The Place For Emerging Women In Music
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By Alex Teitz
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Punk is about breaking the rules. If that axiom stands The Switchblade
Kittens are why it was written. This LA band has two bassists, attitude and a
demo that has received more attention than many others complete CDs. The
Switchblade Kittens have also received tremendous college airplay through
incredible work. FEMMUSIC was lucky to have a few e-mail minutes with Drama, the
lead cat. The name of the demo is Hey Punk Try Heroines. The website is
www.switchbladekittens.com |
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FEMMUSIC: Describe
your songwriting technique? How does a song form with the band?
D: Either Pep or I will bring in a basic song idea, and then
flush it out (or down the toilet). Then we bring it to band rehearsal and
Raina and Bliss will ad bass and drum parts. Then Drama the control freak
goes back and re-arranges the song. Finally, the band members threaten to
beat up Drama if she changes the song one more time. Wa-la song is finished.
FEMMUSIC: Switchblade Kittens is a two bass band. What benefits
does that bring to the band?
D: We don’t have to deal with an egomaniac lead guitarist.
FEMMUSIC: I saw
in the band bio that you once paid for radio airplay. Would you do that again,
and was it worth it?
D: Ummmmm…nope. What we did was, we decided to pool
our money together which was $500 and make the “Titanic song” a CD single.
So we sent the CD single out to college stations and they played it. When
a major label sends out a song they send them in CD single form, we knew it
would be a dead giveaway if we sent our whole CD, so we took the extra time and
money to
FEMMUSIC: What
was the best experience making HEY PUNK TRY HEROINES?
D: We made a CD! We did it! WE MADE A CD!
Yaaaaaaaaaaayyy!
FEMMUSIC: What
was the biggest challenge making HEY PUNK TRY HEROINES?
D: As a pop/punk band we are DIY, we had never had to deal
with a click track before, but my drummer did amazingly well, thank the goddess
she had natural sense of timing. She rehearses with a metronome now. Also having
to record on my birthday. That sucked. And it set in this annoying karma where
for the past three years whether it is a soundtrack or just
FEMMUSIC: What
one thing would you like to change about the music industry itself?
D: We need more women in the behind the scenes jobs, more
female A&Rs, label honchos, producers and sound engineers. When Maverick was
primarily female, they really got behind Alanis Morisette and women almost took
over the industry during that time. Viva la revolution. Viva la vagina.
FEMMUSIC: As a
woman in the music industry have you been discriminated against?
D: I actually had one male A&R say, “I have to see you
live to make sure you girls are really playing your instruments.” Not
"I
want to see if you have a good live show," but we need to make sure you are
REALLY playing. I would like to point out that Milli Vanilli was two GUYS!
FEMMUSIC: What
advice would you give to someone just starting out?
D: If you are in it for the money, leave. Never give up, no
matter what; in this business the
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