What got you into music?In the past couple months, Lois has visited the area twice to play solo acoustic shows -- first at Duke Coffeehouse and then opening for the Spinanes at Cat's Cradle. In small, intimate settings, it doesn't get much better. Quick-witted, smart and extremely down-to-earth, Lois fleshes out her low-key strumming with between song banter and comes away with everyone wanting to be her friend (yeah, I know that sounds dumb, but it's totally true!).
What follows took place at Duke Coffeehouse and restored my faith in doing interviews (mainly because she did all the talking). Though I started off by giving Lois a hard time about modeling Benetton clothes in the October 1993 issue of Interview, let there be no doubt that I was quickly won over.
-- Carrie McLaren
I see you talked about the Benetton thing in Chickfactor, so maybe I shouldn't dwell on it . . . oh, well, let me get it over. How did the thing in Interview . . . the Benetton ad come about?
Interview is actually supposed to be a magazine of interviews. But they supplement their income with advertising, obviously. I'm sure Benetton is one of their larger advertisers. They didn't say you have to wear these clothes. Y'know, it was just fun. They sent all these clothes down, they weren't all Benetton. It ranged from the Gap to (Yamamoto? indecipherable)
So it wasn't like a Benetton ad? You just happened to be in Benetton clothes.
Right. It's kinda against fashion because in the back it said, "information on buying items on page . . ."
Did they pay you for that?
Oh, no. They hire a photographer and stylist and give you clothes and you can choose to do whatever you want to.
How do you feel about product endorsements?
I didn't even know I was wearing Benetton clothes. I thought it was more Interview's concept for the magazine. If Benetton called and said "Would you do a Benetton ad?" I'd say absolutely not, but I guess in a sense I did . . . no, I don't think it was. No money passed hands.
But did you know that they were. . .
I didn't know that they were going to say clothing courtesy of Benetton. I dunno why . . . I dunno . . . it doesn't seem very important to me.
What got you into music?
Well, I was into music as a kid, but what got me into punk was, well I went to Catholic high school and the repetition of football games and drunkenness was exceedingly boring to me and so I was looking for a way out. In Phoenix, there wasn't really a punk scene yet. There was a ska scene and a rockabilly scene. The punk scene first started with the Meat Puppets and JFA. Somehow I found out about it and just started going to shows.
What, did you have friends into it?
Did you go to Olympia for college?
Yeah, I heard about Evergreen being this place where you didn't have to have any grades and you didn't have to take math or French.
Did you start playing music as soon as you got to Olympia?
No. I was just a fan and I did a radio show, a woman's show on KAOS. Then I moved to Portland for a year and did a radio show there. But Portland was just miserable because everyone I knew was just the antithesis of the kind of Olympia/K, do-it-yourself, kinda square, friendly person. Everyone in Portland was like a weird goth. Everyone was totally crazy . . . except Rebecca Gates. Anyhow, so I'm like I hate all you people. You are all dumb and I'm going to learn how to play guitar and I don't care if I'm the worst guitar player in the world, if I play guitar poorly, it will be better than being a stupid Portland poseur. . . I always loved going to shows and being a fan, but it wasn't until I really felt like I needed to make a sort of statement . . . a physical . . . I just wanted to not be a Portland poseur. There had been things in Olympia that I had done. There'd be a coffeehouse thing . . . I'd get up and sing a cappella . . . a Hank Williams song or something. In Olympia it wasn't really threatening 'cause everyone there would do dumb stuff. So then it kinda turned into us doing kinda weird performances, we'd make costumes, stuff like that. It wasn't scary at all. Getting up in front of people has never really scared me. I used to run a film series at school and give a little spiel about the movie. It was great.
So how did you get into being in a band?
I was working at this job and we had a work talent show and two of the people I was working with put together a band called Lumihoops. We played one show on the radio and one live show. One was actually released on Pat Maley's Throw compilation. I didn't know how to play guitar. Jan didn't know how to play drums, but Sharon was an ethnomusicologist. We had a polka and a waltz and a punk song. Then Sharon moved to New York so Jan and I formed the Cradlerobbers, which is the band I was in with Rebecca Gates from the Spinanes.
Circa . . . ?
Circa . . . I'm old! . . . circa 1988? No, 1987. It started at the Olympia Film Festival and we started this thing called the Fringe Festival, which could be anything, movies, music, so I was curating that and I did this thing called Girl Friday, which was an all-girl performance thing. One of the reasons I did it was just to have a pretend band in it, and that was the Craddlerobbers.
So when did Courtney Love happen?
After that. I had a couple more songs I had done for Lumihoops and Pat Maley (the other half of Courtney Love) had recorded us so he had said, "if you ever wanna play . . ." and I was like, yeah, right. He was in a Grateful Dead knock-off band and I was wary . . . but Pat's like the nicest person on earth so I just said fuckit and decided to play and see how it went.
Did you break up because you were going to move?
No, I moved first. We did two tours after that, but it became too hard. I miss it a lot, but also love the fact that (our career was) so clean. Three singles, done. Don't you wish Morrissey committed suicide after "How Soon Is Now?"
Any comments on the name Courtney Love?
If you don't mind, I don't wanna talk about it. It's not like it's such a violation, it's just that I made a promise to myself that I wasn't going to talk about it anymore.
Yeah, it's just that I'm always saying, "it's the band Courtney Love" and people don't understand . . .
