Le Tigre (JD Samson and Kathleen Hanna) interviewed by Kylie, Lucy, Melamoo
Melamoo: I thought I’d ask about the Big Day Out first and how you’re finding it, I mean it’s a big gig compared to other stuff you might have done in America, bigger and different types of acts. JD: Yeah we’ve done festivals before. We did a festival called Coachella last summer, that was really awesome. It was really huge, it was like 40,000 people or something like that. Bands like the Cure and Radiohead, The Pixies. It was really fun, cos we don’t often play festivals. We did play the Michigan Women’s Music Festival, which is like 8000 women, so that’s really fun to do because it’s only women and we camp out and we have a really good time there.
I’ve had a really good time at the Big Day Out. I was worried about it being outdoors and playing without our video. It was actually fun without the video. But at the second show, the crowd were responding really differently and we were wondering how much of it had to do with not having the video.
Melamoo: Did you catch other bands, like local acts, while you’ve been at the Big Day Out so far?
Kathleen: We saw The Spazzys
JD: Oh yeah they were good. Oh we watched Slipknot. (much laughter from everyone)
Melamoo: yeah their crazy mask things
JD: It’s hard cos you get there and you have to prepare for your set and then as soon as you’re done, you have to go eat and you kinda miss a bunch of bands
Kylie: The first question that I have…well, you know the revised edition of the Cunt book?
Kathleen: The Inga Muscio book?
Kylie: Yeah. Like, in the revised one, I like how she was writing about how the book originally focussed on a really explicit woman-centred feminist politics and then since then in a kinda post-September 11 world with increasingly more terrible things happening, she declared: "We’re all in it together now." To me, that seems to mean making strategic alliances and capitalising on the inter-connectedness of all of us who struggle for a better world. And I kinda thought that the earliest Le Tigre records had a really explicit feminist queer identity politics, stuff like Hot Topic. And I thought "This Island" is less obvious in a way, like less self-referential to our, or perhaps your, community, if that makes sense. And I’m kinda curious as to whether this arose out of a similar context to "we’re all in it together now", trying to make something that speaks a little more generally to our allies outside of the immediate feminist and queer communities. [although I do have to admit that I don’t have my own copy of This Island yet, so this analysis or observation is based on my initial few somewhat cursory scans of the lyric sheet of Lucy’s copy –k]
Kathleen: It’s a good question…
JD: It’s funny that you say that, because actually a lot of people think the opposite way, and I think more so just because we’re not naming names on "This Island", but we’re making it like an open-ended invitation for people to say the names of people that they’re talking about. And for us, "After Dark" was written as –well Kathleen wrote it- but (to Kathleen) you were writing it about a specific person, but also just like the idea of becoming friends with another feminist artist. It’s interesting with "This Island", because I guess we didn’t name names, but there is still so much blatant feminism and queer-positive stuff. Like I mean, "Vis" is something that we’ve never done before.
Kathleen: I mean, we’ve always considered anti-racism and anti-classism and you know, all the isms, a part of our feminist agenda. On our EP, which is the second thing we ever put out, we had a song about police brutality which was very much in our faces at the time and still is. At that time, there had been several killings in a row in New York, and it was really upsetting. So we have always felt like that, but I think this record does read more like that, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I think to us, we can’t tell how it reads, because it’s coming from this sort of like internal place…
Kylie: An integrated, synthesised kind of politics?
Kathleen: Yeah
JD: Like, "New Kicks" being anti-war and being anti-Bush is just as much blatantly feminist to us, and also any mention of the war or any of the stuff related to 9/11 and stuff like that that we’ve been dealing with for the past couple of years.
Kathleen: Yeah. And like "Hot Topic" came about at a time when, at least in our community in the States, Riot Grrrl was sort of on the decline and there was all this weird in-fighting going on, and it was really kind of depressing. Instead of being like "Oh I disagree with your point of view, let’s figure out a way that we can still work together. Or maybe we can’t work together, and you know what, that’s okay, just because we’re feminists doesn’t mean we have to agree on absolutely everything."
Instead of doing that, a lot of the small little music scenes that a lot of us entered-and-left-and-then-entered-and-left were collapsing in on themselves because people couldn’t agree to disagree on band politics. So it was really this negative kind of time and we wrote Hot Topic out of more of a personal thing, or even an identity-politics thing of like "We wanna celebrate all the joyous things"
Kylie: A kind of affirmation?
