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Interview
by SashaS
15-4-2005
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| 50 Foot Wave's Kristin Hersh |
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Mother rebel with a yell
50 Feet Wave: an absolution of a muse
There has been a number of albums this year that have patched my hole-in-soul but only a couple that employed the Rock idiom: one’s been available for a few months, the other is not coming out until the end of May - 50 Foot Wave’s ‘Golden Ocean’ and Modey Lemon’s ‘The Curious City’, respectively.
50 Foot Wave is a trio fronted by one‘n’only Kristin Hersh, the founding member of Throwing Muses/solo artist/warrior lady. Her co-conspirators in this aggro/punky adventure are former T/Muse colleague on bass, Bernard Georges, and drummer Bob Ahlers and the first, proper album, simply burns and batters expectations.
Kristin Hersh is a mother of four but not your typical woman whose fulfilling the biological function [No.1 on the female agenda bar none] result in losing the edge, the drive, get so settled in and concentrated on controlling their immediate environ, i.e. all they wanna do is change their husbands… [This remark is observational generalisation rather than judgement on the more beautiful human specie for the sake of making a point - before you flood our Chief Ed with E-protests!]
“The kids keep you seeing young,” the short-haired petite lady says. “For instance, the title track of the album is named after my 8-year-old son’s remark: we lived in the hills and could see Los Angeles and what I saw as a shimmering smog [a wastland of humanity? - Greenpeace Ed.], he saw it as ‘Golden Ocean’. He sees beauty, so I had to look at the ugliness I felt and open my mind more to positive outlook.”
“I also can’t relate to the idea of settling-down,” she continues rapidly, “a concept I can hear it in a lot of music, either men or women’s, they sound calm and bored. When I was younger, before the family, I was angry about the things that really didn’t matter, like me… I wasn’t in love, my heart couldn’t be crushed by a look or a word but now… My life is panic, a chaos, an obsession… There may be an inner peace but it is not going to resonate in the music because the music is going to use the anger and the obsession and helplessness and love as loud instruments… I can’t relate to anyone getting outer peace from being that much in love…”
“Anger in music is not the same as anger in a room, you wouldn’t like to hang out with somebody acting that way. It is strength, you can pour all sorts of emotions… Negative or positive energy, it ceases to matter because it is big…”
Making such intense music is obviously cathartic; do you think you are better mother because of it?
“Along the sphere of control you were talking about,” Hersh’s responds sensibly, “there is a sphere of expression and, I suppose, I’m nice all the time because of music and I also think the music sounds that way because I’m nice all the time. My kids complain about it but all I can tell them is to listen to 50 Foot Wave. Other mothers don’t do jobs they love and frustration comes through, I’ve a sphere of expression.”
Poetry of private politics
Additionally to her marital/parental and creative demands, there is a business duty: she runs own label in America. Plenty on a plate and it is as much an expression of independence, punk/DIY ethic but also a necessity to bypass major labels that simply are clueless on marketing her. Critics correctly tag her - “The most important woman in rock today”.
“That’s flattering but I’ve never thought of myself as a woman,” she remarks casually, “never have been anything else but a person and a musician… I’ve never had to play that game or maybe I didn’t see it because I don’t recognize gender as a descriptive term… There are too many shades of grey but the songs I play are not women’s song…”
Ms Hersh is a peculiar songwriter who is so anti-industry that she issued two albums on the same day in 2003, one under her own and the other - old/reformed band’s name: ‘The Grotto’ and ‘Throwing Muses’, respectively. The band’s ninth album confusingly shares its name with the 1986 debut disc; the former was her sixth solo effort. 50 Foot Wave made their recording debut last year with an eponymous mini-album that premiered three songs also included on ‘Golden Ocean’.
“I used to write songs in my head and the songs would be there; writing them down was pointless to me… By the time I was getting ready to record my solo record or teach them to a band, that would be the first time that I hear them because I have very little time to practice. Now is even more complicated because at this time we are homeless, we sold our house in LA and want to move but can’t decide where to live.”
