:48
Speaker 1: On Yeah, and.

01:03:51
Speaker 3: Nobody will see me at the mall because like it's a small town. Like seriously, anytime I was like, you know, had a relationship with somebody, everybody knew because we all lived in the same apartment building. So I was like, oh, I saw so and so leaving her apartment, you know what I mean? Like that is how every everybody knew everything, Like you couldn't. You had to like go into a coffee shop five minutes after somebody, so they didn't know you were together. Like it was like we lived in paparazzi land, even though we were like, you know, just kids in like this kind of town run by punks. It was pretty amazing to live in a town that had it done town. But that's a whole other thing. So I go drive to the mall, I get my poster of the Beastie Boys, and I'm so psyched that I get to look at the most handsome man. And this is this is when you were saying, how did you manage to open up your heart after these bad experiences to this person. I like pretty boys. I just like pretty boys. I like pretty girls too, but I like pretty boys. And he is a very pretty boy. And also he loves records and he loves music, and he's very different from me and compliments me like he's I'm more like that, I don't know, you know, like like the feminist art, you know, person or like whatever, and he's much more reserved. But he is funny as hell. He is so funny, and that is just the sexiest. I mean, he's good looking and he's funny, and he likes good records. Because I have had one night chance with people and I've looked at their collection or their CD collection.

01:05:20
Speaker 1: You're that person you judge people.

01:05:24
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but if I find out Dave Matthews CD. I slept with this girl and I woke up in the morning and she had like Dave Matthews and like, I was.

01:05:33
Speaker 1: Like Matthews, I am.

01:05:37
Speaker 3: I was like no. I was just like no, and I and I ghosted her.

01:05:42
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't, you're that person.

01:05:46
Speaker 3: I bought the poster and I brought it home to my apartment and I made out with it. I made out with it. I kissed the poster all over and I covered Mike and Yowk's faces. That was weird. I was like, your bandmates are watching me make out with you. You And then he found it when he came to my apartment and he's like, what's how come the mouth it's all.

01:06:05
Speaker 1: Mestered right out of let's water on it.

01:06:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fair.

01:06:11
Speaker 1: That's the most of romantic story I've ever heard. No, here's the thing though, I.

01:06:17
Speaker 2: Used to be used to be well not steel amb I was a member of Columbia House. Oh yeah, I was also a lazy member of Columbia House. And the way that Columbia House works, of course is yes, for those that are listening to our show that were born before nineteen ninety three, you didn't.

01:06:39
Speaker 3: Go to school in a pioneer buggy wagon, right.

01:06:42
Speaker 2: So Columbia House was the original Spotify where they would entice you in magazines and whatnot. For a penny, you get fifteen free albums and then you're instantly signing up for a subscription service throughout the year. And the deal with is.

01:07:00
Speaker 1: That they will send you two.

01:07:03
Speaker 2: To eight records a month based on your taste and the algorithm, and if you like the records that you're getting, then they just charge you and keep on charging you. If you don't like it, you can return it, but they're kind of banking on you forgetting to return it. And so as a result, which the lazy part comes into play, because I checked off I like all types of music. I will say that a big part of my you eyebrow raising judging me for my record collection stems from all the records I didn't return from Columbia House, and I would just force myself to listen. I think between like twelve Wait a minute, I don't believe that for a minute, all right, spew right now five records between twelve and seventeen that you wouldn't want any of your friends to know that you listen to They're really.

01:08:04
Speaker 1: Tell the truth.

01:08:05
Speaker 3: It's all. It's all before that, because I mean, by the.

01:08:09
Speaker 1: Time if you watch Donny Marie, I know.

01:08:12
Speaker 3: But but I'm proud of my Olbinaton John thing. So I had this was a totally hot.

01:08:18
Speaker 1: Wait, totally hot. I was gonna say totally hot hot.

01:08:21
Speaker 2: Xanadu or like which which car hot totally we all felt for totally hot.

01:08:26
Speaker 3: I literally carried it to camp without the vinyl in it, so the vinyl didn't get hurt. I just carried the and I slept with it under my pillow.

01:08:35
Speaker 2: First fist fight I got into with Mark Rapp in the third grade.

01:08:42
Speaker 1: The way that I could get under his skin.

01:08:46
Speaker 2: Was okay, this is like in the video game era, where you could write out something longer than three initials if you get the high score.

01:08:55
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I was are.

01:08:57
Speaker 1: Asked, right.

01:08:59
Speaker 2: But then it was one particular game that let you have like twenty characters, and the sure fire away to get under Mark's skin was to write Olivia sucks. I mean I would spelling it out and he's like, if you press into I, swear a mirror and run my That was daily. But yeah, for Christmas, I remember, yeah, she had like a commercial campaign with the black leather jacket and all that shit.

01:09:29
Speaker 3: It was like Sandy from Greece continued.

01:09:32
Speaker 1: Right, exactly the same outfit. So yeah, it was so good.

01:09:36
Speaker 3: I had a fancy called Destination Olivia and then there we had a party around it to celebrate its lunch and it was a jone Jet versus Olivia and John party and you had.

