March 12, 2024 • 43 mins
At 70 years-old, Kim Gordon—the former bassist and founding member of Sonic Youth—is just now making the most abrasive music of her career. She just dropped her second solo album, The Collective, with producer Justin Raisen, who’s previously worked with artists like Drake, Lil Yachty, and Charli XCX. Kim’s spoken-word-like vocals on The Collective are the perfect accompaniment to Justin’s distorted trap-style beats.
On today’s episode Leah Rose talks to Kim Gordon about her latest solo album, as well as her memoir, Girl In A Band, that detailed her split with ex-husband Thurston Moore. Kim also delves into why she always felt like an outsider in New York City’s thriving downtown art scene. And she recalls Sonic Youth’s storied tour in the early ‘90s opening up for Neil Young.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Kim Gordon songs HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. At seventy years old, Kim Gordon, the former bassist
and founding member of Sonic Youth, is somehow making the
most abrasive music of her career right now. This month,
she dropped her second solo album, called The Collective, with
producer Justin Raisin, who's previously worked with artists like Drake
(00:37):
Loyati and Charlie XCX. Kim's spoken word like vocals on
The Collective are the perfect accompaniment to Justin's distorted trap
style beats, especially on her first single, bye Bye, which
was originally intended for rapper Playboy Carti Cotish. On today's episode,
(01:06):
Lee Rose talks to Kim Gordon about her latest solo album,
as well as her memoir Girl in a Band, that
detailed her very public split with ex husband Thurston Moore.
Kim also delves into why she always felt like an
outsider in New York City's thriving downtown art scene, and
recalls Sonic Youth's story tour in the early nineties. Opening
up for Neil Young. This is broken record liner notes
(01:30):
for the Digital Age. I'm Justin Mitchman. Here's Leah Rose's
conversation with Kim Gordon I saw.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
That you're getting ready to play some shows to support
the new album. How are you going to translate the
album or the songs or the new music to the stage.
What are you guys thinking?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Well, this is so it'll be the same group of
girls that I toured the last record with, but the
drummer will have probably have some kind of hybrid kit,
so she'll be uh what she'll be doing, She'll be playing,
like you know, some of the beats and then sampling stuff.
(02:10):
I guess, uh huh. Same with a guitar player and
the bass player. They're all very technologically savvy. I'm kind
of the only one who has sent and then there'll
be some things on backing tracks that we just can't reproduce.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
And for the actual for the recording of the songs,
were you playing with a live band or was it
mostly okay, it's mostly programmed stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
It was it was basically me and Justin Raisin. He
was my collaborator. Like I said, I wanted to have
more beats on this record, and he would basically send
me beats. Like I talked about what sort of you know,
hip hop I liked, and I'm sort of inspired by
rhythm because I'm not a very melodic singer in my
(02:58):
range as kind of limits it, let's just say. Anyway,
So he would make up beats with some sounds and
send it to me, and I would decide what I
thought I could work on, and then I would go
in and make up guitar parts in the studio and
lay down some vocals, and usually start out with some
(03:20):
of the songs I had complete lyrics, but I still
didn't know how I was going to place them, you know,
And then other songs I would have, you know, half lyrics,
and then I would sort of start improvising or other
things would come out around my mouth. Where'd that come from? I?
And so then it became like for him like sort
(03:41):
of a shaping editing kind of process. And then you know,
sometimes he would sample my guitars, put it back in,
and and then I would go back and then usually
add more guitar vocals.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So the guitar is you playing.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, although there might be some things he played guitar on,
but mostly it's me. And then I had Sarah come
in in the end and add more dense and noise stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
What were the reference the hip hop reference tracks that
you gave him.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know, like schooly D, how Gucci time, oh, old school?
