Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: I'm here of this Quest Love.
Speaker 2: You know, ever since that Willow episode, I gotta say,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of liking this more intimate one on one thing.
Speaker 2: Nothing against the Supreme fan, but you know, these are
Speaker 2: kind of fun for me, and this one especially holds dear.
Speaker 2: I will basically say that this conversation is probably thirty
Speaker 2: years overdue. I'm almost certain that our Yesterday doesn't even
Speaker 2: know the silent impact she's had on my entire organization.
Speaker 1: She'll find out right now, Right Surprises.
Speaker 2: The Bell Right surprise as a bell Our guest is legendary,
Speaker 2: of course, name it bikini Kill. Latigue of the Julie
Speaker 2: Willing pioneered the Riot Girl movement. Magazine publisher, poet, fan
Speaker 2: of cheesy seventies variety shows like Myself, spouse of my
Speaker 2: very first online scrabble rival, New York Times bestselling author
Speaker 2: of the memoir Rebel Girl, My life as a feminist punk.
Speaker 1: You know, if you are a fan of the show or.
Speaker 2: You're familiar with my history, she probably doesn't know it,
Speaker 2: but she was the seed that helped start the Black
Speaker 2: Lily movement that I guess I'm famous for or associated with.
Speaker 2: From my side of the fence, What can I say?
Speaker 2: This is long overdue, Kathleen Hannah, thank you for talking
Speaker 2: to me. I know your husband's going to be upset
Speaker 2: because I know he feels like I'm having everyone but
Speaker 2: him on the show. He will get his turn. He
Speaker 2: will get his turn. How are you today.
Speaker 3: I'm good. I'm so thrilled to be talking to you.
Speaker 3: It does feel like a thousand years overdue. Like I
Speaker 3: feel like you're like Superman and we're always you know,
Speaker 3: you're like Clark kentying out on me, Like I'm like
Speaker 3: where he was just here, Like I feel like we've
Speaker 3: had that for like the past thirty years.
Speaker 2: I lived a life where I used my work and
Speaker 2: my occupation to avoid life.
Speaker 1: And oh really.
Speaker 3: Is that? How come You've like done like three thousand
Speaker 3: things and you're like the total like you know, renaissance
Speaker 3: man goal for every other artist.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, on paper, it's nice, but.
Speaker 2: You know, I've gone through uh kind of a life
Speaker 2: transformation in the last three years where I now know
Speaker 2: the power of no and vacation and you know, make
Speaker 2: time with my girlfriend, and I think date night, you know,
Speaker 2: game night like things that have nothing to do with working,
Speaker 2: which you know is nothing but distract So let me
Speaker 2: just let you know. And you know, I work on
Speaker 2: a talk show, and oftentimes I know that, especially when
Speaker 2: guests write books or memoirs, I'm almost certain that they
Speaker 2: are under the impression that the person interviewing them has
Speaker 2: not read the entire piece or the entire book. Usually
Speaker 2: like a producer and an assistant will do such a thing.
Speaker 1: This is absolutely not the case.
Speaker 2: I probably finished your book in a record like six
Speaker 2: days and was rather surprised at how parallel our journey
Speaker 2: from here to there sort of ran. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of times in the book in which I was like,
Speaker 2: oh wow. At times, a person thinks that they go
Speaker 2: through something alone, and I was one of those former
Speaker 2: people pleasers that sort of made career decisions based on
Speaker 2: the perception of other people or their approval. You know,
Speaker 2: what happens if we signed this label? Oh god, what
Speaker 2: happens if I do this commercial? What happens if I'm
Speaker 2: seeing with this particular You know, I actually like the
Speaker 2: work of Blah Blah Blah, who's massively popular, but I
Speaker 2: can't be seen with them in public cause people think
Speaker 2: I'm alf you know. Yeah, every aspect of your story
Speaker 2: really really impressed me, which is weird because I mean,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about it so much, but I
Speaker 2: also don't want to alert it for your audience that
Speaker 2: hasn't read it yet or you know, make this the
Speaker 2: paraphrase version of it. So I'll figure out ways to
Speaker 2: ask you specific questions. But I you know, I want
Speaker 2: to start off this episode by letting our audience know
Speaker 2: that this this book's a must.
Speaker 1: Read, an absolute must read. I'll start by asking you
Speaker 1: what is the process.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm a person that's written nine books, but even
Speaker 2: in writing those nine books, I.
Speaker 3: Realized it's like just nuts.
Speaker 2: Well, no, no, no, I'm gonna tell you. Well, the thing
Speaker 2: is is that I journal kind of to keep my sanity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know me too. I journal every day.
Speaker 2: Right, and then now that their social media, like oftentimes,
Speaker 2: I'll overspill in a post, and if I do it
Speaker 2: too much, then yeah, my publisher is gonna call and
Speaker 2: be like, hey, dog, can you not give the milk
Speaker 2: away for free? Like all that you did in the
Speaker 2: last three posts could been in the book, And usually
Speaker 2: that's the point where they're telling me, like, channel that
Speaker 2: energy into your contract fulfillment instead of giving it away
Speaker 2: on Instagram. And one of the last things that my
Speaker 2: ex told me was, you know, I can't wait for
Speaker 2: the day in which you write your real first book.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, I got nine already, Like
Speaker 1: what else can I write about?
Speaker 3: Ouch?
Speaker 2: And she said, come on, now that she's like writing
Speaker 2: about records and breakbeats and you know art, that's your distraction.
Speaker 2: You know when you're going to write the real book.
Speaker 2: So I'll ask you, when.
Speaker 3: Am I going to write the real book?
Speaker 1: No? No, no, no, my god, no. But I want
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 3: If there's another real book behind that real book, it's
Speaker 3: going to be really scary. It's like a horror movie.
Speaker 3: I'll just make a horror movie.
Speaker 2: So there's two books I've read this year that were memoirs,
Speaker 2: musical memoirs. One of them nicely danced around specifics to
Speaker 2: sort of protect relationships or maintain them. Yours was very
Speaker 2: blatant and very honest on how you felt about specific people.
Speaker 2: What is the first step in realizing that you're going
Speaker 2: to overspill and share with us your life and.
Speaker 1: How does that affect the people that you write about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never thought about it. I just sat down
Speaker 3: and wrote. I really just sat down and wrote and
Speaker 3: wrote and wrote. It was really for me. I didn't
Speaker 3: think about an audience at all, Like when I first
Speaker 3: started writing, which was like, you know, years ago, and
Speaker 3: I knew it was a book, Like I wrote the
Speaker 3: introduction like ten years ago and then ended up I
Speaker 3: changed it all, of course, but I was just sort
Speaker 3: of writing it a little bit, and I didn't have
Speaker 3: a publisher or whatever. And then finally I was like,
Speaker 3: I just need to do this to get to the
Speaker 3: next stage of my life, you know how Like there's
Speaker 3: different like things that you've made that you're known by,
Speaker 3: Like you know, people walk up to you on the
Speaker 3: street and they're like, you know, this is the thing,
Speaker 3: and it's annoying because you're like, I don't want to
Speaker 3: talk about that. Actually, my real love is directing, or
Speaker 3: my real love is you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 3: like you get known as you know, if you're in
Speaker 3: a commercial and someone's like you were in that VW
Speaker 3: commercial for the rest of your life, and it's like
Speaker 3: I was sort of like really trapped in this, like
Speaker 3: riot girl thing and like the like you wrote the
Speaker 3: smell saxteen Spirit line or you know other like weird
Speaker 3: mini scandals I was involved in, and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I just I don't want to like not
Speaker 3: talk about that anymore. And part of that is me
Speaker 3: getting over stuff that I never dealt with, and so
Speaker 3: I really kind of wrote it just to get it
Speaker 3: all out on the page, and I wasn't I knew
Speaker 3: that I got to edit it later. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: an adult. I've done like a lot of projects, so
Speaker 3: like I know, I'm not writing this and everybody's going
Speaker 3: to see it, and having the same confidence that I
Speaker 3: had with it that I have with my journal, where
Speaker 3: it's like no one's going to read this, so I
Speaker 3: can write whatever I want. And I had fun with it.
Speaker 3: I was like I would think of a title like
Speaker 3: Benjamin Franklin's Glasses and then you know, you have like
Speaker 3: catchphrases in your life that you used to talk to
Speaker 3: your friends with, where like for me, like the smells
Speaker 3: Like teen Spirit story, which is like I wrote Kurt
Speaker 3: smells like teen Spirit on his wall and then he
Speaker 3: used as a song Like people have asked me about
Speaker 3: that a lot right, and so it's I started calling
Speaker 3: it the you know smells like Benjamin Franklin's glasses, and
Speaker 3: I would be like, it's like I found Benjamin Franklin's
Speaker 3: glasses in the trash. And everybody's like, ooh, there's the
Speaker 3: girl who found Benjamin Franklin's you know glasses in the trash.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I'm actually like a feminist artist
Speaker 3: who's been working for thirty five years and like, I
Speaker 3: have a lot of projects I'd love to talk to
Speaker 3: you about, but they're like, but tell me about Benjamin
Speaker 3: fraid Tight. So I didn't specifically actually write that story
Speaker 3: like to you know, get people off my back or whatever.
Speaker 3: But I did write everything, like everything, and then I
Speaker 3: edited it later and that's when I thought about it
Speaker 3: and I changed. I did change names. I changed almost
Speaker 3: everybody's names unless they were in a positive light, and.
Speaker 1: So they were okay, okay.
Speaker 3: And there were people there's a particular person who who
Speaker 3: is really messed up in the book and basically commits
Speaker 3: crime and against me, and uh, I called that person
Speaker 3: and said, I'm going to tell this story and you
Speaker 3: need to get a therapist and be prepared. I changed
Speaker 3: your name, but some of our friends are going to
Speaker 3: know its you. So I want you to prepare yourself
Speaker 3: and I don't want to make kill themselves, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 1: What was his reaction?
Speaker 3: You know, I wish I wouldn't have called. That's all
Speaker 3: I can say. I mean, he was like, he's like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's your story and you can tell it.
Speaker 3: I can't stop you. But it was like a big
Speaker 3: pity party of things in his life that have gone
Speaker 3: wrong and that you know, he had a whole new
Speaker 3: story for why the bad incident happened. I was like,
Speaker 3: I can't rewrite it. I already wrote it. So the
Speaker 3: story answer is I didn't think about it. I got
Speaker 3: my butt in the chair and I worked, and then
Speaker 3: I would have these long periods of time where it
Speaker 3: just worked and worked and worked and work, and then
Speaker 3: I would have periods of time where I had a
Speaker 3: nervous breakdown and went to crisis counseling, like for three
Speaker 3: days a week, and then I would get back to work.
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to ask you, because the
Speaker 2: thing is is that unlike my movement, you know, the
Speaker 2: Neo Soul movement, both of our movements, I would say
Speaker 2: start with the the quote the idea of I'm certain
Speaker 2: there was an actual Seattle movement or Northwest movement, but I,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty much even I knew that we were
Speaker 2: responding to the idea of what we thought the Seattle
Speaker 2: movement was things move on and things subside and things.
Speaker 1: Are in your rear view mirror.
Speaker 2: How did it feel to have to unpack that period
Speaker 2: in your life because like, literally chapter after chapter, it's
Speaker 2: one thing to keep a band together, but it's a
Speaker 2: whole other thing where you also have to keep yourself
Speaker 2: together and protect your sanity, but also like organize a movement.
Speaker 2: And I'll say the main difference between you and I,
Speaker 2: luckily because of the development of the Internet. For me
Speaker 2: at least ninety eight ninety nine, you know, I thought
Speaker 2: it was all unique, like the only person in music
Speaker 2: who allows this fan base to curse him out or
Speaker 2: criticize them or say whatever the fuck they want to.
Speaker 1: But that's contained in like this world on the Internet.
Speaker 2: Whereas because you're eight years before you know, you're dealing
Speaker 2: with newsletters and actual people coming you've essentially a pre
Speaker 2: social media pioneer, although it wasn't invented yet because you
Speaker 2: came out so damn early.
Speaker 1: But all the things that happened, like.
Speaker 2: The idea of people spewing out their opinions mid show,
Speaker 2: you know, all the toxic energy you had to have.
Speaker 2: You're juggling like four or five things at once, and
Speaker 2: you're learning lessons. You're learning lessons about feminism, you're learning
Speaker 2: lessons about yourself, you're learning lessons about your health.
Speaker 1: Like all these things.
Speaker 2: But to really put yourself in that position to go
Speaker 2: back and revisit how taxing was that on you today,
Speaker 2: to revisit those periods the.
Speaker 3: Way I would say when I would get home from work,
Speaker 3: because I would be like I just created my face
Speaker 3: with the cheese grater for eight hours. That's what it
Speaker 3: felt like. I felt. I really felt. I was like
Speaker 3: my face was blank, I was dead behind the eyes,
Speaker 3: like I was going in and out of being present.
Speaker 3: Like it was awful. Awful, but so is crisis counseling.
Speaker 3: I mean, And it was basically like I was. I
Speaker 3: saved myself a lot of therapy because I actually sat
Speaker 3: there and wrote down stuff I'd never even admitted to myself,
Speaker 3: and a lot of it didn't There's three hundred extra pages.
Speaker 3: It didn't end up in the book because it originally
Speaker 3: was like Ryacral Hobbit and they were six entred pages long.
Speaker 3: You might get it in a different form. But yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of the stories I cut
Speaker 3: out were because they were more visual, Like it was
Speaker 3: like that you had to be their kind of stories
Speaker 3: where it's like, you know, we're on acid and we're
Speaker 3: like running towards the sky in the park. Looks like
Speaker 3: he's juggling. We're like, it's a clown. And then we
Speaker 3: get close to him and we're like, oh shit, he
Speaker 3: has not a ninja. It's a ninja turn around, like
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like it doesn't really work
Speaker 3: in a book. Yeah, it was horrible, That's all I
Speaker 3: can say. It was absolutely awful because it was like
Speaker 3: excavating all of the stuff that you know. So I
Speaker 3: had also suppressed and pushed down to keep going to
Speaker 3: the next project, and that was part of the reason
Speaker 3: why I worked so much, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And I didn't turn out like a kazilion albums, but
Speaker 3: I was constantly doing projects. Even when I went through
Speaker 3: a long period while I was pretty sick, I was
Speaker 3: still like I wrote a pilot for a TV show
Speaker 3: and you know, I could tell you twenty other things
Speaker 3: that I did while I was still ill, because I
Speaker 3: just had even if it was from bed, if I
Speaker 3: had one good day, I had to use it. And
Speaker 3: part of that is just like I grew up as
Speaker 3: a kid and I felt like I was really a zombie,
Speaker 3: Like I had to turn myself off to live in
Speaker 3: my household. And so when I kind of came to
Speaker 3: when I moved out when I was seventeen, I was
Speaker 3: like living with vengeance. Like I was like, I have
Speaker 3: to pack as much stuff into this one life as possible.
