Josh: How do you feel about having you record out on Lookout!? Lookout! has this history of putting out goofy bands, which you really aren't.
Karin: I think Lookout! is really representative of what's going on in the East Bay and the Bay Area. Neurosis put out a 7" on Lookout! and that's not really goofy stuff.
Adrienne: I think Lookout! is really open to any local band that they're into or they like, like Neurosis, or us, or Filth, or Juke. Whoever they're into and they enjoy, they'll ask them to put out a 7".
Paula: I feel pretty good about being on Lookout!. I think Lookout! does really well for bands that probably couldn't otherwise get on any kind of a label or get any kind of 7" put out, whether because of money reasons or just lack of availability of labels that would put them out. I'm glad they helped us out, they really did.
Todd: I'd just like to add the we don't like to be considered a "Lookout!" band or a one label band.
Adrienne: It's not like we "signed" to Lookout! There's no contract involved.
Karin: We did a 7" with them, but we also have songs on some compilations on various other labels.
Matt: How did you get on the "Give Me Back" compilation?
Todd: They asked us to be on it.
Karin: We've played some shows in Santa Barbara and Kent and Sonia [who run Ebullition Records] were both really, really interested in giving us space to share our perspective on some things.
Paula: I think it is a great comp, and I'm glad we're on it. It has some great writing.
Karin: Yeah, it's a fucking amazing comp.
Adrienne: Yeah, we're on that comp., the Allied "Sign Language" comp., and the Very Small World comp. We just got asked by these people who are friends of ours to be on these comps., and they're great records, so we were really happy to do it.
Josh: The "Give Me Back" comp. is a great record, but I have a feeling they had to struggle just to get three bands with females in them to be on it. How do you feel about that?
Karin: In a way, it's pretty representative of what's out ther in this music scene, and I know that all those people who worked on the record tried really hard to get more "female representation", I guess you could say, but for one reason or another it just didn't happen.
Adrienne: But I think the bands that are on there are great bands, and had a lot of really great things to say. The whole record has really good lyrics and music and great writing by everyone that contributed.
Paula: Even though all of them aren't female, I think a lot of them took a really strong stance on some of the issues, and it was great.
Adrienne: Gender wasn't really the point. It was what they had to say and the feelings behind it. That's what's important, not their gender.
Karin: You don't have to be a woman to talk about sexism. You just have to be a person to talk about these kind of things.
Josh: This gets to the question you probably always get as an all female band. There seems to be a very find line between being a "girl" band and being interviewed by and trivialized by Spin as such, and being role models for other females in hardcore and punk rock. How do you feel about that?
Todd: We haven't been clasified as any of that yet, thank goodness.
Adrienne: I don't think we are a girl band, and I don't think we're role models. We're just a band which is trying to express our own feelings and individual ideas. We have thoughts that we express musically. The word "role model" kind of frightens me because it makes me feel like I'm supposed to be perfect and everybody shoud follow what I'm doing and saying, and that's bullshit. I don't know what to do, I have problems, I have fuck-ups, and I'm not trying to tell people what they should and should not do, so that word just really throws me off.
Paula: I think that it's great if some people are inspired by some of the lyrics we've written or some of the music we've produced. That's really great that people like what we've been doing because there have been bands that have done that for me.
Karin: Maybe it's because people relate.
Paula: Yeah, that's more of what it is, and that's really great, but I don't think there's anything more to it just because we're women.
Karin: For some reason at this point I just don't think many people know about what Spitboy is doing or who Spitboy is, so we're totally not categorized in the, can I say the word, "foxcore" thing.
All: Bleugggh!!!
Karin: We detest it. It's gross.
Todd: And we are so glad we haven't been lumped together with all those bands.
Matt: Even though you might think it's detrimental, don't you think it's good that at least there are some women out there that people can see? Even though Hole is signing with a major label, etc.
Adrienne: I think it's good for people to see people out there doing important things. If a woman is singing some lyrics that are fucked up and stupid I'm not going to think that's cool just because it's a woman. That has nothing to do with it. If a man is up there singing stupid fucked up lyrics I'm not going to think it's cool just because it's a man. So if I see someone doing something that really inspires me, then I'm going to feel inspired whether it's a man or a woman or a dog that goes out and saves a 7 year old child's life.
Karin: At the same time though, I personally am really excited to see that there are so many women involved in the music scene right now, because I think for eons it hasn't been that way, and we've all had the same feelings and we've all wanted to do it, but we've been stifled for maybe one reason or another and finally people are saying "fuck it", you don't have to be some guitar wizard to pick up a guitar. I mean, you can just get together and do it and that's what it's all about.