“I don’t know whether we just ran out of interesting places to live in, we used to move almost every year, or we are so terrified of Bush’s America… We are thinking of having to choose a country right now and most of the Americans we know don’t want to live there anymore… Nobody knows where to go, even Canada doesn’t want us… The trouble is that there really isn’t a perfect country; we thought that New Zealand could be perfect but then you discover that half of your income goes to taxes… But then, do I want my taxes to go to Bush?”
Isn’t democracy obeying the will of the majority even if you disagree?
“It is and would be in this case if he were elected but he wasn’t. It was terrifying… Michael Stipe [of REM in you were asleep in the pop class] called everybody in our circle of friends, hundreds of people, and said, ‘When you vote, look on the screen and make sure it doesn’t say - Bush’, and that’s what happened to every single person. You’d vote and the screen would say - ‘You chose Bush’ - and there was nothing anyone could do about it. You can’t even get that in the newspapers because everybody blindly believes in computers and ...”
“Half of the news you get on the BBC is never transmitted in the US because the corporate America… The trouble is that there is no nationality, there is no such thing as an American but everyone put into the same place and then they all got fucked-over… Bush and corporate America made them poor so they turn to Jesus and end up voting for Bush who made them poorer in the first place.”
“American’s weren’t forced to become world citizens until 9/11 and their reaction to it is to become the most hateful bullies and elect the most hateful bully as the President, although he was not elected either time… They were much better at stealing elections, getting more sophisticated…”
Pneuma and trodden petal
The native of Altanta, Georgia, Kristin Hersh formed Throwing Muses at the age of 14 with her half-sister Tanya Donelly in Boston, Massachusetts. Their first album appeared in 1986 and, despite Donelly leaving [in 1991] to form Belly, the band continued until 1997. By then Hersh was already cultivating a solo career, started with ‘Hips and Makers’ LP in ‘94.
International politics are at the breaking point, people are dulled into robotic spend & consume culture that is going through a digital-adjustment…
“To understand the future we have to look back, to folk music and live performances… Music was a right and not a commodity, walked from town to town, played in bars, at parties and churches; it was in the ether and that was a given. I utilise Internet very much in America and encourage people to download and share… I have no choice really unless I want to play ‘bad’ music, hire a stylist and try to convince teens to dress like me and thus listen to the music…”
“I’d never want to nor could I pull it off and this is the only way to survive. So, we want to stay on the road all the time and that’s when CD comes in, for us: people buy it, even a fistful, to help us. We appeal to people who do not appreciate being marketed too… I’m poor but I’m a musician and I should be because I get to do music everyday…”
In the world that is crying for a new awakening, the alarm clock appears to be malfunctioning?
“Well, there was a period when… Nirvana were selling records the whole situation was confusing and the underground was watered down; now, when the music is unbelievably bad, the underground is incredibly strong. It works for me and I don’t mind seeing them clowning in the ballpark and that’s what they should have been doing when they signed Nirvana by accident.”
“Music I play is not easy to classify and market and many papers have avoided talking to me because they don’t know what my target audience is; Village Voice [New York City’s alternative organ] previewed a show of mine and said ‘You should attend if only to see the bizarre cross-section of humanity’ and it is true: black, gay, male, gender-free, they all are welcome and I love the variety.”
Just like her songs and, generally, career.
~
Tour dates:
15 April - Islington Academy, London
16 April - Academy, Liverpool
17 April - Academy, Birmingham
18 April - Boardwalk, Sheffield
19 April - The Music Café, Leicester
20 April - Doornroosje, Nijmegen (NL)
22 April - Botanique / Rotonde, Brussels
23 April - Paradiso, Amsterdam
24 April - Hedon, Zwolle (NL)
26 April - La Maroquinerie, Paris
27 April - L'Olympic, Nantes
28 April - L'Abordage, Evereux (F)
29 April - Le Normandy, Saint-Lo (F)
30 April - Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing (F)
SashaS
15-4-2005
50 Foot Wave album ‘Golden Ocean’ is available now on 4AD
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