Speaker 3: And also all the people you know that I've lost
Speaker 3: along the way to like drugs, suicide aids, you know,
Speaker 3: it's hard not to feel like you're living for them,
Speaker 3: Like you know, every day you have a part of
Speaker 3: their character with you that comes out and you're like,
Speaker 3: I want to let that part of this person shying today,
Speaker 3: you know, Like, but then that can become this weird
Speaker 3: like toxically positive bullshit that then you have to contend
Speaker 3: with that. So I just try to be in the
Speaker 3: present as much as humanly possible, and writing the book,
Speaker 3: the whole point of it was to get me into
Speaker 3: the present. Was to be like I'm going to grapple
Speaker 3: with this thirty five years or even you know, my
Speaker 3: whole life. I'm going to grapple with that. And then
Speaker 3: I'm going to be like I did that and now
Speaker 3: here I am. And sure I still like have bad
Speaker 3: memories of stuff or like whatever. But the thing that
Speaker 3: was really kind of miraculous was I just realized how
Speaker 3: much I lead with the negative, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: like a lot. It was so easy. It wasn't easy,
Speaker 3: but it was like I went straight for the juggler.
Speaker 3: Like I was like, I went to all the worst
Speaker 3: moments in my life really quick. And part of it
Speaker 3: was because I needed to. I really needed to do that.
Speaker 3: But then I was like, whoa, no one's going to
Speaker 3: read this. This is going to make people just throw up,
Speaker 3: Like I got to put some joy in here. And
Speaker 3: then I just started being like they started popping out
Speaker 3: like you know, Jack in the Box style, like just
Speaker 3: like joy joy joy, And I was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: that guy in Minneapolis who like said I'll record your
Speaker 3: band in my garage. I love what you're doing and
Speaker 3: I and that made me feel like accepted in the
Speaker 3: punk scene, you know what I mean, Like and it
Speaker 3: was just a tiny gesture from this one person that
Speaker 3: probably they didn't even I don't think that guy even
Speaker 3: read the book or knows or remembers. Right, this guy
Speaker 3: to Max said I'll record you, and you know, record
Speaker 3: us and my first touring band, Vibachnevl, And it meant
Speaker 3: the world to me, you know, remembering the first time
Speaker 3: that I heard my vocals sounding good in headphones, Like literally,
Speaker 3: as I was writing it, I was remembering it for
Speaker 3: the first time, and I was sitting in that garage
Speaker 3: listening to my voice with reaverb on it and going, oh,
Speaker 3: my god, this is what I want to do forever. Right,
Speaker 3: What a gift that I had to go through. I
Speaker 3: had to kind of like, you know, dig myself out
Speaker 3: with a shovel. I kept seeing in my head when
Speaker 3: I was writing, like a kind of a newly dug grave,
Speaker 3: like the soil and stuff, and I felt like my
Speaker 3: hand was just sticking out and I had to reach it,
Speaker 3: pull my hand and get me out of the grave.
Speaker 3: And once I dug myself out, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: look at all this awesome stuff that happened that maybe
Speaker 3: you didn't fully appreciate in the moment. And I'm able
Speaker 3: to appreciate it now, and in a lot of cases
Speaker 3: I did. I had a great time, like I've had
Speaker 3: an awesome life.
Speaker 2: What I do want to know is, and I know
Speaker 2: that your story is your story alone, but when you
Speaker 2: decide to do the journey man of going in the
Speaker 2: punk scene or the NDE rock scene, it's doing what
Speaker 2: is perceived as you know, major labels and big business
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. Is this typical of what one
Speaker 2: can expect in terms of do it yourself? It's twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a day. You might have a flat tire
Speaker 2: the next day. You don't know whose couch you're going
Speaker 2: to sleep on. Next week you might have bubblegum for dinner.
Speaker 1: Like, is that still.
Speaker 2: The modus operandi now in twenty twenty four is? Or
Speaker 2: did you pioneer it so well that now life is
Speaker 2: easier for those who are sort of in the space.
Speaker 3: I think it's changed in that I don't really know
Speaker 3: because I'm not twenty right now, so I have no idea.
Speaker 3: But we do have really amazing opening bands that have
Speaker 3: been playing for us on tour, and they'll sleep on
Speaker 3: people's couches. I mean usually you know, they'll sleep in
Speaker 3: like a Holiday and Express or a lat Quinta, but or.
Speaker 1: Like would have been five Star does yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they had their like a name brand, so
Speaker 3: you could trust the towels. But no, it's like they
Speaker 3: they'll sleep on to them. I think it's different, and
Speaker 3: it's not every single band, but like this one amazing band,
Speaker 3: Sweeping Promises, we were touring with, and it's like I
Speaker 3: think it's also you know, post COVID whatever, people are
Speaker 3: really excited to see each other and so right now
Speaker 3: at this moment, it's a different touring experience where it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited I get to go to Kansas because
Speaker 3: I have these two people that I've been writing to
Speaker 3: on the internet that are going to be there and
Speaker 3: we're going to hook up and hang out afterwards. I
Speaker 3: don't think, and I also think young bands are they're
Speaker 3: still struggling, but they're struggling in different ways. I think
Speaker 3: they struggle with the amount of stuff they have to
Speaker 3: extra unpaid labor of content production on the web that
Speaker 3: they have to do that like I'm lucky that I
Speaker 3: don't have to. I mean, I have to do exact
Speaker 3: a business and stuff, but like I'm just not that
Speaker 3: interested in that, and like I try to figure out
Speaker 3: I've actually learned from the younger generation, like the way
Speaker 3: younger generation where they're like, I, you can't call me
Speaker 3: after business hours, you can't, you know, And I'm like,
Speaker 3: at first, I was like, yeah, I was like exactly.
Speaker 3: I was like, I was like, how dare you have boundaries?
Speaker 3: I have eighteen jobs on different index cards, and I
Speaker 3: look up every day and which one would be funnest
Speaker 3: to work on today, and I do that, but then
Speaker 3: I do like the you know, crappy business financial part
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, and then I was like, no,
Speaker 3: that's awesome. I should have weekends free. It's so hard
Speaker 3: for me to be like I'm gonna have weekends free,
Speaker 3: you know. But now that the book's done, I have
Speaker 3: to protect my weekends, you know. And I have to
Speaker 3: say five o'clock, that's it. Sometimes it ends up being
Speaker 3: seven o'clock. But I try to say five o'clock, that's it.
Speaker 3: And then I try to leave it. And I have
Speaker 3: a firm role and it's hard, it's really hard. But
Speaker 3: like I wake up, I write my journal, I drink
Speaker 3: my first coffee, and I sit in my really fancy
Speaker 3: Eames chair that I bought myself. That is the most
Speaker 3: comfortable chair I've ever seen it in my life. With
Speaker 3: my feet up, and my dog gets on my lap.
Speaker 3: My dog, who smells like a salm in factory, gets
Speaker 3: on my lap, and I pet her, and I pat
Speaker 3: her and pet her and pet her and drink my coffee.
Speaker 3: And I don't look at the computer, and I don't
Speaker 3: look at the phone until I've written in my journal
Speaker 3: and I've pet my dog and she is asleep. So
Speaker 3: I have to start my day like that with And
Speaker 3: right now, we're in this apartment where I have a
Speaker 3: view of the mountains, So I sit in my team
Speaker 3: share and look at the mountains. Sometimes. Do I look
Speaker 3: at Instagram in the morning, Sure, But like I just
Speaker 3: actually took Instagram off my phone again because I'm just like,
Speaker 3: you know, I got to be in real life. You know,
Speaker 3: I miss pre Internet. I'm nostalgic for it. I'm also
Speaker 3: really into all the cool things that you can do
Speaker 3: on it, you know, right, I love that I can,
Speaker 3: you know, keep up with what you're doing on the internet.
Speaker 3: You know, Like I don't live in the same city
Speaker 3: as you, don't hang out, but I can like look
Speaker 3: and be like, oh, what pants is he you know
Speaker 3: listening to and like I can like look them up
Speaker 3: and you know, it's cool. But it's also like you
Speaker 3: can get really addicted to. I mean, dud, this is
Speaker 3: the most boring conversation. You have to cut this part
Speaker 3: out because nobody wants to hear people talking about the Internet.
Speaker 3: I'm so bored of it.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, we're two humans having a normal Some
Speaker 2: of my best episodes are just having a conversation. I
Speaker 2: was going to ask twenty three year old you, like,
Speaker 2: if someone were to come up, all right, let's go
Speaker 2: to twenty five twenty.
Speaker 3: Six, I remember what I was doing then.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean just let's let's say ninety two, ninety three,
Speaker 1: ninety four, around that period in Bikini Hill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if someone a Jacob Marley figure from the future
Speaker 2: where to tell you, Hey, I'm from twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Let me show you a ten minute scissorle reel of
Speaker 2: what life is going to be like in October of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, like way past the year two thousand,
Speaker 2: like in ninety three, ninety four, nineteen ninety nine was
Speaker 2: the future?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I couldn't even imagine like two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: let alone twenty twenty five. What would your reaction be
Speaker 2: if someone shows you in nineteen ninety three where we
Speaker 2: are right now thirty years later.
Speaker 3: It's the whole world, not just my life. I think
Speaker 3: if I was looking at if I was sharing my
Speaker 3: life in particular, I would be so happy. I would
Speaker 3: be like, oh my god. First of all, I'm alive.
Speaker 2: Second of all, the irony that your life is the
Speaker 2: best has ever been in the most turbulent times whatsoever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm finally getting like my sort of like
Speaker 3: I have a feeling you at some point have made
Speaker 3: a pie chart of what you do during the day
Speaker 3: or what you do during the month, to be like
Speaker 3: how much of my time is business stuff that I hate,
Speaker 3: and how much of my time is creative stuff I love?
Speaker 3: And how much of my time is like friendship time,
Speaker 3: relationship time, dog time, like whatever your thing is.
Speaker 2: I've hired a chief of staff. There's so much shame
Speaker 2: in the title. When they're like, oh, you're assistant, I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I literally hired a chief of staff because I have
Speaker 2: seven managers.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have a part of business, partner now
Speaker 3: you know I have my bands have never had a manager.
Speaker 3: We had a manager for like fifteen minutes and Latra.
Speaker 1: You were the manager. I mean you did everything.
Speaker 3: Kind of well, we split it up. I was I
Speaker 3: don't do all the work, but my band split up
Speaker 3: all of the work. And it's like, you know, we
Speaker 3: have a to do list and we each rip it
Speaker 3: off into three parts, like I don't, I haven't. I
Speaker 3: didn't have a manager until a year and a half ago,
Speaker 3: and it's like more of a business partner. Yeah, who's
Speaker 3: amazing and absolutely adore her, and I couldn't do I
Speaker 3: couldn't be doing this stuff I'm doing right now and
Speaker 3: have finished the book and done the book tour without
Speaker 3: her at all. But like it took me to age
Speaker 3: fifty five to set that up, Like that's how behind
Speaker 3: the times I.
Speaker 1: Am fifty two. We talked about boundaries and.
Speaker 2: And I do feel pathetic that, like yes, even for
Speaker 2: date night, for a movie night, for hangover my friends' night,
Speaker 2: like everyone has to a ask amy.
Speaker 1: You come to come by the studient?
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, let me ask my mommy first, which
Speaker 2: is basically asking my person show me the pie chart,
Speaker 2: Like where can we fit this in, like yeah, but
Speaker 2: I'm also dead serious about boundaries, and the amount of
Speaker 2: nos I've given this year is the most knows I've
Speaker 2: ever given in my life.
Speaker 3: I did a year of no around ninety two when
Speaker 3: Bikini Kill first started getting all of this attention, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I had this extreme guilt because I
Speaker 3: was like, you know, from this kind of taking it
Speaker 3: feminist community and the whole idea is no, you know,
Speaker 3: anti hierarchy, and also in the punk scene, anti hierarchy.
Speaker 3: And I worked behind the scenes like long before I
Speaker 3: was ever in a band, like I didn't see myself.
Speaker 3: I wanted to be a singer, but I didn't really
Speaker 3: think it was possible that i'd be in a band
Speaker 3: because I just always dated people in bands. It was
Speaker 3: best friends with people in bands, but it just didn't
Speaker 3: seem possible. And so I was always like setting up
Speaker 3: shows and doing stuff, you know, the rape relief shelter
Speaker 3: and doing you know, art shows and you know, running
Speaker 3: out random warehouses and putting on doing projects. And then
Speaker 3: when I started doing them, it just rolled and rolled
Speaker 3: and rolled and kept going. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I was the front person and I was the lead
Speaker 3: who was in the spotlight, and that was very uncomfortable
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, were your nose based on
Speaker 2: the fear of getting the attention and being the obviously
Speaker 2: everyone was looking for a Ronald McDonald or a figurehead
Speaker 2: to peg like leader of the movement or that, and
Speaker 2: that comes with imposter syndrome and all that stuff and
Speaker 2: all that.