Adrienne: That's a really good feeling definately, just athat anyone can be in a band. Take a band like Clitasaurus Rex from the East Bay, they just got together and did it and it's fucking rad. They're not like musical aficionados, but they're having a good time and they're expressing themselves.
Todd: I think it's really lame that the term foxcore has been given to women because it really says nothing about the kind of music they're playing. All those bands that have been given that label sound nothing alike. We've been talking about this a lot lately, it's just so stupid that the only foucs is that they're women and they don't play grind or hadcore or punk or pop-punk, it's just "foxcore", but they all sound different. It's bullshit.
Adrienne: It's a totally demeaning term that totally minimizes anything that these people are trying to do.
Paula: It's like stone washed jeans or something. It's like a fad. It's like "Wow, this is really cool" and then it's like "Oh, that's out". And then there will be another backlash and women will be out of the picture again for a while.
Adrienne: It's becoming a trend when it shouldn't be. It should be appreciated for what it is.
Josh: I know I have a hard time grappling with my thoughts, thinking "this is just a band, and they're a great band" or "this is a band and they're good because they're female", because I know a lot of females who are really impressed and happy to see that there are people on the stage that they can look up to, and now they want to form bands and put out zines. If seeing females on stage does this, then it seems that their gender is somewhat important.
Todd: I think it can definitly motivate someone, because for so long women kind of got this feeling that since there are not very many women playing music it's not the kind of thing that women should do. Just like words like fireman or policeman kind of limit you to a certain job because of your gender, I really think that for some women it takes seeing other women in that position to inspire them.
Paula: You know, that's really, really true. I was thinking back about when I went to junior high in New Hampshire and no women were allowed on the soccer team, but there was this one girl who was really good. They only had a man's soccer team, and all the girls were supposed to play field hockey. You know, this is a girl's sport and this is a boy's sport, you wear a skirt and run around. So she went out and she did really well, but there was this pressure for her to be as good as the guys, she had to prove herself in a way.
Todd: She probably had to work a lot harder than the guys.
Paula: Yeah, because she was the first one to take that step out there. But it inspired a lot of us. A lot of people wanted to go out. I was too intimidated, but other people did it, and it was great. It's an inspiration to see something like that.
Adrienne: I think it can be really good to see these women do something that you've never seen women do before and go "Wow!, that gives me a great idea. I'll do it" I think that can be great, but I personally also have been inspired by seeing any person doing something great.
Paula: I think a lot of times it's more how it's being presented and how it comes across than who is presenting it.
Adrienne: Yes, because the band L7 doesn't inspire me.
Matt: How did you end up in Spitboy? How did you end up in a band, into this kind of music?
Adrienne: Hey! let's all talk about how we got into the punk scene! I got into the punk scene when I was 16 and I really enjoyed it and enjoyed the music I was listening to and enjoyed the freedom that was allowed in the punk scene. And then years and years later I came across Todd and we became friends and the person I was living with at the time, Doug asked me to sing on this tape, so I was like, "sure, okay"...
Todd: ... and then I heard the tape.
Adrienne: I was singing on it and of course it sounded nothing like what I sound like now. And Todd heard it and she really liked it, so she asked me to sing with her.
Todd: I was looking for people to be in a band with at the time, and I knew Adrienne, but I didn't know she had such a great voice until I heard that tape, even though it sounded nothing like she does now.
Adrienne: I think it went something like: "I'm driving fast, in this car" [laughter]
Todd: It was really weird, but I really liked it. I knew there was so much potential and I was like "Wow! This is like the coolest voice I've ever heard in so long and I really like this person," so I asked her to join and she was like, "Well, I only ever sing in the shower, but okay, I'll try it." I had been in other bands before [check out her old band Bitch Fight on the "Thing That Ate Floyd" comp.] I started listening to punk when I was like 13 or 14. It was a rebellion type thing against living where I was living at the time and needing something alternative. I grew up in a very small town in California. I wasn't born there, but I grew up there and it was really rough. Just being different in general was had and my family was really different and everyone knew it, so I was always different than everybody else.
Adrienne: She still is!
Todd: But I felt totally comfortable in the whole punk thing, even though there weren't very many people who were into the alternative music thing up there. The few of us that were really inspired each other though, and we said, "Fuck, let's start a band", but it never really occured to us that much that we were women, which is kind of funny because when we started we were just like "Wow, let's start a band. I can't play drums but who cares, we just want to play" and then these other gusy who started a band later said, "You're girls, you can't play music" and we were like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" What was so ironic about it was that the girl that I started the band with, she and I had been in the elementry school band playing the flute together since we were in fourth grade. This was when we were fifteen and we were like "What? We can't play music? We've been playing music since we were in the fourth grade. What the fuck are you trying to tell us?", so it didn't even occur to me until some guy actually told me later.