Yeah yeah, mostly like yeah, eighties or nineties. Okay, I
didn't really give him that many references. But and then
for the last record we talked about, you know, I'd
played them different things, like even esg or there was
this single I really liked by this banda Jellies, just
(04:36):
like a super minimal kind of fun song. I'm like
eighty two or eighty three.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's cool. I thought some of I mean, some of
the music sounds like kind of like blown out dub
and trap beats. So I thought maybe you were referencing
more more recent stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Well, yeah, there is some yeah, reference to recent stuff,
but it's kind of like, well, I liked the last record.
I really liked that song Peprika Pony, which is a
trap speed so like. But yeah, no, I know that
he makes beats for other people, and so I knew that, yeah,
that would involve other things, but it wasn't like I
(05:17):
specifically pointed out some you know, contemporary person.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, it's I've been reading some of the things that
are being written about what's been released so far, and
people are like, you know, like you're dropping bangers like
trap bangers, and it's just it's so great.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, I mean yeah, Justin gets a kick out of that,
Like he couldn't wait for like his hip Hop World
or whatever to hear a record or something.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
How did you two meet? How did you start working together?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Super accidentally actually met him through his brother, uh Jeremiah,
who uh I think curates beats for Drake or something.
People send him beats. It was actually just in a
restaurant and I was with a friend and he was
with this girl, and our tables were so close together,
and they had kind of a friend vibe. But then
(06:08):
sudden they started talking about their sex life together, and
our tables were so close that we just all turned
to look at each other and started laughing. So we
just started talking and and he was kind of like, yeah,
my brother's a producer and he did the Discover Our
record and that was kind of a cool record. But
I when usually people say the word producer, my head
(06:31):
kind of just turns off. I don't know, necessarily, It's
not the way I've ever worked. So but then yeah,
Justin started dming me and he was working on a
project with Lawrence Rothman and they were having different people
come in and do vocals along with Lawrence. And I
wasn't actually living in La then, I was saying in
(06:51):
an airbnb and yeah, I thought it was sort of
a character, but I he kept sending me sup but
eventually he sent me something that okay, I could do
something on this, and so I went over and he
has this home studio in his garage. It's a very
big garage, LA style, and I did some vocals and
(07:11):
he basically took what was left over and put a
very trashy drum track to it and sent it to me,
and I was really surprised. It was just like, oh,
he really knows my sensibility. And so I went back
and I did. He had Stella from Warpaint come in
and put drums over it, and I put some guitar
(07:33):
on it and vocals and that became murdered out. And
then it wasn't until like six months later that I
think we actually started working on a record.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Sounds fun.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, it was kind of I really didn't have any
desire to do a solo record. You know. I played
with the Bill Mace. We have a experimental guitar duo
improv group and Body head and so and I have
you know, I make visual arts. So I wasn't really
thinking about launching a solo career in that sense.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Does Bill like this solo stuff that you're doing.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He's very supportive, you know, he says he does, but
I don't know what he really thinks.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
The thing that struck me about it as a lot
of the people that we talk to as people get older,
things start to get quieter, their music starts to slow down,
and this is the opposite of that. It's so noisy
in the best way. Is that something that you were
(08:38):
intending to do from the beginning. Was that part of
the original concept?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
No, I didn't really think about it, actually, not at all.
I don't know, Like, it wasn't really until it was
done that I thought, oh god, it's really a loud record.
I mean, I'm I'm kind of a slow developer. I'm
just not making a really loud record. Yeah, I don't know.
I guess I kind of see the record as an
(09:05):
intervention into the culture or what does that mean? Like,
because it's so different and so kind of abrasive in
some way and not an easy listening kind of record.
It has this other thing about it and I think
(09:26):
people seem to be more and more ready for things
that aren't conventional. And I don't know, so I think
it's just meant to be a little bit of a
disruption into what is business as usual.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But it didn't really like I didn't. You know, this
is all like I'm saying this, but it's kind of
unconsciously done.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Do you listen to loud music normally?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Uh? Not normally actually, you know, if I'm just around
my house now, like I'll listen to like even John Fahi,
you know, or like Brazilian music or Bardo Pond, you know,
kind of Actually I love Barti Pond, Like I love
that there's something really glorious and beautiful about their drone.