Kathleen: Yeah, instead of giving into the negativity and being like "Here are ALL of the things that are wrong", we were like "Here are ONE HUNDRED things that are right". And in that song there’s like all different kinds of writers and activists and artists, they’re not all women. And even with that, it was more about stuff we like, it wasn’t about saying it has to be a list of women who are in our scene or something. And yeah, I do understand what you mean about how "This Island" reads like that, to us it’s all just a kind of part of who we are, part of Le Tigre.
Kylie: Yeah, I mean most progressive feminist politics see the inter-connectedness of different types of oppression and it’s hardly like they treat feminism as a single-issue kind of politics. And yeah I guess with the anti-war and anti-oppression stuff you mentioned…well, I was reading that you have collaborated with people as varying in their left-wing or counter-cultural agendas as Gloria Steinem and Green Day…Is that part of building community and building alliances with people with slightly different agendas but still within a broad-left context? Or is it just fun to reach new audiences?
Kathleen: Well I just sung on Green Day’s record because they asked me to, and because I’m always interested in singing with different kinds of music and just different experiences as a singer. And I find that because I’m a feminist singer a lot of people won’t ask me to do things because they think I won’t do it.
Kylie: Yeah I can imagine.
Kathleen: Yeah so like, when I get asked, I just wanna do it! And also, in addition to being a feminist activist, I’m a singer and I care about singing. And Gloria, she was running for Kerry..
JD: Yeah she actually asked to be a part of our show and she came and gave a speech before we started our shows, that was probably the height of our collaboration with her. But you know, it was a surprise to our crowd too, and I think it was just a really good meeting of different minds.
Lucy: You mentioned "Vis" before, and I wanted to ask you a question about that. I’m asking you JD, because I mean, did you write the lyrics?
JD: Yeah
Lucy: It’s one of my favourite songs on the album. Because my interpretation of the song –before I actually read Diva magazine and read what you said about it, so you’ve ruined my question!- was that it was kinda about the dyke scene and the fact that, despite all its flaws, the stereotyping, like the line "hey, you’re not a dyke!" and stuff like that, like despite all that, it ends up celebratory kind of thing.
JD: Yep
Lucy: And I really love that bit. And it kind of resonates with my experiences of the queer scene, in that I know it’s flawed and I dis it all the time, like I moan on about how shit all the gay clubs here in Brisbane are. But I would be the first to jump to their defence if someone tried to take them away.
JD: For sure.
Lucy: Yeah I would be like "I love The Beat! It’s my favourite club!" So I was kinda wondering if that’s what you were kinda putting across, that it’s both negative and positive?
JD: Yeah definitely. The song is like, actually about going to a straight club and feeling really weird and like "I don’t really belong here", the idea of just being visible in that kind of setting feels like I’m being an activist just by existing in that space, you know? So that’s kinda why I wrote the song, because I ended up at this weird party by myself and I felt really uncomfortable at first, but then I felt really excited that I’d found another lesbian, butch lesbian, and we connected, and we had a few drinks you know. (laughs)
That’s kinda more like what I was thinking about when I wrote the song, but I definitely agree with you in terms of like, the flaws and the brilliant genius of our communities everywhere. Like in New York, we had Meow Mix, this bar I’d been going to since I was like 17 and everybody was dogging it all the time and I was like "No! It’s our home!" and it just got closed like 2 months ago and it’s a sports bar now. So it’s really depressing.
But I’m like all for gay pride and power and all that stuff, I will never give that up, you know. [this last bit makes me wish this was an audio-zine, so you could hear exactly how amazing it was when JD said it]Lucy: I think it’s really important not to forget that we still need that kind of…like yeah it’s cool to talk about being post-gender but like we still need those spaces and those kinds of clubs to make ourselves feel GOOD in the world because it is such a fucking horrible world out there. Like, we need to feel like we belong sometimes, in some places.
Melamoo: The L Bar!