Speaker 3: Stuff, and if you like you, it's like I've had
Speaker 3: friends who got family quick and didn't have you know,
Speaker 3: the counseling and stuff, didn't have a team of therapist
Speaker 3: with them and ended up you know, leaving this surf
Speaker 3: the way way way too soon. And so I had
Speaker 3: all these cautionary tales that was like, don't go down
Speaker 3: that road because you're going to die. Like I literally
Speaker 3: was like, if you get famous, you die, Like that's
Speaker 3: what I thought, or like, you know, people are always
Speaker 3: like sneaking around the corner trying to get you. And
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't live that life and be
Speaker 3: in community. It also took me out of community. It
Speaker 3: made me a star, so that then I started to
Speaker 3: feel unwelcome in my community because they're like, oh, you
Speaker 3: think you're so great, You're so conceited you know, I
Speaker 3: got some girl walk up to me in a grocery
Speaker 3: store and I was like on my period carrying an
Speaker 3: thing on ice milk, like Neapolitan ice milk, you know,
Speaker 3: beautiful Neapolitan ice milk ons like carrying it. And I
Speaker 3: had a bag of JoJo's Do you remember those from
Speaker 3: the Pacific Northwest. They're like really big French fries and
Speaker 3: they're covered in like shaking bake material. You could get
Speaker 3: them at like Safeway. So I had my JoJo's, my tampons,
Speaker 3: my Neapolitan ice cream, and I'm walking in safe way
Speaker 3: and it's about ninety two, like the time period we're
Speaker 3: talking about, and some punk girl walks up to me
Speaker 3: and she's like, you're ruining the punk scene. You think
Speaker 3: you're so great, blah blah blah. And I'm like having
Speaker 3: cramps and I'm carrying like a pretty embarrassing assortment of items,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, really right now, you know. And
Speaker 3: so it was that kind of stuff that made me like,
Speaker 3: you know, everyone's going to throw water on your shine,
Speaker 3: so throw water on your shine first. You know, like
Speaker 3: someone's gonna punch you in the face, so punch yourself
Speaker 3: in the face. First, like I don't know what the
Speaker 3: hell I was thinking, So I like I pulled back
Speaker 3: and I was like, I'm just going to do community stuff.
Speaker 3: I was like putting on you know, benefits for harm
Speaker 3: reduction and like doing all this behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 3: I was answering all my mail, as I always did
Speaker 3: to these kids who are writing, and they're like, I'm
Speaker 3: going to kill myself because I just came out to
Speaker 3: my family and I was rejected or you know a
Speaker 3: lot of people who had rape in and messing violence,
Speaker 3: you know, stuff going on in their lives, and like
Speaker 3: I just put my nose down and did that work,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's why I said no. So I
Speaker 3: said no for the wrong reasons. But I also ended
Speaker 3: up in this really weird predicament where because Bikini Kill
Speaker 3: got so famous so quick for like five minutes, and
Speaker 3: we got put in like all of these like feminist
Speaker 3: academics wanted to like put make classes about us and
Speaker 3: like put us in their books and stuff. I ended
Speaker 3: up being an unpaid assistant or like five different feminist
Speaker 3: professors without my knowledge. They were like from big ivy
Speaker 3: league schools and they call me and they'd be like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm really trying to put together this you know,
Speaker 3: syllabus or blah blah blah, and I'm like handing.
Speaker 1: Down to research.
Speaker 3: I was doing all this research for them and stuff,
Speaker 3: thinking I'm a part of feminist community and I and
Speaker 3: then one day I was like, wait, they're getting paid
Speaker 3: and they also have an assistant or or ta who's
Speaker 3: getting paid. Why I make music? Right, I'm write, but
Speaker 3: I'm not doing that. I'm doing their job. And so
Speaker 3: I just the next day I woke up and anybody
Speaker 3: asked me for anything any favor. No, no, no, And
Speaker 3: if they weren't jerks about it, and they didn't keep
Speaker 3: I found out everybody in my life who was a
Speaker 3: total toxic nightmare by saying no to everybody. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then everyone who was a toxic namare was like why
Speaker 3: why not? Why not? What? You don't care about me,
Speaker 3: you don't care about community. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're now I'm not only not doing any favor, but
Speaker 3: you're out of my life for ever and I'm never
Speaker 3: returning your calls. And then I found all the people
Speaker 3: who were cool about it. A couple months later, if
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, actually that sounded like fun.
Speaker 3: I'm going to call that person up and see if
Speaker 3: they still want to do something together.
Speaker 1: And so you circle.
Speaker 3: But I didn't do it for the right reasons at all.
Speaker 3: I took a year off. I could have written a
Speaker 3: great record in that year, but I was really too damaged.
Speaker 3: And this was right after also, like you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of people in my life had had just passed
Speaker 3: and I was just really messed up.
Speaker 2: Can I ask, Okay, so you said something in your book,
Speaker 2: So right now I'm working on two projects in which
Speaker 2: and let me start off by saying that, wait, that's it.
Speaker 3: Your only work on two projects? Was wrong with you?
Speaker 1: This two?
Speaker 3: You're in a good community member.
Speaker 2: This is two of the of the eleven I'm trying
Speaker 2: to whittle down to, you know, a simple one. So
Speaker 2: there's two projects I'm doing right now. They both require.
Speaker 2: The shortest way to put it is that both of
Speaker 2: them require for me to be the doctor Melfie to
Speaker 2: their tony soprano. Kind of the insane amount of trauma
Speaker 2: dumping I have to take on getting their stories. It
Speaker 2: got to the point where I, you know, had to
Speaker 2: get a second therapist. When you got to the part
Speaker 2: of the book when you're holding these meetings because you're
Speaker 2: not only producing and writing, but you're also teen rape
Speaker 2: counselor you're holding these feminist meetings to the point where
Speaker 2: even when you discover that there's trouble in Paradise in
Speaker 2: terms of white feminism, and you're putting on so many
Speaker 2: caps at the same time, what was the breaking point
Speaker 2: for you? And I'm only asking this because one.
Speaker 1: Of the subjects.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, Well, the thing is is that my
Speaker 2: version to know had less to do with like, I
Speaker 2: understand that there's some nos where no, we're too cool
Speaker 2: for school, we can't do that, But I also know
Speaker 2: that three years ago I had to discover boundaries. I
Speaker 2: thought being self sacrificing was like, oh, that a mirror
Speaker 2: he's he always works so hard. I got tired of
Speaker 2: being that person, you know, the self sacrificing person, never
Speaker 2: thinking of myself. Now, in one of these particular projects,
Speaker 2: the subject is similar to our story in terms of
Speaker 2: like leading a movement and sacrificing and sacrificing and sacrificing
Speaker 2: and what winds up happening is at the root of
Speaker 2: this particular person's story sort of lies an undealt with
Speaker 2: trauma with his parents, and this person kind of has
Speaker 2: a medical issue with their own life. And I'm always
Speaker 2: a believer that behind every medical issue is an emotional
Speaker 2: component that's not thought out or or dealt with. Could
Speaker 2: you talk about and you know, you're very open about
Speaker 2: the relationship with your father in the beginning years, And
Speaker 2: obviously I felt that your need to save people is
Speaker 2: you seeing yourself in you know, you want to save
Speaker 2: the version of you that wasn't didn't have a protector,
Speaker 2: didn't have someone to advocate for them.
Speaker 1: Yes, but at what point did you.
Speaker 2: Realize Now, the fact that you allowed love in your
Speaker 2: life via Adam was amazing because it took me five
Speaker 2: decades to get to that place. But at what point
Speaker 2: did self care become truly important to you? And that
Speaker 2: you had to what everything else is side? As far
Speaker 2: as like juggling twelve plates at the same time, you know,
Speaker 2: leading a movement, flyers meetings, teachers is unpaid teachers assistant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was that breaking point? Like for you?
Speaker 3: I can tell you the exact moment, Okay, Like it's
Speaker 3: it's so funny because while you're talking, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know the exact moment I was doing some work
Speaker 3: for a political organization around uh Freemuma Abujamal and I
Speaker 3: was working to help put on a concert and I
Speaker 3: got very, very sick. And this is when I was
Speaker 3: still living in Olympia and I was in Bikini Hill,
Speaker 3: so it was still nineties and I had a temperature
Speaker 3: that was like over one hundred and three and I
Speaker 3: really I ended up being hospitalized. And I had a
Speaker 3: like a you know, just a mattress on the floor.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what it was that like I
Speaker 3: thought to be like I thought people who had matt
Speaker 3: tress frames were. I was like why, you know, like
Speaker 3: when I look back on how many times I just
Speaker 3: like threw a mattress on the floor and like that
Speaker 3: was it? You know? I mean I was really I
Speaker 3: was that busy that I was like, you know the
Speaker 3: guy who just like any T shirt that's laying on
Speaker 3: the floor, I just like throw it on, right. Yeah. No,
Speaker 3: I mean there were times in my vand where one
Speaker 3: of us would shoke with lipstick on and be like,
Speaker 3: how did you have time to put that on? Because
Speaker 3: we were so busy. It was like, you know, you
Speaker 3: would sleep and then wake up and then start working
Speaker 3: in but I was laying on my mattress in my
Speaker 3: apartment and I had to crawl the bathroom because I
Speaker 3: was that sick. And my phone kept bringing and kept
Speaker 3: bring and kept bringing, and I had an answering machine
Speaker 3: at the time with the mini tape, and this woman
Speaker 3: from the political organization was like, you need to call
Speaker 3: me back. We need to get the sun, we need
Speaker 3: to get the stune. And I had already picked up
Speaker 3: and said, I have one hundred and three y tent
Speaker 3: and I'm really really sick, and she kept calling and
Speaker 3: calling and she was like, she screamed, I picked it up,
Speaker 3: and I was like, dude, I'm like really sick, Like
Speaker 3: I'm crawling to the bathroom and she's like, then, crawl
Speaker 3: to the fucking fact is I had a fax machine.
Speaker 3: Crawl to the fucking fax machine and facts. Eddie Vedder
Speaker 3: and Zach de Larocha was like, and you know what
Speaker 3: I did it.
Speaker 1: I crawled to the fax.
Speaker 3: Machine and not only did I fax them, I drew
Speaker 3: cute drawings on the facts. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like when you're doing something like as you're crawling and
Speaker 3: then you're getting out the sharpie and you're drawing the
Speaker 3: cute dog picture so that zach de l Rocha notices
Speaker 3: your facts. I'm like, this is you know. And then
Speaker 3: my mom ended up driving from Portland to come get
Speaker 3: me and taking me to the hospital and I was
Speaker 3: really really sick and I was hospitalized and it was
Speaker 3: a bad situation. And the other time it happened was
Speaker 3: when I've had a long term illness which I since
Speaker 3: recovered from, and that was like I was so driving
Speaker 3: at a thousand miles per hour with a break on
Speaker 3: in my life that my body was.
Speaker 1: Like gave out.
Speaker 3: My body was like my drenals were shot, everything was shot.
Speaker 3: I was having like seizures, like it was like really
Speaker 3: bad and when you're like kind of staring at death
Speaker 3: because it was at that point where it was like
Speaker 3: we didn't know what I had and I was really sick. Yes,
Speaker 3: I actually do have a verifiable by tests illness. I
Speaker 3: don't think it would have gotten as out.
Speaker 4: Of control as it did if I hadn't suppressed all
Speaker 4: of this trauma because my trauma body, you know, And
Speaker 4: I do have a theory and people will.
Speaker 3: Probably get mad about it or whatever, but about auto
Speaker 3: because it's autoimmunal oneness. It's like, I don't think people
Speaker 3: make up autoimmune oneness is. I don't think they're fake.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're in your head. But for me,
Speaker 3: my autoimmune oness was definitely made way worse by the
Speaker 3: fact that I completely ignored my body. But I lived
Speaker 3: in a state of hyper arousal from the time that
Speaker 3: I was a kid, Like I would look at my
Speaker 3: how my dad came into the house and be like,
Speaker 3: what's going to happen tonight.
Speaker 2: And adjust to yourself to the dude, and the.
Speaker 3: Same thing, you know, when when as a feminist musician,
Speaker 3: who would walk into a venue and have to deal
Speaker 3: with all these men and not have our own sound person,
Speaker 3: not have a tour manager, we had no one. We
Speaker 3: would have one roadie if that. So I would have
Speaker 3: to kind of, you know, select the d of all
Speaker 3: of these dudes emotionally or psychologically to get them to
Speaker 3: turn my sound up, you know, And it was kind
Speaker 3: And then I'd have an audience full of men who
Speaker 3: were like yelling, you man, hating bitch, you know, shut
Speaker 3: the fuck up, like whatever, and I'm like, I'm just
Speaker 3: I just want to be in a band. I just
Speaker 3: want to be in a band. I really love music.
Speaker 3: I just want to play music, and so dealing with
Speaker 3: that also made me walk into situations and be hyper aroused.
Speaker 3: Every time I would play a show, I'm looking for
Speaker 3: who has a glass or a bottle in their hand
Speaker 3: that they're going to throw at me, or chain or
Speaker 3: even a Setiger wineglass. You know, I had a wine
Speaker 3: glasser in at me and I was like, I could
Speaker 3: see it coming, but I'm really I hope somebody taped it,
Speaker 3: because do you know that really famous moment in that
Speaker 3: Bad Brains video where hr goes like that, it was
Speaker 3: like that, Yes, it was like that I did that,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, did anybody get that on camera? Because
Speaker 3: I really want to like put it next to HRS clip.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I was like in this total state of
Speaker 3: hyper arousal. And I really do feel like in a
Speaker 3: way because what my body does is if I get
Speaker 3: any kind of infection or sick, it goes to crazy,
Speaker 3: out of control fever, right, And it's almost like my
Speaker 3: body's in a state of hyper arousal. So it's like
Speaker 3: my body sees some cells in my body making a
Speaker 3: weird face and start my body starts freaking.
Speaker 1: Out and you're in a constant state of fight or flight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean, like I had to do nine
Speaker 3: months of IV therapy. This is actually real illness. And
Speaker 3: it's like I have quantifiable proof that I have it,
Speaker 3: so it's it's not all in my head. But there's
Speaker 3: a mind body connection. Who knew, you know, I've been
Speaker 3: living above my head for so long, you know, to
Speaker 3: avoid the trauma that is like residual, like leftover room
Speaker 3: and body. And something I have to say to you,
Speaker 3: my friend, because while you were talking, I thought of this.
Speaker 3: And I don't mean to psychoanalyze you, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to do it fucking anyway, because anybody who said that
Speaker 3: everyone do psychoanalyze you is about to psychoanalyze you. I
Speaker 3: think it's really interesting the when we started talking, you
Speaker 3: talked about your girlfriend, saying when are you going to
Speaker 3: write the real book and be vulnerable about your own life?
Speaker 3: And then you've gotten involved with these two projects where
Speaker 3: especially this one you're talking about, where someone has suppressed
Speaker 3: something that they need to deal with and they're trauma
Speaker 3: dumping on you and and and I know that they're
Speaker 3: probably a super amazing person, and it's not You're not
Speaker 3: saying that with anger or anything. It's like they're they're
Speaker 3: actually telling their lives.