01:09:45
Speaker 1: Joined it or you made the fanzine.

01:09:47
Speaker 3: I made the fancine called the Station Olivia, and then a bunch of girls in my town were like, we're going to throw this party that is jone Jet versus Olivia, and so everybody dressed it's either Joan or Olivia, so you're basically it was so and a lot of people were lingerie.

01:10:05
Speaker 2: For now an a win tour of music fanzines because you know, like the BC Boys taught me everything I know that I still utilized now in my career, even with me creating an OK player and being on the internet, Like everything that I implement now is from those two months of touring with those guys, especially with getting Grand Royal. Probably, like one of my prize possessions is that I have ten copies of every Grand Royal ever published somewhere in my storage unit. But for you talk about the publisher in you, like you putting these fanzines together, you putting and I don't mean high school. I'm talking about even in your career. How do you have the energy to even do that in addition to being an artist.

01:11:01
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, when you're in your twenties, it's not that big big deal, Like and when you live in a small town, there was nothing going on. Like we were bored kids, and we were really lucky that at the time Heroin wasn't around. So yeah, we drank forties, but like, and I may have drank too many forties a few many times.

01:11:19
Speaker 1: But.

01:11:21
Speaker 3: You know, it was like something to do. So I was just like, you know, I was also like really stressed out a lot about stuff. And you know, when you first become a feminist or you first become conscious about just like marginalization and oppression and stuff like that. Everywhere you look. It's tough for myself. Everywhere I looked, I was like, there it is there, it is there, it is. I was like, Oh my god, this movie is so messed up. Like my mind was kind of exploding when I was in my twenties with like all the stuff I was learning about, like oh wow, you know, this is how this group of people is being treated, and this is like to keep these people down so that they're workers and they don't you know, And I was like whoa, you know, kind of freaking out. And so fancines were real outlet for me to write poetically about that stuff and to be creative about it and to sort of like have it like go through the computer of my brain and then come out the other side as a way for me to talk about it. And also, you know, me and my sister were the first people in my family, like my mom and I didn't go to college, so like we got to go to college, and I was like so thrilled, Like I felt like I was so lucky I got to be there and I didn't want to you know, waste it. And so I had this real yearning to like the first time I read a Bell Hooks book, I wanted to share it with my mom, you know, and it was like I wanted to share it with other people in my family. And so writing these fanzines was also a way that I could share the books I was reading in college that back then there was no internet, so it was a way to put booklists. It was a way to talk about the issues that were coming up in books I was reading with other people who maybe weren't going to college, because the majority of the punk scene in Olympia weren't at Evergreen. Like Evergreen that was the college that was in my town that I went to, and that's why I moved there to Olympia, Washington and Evergreen State College, and but most of the punks didn't go to that college. They were just like lived in the town, you know. So it was like to be able to talk about feminism with everybody, not just people who were in college, and actually people in my college. There was like one feminist class that I took. People think it was like this big feminist outbed, but it was actually really frowned upon and when I tried to put feminist ideas into my photography, it was like shut the fuck up. So to be able to put that out into the world and have people respond to it's really important. And you know, when Kurt died, you guys were, you know, scrambling to you know, get your record done and make sure your contract was shut up. And I was writing a fancy called The April Fool's Day about quitting drinking. And I was interviewing my friend Mikey's bass player Bryan Sparhawk, who I actually just saw him when we got the key to the city in Olympia.

01:14:00
Speaker 1: Now you're the establishment a.

01:14:02
Speaker 3: Month ago, I know. I was like, I was like, does this mean I can get into the Governor's Inn, which is like the local hotels? Can I just use this key? Right? But no, it was like I was interviewing, you know, my friend Mikey also he was Kirk's front and he was a heroin user, and I was trying to do everything I could to talk about addiction in the punk scene and to raise awareness and to try to like make Kurt's death mean something, you know, because like I can't. I couldn't. That's how I deal with things. I'm like, this has to mean something like this has to this horrible feeling I'm feeling. How can I channel it into something that is not going to push me down a bad road and it is going to make me feel like I'm a part of something positive, you know what I mean? And like, I didn't want his death to just be oh to member of the twenty seven club, Like there were people in my community who were going further down the drug road because he had died, and they were really depressed, And how could I be a part of just starting a conversation? And so I did that through a fancy you know that most people don't have because it's out of print.

01:15:16
Speaker 2: But what I was going to ask, do you least have the master copies?

01:15:21
Speaker 3: It fails. It's like an archive fit and white youth boast.

01:15:26
Speaker 1: So they're somewhere preserved.

01:15:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're right across the street from Washington Store Park in that library.

01:15:36
Speaker 1: Where do you currently reside now?

01:15:38
Speaker 3: Pasadena, California?

01:15:40
Speaker 1: Really?

01:15:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mom moved here because she liked that song. A little old lady from Pasadena, I see. I was like, why did you play Pasadena? She's like, I almost like that little old lady from Pasadena song. I was like, She's like, I'm a old lady now. So I'm a little old lady in Pasadena.

