I’m excited for the band experience. It also bums me out that we still need to say that. That people need this experience? Aren’t we over this yet?
People are always talking to me about riot-grrl and they’re always like, “How important was it for you to have an all-girl band?” And I’m like, “You know what I cant wait for? You to interview me and say, ‘Did you hear about that all-guy band?’”
It kills me that its 2006 and we’re still having that conversation — and that there's boys that aren’t feminists yet.
I think boys need a sexual revolution. Women have had it. We’ve been in every position and we’ve gone through it and now we’re fucking everywhere. We’re up, we’re down, we’re all over, we can do whatever we want. But a man can’t. He just cant get with his own vulnerable side. He can’t get with, like, sitting too close to another heterosexual male.
We’re getting into generalizations here, I don’t wanna get anybody too pissed off. But even just being sympathetic, or empathetic. I just read on a message board that’s popular here in Boston. That, you know, someone said someone was a vagina. He was like, “That guy’s such a vagina,” blah blah blah. I can't fucking believe that’s acceptable language.
Oh, no — I think that should be acceptable. Because we call people dicks all the time.
Hmmm.
I just think whatever you say for a male you should say for a female, I think it should all be even.
OK. I will take that under consideration.
I mean I’m not totally convinced either. But I’m just trying to always —
You know, in all your music, and what I hear, you’re clearly turning everything upside down. And maybe the thing is we just need to de-stigmatize the two languages. But I feel like since women are still oppressed, that using our body parts —
I kind of think men are oppressed. They feel like they have to be this power role, I think they need to learn how to be vulnerable. I think that vulnerability should be something to consider, and not something weak but something that’s a part of us. And women are good at vulnerability and good at taking control. And men don’t know how to be vulnerable. They don’t know how to get fucked in the ass.
Do you ever think about, like, where do the gender/queer and trans-gendered folks come into this?
Well, people should just be allowed to see whoever they wanna see and who they feel they are, ’cause the roles are not just black and white.
Are you singing songs for them?
Yeah! I’m singing songs for everybody! I wanna sing songs for straight males too.
I guess I’m talking about actual lyric-content wise. I read that there was more material recorded than got on the album and I was interested in what the content was and what the song about the “Hankie Code” song was about [which Rolling Stone described this way: “a tutorial in wearing various colored hankies in one's back pocket (black means you like it on top, while white means the opposite)”].
Ohhh, the “Hankie Code” song! Yeah, I love that song . . . It’s on a 12-inch with “Downtown” on the second side of the first single.
Is that stuff gonna be in the repertoire for the live show?
Yeah, if we learn it. We’ve got like 50 songs to learn. “Hankey Code” might be something I do [later] in my life. It’s a really good number with dancers I think.
Well, if you need back up dancers I’ve got a crew!
