Bikini Kill Interview
Punk Planet #5 © 1995

Written by Will Dandy & Co. with help from Dan Sinker




Since your last tour two years ago, Bikini Kill has become a "buzz" band, do you think that that has changed the way you approach the band?
Billy: It's a moment-to-moment thing. That's all I can really say. Last time we came down south we were with the Nation of Ulysses. Last time we played Birmingham we were with Ulysses. Now we're just on our own and people seem to show up, so that's the difference. We're like headlining now.


What happened during the period between your last tour and this one?
Billy: Well, we went to Britain, we did a lot of other things. We did two east coast tours, we lived in D.C. for a bit and Olympia for a bit.


I heard a lot of rumors that you guys broke up though, what happened there?
Billy: That was just a rumor. I'm in this other band. Me and Tobi and Kathi and Molly - she used to be in Bratmobile, and she's in this band called the PeeChees now - but we were in this band called the Frumpies. We toured with Huggy Bear last year at about this time... [many strange events happen to interrupt the interview] ...There's this one thing. At almost every one of our [Bikini Kill] shows, an army of girls shows up and it's really really fascinating. To answer your first question.


How does that affect you being, you know, not a girl?
Billy: I just think it's really interesting, I think it's really cool. I'm more in a mode of fascination at our shows.


Do you not feel awkward because Kathleen is so confrontational?
Billy: Sometimes, because some of the guys get really violent and sometimes that can be scary. Sometimes are our shows there isn't any confrontation and those are the funnest shows. Because then I can just rock out and not worry about it and move around like an apeman, but tonight I felt like I should just stand there and be cool.


Yeah, there was some tension tonight.
Billy: There were just like three or four guys that were like total jerks.


Before you were talking about the Frumpies. Did you guys break up then?
Billy: No, no, we never broke up. We just wanted to venture into different things. The Frumpies were more like a song writing vehicle for Kathi and Tobi. It was a really cool band. We recorded like four singles. There's gonna be another one I think released on Lookout! and they were all recorded in the basement at Tobi's parents' house. It was really, really echo-y. That's why there was so much reverb. We had like two really shitty mics and a four-track recorder and we did it all ourselves. It was really fun to record those singles. We might do some more stuff this winter when we get back.


How did you get hooked up with Joan Jett for the "Rebel Girl" 7"?
Billy: She showed up at one of our shows and I'm a really huge Germs fan, and she produced the first Germs album. I thought it would be cool if she produced a single or something like that and we mentioned it to her and like half a year later she called us up. We did it in Seattle and we did it in one day. It was really cool. She played on it, she played guitar on "Rebel Girl."


Yeah, didn't she do the patty-cake thing too?
Billy: Yeah, and backup vocals on "New Radio" and "Demirep". It was cool, a really fascinating experience.

Don't you feel that it's a little hypocritical to have a record released on Kill Rock Stars that was, in fact, produced by a rock star?
Billy: No. [silence]


Why not?
Billy: I don't know... no.


What's the deal with that Sonic Youth video that Kathleen was in?
Billy: Well, Sonic Youth is like a space station that orbits around a psychic landscape and they send these psychic projections down onto earth and I think that had something to do with it. And somehow Kathleen got involved.


Um... could you go more in depth with that? I'm sorta lost myself.
Billy: Well, we're in a totally different hemisphere. See, last night a mother of these fifteen-year-old girls gave me this shirt.
Tobi: [appearing and joining in] She was 43 years old and she was dancing around.
Billy: She was stage diving and dancing around. She was totally on a rampage. This [the shirt] is an outer space landscape. See, Sonic Youth is symbolically like a space station orbiting around a psychic landscape. Bikini Kill is in like a totally different hemisphere. Symbolically we're like three girls in a reform school and I'm like the janitor. I clean the hallways and bathrooms in the daytime, and at 3:30 in the morning these psychic projections come into the building from outer space, supposedly from Sonic Youth and the girls tell stories about this. And that's how that happened. It's all true. The whole concept of sound going to the end of the galaxy, and there's like this proverbial wall. Do you understand that?


How the universe is like a curve?
Billy: Right. It ricochets and it's coming back and these soundwaves change the DNA structures of certain individuals psychically inclined to communicate on that sphere.


I gotcha... I figured with "Thurston Hearts the Who" that you guys didn't like Sonic Youth.
Billy: That was kinda like a joke song, you see.
Tobi: It was like a question.


And what was the question?
Tobi: Sonic Youth thinks they're cool, does that mean everything to you? Does that means everything to you? Question mark.
Billy: Question mark.
Tobi: It's really literal.
Billy: Asking questions.
Tobi: It was about how there's coolness and then there's authorities of coolness and who are those authorities and what does that mean to you. It's just asking.


So why'd you have the show review over that?
Tobi: Because those people were an authority too. See what I mean? And the Who is like... a phenomenal type of band. We were being written about like we were public figures. And Sonic Youth are into being public figures, their personalities are high-profile. The Who was totally into that too, like the album The Who Sell Out was all about that, being public figures and selling yourself, and commenting on it. So it was kinda like a collage. That's just my interpretation.
Billy: It's like a combination of the rock star status of the Who and the mythology of Sonic Youth.
Tobi: If I had to put it into a sentence, I would say it's about the epistemology of cool, epistemology means like... I can't remember exactly but I know it means what I want to say.


Isn't it the psychology of understanding how we understand?
Tobi: It's a philosophical term I learned, and that's kinda what it was about.