01:15:53
Speaker 2: I lived there for my mom's side of the family lived out there, so wow, yeah briefly. Wow, that's where my mother's side of the family lived.

01:16:05
Speaker 1: Now I want to.

01:16:05
Speaker 2: Ask de wee questions, what shows are you currently binging? I'm getting something cheesy out of you if it's not your record collection.

01:16:15
Speaker 3: I mean I binged Hacks, I binged Girls five Ever.

01:16:22
Speaker 1: I think it's so funny, it's hilarious.

01:16:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, but actually I think it's called Stars. There's this other one that's about a girl group that happened before, and it's got like Brandy.

01:16:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, Stars, but that was only two seasons of it.

01:16:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so but it's like prototype Girls five ever. But it just didn't it didn't go hard comedy. It meant it went more like so.

01:16:47
Speaker 1: Was sincere right, Yeah it had it was.

01:16:50
Speaker 3: It's actually a really really really funny show. But yeah, I mean, Brandy, do you know wrong?

01:16:59
Speaker 1: I just my favorite harmony stacker of the nineties.

01:17:02
Speaker 3: Yes, incredible, but yeah, it's like it's like chock full of literal stars, but it's also about like a nineties kind of like rap singing group that gets back together when they're like older and having relationships and stuff like that. So I just I binge that, but it ended. That's the problem with benching things is that then you're like, oh, no, I'll never find out what happened.

01:17:24
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I'm that way with Detroiters.

01:17:27
Speaker 3: We just started watching that dude before.

01:17:30
Speaker 2: I loved him, and I'm happy for his ammy success with his Netflix show now, but Detroiters. I called Jason Sadekas at least once a month to beg him to bring that show back.

01:17:44
Speaker 1: He's one of the producers of it.

01:17:46
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a couple's question, what is your ideal bedroom temperature? I learned in the Pandemic that a couple must be equal, yoked in agreement how they want.

01:18:03
Speaker 1: The bedroom temperature. Eighty three you're Africa hot. You and I are the same person.

01:18:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, eighty three. And Adam's fine with whatever. But my kid, because it runs on the same thing. Our kid likes it to be freezing cold. He wants it to be eighty degrees.

01:18:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:18:21
Speaker 2: I've probably some of the harshest arguments I've had in a relationship starts with the temperature.

01:18:29
Speaker 3: Are you going through menopause? Maybe that's it.

01:18:32
Speaker 1: I think I am, obviously I am. I think I am. Okay, are you a text? Cold call or FaceTime? Person?

01:18:42
Speaker 3: Text? Okay, text and FaceTime, but I faced on my mom like only only my mom and Adam, do you am? I do Marco Polo with my.

01:18:54
Speaker 2: Friends really just out of nowhere, like you know, they're in the shower somewhere, like inconvenient.

01:19:01
Speaker 1: Is that? What is marco polo?

01:19:03
Speaker 3: Oh? So marco polo is where you leave a video, so like when it's convenient to me, it's like FaceTime, but it's like when it's convenient to me. So it's like me and my friend Jim or my friend Kathy, like we leave and my friend Dusty we leave like videos for each other on this thing called Marco polo. So it's like I'll just be doing something and I'm backstage and I'm able to talk because I'm not on vocal rest, and this is like my ten minutes of time that I can talk. So I like, just here's where I am, and here's what's going on. I miss you? What's going on in Alaska like whatever, and then when they feel like it, they leave me one back and then I get to check it and I will get these like new Marco Polos every day and I can check it at my convenience. I just didn't add for Marco Polo, so I should get like a million dollars.

01:19:46
Speaker 1: I didn't know Marco Polo.

01:19:47
Speaker 2: I thought you meant Marco Polo, as in you just ambush.

01:19:50
Speaker 1: So I thought you like it was like the three in the morning.

01:19:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, But that's the cool thing is that you can just leave the video at in the morning if that's why you're feeling like doing it. Like I can't call my've all my three in the morning. Oh, I just opened her house because she lives five blocks away. I literally don't face on my mom anymore because I just walk over to her house.

01:20:12
Speaker 1: Are you kidding?

01:20:12
Speaker 2: My mom will call me at any she doesn't understand the word no, or I'm working or I'm taping live right now.

01:20:21
Speaker 1: I'll call you after I'm done taping.

01:20:23
Speaker 3: Like she's sitting just at a frame.

01:20:26
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, like you see her her nostrils as she's like she just got an iPhone.

01:20:33
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's that person.

01:20:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. I talked to my mom's Crown Molding a lot on FaceTime. I'm like, there you go, mom, Really you're Crome Molding. That's really great.

01:20:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds about right. When's the last time you've been starstruck?

01:20:49
Speaker 3: God? I mean, I don't really, Like all my friends are like nurses and teachers, so like, I don't really we don't really run in celebrity circles so much.

01:20:59
Speaker 1: Person that you meant that you're like, oh, yeah.