Matt [to Karin]: I want to ask you how you learned to play guitar, because I play guitar and I was a watching you play and I was amazed.
Adrienne: Sheeees a goooood guitaaaaar playeeeer!
Todd: She came to practice and I thought, "Oh my god, I never thought I would find a guitar player who was this good and whose style I liked so much." I was so happy.
Karin: If you want to know a historical account, this is it: My parents made me take a music lesson, and I didn;t know if I should take the violin or the guitar, but they were like, "Oh... take the guitar." My parents were...
Adrienne: Wierd parents!
Karin: Otherwise we'd be like Neurosis [everybody's laughing and making screechy noises] This was like years ago, when I was in junior high and I started to play acoustic guitar...
Adrienne: She was doing Simon and Garfunkel covers.
Karin: Bad stuff, bad stuff. Actually, I still have that guitar. It's a really nice acoustic guitar. I never play it. Everybody else always plays it, but I never do. I can't even play it anymore. For me it's really hard to play acoustic guitar now, because on electric guitar you can make flub-ups and no one knows. When I moved to California like three years ago, I started living in the Maximum Rocknroll House and I had all these people around me mostly playing guiar, like Lance and Harry from Cringer and stuff. I was always on these instruments and I was like "I godda get on this guitar! Can I use your amp?" and they were like "GET YOUR OWN GUITAR, NOW!!!", so I bought a guitar maybe 2 1/2 years ago and it was one I wasn't using tonight, this other one I have with me, an old Epiphone, my first electric guitar and I have just been playing since then. The one person who has really helped me is Mike from Fuel, because he spent so much time teaching me rythms and stuff, because I knew how to do this, I would go, "chunga chunga chunga chunga" and that was all I could do. Then he showed me that there was more to guitar playing than that, so I owe it all to him.
Todd: I actually started out playing guitar when I was in that little town. I was taking lessons and it was really hard. I played flute really well, right, and you'd think that I culd comprehend a hard instrument like the guitar, but it was like "Fuck this, I'm going to play drums," and I gave up the guitar and taught myself to play drums, and it was much easier for me. I could bang on something as opposed to strumming strings.
Adrienne: Actually, now that I think about it, I've been playing piano since I was in fifth grade. We've got a violin, flute and piano!
Karin: But I never touched the violin!
Todd: You can learn Karin, you can learn. Your parents will bay for it [laughter]
Paula: I was never musically involved. I had no musical background at all, my parents weren't really into it. My dad did used to play the accordion, but I could never hold the thing up...
Karin: That would be perfect! [everybody starts making violin, flute and accordian noises in the background]
Paula: When I moved out to California, high school was where it all started. This kid who sat next to me in math class used to listen to TSOL and Social Distortion and things like that and I really got into it because it was different than what everybody listened to in the suburban area. I started hearing all these different alternative views about everything, and I was like "What's wrong with the government? What's rong with this?" It started opening up a lot of ideas in my head and I started looking for different alternatives and that was the way I got hooked on it. Then, after being involved in it for awhile and working at Gilman and Blacklist and being involved in the whole music scene that was happening in the area, I was like, "Well, I want to do something, I want to start creating something, I want to express myself in a way that has music in it too," so I started learning to play bass right about the same time I met up with Todd. She was like, "Oh yeah, we're thinking about getting this band together, but we don't have a bass player," and I was like, "Well if you guys are patient enough..."
Todd: And I was like, "That would be really great!" and she was all "Well, I don't really know how to play very well and I just started," and this and that and I was just like, "I don't care. It doesn't matter, you're cool! So we'll just wait, we'll be patient."
Josh: This question if directed to Paula in particular, but the rest of the band is free to answer too. How do you feel about this "women can just play bass" thing and all these bands that supposedly have their "token female bass player"?
Paula: Well, it's really true. People actually think that way. It was something I had to deal with too, because I just learned how to play bass and a lot of people said, "Oh, that's an easy instrument!"
Todd: People said that to you? [in disbelief]
Paula: Yeah, and I even hear it about singers, too. "Oh, well there's always women bass players and women singers," but I thinkthat I have to deal with that for myself and just go, "I don't care because what I'm doing is what's important to me and if people think that way then that's fine," and I really try not to take it too deeply.
Adrienne: That attitude totally down plays whatever a woman is doing in a band. I mean, give me a break, pinking up an instrument and playing bass is not simple. Singing the way I sing is not simple.
