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GRILL ROCK STARS KATHLEEN: Okay, okay, okay. So the reason why this interview came about is because the Bob Mack guy asked if I’d do something for Grand Royal, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything and instead I wanted to talk to you about some stuff that really pissed me off about the first issue... MIKE: Well, in the beginning, we really got carried away doing the magazine. Originally it was supposed to be only us, and then we reached out to more people... and I get into a bit of a hard position, cos there’s always more people who say things that I don’t agree with, but I’m still responsible for putting them out, and that freaks me out to a certain extent. I don’t really know to what extent I should censor those ideas or control what those ideas are, or if I should put them out and just comment on them. KATHLEEN: Or like have me comment on them? MIKE: Yeah, exactly. KATHLEEN: Well, part of the thing is, like, what’s the difference between censorship and social responsibility? I sometimes find that the whole censorship argument is used as a way for people to avoid the fact that they’re like... MIKE: Doing shit that’s totallly fucked all the time. KATHLEEN: Fucked! Yeah, totally!... [digging into the magazine] Hold on, there’s this other thing I want to bring up that was in the last issue, it’s from the Pharcyde interview... fuck man, where is it... okay , okay, okay... this isn’t Mike who asks the question but [reading from the interview], "Out of all the females in the entire world, who would you most want to bone?" Okay? And then it goes on to say, "Oh Janet, Janet, no not Janet Jackson... blah... blah... blah." MIKE: Actually they were really perplexed by that particular question and they kept coming back to it, recurrently, you now what I mean? We’d just go on to other stuff, and then they’d come back to the question because it stayed in their minds for a while. I’d also like to say that I don’t mind being taken to task for asking that question, but I want to stand up for the Pharcyde because one of the most appealing things about them is that a lot of their lyrics deal with the shit that happens to them. "Passing Me By" and "Otha Fish" are more about getting dissed by girls than about pursuing them like objects. KATHLEEN: Well, let me tell you how I felt about it, if anyone cares. I read that question and I just had this total fear run through my body. Not a fear of like, "Oh someone’s gonna bang down my door and hurt me." I was just really scared about how they were gonna answer the question. Like how many individual women were they gonna hurt by answering it? I mean, I’ve had problems where it’s really hard to even play a show because the sound guy won’t plug in my monitor unless I tell him if I’m married, single, or have a boyfriend. And you know, this is the kind of shit I have to deal with every day, and it’s like... it’s more than just insensitive to ask questions like that, I mean it totally sucks to talk about female musicians in terms of their asses or whatever and not their music. I just thought it was disrespectful to women in general, and especially to the individual women who were mentioned. I don’t know.. I’m not saying censor it. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, like, what women is gonna want to write for this magazine? MIKE: Yeah, but one of the things I want to do with the next issue, even though I don’t want to lose our voice or lose whatever we’re trying to do, is make the magazine a little less male-centric. [The conversation goes on, covering topics like the lack of female record company presidents, the B-Boys being embarrassed by their past and the typically slutty ads placed by companies like Diesel in magazines like SPIN. Beers are opened and Mike wonders about asking bell hooks to read/speak at Lollapalooza.] MIKE: We can say to bell hooks, "Well, do you want to speak in front of these kids who are going to be completely ignorant of what you’re about, maybe under one percent of which are going to even know who you are? It’s going to be fucked and people might be completely disrespectful of who you are, but you do actually stand a chance of, like, going out there and maybe changing a couple people." KATHLEEN: But see, my idea on the whole thing is, hey, it’s not the responsibility of marginalized, oppressed people to educate everyone. I personally wouldn’t put myself in that position and go out there and do my schtick in front of the Red Hot Chili Peppers fan guys... because, you know... MIKE: Yeah, but I have to go out in front of those guys every night. KATHLEEN: You don’t have to do anything. MIKE: But our idea is to do something different with that audience, which is why I think our audience is different than the "those guys" crowd. KATHLEEN: But, um, about the whole thing you brought up about asking bell hooks to do Lollapalooza...
I think what you’re saying is essentially that guilt is debilitating and you don’t wanna just sit around whining and
moaning. You wanna actually use your privileges to make potentially cool things happen, and...