01:21:01
Speaker 3: Okay, So Leslie Gore I met at a party at Evensler's house, so Evansler wrote Vagina Monologues. Yeah, and her apartment when I went to it, and this is many years ago in New York, was painted all red and all the furniture was red. I mean it was like it's like it's a TV show that rates itself, right, like I was. I was like, no, this is so great. But it was like every like kind of feminist luminary was there and like this, you know, celebrating this activist who had just gotten let out of jail after forty years. And it was like this big thing and like everybody was there and I was back to back with this woman and then we turned around and I looked at her and I just was like Leslie Gore, and I could barely get it out of my mouth.

01:21:49
Speaker 1: And then I just fully met her at a party.

01:21:52
Speaker 3: I met her at a party in a red apartment where everything was red, like we were inside a vagina. And then I looked at her and I I was just I was sobbing and I couldn't get a word out, and I'm just ba ba bab. I love Leslie Bore. I loved Leslie Gore since I was a child. Her voice is so amazing to me. It's got that like clear as a bell kind of quality to it. And I always was like, there's something underneath the lyrics going on. There's something underneath the lyrics going on. And it turns out she was gay. I didn't know that, and yeah, and her and her girlfriend were at the party, and I was like, I knew it, but you know, her and her brother wrote out here on my own k yes, and I sang that. I went on stage at a high school dance in seventh grade with this girl, Jeanie Staver, and this other girl and we took parts singing that like we kind of like we made it into a trio.

01:22:52
Speaker 1: Who got the bridge? That's the hard part.

01:22:54
Speaker 3: Oh, I did, come on, that's the whole thing, to get the bridge. But then I thought like, I was like, you and your brother wrote that song because I interviewed her for Miss magazine after I after I stopped crying, I was like, I want to, you know, do something with you.

01:23:08
Speaker 1: No, I didn't know she wrote that yeah.

01:23:11
Speaker 3: Oh damn, okay, yeah, And I was like, that's so weird because I always felt such a connection with that song and you know, Coco the character, I mean, fame was everything, you know when I was young, like that movie in Greece. I was always like, when Beyonce first came on the scene, I was like, they have to do a hip hop Grease remake with Beyonce because she's so she'd be so good as Sandy. But it never happened, and.

01:23:36
Speaker 2: Well, they know, they kind of almost did. They remade a hip hop version of Carmen.

01:23:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Grease the movie with modern stars.

01:23:47
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to tell me that you were a Grease too person, not a Grease one person.

01:23:51
Speaker 3: Okay. I do like that song.

01:23:55
Speaker 1: I don't believe I want to Cuckoo cucko.

01:23:59
Speaker 3: Right, it's got one good song. It's terrible. It's terrible.

01:24:03
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm glad you're saying that it's terrible. Grease two.

01:24:06
Speaker 2: People will argue be in the ground that they liked Grease two better than Grease one.

01:24:13
Speaker 3: Oh that's a lie. That's a lie. That's just like they're just lying to their debtrarians.

01:24:19
Speaker 2: I liked your first album better, or I like the demo better than Okay, that's what I thought you were.

01:24:25
Speaker 3: I'm always like that, Like I'm like. Somebody was like, oh, well, Liz Fair and you know Exile and Guida, and I was like, yeah, but when she was Girly Sounds and it was on a cassette, it was so much better.

01:24:36
Speaker 1: I called this.

01:24:37
Speaker 3: I remember meeting Liz Fair at a show, at a Babes and Twilan show, and she told me she was writing a response to the Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street, which is one of my favorite Stones albums. And I was like so blown away because I was a huge Stones fan when I was younger. I guess that's my embarrassing theme, Like right, I mean, it's not embarrassing. I was huge, huge, huge into the Stones to the point I was going to get like the lips tattooed once at a party, and I was like, so glad I didn't. And then when I kind of like started learning about feminism, and I was like, ooh, under my thumb, brown sugar, oh you know what I mean. Like, I was like, this is there's a lot of sexism and racism going on in here. And I was just like this is not cool. And I literally took and I mean now, of course, as a record colicker, I don't even want to tell you this, but I had like you know, Japanese pressings, and like I had a stack this big, all this kind stuff. I went down to the record store and I set it on the desk and I just was like have it.

01:25:35
Speaker 1: He gave him back.

01:25:37
Speaker 3: I just know there from all over the place. I just was like, I was like, I can't have this in my house, Like it was contraband, like what is wrong with me?

01:25:44
Speaker 2: Like because you think someone's going to the collection and judge you.

01:25:48
Speaker 3: No, it was because like I couldn't physically have it in my house because it made me so disgusted that I loved it so much. And then I was like so disappointed and I realized I was so sad and I was so upset. I couldn't look at it because it made me nuts, and so I just like dropped it on. I lived above a record store, so I dropped it in the record store and just gave that to them as a present to sell. And it's just like I don't even want any money for it, but like now I can see gray area.

01:26:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, even the most righteous person, I think five percent of their record collection, oh yeah, is allowed a problematic faith as long as it's not there are some of that I just.

01:26:26
Speaker 3: Can't because I can't because it's just like I physically feel ill. But it's like you know exact mean, you know I love music too much that it's not all of a sudden gonna make me do something horrible if I listen to it, you know what I.

01:26:40
Speaker 1: Mean, Like you got to be but you're aware of it now. But oh, I think you see you threw that away. I was like, no, don't ever throw Oh.