Speaker 1: Oh no, the people I love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But like I think that that's really interesting and
Speaker 3: that it's something I relate to because you know, I
Speaker 3: wasn't getting help for the abuse that I'd suffered in
Speaker 3: my life, and it kind of went from my house
Speaker 3: to then you know, being raped in high school and
Speaker 3: you know, date rape. I mean, I don't know who
Speaker 3: wasn't date raped at some point in their lives, but
Speaker 3: you know, it's not a unique story. But it's like
Speaker 3: all of these different things happen. And then I have
Speaker 3: this job where I'm constantly sexually harassed and there's no HR.
Speaker 3: There's no HR in punk rock. Who am I going
Speaker 3: to call? You know what I mean? Like HR puff
Speaker 3: and stuff like who's going to help me? No one's
Speaker 3: going to help me? And so it's like I'm in
Speaker 3: a different work environment every day that's abusive, and I
Speaker 3: can't just be like, hey, can you move Bill's desk
Speaker 3: away from me? Because he keeps saying if I don't
Speaker 3: tell him if I'm married or single, he won't give
Speaker 3: me the report, which is what was happening to me
Speaker 3: where I had monitor. Guys wouldn't plug in my monitor
Speaker 3: unless I told them what my status was in terms
Speaker 3: of a man and yeah, and I'm like, why why
Speaker 3: does that? What does it have to do with my
Speaker 3: monitor situation? So I started bringing my own monitor and
Speaker 3: plugging it in myself. And these are extra things that
Speaker 3: people have to do who get treated poorly. And you
Speaker 3: know the other thing, though, I have to look back
Speaker 3: and be like, because of the particular time period and
Speaker 3: place I grew up in with the nineties kind of
Speaker 3: pure punk purist aesthetic, which I now am very critical
Speaker 3: of because I think a lot of it is very
Speaker 3: classist and it's very like upper white, middle class, like
Speaker 3: holier than now. And there's a lot of play. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's definitely a lot of cosplaying for and there's definitely like,
Speaker 3: you know, the Trustafarians at my school, Like there's just a.
Speaker 1: Lot of Trustians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an amazing Oh god, Yeah, I've never heard Okay.
Speaker 3: But you know what I'm talking about. The white guy
Speaker 3: with redlocks on the subway. I don't who's singing Marley songs.
Speaker 2: There's a schedule on SNL called ros that Andy Samberg
Speaker 2: did about Rastafarian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know many of those cats.
Speaker 2: I know many of those cats. So something happened that
Speaker 2: you're probably not even aware. It's ninety five, so and
Speaker 2: it's so weird at how our stories are intertwined. You know,
Speaker 2: we signed to DGC Geffen in ninety three, and this
Speaker 2: was like kind of the height and the madness of
Speaker 2: billions and billions and billions of dollars raked in from
Speaker 2: you know, post Guns n' Roses, residual post Aerosmith residual monies,
Speaker 2: and of course never Mind was just you know, that
Speaker 2: was the cherry on top. And what winds up happening
Speaker 2: is so Geffen doesn't have a black department, a black
Speaker 2: music division, and in the craziest kind of eleventh hour,
Speaker 2: one second left in the game, Hail Mary.
Speaker 3: Throw, I know this story, right, they.
Speaker 2: Offer this amount of money. Yeah, they offered this deal.
Speaker 2: But the most attractive part of this deal was the
Speaker 2: security part of it. And the security part was if
Speaker 2: we made one album, we would have to make the
Speaker 2: second and third album. If we made the fourth album,
Speaker 2: we'd have to make the fourth and the fifth album.
Speaker 1: Like we couldn't get dropped.
Speaker 2: Most most like rap groups have to prove out the Gate,
Speaker 2: you must have a hit single or else that's it.
Speaker 1: And so that's what attracted us.
Speaker 2: Between the period of December and April of ninety four,
Speaker 2: you know, we make this record, and you know, as
Speaker 2: we're talking to the guys that Geffen, you're Eddie Rosenblatz,
Speaker 2: you're Windy gold Scenes like the people that were our
Speaker 2: staff members, it became obvious that, you know, Guns n'
Speaker 2: Roses is not making a follow up record. So called
Speaker 2: Chinese Democracy is going to come any month. Now, Aerosmith
Speaker 2: leaves to go back to Sony and then April comes,
Speaker 2: and when Kirk leaves us, that's a panic signal to
Speaker 2: my manager, who says, I think the honeymoon's over and
Speaker 2: we have to make something happen. So this something straight
Speaker 2: out of a movie. We like, think of the chase
Speaker 2: scene and rest of our dogs. We basically kind of
Speaker 2: stole our budget money out of the bank. So we
Speaker 2: wind up moving in a panic move because we sense
Speaker 2: that their excitement of starting a black music department is
Speaker 2: going to drown out because three of their marquee artists
Speaker 2: are no longer in existence, and so.
Speaker 1: We moved to London and we fish out of water.
Speaker 1: We live in. We get a flat in London.
Speaker 2: And we work out the gym, and it takes about
Speaker 2: a good year and a half before Geffen kind of
Speaker 2: in a move that's sort of like they lost.
Speaker 1: Their keys, Like wait, what some Swiss hey?
Speaker 2: You know, Like literally it's like a year and a
Speaker 2: half later before they realized like, we're the fuck.
Speaker 1: Of the roots.
Speaker 3: They're in London right.
Speaker 2: And literally right before panic Hits were like, ah, look
Speaker 2: at all the press we got, like we did this.
Speaker 1: All on our own, and they were like, oh, you
Speaker 1: guys did all this.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, we got our own agent, and we
Speaker 2: got our own tour bus, and we got our own
Speaker 2: apartment and we just and that's all. We were like
Speaker 2: the black hip hop version of the Commitments. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you remember that movie.
Speaker 3: Were you were you working out the material for the
Speaker 3: album live before you recorded it, or were you doing
Speaker 3: it simultaneously.
Speaker 2: I mean, because we started off busking on the streets,
Speaker 2: we kind of knew the songs that were gonna wind
Speaker 2: up on the album, but we made the album. Uh.
Speaker 2: Literally the day that Kirk Loder reported the news of
Speaker 2: Kirk's death, my manager was like, yo, we got three
Speaker 2: days we're gonna in about three to five days.
Speaker 1: We made three videos.
Speaker 2: Shot the album cover, knocked out nine songs, like finished
Speaker 2: the record. We didn't want to get dropped from the
Speaker 2: label because like, we bet the farm on this moment,
Speaker 2: and they were impressed enough, and sure enough, as he predicted,
Speaker 2: they dropped the other eighteen acts.
Speaker 1: But they were like, well, the Roots already completed their record,
Speaker 1: so keep them. So wow.
Speaker 2: So you know, we we worked out in Europe for
Speaker 2: an entire year and they're like, okay, guys, you're eventually
Speaker 2: going to have to come back home. And it's like
Speaker 2: ninety five and we're going to do our first dates
Speaker 2: in the States. Start off in La go to San Francisco,
Speaker 2: work our way to Portland and fourth stop in Seattle
Speaker 2: and then Vancouver and after our Seattle show, like you know,
Speaker 2: in every band's history or their folklore, there's that one
Speaker 2: like crazy person that they meet, like their version of
Speaker 2: Large March from Pewee Herman, like someone just shifting. My
Speaker 2: manager gets on the bus the day that we leave
Speaker 2: for Vancouver is like, yo, man, I met the most
Speaker 2: craziest interesting and he goes.
Speaker 1: On and on and knowing and knowing about.
Speaker 2: He saw someone at that after you know, like we
Speaker 2: would do a show and then you know, we had
Speaker 2: critical buzz, so people are there to see and he
Speaker 2: gets invited to an after party where the other Seattle
Speaker 2: Luminaries are. He talks to you for about two hours
Speaker 2: and you tell him the whole story of what and
Speaker 2: this is ninety five, so everything that you've organized and whatever,
Speaker 2: and he was like whatever you told him. He's like, Yo,
Speaker 2: there needs to be a feminist movement. And I was like, huh,
Speaker 2: we're trying to get on MTV, Like why do we
Speaker 2: have to start a movie. He's like no, man, it's
Speaker 2: like you got to come out think outside the box.
Speaker 2: Like and I was like, what we're rap group? Like
Speaker 2: there's no women in our Like I could not fathom, Like, okay,
Speaker 2: so we're going to be a feminist band now, like
Speaker 2: how does that work in hip hop? Like even I
Speaker 2: was drinking the kool aid of what kind of what
Speaker 2: hip hop was supposed to be and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm thinking of self preservation. And he
Speaker 2: never lost that legal pad, like he wrote like a
Speaker 2: maniac everything you said. And sure enough, starting in ninety seven,
Speaker 2: the second time I had an interaction with you, the
Speaker 2: two commonalities of it. The thing that impressed him the
Speaker 2: most was that you had a plan, you executed the plan,
Speaker 2: and at both events you famously.
Speaker 1: Cussed out a.
Speaker 2: Figurehead rival of yours that we won't mention her name,
Speaker 2: you know, at both events. The first night he met
Speaker 2: you and then the second time I met you was
Speaker 2: our last day would tourn with the Beastie Boys and
Speaker 2: it's this outdoor. Yes, it wasn't bumpershoed, it wasn't the Gorge.
Speaker 2: It was basically the Beastie Boys, bad brains, the roots
Speaker 2: far side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was the night when I I didn't cuss out,
Speaker 3: but I basically, yeah, told them what Ricky Powell was
Speaker 3: doing behind their backs.
Speaker 2: Yo, when when I got to that from their lives
Speaker 2: and I saw you independent of and Rich was like,
Speaker 2: you remember what you remember from Seattle?
Speaker 3: On the phone? Rich and I used to talk on
Speaker 3: the phone. We were like phone friends. I don't remember
Speaker 3: the I don't remember the legal power or the first
Speaker 3: time we met or anything. I just remember that.
Speaker 1: We were because he would hang up and literally.
Speaker 3: Just I really know if he liked me like I
Speaker 3: thought he might like me. But it was like around
Speaker 3: the time when I was meeting Adam. I know he
Speaker 3: didn't like me, but I was kind of like, does
Speaker 3: he like me? Like because and then I was like,
Speaker 3: oh no, this is just a friendship, so sorry for
Speaker 3: your loss. But he was. He was great, and we
Speaker 3: had such amazing phone conversations and.
Speaker 1: It just like you gave us a blueprint. And so
Speaker 1: when we started just.
Speaker 3: Telling him record stores in Portland, I was like, I
Speaker 3: hope they went to that one record store.
Speaker 2: Oh well, you know, I'm I'm a constant record shopper,
Speaker 2: so I'm almost certain that I went to everywhere in
Speaker 2: Portland like Portland's I was my all time favorite place
Speaker 2: on Earth pre pandemic it was. But yeah, I'll say
Speaker 2: that talking us into being accessible, being community based, having
Speaker 2: jam sessions. At first it was the roots Jam session,
Speaker 2: and sure enough, you know, whenever the ladies in our
Speaker 2: circle wanted to get on the mic, it was like
Speaker 2: they would complaining that, you know, you guys are hogging
Speaker 2: up everything and we don't have our like where's our agency?
Speaker 2: And then we morphed it into what we now know
Speaker 2: is Black Lily, which of course was kind of the
Speaker 2: impetus of the spark that Finally, by our fourth album
Speaker 2: had caught on and started a movement. But you know,
Speaker 2: I never ever got to like thank you for kind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was like, I didn't even think you knew
Speaker 3: who I was. I was like, can I get on quest?
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't I feel like. I mean,
Speaker 3: we've run into each other, like he came to my
Speaker 3: movie thing, Like I think he's aware of me. But
Speaker 3: you just know so many people that I was like,
Speaker 3: we have friends in common. I was like, maybe if
Speaker 3: you say I'm married toad Rock. I was like, but yeah,
Speaker 3: the fact that you that you're.
Speaker 2: Aware even when I saw and you add together, like
Speaker 2: the various times I've run into you guys, I didn't
Speaker 2: want to freak you out because I was like, yo, dog,
Speaker 2: she doesn't even know.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I don't know these things, Like people will
Speaker 1: tell me things.
Speaker 2: Like you don't even realize that the time you blah
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah backed in ninety eight, Like now
Speaker 2: that's the part of long life that I'm getting. Where
Speaker 2: people from this college that apparently I did something for
Speaker 2: that you know, you gave me. There was one person
Speaker 2: that said, uh, I guess i'd for senior paper I
Speaker 2: talked to him for three hours and that wound up
Speaker 2: not only getting him an A, but that got him
Speaker 2: like hired at Lucasfilm like stuff that you're you're not
Speaker 2: aware of the residual effect. So I wanted to say
Speaker 2: this platform, No, I was highly aware of who you
Speaker 2: were and follows you throughout the the years, like literally
Speaker 2: you're you're the first. And I don't mean character in
Speaker 2: a reductive way, but you know, when we're arriving in
Speaker 2: Seattle after living in Europe and a John tirolta boy
Speaker 2: in a plastic bubble way like like I didn't meet
Speaker 2: a Wu Tang member until nineteen ninety nine. Like we
Speaker 2: were just we were very much hip hop, but we
Speaker 2: were just separated from what was happening between ninety three
Speaker 2: and ninety nine because we were living in Europe and
Speaker 2: on other tours that weren't hip hop related. And so
Speaker 2: finally using your your blueprint in terms of organizing a
Speaker 2: movement was how we finally like broke through to the
Speaker 2: other side. So you can add that feather to you, cap.
Speaker 3: I hope it didn't cause the problems that it for me,
Speaker 3: because I definitely took on too much, you know, and
Speaker 3: I've never listened to critics, Like I know you're somebody
Speaker 3: who like follows what critics say, and like you know,
Speaker 3: album and sales, and like, I feel really lucky that
Speaker 3: that was just never I came at music making as
Speaker 3: an art practice, like from my other art forms, so
Speaker 3: I had this real thing of like not protecting my creativity.
