Quotes on Bands

It's now taken for granted that women are in bands and you can say feminist things in your songs. But back in the early '90s, there was a lot of violence at Bikini Kill shows that people don't realize happened.

I started out in this business in rock and roll bands and stumbled into drag. Drag just happened to be my vehicle for my creativity. So, you know, it's afforded me the opportunity to create new shows, to make music.

Most bands out there are basically pretty boring. I try to affect people inside their bodies.

Playing in my early bands, working as a studio musician, producing and going to art school was, in retrospect, my apprenticeship. I was learning and creating a solid foundation of ideas, but I wasn't really playing music.

Sonnymoon and Quadrants are a couple of bands that really inspire me in terms of the melodics of things and certain tones and just what feels good. It takes me back to the type of music that I grew up on in my household. We played a lot of gangsta rap, but we also played a lot of oldies, and I think that mix is part of what inspires my sound.

Youths write me and tell me that their band will go nowhere because of all the bad bands in the world. I tell them there has always been awful music and that no great band ever wasted any time complaining, they just got it done. Their ropey ranting is just a way to get out of the hard work of making music that will do some lasting damage.

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with.

There is a lot to say about what Bikini Kill and other 'riot grrrl' bands were able to achieve when they first set out. They were not some momentary, convulsive, creative spasm of independent music. There was a very real, relevant point of view being expressed.

There are always young bands playing in their garages. A lot of punk rock is not going to be in the mainstream. It's below the radar. The beauty of it is that you're not supposed to always know. It's subterranean.