01:26:47
Speaker 3: No, I would never throw Vine rmal Way.

01:26:48
Speaker 1: God, Okay, what is your secret talent?

01:26:52
Speaker 3: I mean, I can put my whole fist in my mouth.

01:26:56
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a secret talent. Small hands.

01:27:01
Speaker 3: Or not.

01:27:02
Speaker 2: I'm gonna ask you, and this is subjective. Is the grass greener on the other side? Oh are you insatiable?

01:27:12
Speaker 3: You mean like that I want more, more and more and more all the time?

01:27:14
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I mean my grass greener on the other side was okay. So back in our grateful dead jam ban two hundred days on the year lives, to tell me that we're going to Europe for another two months was like I'd rather slit my wrists, and God if you hear me, like, can I stay in one place and not have to tour ever again?

01:27:38
Speaker 1: And make the same mone? And then you get it, and now it's like I.

01:27:42
Speaker 2: Would do anything, Oh yeah, to go back on the road.

01:27:46
Speaker 3: And you know, I've only been home a month, Like I just got off the road. So I came home and I was just like, I.

01:27:54
Speaker 2: Hate it here, even doing what I perceived to be a victory lap for you.

01:28:01
Speaker 3: It wasn't a victory lab at all. It felt better than it felt. I mean, I'm singing better.

01:28:07
Speaker 1: Well, that's a victory lab.

01:28:08
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying. Yeah, I'm enjoying the songs. I don't. I can close my eyes and feel myself in the music and not have to look to see if somebody's throwing something at me. We have a sound person, we have a manager. I mean that's the one when you're talking about like going back and what could you what would you tell yourself or if you saw the future, like whatever, I would tell myself, like get a sound person right away, like this, this needs to be a member of your This is a member of your band.

01:28:33
Speaker 1: Like oh, the engineer is important.

01:28:35
Speaker 3: That's how people have a sound person. You can't go I can't have a man who doesn't like my politics, literally controlling my voice like it's just it's it's crazy making. You can't live that way as as an artist, like with the particular kind of like athletic singing that I do. And so yeah, I would I would say, also, hey, you know, maybe you should get a manager. I wish I have known about those jobs sooner and had more education, and I think that the internet was around, I would have known about that stuff. And maybe you know, a lot of stress came in our band and Bikini Kill because we didn't have a manager, and so people go to the lead singer and then I would bring stuff into the band and I would be like the bearer of bad tidings, you know what I mean, I'd be the one in practice who's like, hey, before everybody leaves, I have these ten questions, right, And then I'm like, you know, because the manager, there's always a point where you're rolling your eyes at your mand You're like, God, if you asked me to do one more thing, it's not their fault. But at the same time, you're like, I don't want to do that interviewer. I don't want it, you know, like I don't want to do another photo shoot, or they don't have any clothes that fit me, like, you know, like I'm just not in the mood. I don't want to be looked at, you know whatever. But I do have that thing of like the first day after tour, I'm like so happy I don't have soundcheck. Like I wake up and I'm like, oh, I don't.

01:29:50
Speaker 1: Have a sound check today, line check.

01:29:51
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so happy I don't have a soundcheck. And then I'm like, oh no, I'm not going to get that. I'm not going to get the dopamine and the adrenaline rush of being on stage and the community filling and I'm just going to like go get my windshield fixed today, and I'm like, I can't live my life this way. But now I'm like settling in and I'm like, you know, I have ten other projects that I have to get to work on, and so I'm really busy.

01:30:20
Speaker 2: So this is one area that I see a lot of my peers failing spectacularly in, which is if you're known as a rebel and you've been here long enough walking a path, the path that you made, what happens once there's no more struggle? Like do you feel comfortable if it's just you and the songs?

01:30:48
Speaker 1: Now?

01:30:48
Speaker 2: Like if there's not something to rebel or fight against. I think what's problematic right now, especially politically with a lot of my peers that are my age that you would hope kind of step to the plate or at least live up to the idea of what I thought they were when I was listening to them at eighteen or nineteen, But I realized that.

01:31:14
Speaker 1: Oh, well, none of them are.

01:31:17
Speaker 2: Going to stand on the political rights side of history because that would ruin their brand. So I know, on my side of the fence, there's a lot of cats that are thinking of brand preservation, Like what does it look like me complying with the system that I railed against for thirty years. And I always wondered, like, well, do you ever imagine, like thirty years forty years ago, when you guys released records that you inspired a twenty year old college students to get politically active and then become the answer to you know, the problem that faced us in the eighties and nineties. So I'll ask you if there's no more? And of course I know there's plenty of struggle. We're in the this is the fight for our life struggle. Yeah, but oftentimes do you imagine I don't think it's naive. I do believe that we are in a paradigm shift, and a lot of the air quote fuc shitttery that we're experiencing right now is kind of a dying spirit grasping.

01:32:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're hanging. They're hanging off of the mountain by their fingernails, all this completely crazy stuff, and you have to believe that to have any hope. And it's like we just have to step on them.