It's very soothing to me, even though it's kind of loud.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I don't know if this is a connection between earlier
music you've made with Sonic Youth, but seems like you're
sort of comfortable with the drone.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Do you see any sort of connective tissue between the
music you were making with Sonic Youth and the new
solo music.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I mean, you know, in some ways, like if the
songs that I sang on were the ones that were
kind of more abstract slabs of music and you know,
songs that we'd kind of make up all together sitting
around as opposed to ones Often Thurston would come in
with a melody and he would know what he wanted
(10:48):
to sing, and then we'd find our parts to it
and still arrange it all together. But other songs it
was kind of a challenge like how am I gonna
sing on this? And in a way like being presented
with like beats and pieces of music would sound and beats,
it wasn't dissimilar. You know, it's kind of okay, what
can I do with this? And you know, if I
(11:11):
didn't feel like I could do something, obviously it wouldn't
do it. But you know, some things would immediately like
move me. And that's also the way it was with
in Sonic, you like, oh yeah, I could definitely do
something you know, like massage history. I knew I could
do something like that. It's funny. It just occurred to
me the other day that it's kind of not dissimilar
(11:31):
in that way.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
M hm.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
And then we did do some things that were like
you know, cool thing or nature scene that were kind
of had moments of what reference to hip hop.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Or Yeah, I was surprised to see. I don't remember
where it was from, but I read an interview with
you where you were saying for cool Thing that llll
cool Jay's going back to Cali was one of your
favorite music videos of all time. I thought that was
super cool.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, yeah, it was definitely an inspiration, and the song
kind of came about, you know. I was I was
supposed to review l A Cool Day's new record, and
I interviewed him and I asked, I was always curious
how working with Rick Rubin was and what his knowledge
of rock was or you know, or wasn't all Rick,
(12:19):
you know, who brought what? And because I really liked Radio.
I really liked that record a lot, and I was
disappointed to learn that it was he was really into
bon Jovi really and in a way it makes sense,
like h but again, like I think it's because Rick
(12:41):
probably you know, liked the big, chunky power chords of
bon Jovi. That was kind of you know, like that
went with the space and the beats he was doing,
and yeah, in some of the music and anyway, so
that's where it was part of the inspiration for the lyrics.
You know, like being disappointed in some many Well, you're
(13:03):
not into dissident guitars. And I always thought, actually hip
hop would be so much it'd be cooler if they
kind of were into more dissonet, kind of like their
idea of rock. It's kind of corny in some respects.
So anyway, So I think Justin someone who appreciates that.
(13:24):
I never said that to him, but you know, he
appreciates that this is going to make a trap speek
cent different, you know, like it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Reminds me of have you heard Jesus Kanye's Jesus? I
wonder if Justin's a fan of that album, but it's
very like it feels like industrial music inspired.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, I heard him do it live and a horrible
at the met at this the Met Ball, and it
was the acoustics are terrible. I thought it was terrible,
but I didn't honestly didn't sit down and listen to
it the whole thing. But I I'm sure he was
a fan of it. I'm sure he wasn't. Yeah, hell,
he calls me Kanye sometimes so bad.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And now that you're in the full interview cycle promoting
the new album, how do you feel about doing interviews.
I know, it's like a strange thing to ask you
in an interview, but.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You've been interviewed so many times for so many years, Like.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think I've done over fifty interviews
for this record so far.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
And then I did a couple of interviews yesterday and
one was with someone an Think and Poland, and he's
quoting my interviews I've already done for this record, really,
And actually it was fine because I could clarify a
couple of things that were, you know, taken out of
context or whatever. But at the same time, I thought
(14:52):
it was kind of strange because I've been I think
I started doing interviews last fall when I was in Europe.