MIKE: Well, in terms
of being, like an intermediary, on that level, it’s easy... KATHLEEN: Let me finish! Let me fucking finish! MIKE: Like when Public
Enemy’s first album came out they went on tour with us, and it was our
favorite record. And it’s not like white kids immediately caught on to
Public Enemy. Their first album wasn’t really that big a success. It wasn’t
until It Takes a Nation of Millions that they got big. You put Public
Enemy after their first album, that was like the best album we had heard.
Period. KATHLEEN: Let me fucking finish! Okay, so you don’t wanna sit around and moan, so you’re trying
to use your privileges t ohelp people gain access to the stuff that you have access to, and I think that’s really cool.
The thing I’m saying is that it’s not enough. We had a similar problem in Riot Grrrl DC. Two years ago, at the
convention, we were talking about how there were a lot of white girls involved, and it was like, what are we going
to do about this? And then someone brought up that it was really racist for the white girls to assume that
non-white girls/girls of color would want to be involved in what was basically a white girl thing, a thing
that had pretty much been based on the needs of white women and girls. You know? Like, does bell hooks
really want to go to Lollapalooza? MIKE: Welll, she very
well may not. It may not be the right thing for her to do. KATHLEEN: Right. What I’m saying is that maybe it’s not about getting people to work with us on our
agendas, but more about redefining our whole thing. Sure you can go out and say, "I wanna get some women of color
and some white women to work on this magazine," but if you don’t create a magazine that anyone but white guys are
willing to deal with then really all that’s happened is you’ve created a situation where you can feel good about
yourself for "trying," but nothing’s really gonna change. You know what I mean? MIKE: I was going to ask you guys about one thing that’s
interesting to me, but I don’t want to use the RG words. KATHLEEN: Go ahead. MIKE: Well, if you look
at Riot Grrrl as a movement, to me it’s like Malcolm X’s whole theory
of when white people said, "How can we be involved in forwarding what
you’re doing?" He said, "You can’t really," you know? That has to come
from within the community. That has to come from within our own people.
We have to strengthen ourselves. We have to become affirmed in our own
identity. But what you can do is educate all your fellow people who are
the oppressors, you know? Let them know what their background of oppressing
people is... KATHLEEN: Exactly. MIKE: In the same way, it’s
like you don’t want to have to deal guys at Riot Grrrl meetings, but at
the same time, guys can have their role in terms of educating other guys
about their own oppressive behaviors. KATHLEEN: Right. I think one thing that’s reallly important in the boy community or whatever, or the boy
thing, is like, to realize that oppression is a two-way street. You know what I mean? That it’s like, white men
are really missing out -- I don’t wanna say white men are oppressed, but... MIKE: I don’t think
oppression is a two-way street. KATHLEEN: No, no, no. You misunderstand me. What I’m saying is that I think that the way that
masculinity has been constructed in our society is fucking boys up. Because, even if you just look at it on a
personal level, it’s like, I can’t hang out with boys who haven’t educated themselves or been educated in some
meaningful way about sexism. And so it’s like, the guys who wanna be friends with me are just gonna miss out
, you know? And I happen to think I am a pretty cool friend to have, you know what I mean? The way I look at
it, it’s a lot more complex than saying white equals evil (although it’s a perfectly fine thing to say sometimes). KATHI: We’re all losing out. KATHLEEN: Right. All of us. what I’m saying is that inequal Power distributions and hierarchies,
in general, dehumanize everyone involved... and you know I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest to just playing
top/bottom games forever. I mean, things could be really complex and interesting, but they’re not gonna get that
way unless people with privilege seriously start challenging ourselves in terms of how we oppress and/or abuse
"others." You know? And we have to check each other’s shit or else we’re all gonna miss out on things being
cool. You guys are seriously missing out unless you all start listening to girls. MIKE: Unfortunately,
that’s probably the last thing that’s gonna change. You know what I mean?
In terms of how males should be more open to talknig to each other and
open to learning something new, they’d probably have to be coming from
a more secure place, which is hard. KATHLEEN: Which is also where homophobia is gonna enter the discussion. MIKE: Yeah, and all
that stuff. To me, people have to be aware that to be gay or queer or
whatever in this world right now means that you’re basically being given
shit all the time. You know, constantly. And in a different way thatn
if you’re black. You’re dealing with a certain non-stop discrimination
that really dictates their behavior. Like, I know plenty of gay women
who won’t kiss in public. You know what I mean? Well, I wanted to ask
you about how Riot Grrrl deals with the male, white person. Like how you
want t see males ge t involved in terms of forwarding what you want to
do and actually bettering the situation overall. KATHI: Yeah! MIKE: You know what
I mean? I guess it’s kind of broad, but... KATHLEEN: No, I know what that’s about. KATHI: [to Kathleen] You can, like, try to clarify the whole
thing with us and Riot Grrrl if you want to. KATHLEEN: Oh yeah. First of all, Bikini Kill is not Riot Grrrl and Riot Grrrl is not Bikini Kill.