Kylie: I’m asking this question to you Kathleen, if I may. I was re-reading an old Punk Planet, the "Life after Bikini Kill" interview…
Kathleen: Oh yeah
Kylie: ..Where you were talking about image and aesthetics and how at one point you were like "it’s ok to wear lipstick and be a feminist", but in the interview you said "I take a little bit of that back now", that you thought it was more subversive to create your own definitions of beauty in a way. And I’m kind of curious as to where you’re currently at with that because Le Tigre seem to have some really fun stuff going on with image. And if we take our cue from Judith Butler, if we perform our gender…like, is the use of image and aesthetics in Le Tigre part of fucking with fashion and fucking with gender and trying to shake things up at a very visual level, at a very immediate level, and in a very fun way?
Kathleen: I think part of it is, sort of like what you guys were talking about with clubs, where all you have is the gay male clubs you go to. I feel like a lot of times in performance, we’ll be the one all-female band or the one queer band in the town. And to me, even more than dealing with gender in terms of like costume or makeup or hair, it’s more just about like putting on this big show and instead of being given this little tiny slot, giving back this full really huge thing.
Cos we don’t want to just be another band that’s staring at the floor and it looks like we’re just wearing our clothes that we were wearing on the street that day. Like, we want to give our scene and our community something that we really worked hard on in our apartments, and worked our asses off to make. We didn’t come all the way to Brisbane to stare at the ground, do you know what I mean, we came here to like put on as a big as a show as we can with what limited stuff we have.
Kylie: Yeah I guess it can rub off on the audience, this really fun, exciting kind of feeling that helps you to transcend...
Kathleen: Yeah, it’s more about that, and it’s more about a new aesthetic of music and what you can do with like mixing performance art with music. For me at least, I don’t even really think about the whole "Beauty Myth" kinda stuff anymore, it’s not like "I’m past that", it’s just like I’m pretty comfortable with the stuff that I want to do.
And I’m kinda like a professional entertainer at this point and I have the mask that I wear that makes me feel like I can actually be vulnerable. I like to wear a lot of makeup on stage because having that mask there prepares me to open my heart. I know that sounds really weird, but I’ve been doing it for a long time. It gets me ready to be Le Tigre, you know.
Kylie: I mean, we often talk about when we go out, it’s much more fun for us to put on like costumes and crazy clothes. It just takes you out immediate reality, it’s just a really easy way to transcend boring, mundane reality, and also to take on the persona you need to take on to negotiate the outside world..
JD: You guys should try dressing up all the same and then going out!
Kathleen: Like ALL DAY
JD: Yeah whoa it’s really fun.
Kathleen: Yeah we wear exactly matching costumes when we run errands and stuff and like everybody was freaks out. We did it today actually at the koala park.
Kylie: Aside from your image and costume stuff, what is the role of your performance and projection stuff.. like is that part of mixing performance with music, incorporating different visual elements and having something really fun and exciting that works on several very immediate levels?
JD: Yeah, I mean we wanna create a show that’s on a different level, or a bunch of different planes. And the audience can pick what they really wanna do, you know. We just want to give a lot of energy to the crowd, and we find that when we do, we get a lot in return, so we have matching outfits and videos projected behind us and we have choreographed dancing, you know. As much as you’re willing to put into it, that’s what you get back, and we wanna have a community moment where everybody is having a really good time.
Melamoo: I like what you said in an interview about how you’ve kind of moved out of the ghetto now and you’re kind of more anonymous in New York as well, and how that’s made you really focus on your music now as well, less of being the kinda spokesperson for riot grrrl, that kind of thing.
Kathleen: Yeah I think the 3 of us have for a long time been artists in our own right, do you know what I mean, and being in New York I think, it made me at least less like conscious of what everyone else thought of me, the community, wondering "Is this the right thing or is the wrong thing?", more conscious of other people. But we’re putting a lot of love and time and energy into everything we make, making what we really want to, instead of what we think everybody else wants. I mean, there IS a lot of conscious thought about our audience, because in a way we ARE our audience.
I think we, both JD & I, a lot of the time want to write lyrics for ourselves, at times in our lives when we didn’t have anybody. And when no-one in our scene was saying the things we wanted to say. In a way it’s selfish. Like people say you’re doing this out of altruism (for your community), and it’s not. It’s definitely really good feeling to be able to do that, it’s just like "Oh wow, I made it to this point where I have enough love and support around me that I can sort of reach out of the boat and pull someone else out of the water and that feels really satisfying.