But you know, it's a necessary evil. Sometimes I like it,
you know, like it depends on the interviewer really, and
it's made me think so much about the record, and
I don't like that. Like I can give explanations for
(15:14):
most of the songs, but I don't feel like it's
always a good idea. I think it's nice when people
come to their own conclusions sometimes or like project what
they want or but for some things like the song
I mean, man it's kind of useful to explain it.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Does it seem like people are missing the mark with
the questions they're asking you about the.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Album sometimes, I mean, the worst question I've been asked
is why did you make another record? And like I
think they want me to say because of the pandemic
or some Yeah, I don't know, Like I don't have
a I don't have a good answer. I was just like,
I don't know. I was bored. I don't know what
else to do. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's
(15:58):
it's a difficult question to answer.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It seems miraculous, like for some I don't make music,
and it seems like to create something out of nothing
just seems yeah, incredible.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, but it is like, uh, yeah, you make you know,
you you make something in a space I wasn't there before,
and that's it's like you made a roomers.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You know, we're gonna take a quick break and then
come back with more from Kim Gordon and Li Ros.
Here's Kim Gordon with Lea Rose.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So yeah, so back to the dissonance Somewhere. I heard
you say that you felt like extreme noise and dissonance
can be really cleansing. Yeah, do you remember when that
first struck you.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Probably driving around uh in Western mass in this you know,
in my car and this everything covered in snow and
just kind of yeah, it's not sentimental, it's not emotional,
it's not I don't know, and it's just like looking
at suburbia, you know, it's just kind of like, I
just want something to cut through this. This is kind
of depressing. I was just like that idea. I could
(17:08):
be driving around this super bin l like, I mean,
some of a beautiful landscape, but then some of the
suburban parts, you know, depressing. And how kind of funny
you know about music that you can just have it
in your head and be it can contrast so much
with what's going on around you, and it creates its
own Yeah it's sounds stupid, but it creates its own architecture, environment,
(17:33):
space and transports you.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
So you said that before you started making the album,
you want to do something that was more beat driven.
Do you remember why you wanted to do that.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Because I feel like, yeah, I'm inspired by rhythm I
really like And when I first started playing with these
two girls, when I first started playing guitar back in
nineteen eighty or something. It was for this artist, Dan
Graham's art performance. It's called mirror performance audience, where he'd
(18:04):
have a mirror standing behind a huge mirror, like a
giant wall mirror, and he would just stand there and
describe the audience their gestures, they're shifting in their seats,
and then he would turn around and describe himself in
the mirror, harving the audience. It was all very self conscious,
and he wanted to do the piece with an all
(18:26):
girl band because he was writing articles about the slits
and feminism and rock and all this stuff. So he
introduced me to this school Miranda sat and Miranda and
we started playing, and then this other musician, Christine Han,
joined us. But it was my idea was like a
(18:47):
drum machine with someone taught me how to play like
half jazz chorts, just like pretting the bottom three strings,
so kind of doing that and then getting lyrics from
like women's magazines ads for different colored lipstick. And there
was like a talking song that we did that is
(19:09):
taken from kind of this first person text on the
back of Cosmopolitan's, like I'm a Cosmopolitan girl and I
describing the whole thing anyway, So that was a song.
So I kind of like from the very beginning I
sort of did that.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Anyway, Was that around the same time you were writing
for you started writing for magazines in New York. Yeah,
so you were writing about male bonding and what happens
between men on stage in bands. Was that the actual
impetus of you joining what became Sonic Youth.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well, yeah, Dan was writing these are articles about women
in rock, and so to be sort of rebellious, I thought,
I'm going to write about men in rock. But there
was this composer Rhese Chatham who was influenced by but Lama. Yeah,
he started with leam, but he applied it to electric guitar.
(20:04):
So he and he told Glen Bronca. So they were
both doing kind of writing pieces of music with open etuning.