They’re totally separate entities, and there’s four people in Bikini Kill with very distinct ideas, and anything
that comes out of my mouth, obviously people should know it’s from my mouth, and not out of like, a hundred women’s
mouths, or Kathi’s mough, or Bill’s. I need to say this cos every time I say anything it’s like... KATHI: "Riot Grrrl means..." Which usually translates into "Bikini Kill says..." KATHLEEN: What’s really sad about this is that Bikini Kill, as a band, has been termed into
these extremely rigid, static ideas by people other than ourselves. I mean, just to brag about the band I’m in, I think
that we always had a really good sense of humor. You know? KATHI: We like to make fun of ourselves. MIKE: Like in
Grand Royal, you know, Thurston’s doing "Top Ten Free Jazz Albums."
And that’s really going to be a cool list, but then it’s like, to me,
the goal is to have a balance of stuff that’s like, I don’t want to say
"consciously humorous," but stuff that we do where we’re goofing, where
it is like us and it’s funny. That’s in there and balancing that with
a more serious side. KATHLEEN: Well, that could be very powerful. And there’s this similar thing that I am dealing
with in my own life, where I am wanting to be around people who I identify with. I think that’s really important
for me because I’ve never really felt like I was allowed to choose who I spent time with. So for me to hang out
with tough girls, you know, who are like reading the same books I do and are into the same bands and stuff, is
really really powerful. And I think that goes with the idea that having fun and feeling included, for certain
people, are really political, and that to say "politics aren’t separate from humor" is really important,
because usually the whole idea is that... KATHI: You can either have the one or the other, but not both. KATHLEEN: And this kind of duality is a totally essential part of hierarchy or hierarchical thinking.
Like separating things out. You know -- this is good, this is bad, this is male, this is female. KATHI: This is one thing or this is the other. You can’t be both things at once, and if you are, then you’re
contradictory. KATHLEEN and KATHI: Contradicting yourself. KATHI: And you’re invalid, completely. Either way, you’re fucked. They perceive you as contradicting yourself,
instead of seeing that of course you’re multi-dimensional... MIKE: A lot of times
people can be very amiss. You either have to be one way or another. Real
complexities of lives or personalities are hard for people to deal with.
KATHLEEN: Complex. KATHI: That’s reality. KATHLEEN: Especially for people who are "Otherd" in whatever way, made to feel marginal or suppressed or oppressed
or whatever. Not all forms of oppression are the same, they’re not... but I am talking more about how people who are
working towards whatever kind of change tend to be perceived. You get put in the position where you are supposed
to always be working for the betterment of whatever group you feel a part of, and you’re not allowed to ever fuck
up anything, lest your inconsistencies be blown out of proportion and used against you to discredit you. And so
like you get scared to have fun and kick back and have a beer cos maybe it’ll be seen as some sort of contradiction
of the fact that you’re supposed to be Miss Really Intense, or Miss Super Political, or whatever. KATHI: Or you can’t be calling boys to task at the same time as you’re making out with them.
Give me a break. Or something like, "But I thought you hated all men? Like if you don’t hate all men, then what
are you talking about?" KATHLEEN: Oh yeah, we should get back to the original question, of like what what can the boys do to help or something?
Well, personally I think it’s crucial that boys talk to each other about their own sexisms, their own experiences as
oppressors, and get used to recognizing how their behavior/action may be affecting women. And there’s all sorts of
ways they can get information about what all different kinds of women/ladies and girls think. Like aside from just
vampiring the females that they might know. Like there are lots of books and records and fanzines that they can
seek out. Plus guys have to realize that their very presence may be censoring and demanding the women, so there
are gonna be times when they just shouldn’t be around, you know? And bitching about this just adds to the
whole problem anyways, cos it’s not about exclusion. It’s about safety.
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