01:32:46
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm a serial manifesto.

01:32:49
Speaker 1: I have no worries.

01:32:50
Speaker 2: I sleep at night because I know what's going to happen, and it's up to us those who are gen X those boom are still alive to adjust to it. And you're seeing a lot of people not wanting to adjust to where we are now in twenty twenty four. But for you, do you imagine that there will be a day where there will be no more struggle, where righteous women are taking the lead and toxic mail energy has eroded? Like, do you imagine a future in which it's ideal for you?

01:33:31
Speaker 3: I live in that future because I.

01:33:33
Speaker 1: That's how you survive.

01:33:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I surround myself with positive people a lot of times when I experienced sexism, now which idea. I actually just went through a thing where I had to fire somebody, but it was like I was so shocked by the there's certain men you just cannot work with women, and it's just really wild when you come en counter with them. It's sort of like if somebody comes to do work at at the house and they're like, is the man of the house at home, you.

01:34:04
Speaker 1: Know, likes to your husband?

01:34:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like that kind of thing, or like people who will only talk to Adam and they don't look at me, which I actually find totally gratifying because I like to just be able. It means I can watch, you know, and I'm kind of like I like to observe. So I'm fine with that in a way, although you know, it can be very annoying. But in my head, I'm around all these amazing creative people who that's not the thing. Like they're not asking me what it's like to be a woman in a band, you know, they don't give a shit, Like they're just like, we're making art and we're doing this stuff and we're going to you know, turn each other on to great art and like do all that. So it's like I know what's going I know what's going on in the world. I mean not like, you know, I'm not a scholar on politics or anything, but like I deeply care about what's going on in the world and it is really really awful right now and I can't separate myself from that. But at the same time time in my day to day, when I encounter stuff like, you know, really bad sexism, I don't even understand what's happening anymore. Like I'm just like I don't even you are you a dinosaur from Jurassic Park? Like I don't know what you're talking about like it's so confusing when it happens, and I think it's it's really weird when I've managed to create a tight knit group of people who like I just we're not sitting around talking about you know, if we're fuckable, you know what I mean?

01:35:28
Speaker 1: Like got it?

01:35:30
Speaker 3: It's just like I don't. I just try to live in my own fantasy land of like what can be possible. And I know from my groups of friends and from people that I meet on tour that like that world is possible. I believe in that world. But right now, we don't live in a post racial society. We don't live in a post sexist society. We don't live And that's the thing that's really frustrating that a lot of people, there's a really big difference from creating something that you can survive within, like an artistic community that you're thriving and being challenged and pretending that stuff doesn't exist and putting your head in the sand, do you know what I mean? Like, like you have to be able to kind of traverse between those two different things where you're like really yourself as an individual and really a part of a community, and the part of you is an individual feeds a community, and the community feeds the part of youth that's an individual, as opposed to seeing it as a either or you know, either I'm a total hedonistic like you know, Eric Clapton, like jacking off on the guitar, or I'm strictly a political activist. It's like those things aren't separate in my life anymore. They used to be, and that caused me a lot of strife. So anytime that I was enjoying it was like, oh, somebody's going to And I think it's also psychological. I felt like somebody's gonna take this away from me, you know, I think it's fascinating. Like writing the book that I learned psychological, I was like, you know, it's really funny is that I grew up in a family like my dad is like it was like very much a person who would just when you were right on the top of the mountain, he'd like knock you off, you know what I mean. It's like, wait till you're like really in a positive place. And so every time I'm in a positive place in my life, I'm waiting for to get knocked off, right, I'm waiting for the rug to get pulled out from sure, I mean, and I but I see it now, I see it. I'm like, I'm I'm starting like something great happens to me, and I'm like, oh, I'm just waiting for the backlash, which is normal, awesome, or I'm just waiting for the drug to get pulled out from under me and then but now I can sit with it and be like, I know where that comes from. That comes from growing up in this situation. It comes from I start getting attention and then my community turns on me. Someone punches me in the face and threatens me. You know, people are like being like really weird, and I'm super confused. I'm watching friends die. Like I associated being myself and really being large with like getting in trouble, and now I'm able to just do that and be like, you know what, I can't control other people's behavior. If I'm gonna you know, really be putting out my art the way I want to and be doing the things and saying the things that I want to, and people are going to come after me, so be it. What am I going to I can't control other people's behavior anymore, So I'm not going to like shrink myself to avoid the rug getting pulled out from under me. Go ahead, try to pull the rug out from under me. I dare you?

01:38:13
Speaker 1: I have three questions left. If you mean.

01:38:16
Speaker 3: The question, I want to talk to you about music. I am. We're going to come over to your apartment and like sit outside and just like sit on your stupid be like, dude, come back here, talk to me about Tony DeFranco.

01:38:28
Speaker 2: I welcome it. If you were given the power to change one thing from your past, what would you change?

01:38:38
Speaker 3: I mean, I should just give you the honest answer instead.

01:38:40
Speaker 1: Of like, what's the honest answer?