Todd: We traded instruments during out last Gilman show, and I could barely sing towards the end of the song. I was so winded and so tired, and I sing while playing drums in a lot of songs. Being up front and singing that hard and having to sing that hard for the whole time killed me.
Paula: Could you imagine doing that for the thirty shows on this tour? Adrienne has to sing every single day. We've only had one day off and we're only going to have two more days off before we go home. That's a month straight of her singing.
Adrienne: And then that attitude of the token female singer, the token female bass player. You're not taking what this person and this band is doing seriously. because there have been some awesome women bass players and great women vocalists and to sit there and say "Oh, well that's easy," it's like, "No, you take what this person does, whoever it is, and you just appreciate it, because maybe you're not doing it so maybe you don't understand how difficult it is." It's like, am I going to sit there and go, "Oh, it's just the token male guitar player in the token male band?"
Paula: Isn't that kind of like the same attitude as "they're good for an all girl band," or "it's good for a girl doing it." I mean that's really fucked up. It's like, "Well, they're inferior because they're women so we'll let it pass. We'll give them a little leeway."
Adrienne: A pat on the back.
Todd: And the bass is the instrument she chose, because that's the one she was drawn to, not because she thought, "Well, I'm a girl so I'm going to learn how to play bass beacuse that's easy."
Matt: I think the whole thing has a lot to do with people feeling threatened. It has a lot to do with aggression because traditionally, aggression has been a male trait. I think a lot of people are afraid when they see a band like you. You usually see female bands like Lush who just stand there and play, but you get up there and kick ass...
Adrienne: But I'm the least aggressive person I know, and if you just look at a strange thing and just say, "Oh, they look really angry and pissed", it's like "Yeah, they probably have a bad attitude."
Todd: I usually get from the guys the "you hit so hard for a girl. I was so suprised, you really banged hard on those drums!" They think it's a compliement. I also get "you're so small, you're so short. I didn't expect you could hit so hard." I'm like, "Wait a minute, small people can't hit hard? Do you want me to punch you?" I would never to that, but it's so frustrating when people take on this attitude thatpeople who are small or people with vaginas can't play drums hard.
Karin: I've been trying to understand a bit more about the male perspective on seeing us, because I see bands with males in them all the time. That's probably more of what I see, and I probably pick up on that and enjoy the energy just as much as I would if they were females. It doesn't really matter about the gender to me, but I've heard about this "threatening" idea before...
[At this point, there was a fifteen minute break in the interview. Someone had come into the church where the show was held and where we were doing the interview to say that a van was being towed. Unfortunatly, it was Spitboy's van. Adrienne, Todd and Paula ran off to get the van back and luckily someone who helped put the show knew the towtruck driver. He had gone to high school with the driver and he convinced him to give Spitboy's van back for only $5. After getting the van back, we continued the interview outside, next to the vanm just in case the towtruck came back.]
Josh: Back to the interview and the topic of aggression. Do you think aggression is really just a male trait?
Paula: I totally think it's socialization. I think it's always been more accepted in males. If you think about it, most of the stuff that we know now is stuff that we've learned as kids and from the environments that we grew up in. I definitely think that that's something that happens where boys are a lot of times encouraged to be more aggressive. If they fall down it's like, "Oh, come on get back up. You're fine" but if a girl falls down it's like, "Oh careful, careful. Are you okay?" I think socilization has a lot to do with it, and that's what the song "In Tradition" is about, breaking out of those roles that we've been taught. As far as aggressiveness goes on stage for women, it comes out as an individual thing. I think there's a difference between aggressiveness and violence. I think that you can be really aggressive and upfront, assertive is maybe a good word for it, whith what you have to say, the stance that you take, and the way you present yourself, but you don't have to be violent about it. You can be very much "this is where I stand and this is how I feel about things" and you don't have to be violent. I think when you're violent, it's almost like forcing your opinion on somebody and beating it into them. It's like, "Oh, you don't agree with me. Well, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you and then you'll agree with me, right?" That doesn't change anybody's mind.
Todd: It's funny what Adrienne said earlier, before our van got towed away, about how people say "Oh, you guys are so nice. I saw you guys up there, but now that I've met you, you're so nice," but it's not like we were being mean on stage, we we're just singing about things that we feel really strongly about and we do take a stronger stance on a lot of issues and we are really pasionate about the things we sing about and these things aren't funny. They're not thing that you can really take litly, so of course we're going to sing it and feel it and it's going to come across in that way, but that doesn't mean that we're going to be mean or clubbing you over the head with something. I think that men in bands do the same kind of thing that we do, but because we're women people see it as coming across really differently but it's the same thing.
Josh: But men are allowed to!