Kylie: When you said that you write lyrics that relate to you guys, stuff that you really wanna say or hear, or stuff that you really wanna see, like is "Keep On Livin" and the Keep on Livin’ website part of that?
JD: Yeah
Kathleen: Yeah exactly.
Kylie: I mean, because you put something "out there" that is about your very personal individual experience, people tend to relate to it a lot.. Maybe because it's not trying to pretend to speak generally for everyone, but just to speak about yr specific experience that certain other people might be able to share w/you...I was reading this old interview with Kim Gordon in Rolling Stone and she was talking about how this teenage girl didn’t write in her diary, she basically wrote everything in a diary-style confessional way to Kim Gordon. Stuff about high-school and alienation and angst and crushes.. And I guess I was wondering if alienated young queer/tranz/feminist/punk kids, because of stuff like "Keep on Livin", write to you guys in that way?
JD: Yeah they totally do. That’s part of the reason why we put that on our website because we were getting flooded by letters asking questions.
Kylie: So "Keep on Livin" was your way of writing back to all of those people together, like a letter to the community?
JD: Yeah, at first we printed out that stuff and we started sending it to the people who had written to us, but then you know, it got crazy, so we just put it up on the website and now we’ve gotten like so many less letters asking those questions, and people DO go to our website and use it.
Kathleen: The song and the website was a big response to a lot of the letters we got. It was before we figured out the whole website thing! And we really WANTED to respond to a lot of things that people had written, but we had gotten so much mail…I’d gotten so much mail from the Bikini Kill times and I’d written back every single person for like ten years. And I just wanted to have a personal life, you know. And I decided, you know what, I just can’t answer my mail anymore, cos I’m so wrapped up in all these 13- and 14-year-old girls talking about cutting on themselves…I mean I could function, I got really good at functioning, but I had so much shit in my head and I really wanted to be able to separate myself from it.
Kylie: I guess I if you are putting so much energy into responding to mail, you simply don’t have as much energy for creativity..it makes sense to make art that will also express what you need to say to yr community..
Kathleen: Yeah, I mean, we started putting it into the songs and I think that’s really smart. And I mean, I think it’s funny that it took so long for us to do that, even if as a band we were saying, you know what, actually, we deserve to have a separation between our band and our personal life. We don’t need to wake up every morning and just answer letters and respond to stuff all the way until we go to bed. And after a couple of years, I was starting to be like "Hey, wait, we make art about this stuff. We don’t need to respond at the level of giving people rides to our show and writing to every single person."
Melamoo: Is there going to be another calendar?
JD: Yeah, actually, I was gonna make it soon but I can’t because I’m on tour, so I think it will be in the next year. It’s really hard to do the calendar on tour, because it takes a long time to prepare and you have to be done with it 3 months before you want to sell it.
Melamoo: And you’ve got another side project…are you currently working on that as well?
JD: Yeah, I’m in a side-project band. I don’t know if we’ll do a release, cos it’s just a really small side-project band. It’s called New English Rose
Kylie: Oh yeah, Melamoo was looking at an online messageboard, I forget which one, and she witnessed frenzied discussion about what any future possible covers could be, like after the Pointer Sisters one
Kathleen: Oh, oh, I actually started working on one at home!
Melamoo: Really? Yeah I love 80s covers
Kathleen: Like, it will probably be Yazz
Melamoo: The Only Way is Up, or…?
Kathleen: I don’t know that one!
Melamoo: (singing) the only way is up
Kylie: baby
Melamoo: for you and me now
Melamoo: It’s a really uplifting song that would totally work being politicised, like what you did with the Julie Ruin project using the song 'I wanna know what love is"
Kathleen: See, that wasn’t the big song in America. We had "Didn’t bring your Love Down" and "Situation" was her biggest hit [JD and Kathleen sing "Situation"]…You guys didn’t get that one?
Lucy: No! We have no fucking idea about that
JD: The album "Upstairs at Erics" is like the one that was big in the States
Kathleen: Yeah, it will probably be something by Yazz. We’re gonna have to do it in a totally different way, because there is no way that we can sing anywhere like her.
[this is basically the end...it was all very hyper-excitable and hard to transcribe after here]
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