Speaker 3: But I feel very lucky. Like with one of the
Speaker 3: first questions you asked was like, you know, how did
Speaker 3: you write this book, and like what about the people
Speaker 3: in it? And like how are people? Were you worried
Speaker 3: how people are going to react? And it's like I
Speaker 3: didn't think about it, and like I tried. There's definitely
Speaker 3: been one album that I made that I was thinking
Speaker 3: about that and it was not good. And almost everything
Speaker 3: else I've just been like I'm just making the thing
Speaker 3: I want to make, Like I'm eitherre's something that I
Speaker 3: want to hear or there's something I want to read
Speaker 3: that isn't being written, And You're right, a lot of
Speaker 3: it ended up being I was writing to me when
Speaker 3: I was fifteen, as if I was the adult who
Speaker 3: was saying the things that I needed to hear, or
Speaker 3: I was saying the things that I needed to hear
Speaker 3: that would validate that I wasn't insane, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean that, like, actually the world's crazy and you're
Speaker 3: kind of okay. But it's really funny when your music
Speaker 3: catches up with your life, you know, and then you're
Speaker 3: actually writing about what's happening now and you're not still
Speaker 3: writing about you know, past stuff that you don't even
Speaker 3: know you're writing about. Until for me, you know, my
Speaker 3: band didn't play shows both my buns for like twenty years,
Speaker 3: and then we got back together, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I was like, I am the person that I wrote
Speaker 3: about wanting to be in this song right now, And
Speaker 3: I've realized what all these songs were actually about, and
Speaker 3: that they were about totally different things that I were about.
Speaker 3: You know, like before I ever came out of being
Speaker 3: having been been raped by a friend of mine while
Speaker 3: I was in Bikini Kill, and everybody thought I was.
Speaker 5: Like a strong, tough feminist and you know, I'm always
Speaker 5: like you know, yeapin and blah blah blah, and you
Speaker 5: cut some people out like whatever, But I also was
Speaker 5: actually assaulted by a close friend of mine during that time,
Speaker 5: like right before I went on.
Speaker 3: A really big tour, and the day before I went
Speaker 3: on tour, and what did I do? I played the shows,
Speaker 3: And I'm glad I did because I got to throw
Speaker 3: my whole body and my whole life story into every
Speaker 3: single night, and so I think that kept me alive. Honestly,
Speaker 3: it wasn't always me using it as a distraction, because
Speaker 3: everything else is a distraction in my life. But when
Speaker 3: I'm on stage, that's the main time that I'm a
Speaker 3: real person and that I am who I most really honestly,
Speaker 3: and I'm fully present and I'll bank like every other
Speaker 3: hour of my life just for that hour and a
Speaker 3: half or two hour time period, because to me, live
Speaker 3: performance is the main thing that I crave as a person.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I was going through that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: and like nobody knew about it, and I feel like
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell people because I didn't want the riot
Speaker 3: Gral people to come after him, because that just wasn't
Speaker 3: the story that I wanted. Like retribution for me holds
Speaker 3: no entry, and it's just taking me off with the
Speaker 3: path of what I want to make and I wasn't
Speaker 3: ready to deal with it, and so I just shut
Speaker 3: it off from my brain and I moved along and
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, my mission is more
Speaker 3: important than this person. But eventually it came back to
Speaker 3: bite me in the ass and I and it came
Speaker 3: to the fore and I had to deal with it
Speaker 3: and I had to process it. And you know, through
Speaker 3: doing that, that was when I finally fell in love
Speaker 3: with that. That's when I got my cat, David Sue Recipes.
Speaker 3: That's when I finally started.
Speaker 1: I bought a couch, Like I have never heard a
Speaker 1: cat a mattress, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like I had not only a mattress, but I had
Speaker 3: a couch too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're adulting. I have two questions to ask, okay.
Speaker 2: So one, you know, thank you for your your your
Speaker 2: honesty and sharing those stories in your book about your assault.
Speaker 2: Knowing what you know now and especially what's been happening
Speaker 2: in the last five years, is a part of you
Speaker 2: wishing that well, First of all, if you go back
Speaker 2: in time. Number one is hope that you never have
Speaker 2: to experience that ever.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the one particular story that you
Speaker 2: shared about, you know, having a conversation of vulnerability and
Speaker 2: you guys just sitting lying in the bed next to
Speaker 2: each other and talking, and that was the person that
Speaker 2: you trusted, and suddenly it just went.
Speaker 1: One to eighty the other way.
Speaker 2: And you know, as I'm reading this, I'm like, oh God, okay,
Speaker 2: is the rage going to happen?
Speaker 1: Here is it?
Speaker 2: And I understand letting him go, and I understand the
Speaker 2: entire ordeal of reliving that trauma through the legal system,
Speaker 2: and all that stuff was just whatever.
Speaker 3: I mean, I forgot it the second I left.
Speaker 2: Right the way that you painted it, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: she It was almost like a struggle.
Speaker 1: Oh no, big deal. Okay, well goodbye, see you later.
Speaker 2: Are you fine with the process of how you put
Speaker 2: that in your past?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I'm mad that he hasn't had to
Speaker 3: pay for my therapy because it keeps coming up. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, Jesus Christ, when will this person go away?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. It's not the person, it's
Speaker 3: like the abuse of trust. And you know, I was
Speaker 3: also at a place in my life where like I
Speaker 3: needed to find a good man. I needed to find
Speaker 3: a man in my life who was a feminist and
Speaker 3: who read books about it and cared about it. To
Speaker 3: prove to me, I've been so disappointed by so many
Speaker 3: men in my life who i'd gotten close to. Like
Speaker 3: I had for a lot of my life a lot
Speaker 3: of guy friends, and I hung out with guys, and
Speaker 3: I was like the kind of person who was like,
Speaker 3: let's go, you know, break bottles down by the railroad track. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: let's go. Yeah, let's go break into the you know,
Speaker 3: the old prison and you know, smoke pot like stuff
Speaker 3: like that. And so I have these guy friends and
Speaker 3: like the second I wouldn't have a boyfriend, they'd be like, okay,
Speaker 3: let's have sex, and I'd be like, I don't like
Speaker 3: you like that. And then it'd be like, you know,
Speaker 3: either stock er behavior, they're really mad, they're ego is bruises,
Speaker 3: this whole thing, and I was like, god, this is
Speaker 3: so awful. And so I thought I finally thought I
Speaker 3: met this guy who was you know, he's so smart
Speaker 3: and we're like, you know, Briny Angela Davis books together
Speaker 3: and like talking about it and I'm like, this guy's
Speaker 3: so cool. And then he hands up sexually as salting me.
Speaker 3: And I was like the fact that I could ever
Speaker 3: trust anybody again in my life, but you know, is
Speaker 3: kind of like I feel like I'm a walking miracle.
Speaker 2: So well, part two of my question is how did
Speaker 2: you allow yourself the space to open your heart to Adam?
Speaker 2: And kind of part three of that question is behind
Speaker 2: every punk persona is there a cheese ball?
Speaker 1: Because the fact that because the fact that.
Speaker 2: You are corny right now got well, the thing was,
Speaker 2: you gave yourself away with Donnie Marie.
Speaker 1: I fell into you backwards, right your persona.
Speaker 3: You started with Donnie Marie.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I fell into you backwards. And
Speaker 1: so then when I started reading the pool.
Speaker 2: You're us weekly stars are just like us moment, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, she lived for Donnie Marie on Friday
Speaker 2: nights like I did, like me and my sister did
Speaker 2: on Friday nights.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: So no, but the fact that your go to thought
Speaker 2: was Okay, I need a mattress and I need peanut
Speaker 2: butter and jelly, and like I was like yeah, And
Speaker 2: behind every punk persona is a cheese ball.
Speaker 1: And you brought this poster and oh, Dolk and Mike.
Speaker 3: I couldn't make up. So the story is, I can
Speaker 3: tell it from the book just so you know, is
Speaker 3: that I was in love with Adam. I brought Corvi.
Speaker 3: It's from Dusty Boys, and it was pre Internet, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't just look up a picture of him to
Speaker 3: drive apart because we were apart because he lived in
Speaker 3: LA and New York and I lived in Olympia, Washington.
Speaker 3: So I went to the Sam Goodie at the mall.
Speaker 3: I couldn't go to the cool record store.
Speaker 1: I shopped at Sam Goodies.
Speaker 3: Well, you're from Philly. Did they have Waxy Maxis?
Speaker 1: No, because the first the.
Speaker 3: First single I ever bought was pop Music by m
Speaker 3: at Waxy Maxie, and I always loved that name. I
Speaker 3: was like, if I ever started a record store, I'm
Speaker 3: my name of Waxy Maxis. Anyways, I went to like
Speaker 3: Sam Goodie at the mall because I was like, nobody
Speaker 3: will recognize me. It was like the punk like in
Speaker 3: you know, nose and glasses, sneaking into Sam Goodie instead
Speaker 3: of the store.
Speaker 1: On Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Nobody will see me at the mall because like it's
Speaker 3: a small town. Like seriously. Anytime I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: had a relationship with somebody, everybody knew because we all
Speaker 3: lived in the same apartment building. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I saw so and So leaving her apartment you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like that is how every everybody knew everything,
Speaker 3: Like you couldn't. You had to like go into a
Speaker 3: coffee shop five minutes after somebody, so they didn't know
Speaker 3: you were together. Like it was like we lived in
Speaker 3: paparazzi land, even though we were like, you know, just
Speaker 3: kids in like this kind of town run by punks.
Speaker 3: It was pretty amazing to live in a town that
Speaker 3: had it done town. But that's a whole other thing.
Speaker 3: So I go drive to the mall, I get my
Speaker 3: poster of the Beastie Boys, and I'm so psyched that
Speaker 3: I get to look at the most handsome man. And
Speaker 3: this is this is when you were saying, how did
Speaker 3: you manage to open up your heart after these bad
Speaker 3: experiences to this person. I like pretty boys. I just
Speaker 3: like pretty boys. I like pretty girls too, but I
Speaker 3: like pretty boys. And he is a very pretty boy.
Speaker 3: And also he loves records and he loves music. And
Speaker 3: he's very different from me and compliments me like he's
Speaker 3: I'm more like that, I don't know, you know, like
Speaker 3: like the feminist art, you know, person or like whatever.
Speaker 3: And he's much more reserved. But he is funny as hell.
Speaker 3: He is so funny, and that is just the sexiest.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's good looking, and he's funny, and he
Speaker 3: likes good records. Because I have had one night chance
Speaker 3: with people and I've looked at their collection or their CD.
Speaker 1: Collection, you're that person you judge people.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but if I find out Dave Matthews CD.
Speaker 3: I slept with this girl and I woke up in
Speaker 3: the morning and she had like Dave Matthews and like,
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: Like Matthews, I am.
Speaker 3: I was like no. I was just like no, and
Speaker 3: I and I ghosted her. I was like, I.
Speaker 1: Can't, you're that person.
Speaker 3: I bought the poster and I brought it home to
Speaker 3: my apartment and I made out with it. I made
Speaker 3: out with it. I kissed the poster all over and
Speaker 3: I covered Mike and Yowk's faces. That was weird. I
Speaker 3: was like, your bandmates are watching me make out with
Speaker 3: you you And then he found it when he came
Speaker 3: to my apartment and he's like, what's how come the
Speaker 3: mouth it's all mestered right out of like, let's water
Speaker 3: on it. Yeah, it's fair.
Speaker 1: That's the most of romantic story I've ever heard.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing though, I.
Speaker 2: Used to be used to be well, not steel amb
Speaker 2: I was a member of Columbia House. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 2: was also a lazy member of Columbia House. And the
Speaker 2: way that Columbia House works, of course is yes, for
Speaker 2: those that are listening to our show that were born
Speaker 2: before nineteen ninety three, you didn't.
Speaker 3: Go to school in a pioneer buggy wagon, right.
Speaker 2: So Columbia House was the original Spotify where they would
Speaker 2: entice you in magazines and whatnot. For a penny, you
Speaker 2: get fifteen free albums and then you're instantly signing.
Speaker 1: Up for a subscription service throughout the year. And the
Speaker 1: deal with is that they will send you two.
Speaker 2: To eight records a month based on your taste and
Speaker 2: the algorithm, and if you like the records that you're getting,
Speaker 2: then they just charge you and keep on charging you.
Speaker 2: If you don't like it, you can return it, but
Speaker 2: they're kind of banking on you forgetting to return it.
Speaker 2: And so as a result, which the lazy part comes
Speaker 2: into play because I checked off, I like all types
Speaker 2: of music. I will say that a big part of
Speaker 2: my you eyebrow raising judging me for my record collection
Speaker 2: stems from all the records I didn't return from Columbia House,
Speaker 2: and I would just force myself to listen. I think
Speaker 2: between like twelve Wait a minute, I don't believe.
Speaker 1: That for a minute.
Speaker 2: All right, spew right now five records between twelve and
Speaker 2: seventeen that you wouldn't want any of your friends to
Speaker 2: know that you listen to they.
Speaker 1: Tell the truth.
Speaker 3: It's all. It's all before that, because I mean, by the.
Speaker 2: Time if you watch Donny Marie, I know, but.
Speaker 3: But I'm proud of my Olbinaton John thing. So I
Speaker 3: had totally hot, wait, totally hot.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say totally hot hot.
Speaker 2: Xanadu or like which which car hot totally we all
Speaker 2: felt for totally hot.
Speaker 3: I literally carried it to camp without the vinyl in it,
Speaker 3: so the vinyl didn't get hurt. I just carried the
Speaker 3: and I slept with it under my pillow.
Speaker 2: First fist fight I got into with Mark Rapp in
Speaker 2: the third grade.
Speaker 1: The way that I could get under his skin.
Speaker 2: Was okay, this is like in the video game era,
Speaker 2: where you could write out something longer than three initials
Speaker 2: if you get the high score.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, well I was are.
Speaker 2: Asked, right, but then it was one particular game that
Speaker 2: let you have like twenty characters, and the sure fire
Speaker 2: away to get under Mark's skin was to write Olivia sucks.
Speaker 2: I mean I would spelling it out and he's like,
Speaker 2: if you press into I swear a mirror and run.
Speaker 1: My That was daily.
Speaker 2: But yeah, for Christmas, I remember, Yeah, she had like
Speaker 2: a commercial campaign with the black leather jacket and all
Speaker 2: that shit.
Speaker 3: It was like Sandy from Greece continued.
Speaker 1: Right exactly the same outfit. So yeah, it was so good.
Speaker 3: I had a fancy called Destination Olivia and then there
Speaker 3: we had a party around it to celebrate its lunch,
Speaker 3: and it was a jone Jet versus Olivia and John
Speaker 3: party and you had.