So Reese had this piece called Guitar Trio. It was
so what they would do is they would take a
hit of anal nitrate, this stuff called locker room. It
was a popular drug in the West Village among sort
(20:27):
of a gay community. They would take a hit of
that and then downstroke on the guitar wars and in
this rhythm. Anyway, So the first thing I wrote was
just a description of that performance. It was very short.
It is called Trash, Drugs and Male Bonding. It was
for this art magazine called Real Life. Yeah, and then
(20:49):
I wrote longer pieces have been involved a group of
male artists. Whatever. But in order to do my research,
I read books by John Retchie because I couldn't really
find any material that described that talked about male sexuality
in a certain way. John Retchie books were kind of
(21:11):
about the gay bar scene in the West Village and
kind of this idea of needing distance for desire. And
then yeah, but I did feel like, well, maybe I'll
learn more about male bonding if I'm in the band
or something. But I met Thurston through Miranda and we
started playing music together.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Do you think the desire to go that far was
learning what it would actually be like by embedding yourself
in a real band of boys. Do you think that
has anything to do with your dad being a sociologist?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Well? I thought maybe so in retrospect, because he did
have this book on his bookshelf called Men at Work,
and I used to look at it and wonder, what's
that about it? And why isn't there a one that's
as women in Work or something? But yeah, I don't know.
I guess you know in a way that a lot
of lyrics on the record are kind of stemmed from
(22:06):
a sort of sociological kind of observe interest, and some
of it is emotionally reactive.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Did you actually ever learn, like, did you ever get
the knowledge that you were seeking in the beginning, like
what happens between men on stage in bands? Did you
have any big takeaways from being in the band for
so long?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Not really actually, I mean no, nothing that surprised me.
But there's a difference between playing bass and electric guitar,
I think, and maybe it has to do with this
sound you get from electric guitar, but it definitely feels
like this more of a sense of power, and you know,
(22:51):
just electricity is kind of an interesting thing to use
that way, and you can subvert it with your body
and move with your body and some of those heroic
gestures windmills and things like that. It become staples of
you know, arena rock or just like a kind of
rock or like they do something to the sound in
(23:13):
a way, you know. Yeah, But I think it also
is kind of has to do with people playing in
bigger and bigger places and then make so the gestures
become bigger, more perform more performative or something.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
But now it sounds like you play with mostly women.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, just kind of happened that way. The first incarnation
of the band was there was a male drummer. This
guy's serving laws is great. And then after the pandemic,
you know, people had other commitments, but it's great, Like I, yeah,
I have so much fun playing with them.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
It sounds like you became more aware of being a
girl in the band after Sonic Youth was signed to Geffen.
In your book, you talked about how you would intentionally
center yourself on stage.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I don't really intentionally center myself on stage. That's just
the way there's someone of that. Oh yeah, no, I
mean there's nothing to do. I think it has to
do with separating the two guitars, you know, and having
the bass in the middle next to the drums. It's
really what it. I just was when I think in
my book I was describing being in the center of
the stage or something. Believe me, it's not what I
(24:24):
would have first shows. Actually, when we first started going
to England, you know, in eighty four, maybe that's when
people started asking was it like being a girl a band,
and why don't you have like a persona you know, like,
why aren't you all dressed up like Susie Sue or
(24:45):
Lady A Lane or somebody. That's when I first started
becoming for self conscious about it. I guess, yeah. But
then when we signed to GET and I realized, oh,
I have this platform. Now that's a little bigger. It's
not like we were really in the mainstream, and so
I thought, I have other lots of topics I can
write about as a woman or a girl, and yeah, like,
(25:06):
so that's her swimsuit issue. Because also right after we
signed TOGEP and there was this big me too moment
that happened between this big A and R guy and
his secretary. This was a ninety ninety or ninety one
or something. Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And then shortly after, I guess a year or so
after you were signed, you went on tour opening for
Neil Young. What did that change for Sonic Youth?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Ultimately, I guess that made our name a little bit
more known again. You know, people kept asking us what
it's like to be in the mainstream, and we really weren't.
