The theme of this week's Recess is gay and lesbian life in the Triangle. What can you tell us about lesbian life around here?
I hardly leave my house. Gay life to me is hanging out with my girlfriend and my dog. I don't get out enough. The gay life, I'm sure, is fine here, but it's not much of a city, so it's a little boring. But it's not really gay life-life in general is boring.
Who is your audience?
I don't know-I think it's expanding. It's mostly indie folks-girls, ladies, women and queer kids. Hopefully it's expanding-our music crosses a few borders and genres. It's eclectic to a certain extent.
You guys dress in a very brash and (appropriately) butch fashion. What do you attempt to do with your image?
Certainly, we put ourselves out there in our live performances and in our record art as being politically minded, as being people who are concerned about issues-the major issues being the "white supremacists, patriarchal blah blah blah." We're conscious of corporate oppression and all that, but we're also conscious that as queer people we don't have the same rights as straight people. So our image is gay.
I've just heard your new record-which is great, by the way-and the songs are so catchy and your voice is so pretty. Do you think people who haven't seen photos of you picture the way the Butchies really look after hearing a song?
No, and people could envision us in all sorts of ways. If they didn't know who was playing that music, we could be all sorts of things in people's minds.
But when you hear Def Leppard, you picture-
You think of guys with schlongs. Yeah, my voice is sometimes really pretty-it's really hard for me not to sing pretty. I've tried to scream and it just doesn't work out. I don't know what people imagine when they hear us.
Do you ever feel limited by the genre of music that you play? And I'm not talking about the gay/lesbian genre, but just the guitar-rock genre.
Honestly, at some point in my future, there will be a side project band that will involve keyboards. I think the guitar is what I'm good at-which doesn't mean I wouldn't want to branch out-but it's what my main focus will be. (Interrupted by dog barking). [To dog] Do you really need to do that? Sometimes I have to lecture my dog.
Sounds like a scary dog. Could you tell me how important "community" is to what you do? And I put "community" in quotes because I want you to interpret it anyway you want.
Well, I would infer that it's my community musically and my friends and my larger political community. There's a local community and a community around the world-in every city. It's why we have a fan base, and that's why we've gotten to where we are.
You often use the words "she" and "her" in your songs instead of the ambiguous "you"-do you feel that it limits your popularity?
Well I don't know if it's our lyrics that would limit our popularity. It's probably more how we present ourselves in our concerts and artwork than our music. Sleater-Kinney use "she" and "her" and they've reached a good level of mainstream success.
But in some ways, doesn't your confidence in using these pronouns fit into your image as proud and visible lesbians?
Yes, I think so, and I think the pronoun thing is good, too, because I like to think of my songwriting as being, for lack of a better word, poetic. I don't write too many political songs-they tend to be more poetic. I try to get a more Pat Benatar feeling in my lyrics.
It's Friday, 9 p.m.-where are the Butchies?
Well, all I can say is that Kaia is at home with her wife, Tammy Rae, and the dogs. Melissa might be with us.
Wanna check the Butchies out? They're playing King's in Raleigh next Wed.
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