Speaker 1: Joined it or you made the fanzine.
Speaker 3: I made the fancine called the Station Olivia, and then
Speaker 3: a bunch of girls in my town were like, we're
Speaker 3: going to throw this party that is jone Jet versus Olivia,
Speaker 3: and so everybody dressed it's either Joan or Olivia.
Speaker 2: So you're basically it was so and a lot of
Speaker 2: people were Lingerie for now an a win tour of
Speaker 2: music fanzines because you know, like the BC Boys taught
Speaker 2: me everything. I know that I still utilized now in
Speaker 2: my career, even with me creating an OK player and
Speaker 2: being on the internet, Like everything that I implement now
Speaker 2: is from those two months of touring with those guys,
Speaker 2: especially with getting Grand Royal. Probably, like one of my
Speaker 2: prize possessions is that I have ten copies of every
Speaker 2: Grand Royal ever published somewhere in my storage unit. But
Speaker 2: for you talk about the publisher in you, like you
Speaker 2: putting these fanzines together, you putting and I don't mean
Speaker 2: high school, I'm talking about even in your career. How
Speaker 2: do you have the energy to even do that in
Speaker 2: addition to being an artist.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, when you're in your twenties, it's
Speaker 3: not that big big deal, like and when you live
Speaker 3: in a small town, there was nothing going on. Like
Speaker 3: we were bored kids, and we were really lucky that
Speaker 3: at the time Heroin wasn't around. So yeah, we drank forties,
Speaker 3: but like, and I may have drank too many forties
Speaker 3: a few many times.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 3: You know, it was like something to do. So I
Speaker 3: was just like, you know, I was also like really
Speaker 3: stressed out a lot about stuff. And you know when
Speaker 3: you first become a feminist or you first become conscious
Speaker 3: about just like marginalization and oppression and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Everywhere you look. It's tough for myself. Everywhere I looked,
Speaker 3: I was like, there it is there, it is there,
Speaker 3: it is. I was like, oh my god, this movie
Speaker 3: is so messed up. Like my mind was kind of
Speaker 3: exploding when I was in my twenties with like all
Speaker 3: the stuff I was learning about, like oh wow, you know,
Speaker 3: this is how this group of people is being treated,
Speaker 3: and this is like to keep these people down so
Speaker 3: that they're workers and they don't you know, and I
Speaker 3: was like whoa, you know, kind of freaking out. And
Speaker 3: so fancines were real outlet for me to write poetically
Speaker 3: about that stuff and to be creative about it and
Speaker 3: to sort of like have it like go through the
Speaker 3: computer of my brain and then come out the other
Speaker 3: side as a way for me to talk about it.
Speaker 3: And also, you know, me and my sister were the
Speaker 3: first people in my family, like my mom and I
Speaker 3: didn't go to college, so like we got to go
Speaker 3: to college, and I was like so thrilled, Like I
Speaker 3: felt like I was so lucky I got to be there,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to, you know, waste it, and
Speaker 3: so I had this real yearning to like the first
Speaker 3: time I read a Bell Hooks book, I wanted to
Speaker 3: share it with my mom, you know, and it was
Speaker 3: like I wanted to share it with other people in
Speaker 3: my family. And so writing these fanzines was also a
Speaker 3: way that I could share the books I was reading
Speaker 3: in college that back then there was no internet, so
Speaker 3: it was a way to put booklists. It was a
Speaker 3: way to talk about the issues that were coming up
Speaker 3: in books I was reading with other people who maybe
Speaker 3: weren't going to college, because the majority of the punk
Speaker 3: scene in Olympia weren't at Evergreen. Like Evergreen that was
Speaker 3: the college that was in my town that I went to,
Speaker 3: and that's why I moved there to Olympia, Washington and
Speaker 3: Evergreen State College, and but most of the punks didn't
Speaker 3: go to that college. They were just like lived in
Speaker 3: the town, you know. So it was like to be
Speaker 3: able to talk about feminism with everybody, not just people
Speaker 3: who were in college, and actually people in my college.
Speaker 3: There was like one feminist class that I took. People
Speaker 3: think it was like this big feminist outbed, but it
Speaker 3: was actually really frowned upon. And when I tried to
Speaker 3: put feminist ideas into my photography. It was like, shut
Speaker 3: the fuck up. So to be able to put that
Speaker 3: out into the world and have people respond to it's
Speaker 3: really important. And you know, when Kurt died, you guys were,
Speaker 3: you know, scrambling to you know, get your record done
Speaker 3: and make sure your contract was shut up. And I
Speaker 3: was writing a fancy called The April Fool's Day about
Speaker 3: quitting drinking. And I was interviewing my friend Mikey's bass
Speaker 3: player Bryan Sparhawk, who I actually just saw him when
Speaker 3: we got the key to the city in Olympia.
Speaker 1: Now you're the establishment a.
Speaker 3: Month ago, I know. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 3: does this mean I can get into the Governor's Inn,
Speaker 3: which is like the local hotels? Can I just use
Speaker 3: this key?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: But no, it was like I was interviewing, you know,
Speaker 3: my friend Mikey also he was Kirk's front and he
Speaker 3: was a heroin user, and I was trying to do
Speaker 3: everything I could to talk about addiction in the punk
Speaker 3: scene and to raise awareness and to try to like
Speaker 3: make Kurt's death mean something, you know, because like I can't.
Speaker 3: I couldn't. That's how I deal with things. I'm like,
Speaker 3: this has to mean, something like this has to this
Speaker 3: horrible feeling I'm feeling. How can I channel it into
Speaker 3: something that is not going to push me down a
Speaker 3: bad road and it is going to make me feel
Speaker 3: like I'm a part of something positive, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? And like I didn't want his death to
Speaker 3: just be oh to member of the twenty seven club,
Speaker 3: Like there were people in my community who were going
Speaker 3: further down the drug road because he had died, and
Speaker 3: they were really depressed, And how could I be a
Speaker 3: part of just starting a conversation? And so I did
Speaker 3: that through a fancy you know that most people don't
Speaker 3: have because it's not a print.
Speaker 2: But what I was going to ask, do you least
Speaker 2: have the master copies?
Speaker 3: It fails. It's like an archive f and white Youth boast.
Speaker 1: So they're somewhere preserved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're right across the street from Washington Store Park
Speaker 3: in that library.
Speaker 1: Where do you currently reside now.
Speaker 3: Pasadena, California?
Speaker 1: Really? Yeah?
Speaker 3: My mom moved here because she liked that song A
Speaker 3: Little Old Lady from Pasadena.
Speaker 1: I see.
Speaker 3: I was like, why did you play Pasadena? She's like,
Speaker 3: I almost like that little Old Lady from Pasadena song?
Speaker 3: I was like she's like, I'm a old lady now,
Speaker 3: so I'm a little old lady in Pasadena.
Speaker 2: I lived there for my mom's side of the family
Speaker 2: lived out there, so wow, yeah briefly. Wow, that's where
Speaker 2: my mother's side of the family lived.
Speaker 1: Now I want to.
Speaker 2: Ask de wee questions, what shows are you currently binging?
Speaker 2: I'm getting something cheesy out of you if it's not
Speaker 2: your record collection.
Speaker 3: I mean I binged Hacks, I binged Girls five Ever.
Speaker 1: I think it's so funny, it's hilarious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but actually I think it's called Stars. There's this
Speaker 3: other one that's about a girl group that happened before,
Speaker 3: and it's got like Brandy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Stars, but that was only two seasons of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so but it's like prototype Girls five ever.
Speaker 3: But it just didn't it didn't go hard comedy. It
Speaker 3: meant it went more like so.
Speaker 1: Was sincere right, Yeah it had it was.
Speaker 3: It's actually a really, really, really funny show. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean Brandy, do you know wrong?
Speaker 1: I just my favorite harmony stacker of the nineties.
Speaker 3: Yes, incredible, but yeah, it's like it's like chock full
Speaker 3: of literal stars. But it's also about like a nineties,
Speaker 3: kind of like rap singing group that gets back together
Speaker 3: when they're like older and having relationships and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So I just I binge that, but it ended. That's
Speaker 3: the problem with benching things is that then you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: I'll never find out what happened.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I'm that way with Detroiters.
Speaker 3: We just started watching that dude before.
Speaker 2: I loved him, and I'm happy for his ammy success
Speaker 2: with his Netflix show now, but Detroitters. I called Jason
Speaker 2: Sadekas at least once a month to beg him to
Speaker 2: bring that show back.
Speaker 1: He's one of the producers of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so there's a couple's question, what is your ideal
Speaker 2: bedroom temperature? I learned in the Pandemic that a couple
Speaker 2: must be equal, yoked in agreement how they want the
Speaker 2: bedroom temperature.
Speaker 3: Eighty three?
Speaker 1: You're Africa hot. You and I are the same person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, eighty three. And Adam's fine with whatever. But my kid,
Speaker 3: because it runs on the same thing. Our kid likes
Speaker 3: it to be freezing cold. He wants it to be
Speaker 3: eighty degrees.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've probably some of the harshest arguments I've had in
Speaker 2: a relationship starts with the temperature.
Speaker 3: Are you going through menopause? Maybe that's it.
Speaker 1: I think I am obviously I am. I think I am. Okay,
Speaker 1: are you a text? Cold call or FaceTime? Person?
Speaker 3: Text? Okay, text and FaceTime, but I faced on my
Speaker 3: mom like only only my mom and Adam, do you am?
Speaker 3: I do Marco Polo with my.
Speaker 2: Friends really just out of nowhere, like you know, they're
Speaker 2: in the shower somewhere, like inconvenient.
Speaker 1: Is that? What is marco polo?
Speaker 3: Oh? So marco polo is where you leave a video,
Speaker 3: so like when it's convenient to me, it's like FaceTime,
Speaker 3: but it's like when it's convenient to me. So it's
Speaker 3: like me and my friend Jim or my friend Kathy,
Speaker 3: like we leave and my friend Dusty we leave like
Speaker 3: videos for each other on this thing called Marco polo.
Speaker 3: So it's like I'll just be doing something and I'm
Speaker 3: backstage and I'm able to talk because I'm not on
Speaker 3: vocal rest, and this is like my ten minutes of
Speaker 3: time that I can talk. So like just here's where
Speaker 3: I am, and here's what's going on. I miss you,
Speaker 3: what's going on in Alaska? Like whatever? And then when
Speaker 3: they feel like it, they leave me one back and
Speaker 3: then I get to check it and I will get
Speaker 3: these like new Marco Polos every day and I can
Speaker 3: check it at my convenience. I just didn't add for
Speaker 3: Marco Polo, so I should get like a million dollars.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Marco Polo.
Speaker 2: I thought you meant Marco Polo as in you just ambush.
Speaker 1: So I thought like it was like the three in
Speaker 1: the morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, But that's the cool thing is that
Speaker 3: you can just leave the video at in the morning,
Speaker 3: if that's why you're feeling like doing it. Like I
Speaker 3: can't call my've all my three in the morning. Oh,
Speaker 3: I just opened her house because she lives five blocks away.
Speaker 3: I literally don't face on my mom anymore because I
Speaker 3: just walk over to her house.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: My mom will call me at any she doesn't understand
Speaker 2: the word no, or I'm working or I'm taping live
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: I'll call you after I'm done taping.
Speaker 3: Like she's sitting just at a frame.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, Like you see her her nostrils as she's
Speaker 2: like she just got an iPhone.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's that person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I talked to my mom's crown molding a lot
Speaker 3: on FaceTime. I'm like, there you go, Mom, Really you're
Speaker 3: crowme molding. That's really great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds about right. When's the last time you've
Speaker 2: been starstruck?
Speaker 1: God?
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't really, Like all my friends are
Speaker 3: like nurses and teachers, so like, I don't really we
Speaker 3: don't really run in celebrity circles so much.
Speaker 1: Person that you meant that you're like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Leslie gooor. I met at a party at
Speaker 3: Evensler's house, so Evansler wrote Vagina Monologues. Yeah, and her
Speaker 3: apartment when I went to it, and this is many
Speaker 3: years ago in New York, was painted all red and
Speaker 3: all the furniture was red. I mean it was like
Speaker 3: it's like it's a TV show that rates itself right,
Speaker 3: Like I was. I was like, no, this is so great.
Speaker 3: But it was like every like kind of feminist luminary
Speaker 3: was there and like this, you know, celebrating this activist
Speaker 3: who had just gotten let out of jail after forty years.
Speaker 3: And it was like this big thing and like everybody
Speaker 3: was there and I was back to back with this
Speaker 3: woman and then we turned around and I looked at
Speaker 3: her and I just was like Leslie Gore, and I
Speaker 3: could barely get it out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: And then I just fully met her at a party.
Speaker 3: I met her at a party in a red apartment
Speaker 3: where everything was red, like we were inside a vagina.
Speaker 3: And then I looked at her and I I was
Speaker 3: just I was sobbing and I couldn't get a word out,
Speaker 3: and I'm just bab I love Leslie Bore. I loved
Speaker 3: Leslie Gore since I was a child. Her voice is
Speaker 3: so amazing to me. It's got that like clear as
Speaker 3: a bell kind of quality to it. And I always
Speaker 3: was like, there's something underneath the lyrics going on, There's
Speaker 3: something underneath the lyrics going on. And it turns out
Speaker 3: she was gay. I didn't know that, and yeah, and
Speaker 3: her and her girlfriend were at the party, and I
Speaker 3: was like, I knew it, but you know, her and
Speaker 3: her brother wrote out here on my own k yes,
Speaker 3: and I sang that. I went on stage at a
Speaker 3: high school dance in seventh grade with this girl, Jeanie Staver,
Speaker 3: and this other girl and we took parts singing that
Speaker 3: like we kind of like we made it into a trio.
Speaker 2: Who got the bridge? That's the hard part oh, I did,
Speaker 2: come on, that's.
Speaker 3: The whole thing to get the bridge. But then I
Speaker 3: thought like, I was like, you and your brother wrote
Speaker 3: that song because I interviewed her for Miss magazine after
Speaker 3: I after I stopped crying, I was like, I want to,
Speaker 3: you know, do something with you.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't know she wrote that yeah, oh damn okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was like, that's so weird because I
Speaker 3: always felt such a connection with that song. And you know,
Speaker 3: Coco the character, I mean, fame was everything, you know
Speaker 3: when I was young, like that movie in Greece. I
Speaker 3: was always like, when Beyonce first came on the scene,
Speaker 3: I was like, they have to do a hip hop
Speaker 3: Grease remake with Beyonce because she's so she'd be so
Speaker 3: good as Sandy.