And it was quite apparent from Neil's audience that we weren't,
but I think it did do something and we learned
how to play on big stages. But we didn't when
(25:52):
we toured with them. We didn't even have guitar texts,
like we actually had hired these two friends of ours
who played in a band who never guitar TechEd, and
we never really got sound checks in the beginning either.
So for a while, like every guitar Thirston would pick
up would be out of tune, and then he would
be frustrated and smash it a lot of times. And
(26:15):
then Neil's guitar tech Larry, who was awesome, would like
fix it. But it was it was a tough It
was a tough tour.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Actually, was that that the first time you played really
big stadiums And.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, and the only show that wasn't seated was I
think the cow Palace and that was great because our
fans could come forward, but otherwise it'd be you know,
empty seats are like a hippie give me the finker
or something.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
After this quick break, we'll be back with the rest
of Kim Gordon and Lea Rose. We're back with the
rest of Lea Rose's conversation with Kim Gordon.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
How do you think growing up in la in the sixties,
how do you think that shaped your point of view
as an artist.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Well, it's more like the school I went to did
a lot to shape me. It was the Lab School
at UCLA, and it really was a lab school, Like
it was a lot of learn by doing. There was
like incredible grounds, you know, like neutrad building design and
a huge grass area, a huge cement concrete area with
(27:30):
a gully that ran through the school up into these
kind of maze of in pathways of brushes and bramble.
And then there's like an adobe house and a stagecoach
and an African hut. So when we were studying early California,
we would make die fabric and make shawls and make
fringe and grind corn and skin a cow hide, you know,
(27:55):
and go to Dana Point and throw it off like
the early settlers and stuff like that. And there was
like a you know, art program and a music appreciation
program and a eurythmics class. I loved it, like it
was great. It didn't prepare me for regular school.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
But what was it like skinning a cow when you
were were you.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Like well, we didn't actually skin. We didn't skin the caw.
We skinned a cow hide. They gave us this hide
that we stretched out in the sun and then we Yeah,
I didn't participate in that so much.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
That sounds crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
It was kind of gross, but uh, it was fun
going to Dana point and pretending. There's a lot of
pretend stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And you wrote in your book that you've always known,
even as young as the age of five, that you
were an artist.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Well, I wanted to be an artist. Yeah, I mean
I didn't really. I wasn't very verbal, but I was
good with my hands, and I just didn't feel confident
articulating such because my older brother he was very verbal
and articulate, but he also was mean, so he would
(29:06):
make fun of whatever I said and call me stupid.
And I was afraid of making a mistake, you know.
So it was mostly like verbal mistake, you know, like
I didn't have a problem with I was making something,
you know.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, I was curious when you became a mom. After
hearing about your childhood, you said that you were on
your own a lot as a child. When you became
a mom, what type of mom were you? Number One?
Were you like an anxious mom. Were you sort of
hands off? And how was your parenting style different than
how you were raised.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
I was anxious for sure, And I read books, you know,
if I got stuck with some issue or something, I
would read a book. Yeah, And my mother always said
that I was really independent, So that's you know why
she she encouraged that. You know, Like, so I I
did that, you know, I mean, would let Coco, you know,
(30:03):
I wouldn't. I would encourage her to play on her
own or you know, but I tried to to be
more present and interactive with her, you know, as far
as telling her how I felt, Yeah, just talking to
her more.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You know, you talked about in your book. You talked
about when your family moved to Hong Kong when you
were a young teenager, and the first day you were there,
you just were sort of like standing there and said
something like, how am I possibly going to survive here?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And I was curious if there's ever been another time
in your life where you've had a similar reaction to like,
how am I going to get through this?