Interaction with people has always seemed an important part of your live shows. How has the increased size of your shows changed that, do you feel like you're being distanced from people due to your popularity?
Tobi: No, we meet a lot more people now. But it's kinda weird because people ask for our autographs and it's really strange.
Billy: It seems like our audience is also a lot younger now.
Tobi: Yeah, a lot of younger kids come to our shows. I think that's really cool. A lot of older people are more jaded.


When you say young, you mean...
Billy: I would say from 6th to 10th grade. In between there and high school kids.
Tobi: We heard of a five-year-old who knows all our lyrics last night. It's weird when you meet people and you have a conversation with them, and then they're all, "Can I have your autograph?" and you're like, "Okay," and they all want your autograph and it's just really weird because why do they want it? ...I don't know.
Billy: Sometimes I sign autographs just because it's a way to communicate with people.
Tobi: Yeah, you can talk to the people. It's like a question, like a ritual. That way they have an excuse to say hi. You don't wanna be condescending like, "Oh, you think I'm cool and I'm really not," so that the people feel stupid, but at the same time you feel like a total chump.


How do you feel about people making fun of you and stuff like tonight?
Tobi: It's just kinda reality. It's lame, sometimes because it dominates things and the show's not as good as it could be.
Billy: Sometimes it's really hard to diffuse that situation but times we're really successful at it.


But would you rather just play and count off in between songs and not say anything?
Tobi: Sometimes. But, me and Billy don't really talk a lot during our shows. Kathleen is putting herself out on the line a lot more than we are. We give her a lot of freedom even though we might not agree with everything she says. In fact, we hardly ever do. [laughter] Well no, it's true, we give her a lot of freedom because she is putting herself in a position where she could get beat up at any moment. She can have full control of the stage while she's on it. It's just a matter of trust. We're a lot more shy. That's probably why she's singer.


From the schedule I've seen of this tour it's pretty strenuous. Do you feel that when you're putting on a performance so many times in such a short period of time that you get distanced from the material you're performing?
Tobi: Yeah, it depends on if the song's a good song or not.
Billy: It gets choreographed.
Tobi: If the song's not that good or if a song gets worse. If it's a good song, it gets better, that's how I think about it. But with drumming that's how it is.


Do you have any new releases coming out?
Tobi: We're gonna try and record when we get home. Probably a couple of singles.


Cool. Which is more important to you, to be musically entertaining or politically enlightening or a mix?
Tobi: I don't know about enlightening cause I don't really like that word. It assumes that everyone is really stupid and you tell them the truth and then everything will be cool, and I don't know if I buy into that idea. Political entertainment is not really contradicting itself, I don't think.
Billy: Sometimes I'm really preoccupied with the workings of the P.A. and trying to get my guitar to sound right. My head blew up a couple weeks ago, so I'm playing through a bass head and it sounds kinda strange.
Tobi: I like to think of myself as an entertainer. But then again I don't sometimes.


[We get Tobi to bring Kathleen over]


When Dan saw you in Chicago, he said a verse that kept popping up in various songs was, "I'm your freak show tonight." Do you feel like you're being gawked at when you're performing tonight? Is there anyway to perform in a band and not be a freak?
Kathleen: Why yes, I feel like I'm being gawked at live. Part of the thing that is really weird for me is that I used to be an exotic dancer and I find that sometimes there's not really that much of a difference between playing in a punk bar and being a stripper except for I have my clothes on. A lot of men come with the same exact attitudes that guys do that come to a strip bar. They think, "Oh, it's a girl band, we'll go and watch their butts and their tits or something like that." They don't think of us as performers, they just think of us sorta like seals that jump through hoops that have tits. Like the guys tonight saying, "Take your clothes off."


Punk Planet: I think they were being more sarcastic with that remark. Kathleen: Right, but regardless, it's not taking my perspective into account 'cause I did that shit for fucking seven years and it's not funny to me. I have to deal with sexism every day so it's like maybe boys can find that really funny and humorous, I don't have the luxury to find that humorous. I live it every fucking day. That's not funny to me, and if I say it's not funny, it's not funny. You know what I mean? It's like there's no argument there, whether it's funny or not, if I say I don't find it funny it means, "Hey, be cool to me and respect me, your joke is not my joke."


So you feel like a freak show then?
Kathleen: Fuck yeah, do you feel like a freak show ever? Riding on the bus, fucking guys calling you fags and shit, I'm sure that happens doesn't it?


Actually just last night someone was telling me that I was "touching one of my friends an awful lot" and I was like, "What the hell?"
Kathleen: Yeah. So what? Boys should touch each other more, I mean, they don't fucking have to beat each other up. It's the only reason they beat people up is because they want to fuck each other.


Well, I wouldn't go that far.
Kathleen: Well, I would. Any more questions?


Yeah, when you played in Chicago you prefaced one song by saying something to that effect that people shouldn't blame the women in pornography, but the porno itself. What do you think the difference is?
Kathleen: The difference is that pornography as an institution or as an industry is largely run by straight white males and that's who profits from it. The women who work in the industry are a lot of time supporting themselves or their families. There's a big difference between an image of pornography or the pornography or the pornography industry and a women who is basically, in a way, serving a burger just like a person at McDonald's does. Women who don't have the option, who don't have a college education or aren't from the middle class or wealthy don't necessarily have the luxury to turn down a high-paying job like that. It's just offensive when people pinpoint the women in the industry who really aren't making the most profit from it, as the ones that are exploiting men. But, I have to go now...


Oh... you wanna leave an address or something?
Kathleen: Our address is Kill Rock Stars: 120 NE State #418, Olympia WA 98501. Thank you.



x  x  x  x  x  x  x

back to in print

what is riot grrrl?  |  band biography  |   lyrics  |   discography
images  |   did you know?  |   links  |   about the site
home