Speaker 2: But it never happened, and well, they know, they kind
Speaker 2: of almost did. They remade a hip hop version of Carmen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Grease the movie with modern stars.
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to tell me that you
Speaker 2: were a Grease too person, not a Grease one person.
Speaker 3: Okay. I do like that song. I don't believe I
Speaker 3: want to cuckol Cucko, right, it's got one good song.
Speaker 3: It's terrible it's terrible.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm glad you're saying that it's terrible. Grease two.
Speaker 2: People will argue be in the ground that they liked
Speaker 2: Grease two better than Grease one.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a lie, that's a lie. That's just like
Speaker 3: they're just lying to their debtrarians.
Speaker 2: I liked your first album better, or I like the
Speaker 2: demo better than Okay, that's what I thought you were.
Speaker 3: I'm always like that, Like I'm like somebody was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: Liz Fair and you know Exile and Guida, and I
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, but when she was girly Sounds and
Speaker 3: it was on a cassette, it was so much better.
Speaker 1: I called this.
Speaker 5: I remember meeting Liz Fair at a show at a
Speaker 5: Babes and Twillan show, and she told me she was
Speaker 5: writing a response to the Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street,
Speaker 5: which is one of my.
Speaker 3: Favorite Stones albums. And I was like so blown away
Speaker 3: because I was a huge Stones fan when I was younger.
Speaker 3: I guess that's my embarrassing theme, Like right, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not embarrassing. I was huge, huge, huge into the
Speaker 3: Stones to the point I was going to get like
Speaker 3: the lips tattooed once at a party and I was like,
Speaker 3: so glad I didn't. And then when I kind of
Speaker 3: like started learning about feminism, and I was like ooh,
Speaker 3: under my thumb, brown sugar, oh you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like I was like, this is there's a lot of
Speaker 3: sexism and racism going on in here. And I was
Speaker 3: just like this is not cool. And I literally took
Speaker 3: and I mean now, of course, as a record colicker,
Speaker 3: I don't even want to tell you this, but I
Speaker 3: had like you know, Japanese pressings, and like I had
Speaker 3: a stack this big, all this kind stuff. I went
Speaker 3: down to the record store and I set it on
Speaker 3: the desk and I just was like have it.
Speaker 1: He gave him back.
Speaker 3: I just know there from all over the place. I
Speaker 3: just was like, I was like, I can't have this
Speaker 3: in my house, Like it was contraband, like what is
Speaker 3: wrong with me?
Speaker 2: Like because you think someone's going to the collection and
Speaker 2: judge you.
Speaker 3: No, it was because like I couldn't physically have it
Speaker 3: in my house because it made me so disgusted that
Speaker 3: I loved it so much. And then I was like
Speaker 3: so disappointed and I realized I was so sad and
Speaker 3: I was so upset. I couldn't look at it because
Speaker 3: it made me nuts, and so I just like dropped
Speaker 3: it on. I lived above a record store, so I
Speaker 3: dropped it in the record store and just gave that
Speaker 3: to them as a present to sell. And it was
Speaker 3: just like I don't even want any money for it,
Speaker 3: but like now I can see gray area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, even the most righteous person, I
Speaker 2: think five percent of their record collection, oh yeah, is
Speaker 2: allowed a problematic faith as long as it's not there
Speaker 2: are some of that.
Speaker 3: I just can't because I can't because it's just like
Speaker 3: I physically feel ill. But it's like you know exact mean,
Speaker 3: you know I love music too much that it's not
Speaker 3: all of a sudden gonna make me do something horrible
Speaker 3: if I listen to it, you know what I.
Speaker 1: Mean, Like you got to be but you're aware of
Speaker 1: it now. But oh I think you see you threw
Speaker 1: that away. I was like, no, don't ever throw Oh.
Speaker 3: No, I would never throw vine normal way.
Speaker 1: God, Okay, what is your secret talent?
Speaker 3: I mean I can put my whole fist in my mouth.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a secret talent.
Speaker 2: Small hands or not, I'm gonna ask you. And this
Speaker 2: is subjective. Is the grass greener on the other side.
Speaker 2: Oh are you insatiable?
Speaker 3: You mean like that I want more, more and more
Speaker 3: and more all the time.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I mean my grass greener on the other
Speaker 2: side was okay. So back in our grateful dead jam
Speaker 2: ban two hundred days on the year life, to tell
Speaker 2: me that we're going to Europe for another two months
Speaker 2: was like I'd rather slit my wrists, and God if
Speaker 2: you hear me, Like, can I stay in one place
Speaker 2: and not have to tour ever again and make the
Speaker 2: same mone?
Speaker 1: And then you get it, and now it's like I.
Speaker 2: Would do anything, oh yeah, to go back on the road.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've only been home a month, Like
Speaker 3: I just got off the road. So I came home
Speaker 3: and I was just like, I.
Speaker 2: Hate it here, even doing what I perceived to be
Speaker 2: a victory lap for you.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a victory lab at all. It felt better
Speaker 3: than it felt. I mean, I'm singing.
Speaker 1: Better, Well, that's a victory lab.
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying. Yeah, I'm enjoying the songs. I don't I
Speaker 3: can close my eyes and feel myself in the music
Speaker 3: and not have to look to see if somebody's throwing
Speaker 3: something at me. We have a sound person. We have
Speaker 3: a manager. I mean that's the one when you're talking
Speaker 3: about like going back and what could you what would
Speaker 3: you tell yourself or if you saw the future, like whatever,
Speaker 3: I would tell myself, like get a sound person right away,
Speaker 3: like this. This needs to be a member of your
Speaker 3: This is a member of your band.
Speaker 1: Like oh, the engineer is important.
Speaker 3: That's how people have a sound person. You can't go
Speaker 3: I can't have a man who doesn't like my politics,
Speaker 3: literally controlling my voice like it's just it's it's crazy
Speaker 3: making you can't live that way as as an artist,
Speaker 3: like with the particular kind of like athletic singing that
Speaker 3: I do. And so yeah, I would I would say, also, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe you should get a manager. I wish
Speaker 3: I have known about those jobs sooner and have more education.
Speaker 3: And I think that the internet was around, I would
Speaker 3: have known about that stuff. And maybe you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of stress came in our band and Bikini Kill
Speaker 3: because we didn't have a manager. And so people go
Speaker 3: to the lead singer, and then I would bring stuff
Speaker 3: into the band and I would be like the bearer
Speaker 3: of bad tidings, you know what I mean, I'd be
Speaker 3: the one in practice, who's like, hey, before everybody leaves,
Speaker 3: I have these ten questions, right, And then I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, because the manager, there's always a point where
Speaker 3: you're rolling your eyes at your mand You're like, God,
Speaker 3: if you asked me to do one more thing, it's
Speaker 3: not their fault. But at the same time, you're like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to do that interviewer. I don't want it,
Speaker 3: you know, like I don't want to do another photo shoot,
Speaker 3: or they don't have any clothes that fit me, like
Speaker 3: you know, like I'm just not in the mood. I
Speaker 3: don't want to be looked at, you know whatever. But
Speaker 3: I do have that thing of like the first day
Speaker 3: after tour, I'm like so happy I don't have soundcheck.
Speaker 3: Like I wake up and I'm like, oh, I don't.
Speaker 1: Have a sound check today, line check.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so happy I don't have a soundcheck.
Speaker 3: And then I'm like, oh no, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: get that. I'm not going to get the dopamine and
Speaker 3: the adrenaline rush of being on stage and the community
Speaker 3: filling and I'm just going to like go get my
Speaker 3: windshield fixed today. And I'm like I can't live my
Speaker 3: life this way. But now I'm like settling in and
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, I have ten other projects that
Speaker 3: I have to get to work on, and so I'm
Speaker 3: really busy.
Speaker 2: So this is one area that I see a lot
Speaker 2: of my peers failing spectacularly in, which is if you're
Speaker 2: known as a rebel and you've been here long enough
Speaker 2: walking a path, the path that you made, what happens
Speaker 2: once there's no more struggle? Like do you feel comfortable
Speaker 2: if it's just you and the songs?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Like if there's not something to rebel or fight against.
Speaker 2: I think what's problematic right now, especially politically with a
Speaker 2: lot of my peers that are my age that you
Speaker 2: would hope kind of step to the plate or at
Speaker 2: least live up to the idea of what I thought
Speaker 2: they were when I was listening to them at eighteen
Speaker 2: or nineteen.
Speaker 1: But I realized that, oh, well.
Speaker 2: None of them are going to stand on the political
Speaker 2: rights side of history because that would ruin their brand.
Speaker 2: So I know, on my side of the fence, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of cats that are thinking of brand preservation, Like,
Speaker 2: what does it look like me complying with the system
Speaker 2: that I railed against for thirty years? And I always wondered, like, well,
Speaker 2: do you ever imagine, like thirty years forty years ago,
Speaker 2: when you guys released records that you inspired a twenty
Speaker 2: year old college students to get politically active and then
Speaker 2: become the answer to you know, the problem that faced
Speaker 2: us in the eighties and nineties. So I'll ask you
Speaker 2: if there's no more, And of course I know there's
Speaker 2: plenty of struggle. We're in the this is the fight
Speaker 2: for our life struggle. Yeah, but oftentimes do you imagine
Speaker 2: I don't think it's naive. I do believe that we
Speaker 2: are in a paradigm shift and a lot of the
Speaker 2: air quote fuc shitttery that we're experiencing right now is
Speaker 2: kind of a dying spirit grasping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're hanging, They're hanging off of the mountain by
Speaker 3: their fingernails, all this completely crazy stuff, and you have
Speaker 3: to believe that to have any hope. And it's like
Speaker 3: we just have to step on them.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm a serial manifesto. I have no worries.
Speaker 2: I sleep at night because I know what's going to happen,
Speaker 2: and it's up to us. Those who are gen X,
Speaker 2: those boom are still alive to adjust to it, and
Speaker 2: you're seeing a lot of people not wanting to adjust
Speaker 2: to where we are now in twenty twenty four. But
Speaker 2: for you, do you imagine that there will be a
Speaker 2: day where there will be no more struggle, where righteous
Speaker 2: women are taking the lead and toxic mail energy has eroded? Like,
Speaker 2: do you imagine a future in which it's ideal for you?
Speaker 3: I live in that future because I.
Speaker 1: That's how you survive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I surround myself with positive people a
Speaker 3: lot of times when I experienced sexism now which idea,
Speaker 3: I actually just went through a thing where I had
Speaker 3: to fire somebody, but it was like I was so
Speaker 3: shocked by the there's certain men you just cannot work
Speaker 3: with women, and it's just really wild when you come
Speaker 3: en counter with them. It's sort of like if somebody
Speaker 3: comes to do work at at the house and they're like,
Speaker 3: is the man of the house at home?
Speaker 1: You know, like cas to your husband?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like that kind of thing, or like people
Speaker 3: who will only talk to Adam and they don't look
Speaker 3: at me, which I actually find totally gratifying because I
Speaker 3: like to just be able. It means I can watch,
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm kind of like I like to observe,
Speaker 3: So I'm fine with that in a way, although you know,
Speaker 3: it can be very annoying. But in my head, I'm
Speaker 3: around all these amazing creative people who that's not the thing.
Speaker 3: Like they're not asking me what it's like to be
Speaker 3: a woman in a band, you know, they don't give
Speaker 3: a shit, Like they're just like, we're making art and
Speaker 3: we're doing this stuff and we're going to you know,
Speaker 3: turn each other on to great art and like do
Speaker 3: all that. So it's like I know what's going I
Speaker 3: know what's going on in the world. I mean not like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not a scholar on politics or anything,
Speaker 3: but like I deeply care about what's going on in
Speaker 3: the world and it is really really awful right now
Speaker 3: and I can't separate myself from that. But at the
Speaker 3: same time time in my day to day, when I
Speaker 3: encounter stuff like, you know, really bad sexism, I don't
Speaker 3: even understand what's happening anymore. Like I'm just like, I
Speaker 3: don't even you are you a dinosaur from Jurassic Park?
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what you're talking about. Like it's
Speaker 3: so confusing when it happens, and I think it's it's
Speaker 3: really weird when I've managed to create a tight knit
Speaker 3: group of people who like I just we're not sitting
Speaker 3: around talking about you know, if we're fuckable, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like got it?
Speaker 3: It's just like I don't. I just try to live
Speaker 3: in my own fantasy land of like what can be possible.
Speaker 3: And I know from my groups of friends and from
Speaker 3: people that I meet on tour that like that world
Speaker 3: is possible. I believe in that world. But right now,
Speaker 3: we don't live in a post racial society. We don't
Speaker 3: live in a post sexist society. We don't live And
Speaker 3: that's the thing that's really frustrating that a lot of people,
Speaker 3: there's a really big difference from creating something that you
Speaker 3: can survive within, like an artistic community that you're thriving
Speaker 3: and being challenged and pretending that stuff doesn't exist, and
Speaker 3: putting your head in the sand, do you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Like, like you have to be able to
Speaker 3: kind of traverse between those two different things where you're
Speaker 3: like really yourself as an individual and really a part
Speaker 3: of a community, and the part of you is an
Speaker 3: individual feeds a community, and the community feeds the part
Speaker 3: of youth that's an individual as opposed to seeing it
Speaker 3: as a either or you know, either I'm a total
Speaker 3: hedonistic like you know, Eric Clapton, like jacking off on
Speaker 3: the guitar, or I'm strictly a political activist. It's like
Speaker 3: those things aren't separate in my life anymore. They used
Speaker 3: to be, and that caused me a lot of strife.
