A Quote by Lauren Mayberry
Every conversation we have as a band is about gender in some way, and it's been like that from the beginning.
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One of the central challenges for global conversation today is to find ways of getting to understand very different views about gender and sexuality. But we should start by recognizing that these issues are subjct to disputation within every society as well as across societies. We need a global conversation that recognizes that we have these very different views. Next, try to agree on fundamental rights: things we think every person is entitled to. Finally, if we're convinced that what a government or a society elsewhere is doing to some people is badly wrong and the conversation gets nowhere.
Major labels have always been around our band since the beginning, and we just waited. We knew we had to do some things, and we needed to grow as a band before we made that step. We needed to do it our way and not do it how it works for other people.
Gender is not an easy conversation to have. It makes people uncomfortable, sometimes even irritable. Both men and women are resistant to talk about gender or are quick to dismiss the problems of gender. Because thinking of changing the status quo is always uncomfortable.
We've always been kind of an underground band in a way that had the respect of our peers on the road. I like to say we're the world's most famous opening act because we've opened for every huge band on the planet.
The only bitterness I had is: Where is the conversation on gender? That's been going on since there have been men and women, and still we're not hearing about what they're going through.
I've always thought about gender, as someone who has been categorically "gender nonconforming" for my entire life, I was forced to think about it, but obviously I became more conscious of it as a social issue as I've gotten older. And as I've met more folks who are genderqueer or trans, it's been really enlightening to hear their stories, and it got me thinking about my own gender history.
It's been said that every new beginning in some other beginning's end.
For the people that don't know it, we've had members come and go from this band since the beginning. It's always been about collaboration, and it's been about just playing music with our friends.
When you watch the way some of the commentators talk about this, it makes it seem as if people are crossing the border every second. How much money have we spent on the border? Why? And who's really exploiting whom?" And then he gets quiet. But I think just airing these out and having a face-to-face conversation about it helps both of us internalize what the conversation is really about. I don't think we have that in the public sphere.
The thing about this band is that every member of the band is a song-writer so that takes some of the pressure off.
Every night I try to look at the audience and treat every audience differently. It's almost like it's a single entity or a person. I always try to treat it like a conversation and allow it to happen naturally in the same way that you would engage in conversation.
We went from being thought of and talked about as "a band that plays a so-and-so style of music" (a grunge band, a stoner band, etc) to "a band that plays music with a certain sensibility or style to it". I'm not able to see quite what that is, but it's there and some people like it a lot.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
I'm sure that a lot of women and men feel differently about it, but for me this isn't about being the girl in the band... it's just about being IN the band, if that makes sense? We're trying to keep it in a pure and genuine place for us and not break it down to gender, because it's just a bit boring and obvious isn't it?
Some people ask: "Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?" Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general-but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.
The most fun thing about doing the show is that, as a nerd, the fun has been in learning and having it be like a grad school for me, every day. Every moment is a new experience. Every conversation is a new gain.
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