01:38:44
Speaker 3: See, if I think about it, it's going to be something really deep. But the first thing that comes to mind is I would have taken more time recording the Bikini Hill Records, the first two Bikini Hill records, because the idea was, like, go in and play like it's a live show. Don't put stuff on your voice, because that's like putting panteos over your hairy legs or something, you know what I mean? Like like that, I was like trying to be like so raw that other people could relate to it. And it's not that I still don't keep like mistakes when they're cool in stuff that I put out, but it's like I wish we would have taken a little more time because performing those songs live and then knowing what they sound like on record, Like I can't even listen to them because they're just recorded so poorly, especially this one record that was recorded on four truck on a tape that somebody else had used so you could hear the other band in the band.

01:39:42
Speaker 1: That's so real to me, man, And.

01:39:44
Speaker 3: Like literally we spent seventeen dollars recording this record. It was a split record with Huggy Bear, and their side sounds fantastic and our side sounds like shit. And like if I could go back and redo those because there's all these great songs a some jigsaw youth I really loved performing live, and there's not a great recorded version of it, and so like I can't. I don't want to go back in the studio and record it. Now, that's weird. I can't, like, you know, change history. And those records sound the way they sound because of the time and because of you know, we didn't have any money and whatever. But I didn't understand yet that the recording process was a different art than live. I was all about the live show to the point of like, let's capture the live show like a snapshot, like you know, Henry Braisson, Like on the street they taking snapshots of people like I was trying to like get a snapshot. But then when I'd learned about the art of recording and I got in got my first four track and then my first aid track, I was like, oh, this is a you know, it's the difference between an essay and a play or you know, it's a different thing. And I wasn't exploiting what I could do with those songs on the record, and so I would go back. I wish I had said something really smart about Oh.

01:41:03
Speaker 1: That was honest. Yeah, I except that that's.

01:41:06
Speaker 3: Really that's something that that that bugs me, like you know, once a week.

01:41:11
Speaker 2: Okay, five non greatest hits, five non box set, five non live albums.

01:41:21
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so bad at lists because I have like brain stuff. So I don't know if I can do it.

01:41:27
Speaker 2: Don't say that, just say it. See I used to do the House on fire. You can only say five records, but it can't be box set, it can't be live, and it can't be greatest hits. Five albums that are in your lifetime capsule.

01:41:45
Speaker 3: I just say an artist because I can never remember which album is the one that I really like everything. Okay, it would probably be Sharda.

01:41:55
Speaker 1: I probably, or the blue album Stronger and Pride.

01:42:00
Speaker 3: Or the onely Smooth Operator on it.

01:42:04
Speaker 1: Her first debut, the first one did they pronounced? Okay, that's number one.

01:42:11
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I was in high school, I was like, my mom went to see her and I was like, are you going to see Sade? Say so, yeah, probably Chardy is somebody who I I just come back to over and over and over. The other would be yeas upstairs at Eric's. Yeah as you because they had to change their name because there was another band, so they were Yazdoo and then they were like, yeahs uk or something.

01:42:40
Speaker 1: I got three, So that I'm just trying to.

01:42:43
Speaker 3: Think of, Like what I actually listened listen to?

01:42:46
Speaker 2: Yes, not the impressive the Impressed US list, What you actually listened.

01:42:51
Speaker 3: To, clinic? What is the name of the album? It's like, because I have all my stuff on shuffle, so I'm never sure what that is anymore. The blue album with the yellow on it.

01:43:02
Speaker 1: With distortions on it. Oh, the Blue album.

01:43:05
Speaker 3: It's blue and yellow, not.

01:43:07
Speaker 1: Fantasy that was titled.

01:43:08
Speaker 3: I literally do have like a memory problem.

01:43:11
Speaker 2: So Fantasy Island. I've see clinic Fantasy Island. It's blue and yellow.

01:43:17
Speaker 3: But yeah, okay, that's it. I didn't know it's called fancy Island. I had no idea, Okay, that clinic Fanacy Island. Five Isaac Cay's Live at the Sierra siarah T.

01:43:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, his uh Ain't No Sunshine is a great cover well, and the.

01:43:33
Speaker 3: Whole the I think about the lead in to use Me all the time, Yeah, because it's that thing of where you're turning something that is supposedly really negative into something where he's like, if you're going to use me, then so be it, right, And I think about that in like the weirdest times of like when I get asked to be like the woman on the panel at the last minute, right and I'm getting paid like half what the men are getting paid, and I'm like, if you are going to use me, so be it. As long as I get paid.

01:44:05
Speaker 1: Now, that's a classic album. I like it.

01:44:07
Speaker 3: So We're at what are Where are we at?

01:44:08
Speaker 1: That was five?

01:44:09
Speaker 3: Oh God, I could go on forever. But if I really was on a desert island. I would need Strawberry Shortcake Live at the Big Apple Disco to keep me laughing.

01:44:20
Speaker 1: You lovely Wheredo, you have you?

01:44:22
Speaker 3: Have you heard it?

01:44:23
Speaker 1: I've not heard it.

01:44:25
Speaker 3: I have two copies.

01:44:26
Speaker 1: Strawberry Shortcake made a disco record live at the.