Speaker 3: So anytime that I was enjoying it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: somebody's going to and I think it's also psychological. I
Speaker 3: felt like somebody's gonna take this away from me, you know,
Speaker 3: I think it's fascinating. Like writing the book that I
Speaker 3: learned psychological, I was like, you know, it's really funny
Speaker 3: is that I grew up in a family like my
Speaker 3: dad is like it was like very much a person
Speaker 3: who would just when you were right on the top
Speaker 3: of the mountain, he'd like, knock you off, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. It's like, wait till you're like really
Speaker 3: in a positive place. And so every time I'm in
Speaker 3: a positive place in my life, I'm waiting for to
Speaker 3: get knocked off, right, I'm waiting for the rug to
Speaker 3: get pulled out from sure, I mean, and I but
Speaker 3: I see it now. I see it. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 3: I'm just starting like something great happens to me, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I'm just waiting for the backlash, which
Speaker 3: is normal awesome, or I'm just waiting for the drug
Speaker 3: to get pulled out from under me and then but
Speaker 3: now I can sit with it and be like, I
Speaker 3: know where that comes from. That comes from growing up
Speaker 3: in this situation. It comes from I start getting attention
Speaker 3: and then my community turns on me. Someone punches me
Speaker 3: in the face and threatens me. You know, people are
Speaker 3: like being like really weird, and I'm super confused. I'm
Speaker 3: watching friends die Like I associated being myself and really
Speaker 3: being large with like getting in trouble, And now I'm
Speaker 3: able to just do that and be like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I can't control other people's behavior. If I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: really be putting out my art the way I want
Speaker 3: to and be doing the things and saying the things
Speaker 3: that I want to, and people are going to come
Speaker 3: after me, so be it. What am I going to
Speaker 3: I can't control other people's behavior anymore, So I'm not
Speaker 3: going to like shrink myself to avoid the rug getting
Speaker 3: pulled out from under me. Go ahead, try to pull
Speaker 3: the rug out from under me. I dare you.
Speaker 1: I have three questions left.
Speaker 3: If you mean the question, I want to talk to
Speaker 3: you about music. I am. We're going to come over
Speaker 3: to your apartment and like sit outside and just like
Speaker 3: sit on your stupid be.
Speaker 1: Like, dude, come back here, talk to me about Tony DeFranco.
Speaker 1: I welcome it.
Speaker 2: If you were given the power to change one thing
Speaker 2: from your past, what would you change?
Speaker 3: I mean, I should just give you the honest answer instead.
Speaker 1: Of like, what's the honest answer?
Speaker 3: See, if I think about it, it's going to be
Speaker 3: something really deep. But the first thing that comes to
Speaker 3: mind is I would have taken more time recording the
Speaker 3: Bikini Hill Records, the first two Bikini Hill records, because
Speaker 3: the idea was like, go in and play like it's
Speaker 3: a live show. Don't put stuff on your voice, because
Speaker 3: that's like putting panteos over your hairy legs or something,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Like like that, I was
Speaker 3: like trying to be like so raw that other people
Speaker 3: could relate to it. And it's not that I still
Speaker 3: don't keep like mistakes when they're cool in stuff that
Speaker 3: I put out, but it's like I wish we would
Speaker 3: have taken a little more time because performing those songs
Speaker 3: live and then knowing what they sound like on record,
Speaker 3: Like I can't even listen to them because they're just
Speaker 3: recorded so poorly, especially this one record that was recorded
Speaker 3: on four truck on a tape that somebody else had
Speaker 3: used so you could hear the other band in the band.
Speaker 1: That's so real to me, man, And.
Speaker 3: Like literally we spent seventeen dollars recording this record. It
Speaker 3: was a split record with Huggy Bear, and their side
Speaker 3: sounds fantastic and our side sounds like shit. And like,
Speaker 3: if I could go back and redo those because there's
Speaker 3: all these great songs, some Jigsaw youth I really loved
Speaker 3: performing live, and there's not a great recorded version of it,
Speaker 3: and so like I can't. I don't want to go
Speaker 3: back in the studio and record it. Now that's weird.
Speaker 3: I can't, like, you know, change history. And those records
Speaker 3: sound the way they sound because of the time and
Speaker 3: because of you know, we didn't have any money and whatever.
Speaker 3: But I didn't understand yet that the recording process was
Speaker 3: a different art than live. I was all about the
Speaker 3: live show to the point of like, let's capture the
Speaker 3: live show, like a snapshot, like you know, Henry Braisson,
Speaker 3: Like on the street they taking snapshots of people, like
Speaker 3: I was trying to like get a snapshot. But then
Speaker 3: when I'd learned about the art of recording and I
Speaker 3: got in got my first four track and then my
Speaker 3: first aid track, I was like, oh, this is a
Speaker 3: you know, it's the difference between an essay and a
Speaker 3: play or you know, it's a different thing. And I
Speaker 3: wasn't exploiting what I could do with those songs on
Speaker 3: the record, and so I would go back. I wish
Speaker 3: I had said something really smart about Oh.
Speaker 1: That was honest. Yeah, I except that that's.
Speaker 3: Really that's something that that that bugs me, like you
Speaker 3: know once a week.
Speaker 2: Okay, five non greatest hits, five non box set, five
Speaker 2: non live albums.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm so bad at lists because I have like
Speaker 3: brain stuff. So I don't know if I can do it.
Speaker 2: Don't say that, just say it. See I used to
Speaker 2: do the House on fire. You can only say five records,
Speaker 2: but it can't be box set, it can't be live,
Speaker 2: and it can't be greatest hits, five albums that are
Speaker 2: in your lifetime capsule.
Speaker 3: I just say an artist because I can never remember
Speaker 3: which album is the one that I really like everything. Okay,
Speaker 3: it would probably be Sharda I probably, or.
Speaker 1: The blue album Stronger and Pride.
Speaker 3: Or the onely Smooth Operator on it.
Speaker 1: Her first debut, the first one did they pronounced? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I was in high school, I was like,
Speaker 3: my mom went to see her and I was like,
Speaker 3: are you going to see Sade? Say so, yeah, probably
Speaker 3: Chardy is somebody who I I just come back to
Speaker 3: over and over and over. The other would be yeas
Speaker 3: upstairs at Eric's, Yeah as you because they had to
Speaker 3: change their name because there's another band, so they were
Speaker 3: Yazdoo and then they were like, yeahs uk or something.
Speaker 1: I got three.
Speaker 3: So that I'm just trying to think of, Like what
Speaker 3: I actually listened listen to?
Speaker 2: Yes, not the impressive the impressed US list? What you
Speaker 2: actually listened to clinic?
Speaker 3: What is the name of the album? It's like, because
Speaker 3: I have all my stuff on shuffle, so I'm never
Speaker 3: sure what that is anymore. The blue album with the
Speaker 3: yellow on it.
Speaker 1: With distortions on it. Oh, the blue album it's blue
Speaker 1: and yellow, not.
Speaker 3: Fantasy that was titled I literally do have like a
Speaker 3: memory problem.
Speaker 2: So Fantasy Island. I've see clinic Fantasy Island. It's blue
Speaker 2: and yellow, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, that's it. I didn't know it's called fancy Island.
Speaker 3: I had no idea, Okay, that clinic Fanacy Island. Five
Speaker 3: Isaac Cay's Live at the Sierra Sarah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his uh Ain't No Sunshine is a great cover well,
Speaker 1: and the.
Speaker 3: Whole the I think about the lead in to use
Speaker 3: Me all the time. Yeah, because it's that thing of
Speaker 3: where you're turning something that is supposedly really negative into
Speaker 3: something where he's like, if you're going to use me,
Speaker 3: then so be it, right, And I think about that
Speaker 3: in like the weirdest times of like when I get
Speaker 3: asked to be like the woman on the panel at
Speaker 3: the last minute, right and I'm getting paid like half
Speaker 3: what the men are getting paid, and I'm like, if
Speaker 3: you are going to use me, so be it, as
Speaker 3: long as I get paid.
Speaker 1: Now, that's a classic album. I like it.
Speaker 3: So We're at what are Where are we at?
Speaker 1: That was five?
Speaker 3: Oh God, I could go on forever. But if I
Speaker 3: really was on a desert island, I would need Strawberry
Speaker 3: Shortcake Live at the Big Apple Disco to keep me laughing?
Speaker 1: You lovely?
Speaker 3: Where do you have you heard it?
Speaker 1: I've not heard it.
Speaker 3: I have two copies.
Speaker 1: Strawberry Shortcake made a disco record live at.
Speaker 3: The Big Apple Disco. There's a song called Strawberry SHORTCAKEE
Speaker 3: rap on it. I take this album deadly serious. I
Speaker 3: saw a thirteen year old girl acted out in front
Speaker 3: of me when I was really high, and it was
Speaker 3: one of the best experiences, one of the best after
Speaker 3: show experiences I've ever had. And then I just started
Speaker 3: buying it and every time I see it, I buy it.
Speaker 3: It's so good because like the story she comes from,
Speaker 3: like Strawberry Land to New York City and it's her
Speaker 3: whole story. And then there's this one song where she's
Speaker 3: clearly on PCP on a roof. So I'm just saying I.
Speaker 2: Didn't know her entire like catalog is on Spotify, Okay, great.
Speaker 3: I trolled her on Instagram. That's the only thing I
Speaker 3: do on Instagram is I troll the Strawberry Shortcake account.
Speaker 3: Like they're like, it's like her and her Berry friends.
Speaker 3: They're like riding a bike and they're like, we're riding
Speaker 3: into an empowered future for women, and I was like,
Speaker 3: just don't get pregnant in Texas, Strawberry.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 3: I'm an adult who's like trolling a car. I love
Speaker 3: the idea of cartoon characters, Like we used to sample
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff from I'm not going to say
Speaker 3: who it is, but from cartoons. Uh in one of
Speaker 3: my bands, and I was like, what are they going
Speaker 3: to do? Sue us? I would picture the cartoon character
Speaker 3: showing up in court. I'd bean like, gonna have deputy
Speaker 3: dogs going to show up and sue me.
Speaker 1: Oh, Trusky.
Speaker 2: The cartoons are litigious. Okay, you married the person that
Speaker 2: started his career making fun.
Speaker 3: Of I knew this was coming.
Speaker 2: You married university started his career making fun of a cake. Anyway,
Speaker 2: last question of everything that you've achieved, Like for you,
Speaker 2: what is the one thing that you're proudest to celebrate
Speaker 2: of what you've done with your life?
Speaker 3: I mean today, I'm pretty proud to know that, Like
Speaker 3: I had an effect on Rich, and then Rich had
Speaker 3: an effect on you, like I would have never in
Speaker 3: a million years guessed that like that I had any
Speaker 3: kind of effect of that on the roots. Like when
Speaker 3: I came to New York, oudam one of our most
Speaker 3: romantic dates that I'll remember for the rest of my
Speaker 3: life was when he took me to see you all
Speaker 3: in New York when I first moved there, and like
Speaker 3: we were like, I mean, I was only thirty, but
Speaker 3: we were like old people slow dancing in the back
Speaker 3: and it was like, you are so good live and
Speaker 3: I was just like it was the best show. And
Speaker 3: like to think that stuff I did had any kind
Speaker 3: of influence on you, and like I followed your career,
Speaker 3: like Summer Soul is like a huge movie in my life.
Speaker 3: You probably didn't see it, but of course I wrote
Speaker 3: you like a huge gushing you know, DM, like just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, you know, like that footage I can
Speaker 3: watch that a million times is so great. And to
Speaker 3: see somebody who's like I hate branding, I hate the
Speaker 3: phrase using your platform, I hate all that stuff. But
Speaker 3: to see somebody who's able to still be like so
Speaker 3: vital and creative within this like hustle till you die world,
Speaker 3: it's it's really inspirational. So I think inspiring you at
Speaker 3: all and having any kind of bit to do with
Speaker 3: your creativity is kind of those stories that is that
Speaker 3: And like you know a girl who told me. I
Speaker 3: helped her get through you know, her pastor sexually assaulting
Speaker 3: art and that listening to you know, records that I
Speaker 3: was on and reading stuff that I I said in
Speaker 3: interviews made her tell our parents parents, and then her
Speaker 3: parents were really supportive. And then her parents came to
Speaker 3: the show with her and they all thanked me. That
Speaker 3: was a moment. Wow, you know, having a family, having
Speaker 3: a mom say thank you for being there for my daughter.
Speaker 3: I was there for her as much as I could,
Speaker 3: but you were there in this one little spot that
Speaker 3: I couldn't reach, and I was like a family And
Speaker 3: this isn't you know? This is like more modern times
Speaker 3: Like in the past few years. I never you know
Speaker 3: when when Bikini Kill first started, like crazy things happened,
Speaker 3: like a woman who worked at a juvenile detention center
Speaker 3: got all the juvie girls to come to one of
Speaker 3: our shows for a field trip. Like those were the
Speaker 3: kooky things that happened that I was like, this is amazing.
Speaker 3: But nowadays to have to see a family supporting a
Speaker 3: child who has experienced sexual assault is like really gratifying.
Speaker 3: It makes me feel like the world can change and
Speaker 3: can keep changing for the better.
Speaker 1: Kathleen I thank you for this long what would do conversation?
Speaker 3: I want to do one where reach just talk about
Speaker 3: records and talk about music. So I'm gonna I'm going
Speaker 3: to start a podcast and you're gonna be my first time, and.
Speaker 1: Then I'll be your first guest. I promise, I promise. No,
Speaker 1: thank you for doing this.
Speaker 2: Give your regards to Adam, who will be a future
Speaker 2: guest on the show.
Speaker 3: He has lets to say about em.
Speaker 1: And I know, I was like, wow, he puts you
Speaker 1: on the MC sid from and he.
Speaker 3: I had that record and he was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: how do you have this record? And I was like,
Speaker 3: because I like the cover. He's so cute on the cover.
Speaker 3: But apparently his DJ can eat ten eggs at one sitting,
Speaker 3: so you weirdos. I know whatever. We'll hang out some time.
Speaker 3: But thank you so much for having me on. It's
Speaker 3: joy and I really appreciate it and it's just a
Speaker 3: fun way to spend a day.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And on beef of the q S Bam Layah, I'm paid,
Speaker 2: Bill and Sugar Steve and shout out to you written Jake,
Speaker 2: this quest love and we'll see you on the next goroground.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for listening to the Quest Love Supreme,
Speaker 2: hosted by Amir quest Love Thompson, Liah Saint Clair, Sugar,
Speaker 2: Steve Mandel, and unpaid Bill Sherman. Executive producers are America
Speaker 2: Quest Love Thompson, Sean ch and Brian Calhoun. Produced by
Speaker 2: Brittany Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne and Liah Saint Clair. Edited
Speaker 2: by Alex Conway. Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of Iheartened Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.