Paula: We're breaking the rules again, guys.
Todd: Uh-oh!
Josh: About violence and aggression, how do you feel about "the pit"? L7 seems to have this idea that if all girls just mosh hard too, everything will be okay.
Paula: That's sort of like the whole mentality I was talking about before with the whole soccer thing. To that one girl, everyone's saying, "Oh come on, you can play just as hard, you can do it just as hard." For me, I personally never got into being in the pit. I don't like to get hurt and I don't like to hurt people, so I never got into that style of dancing. I can dance and have fun, but I don't need to run around and club people. I think some pits are real dorky, I have friends that have done summersaults in them and just get really crazy, but for me, I think that if people want to dance like that, they whould go to an area like that back of the room where other people who want to be engaged in it can say, "OK, I want to get into this" and jump into it, instead of forcing people into it, forcing those at the front who maybe want to see the band. So many times I want to get really aggressive and violent with these people and just start hitting them back because I'm so mand that they're infringing on my rights and the respect they should have for me if I want to watch the band and hear what the band has to say without being involved whith this whole distraction. I think when people are off and moshing like that, you are so worried about getting hit or falling down that your not paying attention to what's really being said or what's being presented on stage. You just hear the fast beat and guitar line.
Karin: It seems that too often people use the pit as this release for their own aggressive needs or tendencies. I think you just have to respect people's space, you have to respect your neighbor's feet or head or whatever it is and I think that's important. I would never ever want to stifle anyone's expression, and if this is the way they're expressing themselves good for them, but if ti starts to infringe on others, then I see that as being negative if that person doesn't want to be hit or doesn't want to be part of the pit.
Paula: Also, I think it would be cool if there was an area that was maybe behind, like a roped off area or something. If that's the way that some people need to realase it and other people feel okay about releasing it like that and they're just as physical as this person is, then it's okay. It's got to be this two way thing. Like I was telling somebody the otehr day, I worked with little kids, like two and three year olds, and some of them would want to wrestle and we set down this thing where if you want to wrestle with somebody, it has to be okay with them, you have to ask them. If they say no, they you have to respect that and if they say no you have to go find somebody else or wrestle with yourself. That's how I feel about the pit. If other people are into it, then fine, that's great, that means that it's equal, you've made this agreement, and people feel safe and okay about it. If they don't feel safe about it, then they shouldn't be forced to do that. It's really hard, and sometimes I don't know what to do about it either, like sometimes when we're playing and we'll play a faster song and people will just start going crazy. Like today I was kind of watching and I was fighting with myself inside and going, "Well, do I say `how do the rest of you feel about this?'" because your going to get yes and no, both ways, and I'm sor of reaching a point where I'm ready to start saying stuff about it. Sometimes it gets really, really aggressive and people are stage diving and I just start going, "Hey, why don't you guys have some respect for each other? Dance if you want to dance but don't infringe on other people." Everybody's idea of what's right and what's respectful is going to be different because we all have different tolerences, but I was really tempted to say something tonight, but they stopped. It's something I've been really fighting with myself over, how do I say something and have it come out okay and have people respond to it.
Matt: Do you play over-age shows?
All: No! We never play anything but all age shows.
Paula: We basically feel music shouldn't be a limited thing and it's too bad that it is because it can limit a lot of places that you play. We had an all-ages show fall through in Ottawa and we were calling other people to get another show up there. They were the two big names and they were doing 18+ shows and we were like, "Do we do 19, do we not do 18, we want to be in Canada as long as possible" and we finally decided it wasn't worth it.
Karin: One of the stances I take on that is that I don't want to be fueled by someone who is selling alcohol, I don't want to be paid because the bar has done a really good showing that night. There's just too much corporate grip on all that stuff.
Paula: That's usually why a show is 21+, because they need to make money off the bar, where if they have an all ages show, they won't make money off the kids, so they won't do it. Sometimes what they'll do is charge a cover, like it's $7 for anyone under 21, but for everyone over, it's only $5 or $4.
Josh: While we're talking about limithing music, how do you feel about record collecting? You're on the Allied box set and I had the hardest time finding that, maybe because all the records say "limited pressing of 2000" on them.
Karin: I know John limited it for financial reasons and he just didn't have the money to do it. You wonder if he had just released it without saying it was limited or anything if he'd be sitting on 500 or something?
Josh: I heard he was putting it out on LP.
Karin: He might beputting it out on a 12". I hope so, because I hate being on something that no one can find.
Josh: Closing comments?
Adrienne: Write us at: POBox 40185, Berkeley, CA 94704-4185. We'll write back to you.
Paula: Adrienne's really good at that.
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