The band broke up over two years ago. It's sort of like your mom showing your baby pictures to someone. The fact that the band existed before this personality.
It's over. Three singles. . . why did you move to DC?
Olympia is a small town. My highest ambition was to put a single out on K Records. And then I did it. DC has always had a great music scene, so it seemed like a great place.
How is the music community different there?
It's more traditional, people are better musicians. When I first moved there four years ago, you kinda had to pay your dues before you put out a record. Whereas in Olympia it was like, "can you knock your heels on a drum? Then you can put out a record!" Also, there weren't a lot of women then that had released vinyl. That's changing now. . . . But the affinity between the places is that they're both really into their local scene.
A lot of bands, especially those from Olympia and that area, like Bratmobile and Crayon, have a sort of childish, kiddie aesthetic. What . . . ?
A lot of that you can trace back to Beat Happening where they had songs like "fourteen" and "Let's Kiss." Riot Grrrl fashion is like short skirts and boots . . . like children's clothes. Because Olympia was sort of a stopping ground for misfits, I think an aesthetic was formed there that was like "we're the kids you beat up, i.e. the little kids, the small kids" I think it's more obtuse than that. Jenny Toomey from Simple Machines is always saying, "oh, we're just a little label, a little band" It's always the diminutive thing. It don't think it's very healthy, but then I do think of myself as a girl and I talk about girls even though a lot of people say fuck that, you're a woman, you shouldn't deny it, and you're denying your sexuality and you're trying to get to this pre-pubescent stage where you have no breasts and your genitalia is negated and I don't think that that is true.
Do you think the childish thing is more associated with women than men? Or is it gender neutral?
Um . . . I can see the Bratmobile thing goes beyond just the music. . .they stamp and stomp . . .
And it's all over zines like Chickfactor and Action Girl. The language is really . . .
Girly, cartoony. It could be part of the feminist backlash . . . It's intriguing. . . .You can also go back to the whole idea of rock and roll as the endless summer where you never grow old. It's taking it back to a different level.
What are the best and worst reviews you've gotten?
The review that just came out in Option, (Mark Kemp) discerned things in the record that I had actually thought, "this is what this is about." Bad ones? Well, I've been playing electric a lot ... sometimes I'd get a Maximum RNR review of Courtney Love and it'd be "what is this baby shit!"
But you expect that. . . Is there a question that you hate to be asked? I guess the Courtney Love thing . . .
Yeah, only because it stops being about anything I had anything to do with and starts to be about other sections of life that have sucked up so much energy that they don't deserve anymore. I don't wanna throw any more tinder on the fire. It's ragin' on its own.
Do you have a day job?
Until a couple months ago. I was a waitress. I've had a bunch of jobs.
What's your favorite thing to do outside of music?
Film stuff. I thought that was going to be what my life was going to be until the music took off. I've made films. I made Beat Happening films. Making them isn't as thrilling, though, as watching them.
Do people try to pick you up more now that you're a rocker?
No! Rebecca Gates and I are always commiserating on that! Sometimes there are 15-year-old boys and girls at shows . . . but I'm like, "I could have sired you!"
If you had a label, is there a band you'd want to sign?
We were just talking about this. EVERYONE is signed now. There's this band that just played their third show in DC and they were signed by Teen Beat at their first show. If I did have my dream label it would be an all-girl label run by girls and it would just be a normal thing.
How is Calvin as a producer?
Calvin is really good for me as a producer. I've known him for 12 years, so he knows what I like. Stuart Moxham, who produced the first one, would tend to get too technical, but Calvin would translate his questions like, "Lois, do you want it to sound like a pancake or a souffle?" He knew how to talk to me. And the Tiger Trap stuff he's produced is really great.
Are they really broken up?
Yes, it's true.
And Unrest.
Broken up. . . yeah, let's see, Bridget, Heather . . .I want to get a super group (laughs) . . .
Yeah, a side project. We have a lot of those here.
I'm starting to think my side project is my life!
Does K do contracts?
Yes they do but I don't have a contract with them. I don't think I've ever signed a contract, for any reason.
Because you're down with them . . .
Yeah, I'll kick their ass if they do anything dumb! But they do have contracts with most all of the bands now. I'm an old-timer. I came in under the grandfather clause.
Any upcoming Lois recordings?
The electric version of Lois just recorded four songs and Ian MacKaye produced it. We'll put a single out. It's big, rocky . . . but since we've recorded that I've gone into this weird, spare, thing . . .more vocal-oriented. I kinda want to spend the summer learning more about singing.
Do you like pop singers?
Pop singers?!? George Michael? YES! Mel Tormé? YES! Whatever! Dinah Shore. Frank Sinatra. Julie London. Anything like that -- divine! I love Madonna, too, but Mariah Carey (snore), Michael Bolton (snore) I want to stick an icepick in his eyeball. You're much more likely to hear me listening to Mel Tormé than Pavement.
I'm reading the Independent and the writer makes repeated references to Riot Grrrls in the article. Does that happen a lot?
Yeah, in DC I've basically been an observer of what's happening, an older and wiser observer maybe, but completely sympathetic. . . I've always been a Riot Grrrl but they didn't have a name for 'em then. . . Still, I don't wanna impose myself on their meetings, like, "the reason you're having problems with your boyfriend is that he's a little skateboard dick!" Who wants an old crone sitting there telling them what to do. As far as making women become involved in music, I definitely feel like a Riot Grrrl.