01:44:29
Speaker 3: Big Apple Disco. There's a song called Strawberry SHORTCAKEE rap on it. I take this album deadly serious. I saw a thirteen year old girl acted out in front of me when I was really high, and it was one of the best experiences, one of the best after show experiences I've ever had. And then I just started buying it, and every time I see it, I buy it. It's so good because like the story she comes from, like Strawberry Land to New York City and it's her whole story. And then there's this one song where she's clearly on PCP on a roof. So I'm just saying I.

01:45:04
Speaker 2: Didn't know her entire like catalog is on Spotify, Okay, great.

01:45:10
Speaker 3: I trolled her on Instagram. That's the only thing I do on Instagram is I troll the Strawberry Shortcake account like they're like it's like her and her Berry friends. They're like riding a bike and they're like, We're riding into an empowered future for women, And I was like, just don't get pregnant in Texas, Strawberry Nice. I'm an adult who's like trolling a car. I love the idea of cartoon characters, Like we used to sample a lot of stuff from I'm not going to say who it is, but from cartoons, uh, in one of my bands, and I was like, what are they going to do? Sue us? I would picture the cartoon character showing up in court. I'd bean like, gonna have deputy dogs going to show up and sue me.

01:45:48
Speaker 1: Oh Trusky.

01:45:49
Speaker 2: The cartoons are litigious. Okay, you married the person that started his career making fun.

01:45:58
Speaker 3: Of I knew this was coming.

01:46:01
Speaker 2: You married university started his career making fun of a cake. Anyway, last question of everything that you've achieved, Like, for you, what is the one thing that you're proudest to celebrate of what you've done with your life?

01:46:20
Speaker 3: I mean today, I'm pretty proud to know that, like I had an effect on Rich, and then Rich had an effect on you, Like I would have never in a million years guessed that like that I had any kind of effect of that on the roots, Like when I came to New York outam. One of our most romantic dates that I'll remember for the rest of my life was when he took me to see you all in New York when I first moved there, and like we were like, I mean, I was only thirty, but we were like old people slow dancing in the back and it was like, you are so good live and I was just like it was the best show. And like to think that stuff I did had any kind of influence on you, and like I followed your career, like Summer Soul is like a huge movie in my life. You probably didn't see it, but of course I wrote you like a huge gushing you know, DM, like just like oh my god, you know, like that footage I can watch that a million times is so great. And to see somebody who's like I hate branding, I hate the phrase using your platform, I hate all that stuff. But to see somebody who's able to still be like so vital and creative within this like hustle till you die world, it's it's really inspirational. So I think inspiring you at all and having any kind of bit to do with your creativity is kind of those stories. That is that And like, you know a girl who told me I helped her get through you know, her pastor sexually assaulting art and that listening to you know, records that I was on and reading stuff that I I said in interviews made her tell our parents parents, and then her parents were really supportive and then her parents came to the show with her and they all thanked me. That was a moment. Wow, you know, having a family, having a mom say thank you for being there for my daughter. I was there for her as much as I could, but you were there in this one little spot that I couldn't reach, And I was like a family And this isn't you know? This is like more modern times like in the past few years. I never you know when when Bikini Kill first started, Like crazy things happened, like a woman who worked at a juvenile detention center got all the juvie girls to come to one of our shows for a field trip. Like those were the kooky things that happened that I was like, this is amazing. But nowadays to have to see a family supporting a child who has experienced sexual assault is like, really gratifying. It makes me feel like the world can change and can keep changing for the better.

01:48:54
Speaker 1: Kathleen, I thank you for this long what would do conversation.

01:48:58
Speaker 3: I want to do one where reach just talk about records and talk about music. So I'm gonna I'm going to start a podcast and you're gonna be my first time, and.

01:49:05
Speaker 1: Then I'll be your first guest. I promise, I promise. No, thank you for doing this.

01:49:10
Speaker 2: Give your regards to Adam, who will be a future guest on the show.

01:49:15
Speaker 3: He has let's to say about em, and I know, I.

01:49:19
Speaker 1: Was like, wow, he puts you on the MC sid from and I.

01:49:23
Speaker 3: Had that record and he was like, oh my god, how do you have this record? And I was like, because I like the cover. He's so cute on the cover. But apparently his DJ can eat ten eggs at one sitting, so you weirdos. I know whatever, We'll hang out some time. But thank you so much for having me on. It's joy and I really appreciate it and it's just a fun way to spend a day.

01:49:46
Speaker 1: Thank you.

01:49:47
Speaker 2: And on Beef of the q S Bam Layah, I'm paid, Bill and Sugar Steve and shout out to you written Jake, this Quest Love and we'll see you on the next goroground. Thank you, Thank you for listening to the Quest Love Supreme. Hosted by Amir quest Love Thompson, Liah Saint Clair, Sugar, Steve Mandel, and.

01:50:09
Speaker 1: Unpaid Bill Sherman.

01:50:11
Speaker 2: Executive producers are America Quest Love, Thompson, Sean ch and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brittany Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne and Liah Saint Clair. Edited by Alex Conway. Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown.

01:50:36
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.