Speaker 3 (30:45):
I mean that was definitely it was just such a
culture shock, you know. It was for some really being
around property and just just so hot and noisy, and yeah,
I didn't see anything I recognized. I didn't see any
popular culture. You know, it was way before globalization, and
(31:05):
I don't know, I guess you know. When my marriage
broke up, that was difficult, you know, like, am I
going to get through this? Yeah, it's just overwhelming. Yeah.
When I first moved to New York, that was kind
of tough too, like not having a lot of money,
and I think I got like some accident settlement which
helped me have enough money to get an apartment. But
(31:28):
before that, it was every two months I was subletting
and moving around, and I never had a backup plan.
I didn't have like I purposely never learned to type.
I love that I want to be a secretary, and
I was like, what an idiot I was. Yeah, somehow
I just never really doubted that I would just end
up okay.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So you never had a point in life where you're like, Okay,
I'm ditching this and I'm just going to go, like
get a nine to five Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Never, I mean I tried when I lived in LA
At one point I worked as a custom framer, and
that was really just hard having a nine to five child,
I get it. I guess sick a lot.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
If you're in a situation like that and you're getting
sick a lot, do you look at it like, oh,
this is my body telling me I'm doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
In your book, you talked about when you were first
living in New York City and people, maybe it was
just one person would call you a hippie and it
would just like drive you crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Oh well that was my friend Dan. Oh No. What
he did is he told the landlord, this Belgian man
who he called himself a captive landlord, because he couldn't
raise the rent. You know, a rent was incredibly cheap,
It's like one hundred and seventy five dollars a month side.
But he told him that I was a hippie and
(32:52):
that I might at people crashing at my apartment. Why
Dan said that, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's the worst thing to say to a landlord.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah. He would say things, really unfiltered things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Did you feel like in those early years when you
were in New York that you had to sort of
shut off your la neus. Did you feel different than
the people you were meeting in the scene you were
in kind of I mean like Reese, this same composer
who was actually the music director of the Kitchen at
this time.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, I'd have these conversations with him and he would say,
you're You're always going to be look middle class, you know. Yeah,
I definitely didn't feel very New York in the white
dressed or anything.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Did you find yourself changing the way that you looked.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, like, uh, well I didn't
have contexts, and I had glasses, and I got these
flip up sunglasses that I would wear that an attempt
to feel cooler or something disguise the glasses. But I
couldn't afford contexts. It's so poor.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
So after you were in New York and you started
to become more established and no more people in the
art scene. After working at gallery and started making art yourself,
you were meeting a lot of I guess the art
scene in New York City in the eighties, that's when
things got really commercial and artists were blowing up, and.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Yeah, it was beginning. Yeah, yeah, painting was becoming big.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
With all the successful artists that you've known, successful musicians
you've known. Is there something or a set of things
that you can point to that leads to somebody being successful.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
I don't know, I you know, honestly, I can't answer
that question. I think that you just, you know, have
to really want something, and so you don't really give
up or you're just kind of, you know, follow the thread.
If you can find a thread, that's all you need,
and maybe you just follow it.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
You described your early days there, or at least yourself,
like you were sort of unorganized and you felt like
you were a mess.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Do you still feel like that now or was that
just that point in your life.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I think it was more at that point in my life.
I mean, I'm still not a very organized person, but
it doesn't bother me. I mean, also I come a
manager house, so that helps.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
It's just hard when you feel like an outsider to
a community, you know, and the art community is probably
the roughest. And then I also felt kind of like
an outsider to the music scene in a way because
I was a visual artist and I don't know, like
I liked playing music, but I didn't feel like I
(35:50):
guess I felt like middle class, you know, I felt
I just felt supremely uncool. I felt, you know, like
you see you around people like wearing all black who
look incredibly chic, even though black as a color that
doesn't show dirt and it can be the cheapest clothes
in the world, but you know, at night in a
club or yeah, every once else seemed much cooler, you know,
(36:13):
and stylized in their look, and I wasn't. It wasn't
like that.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
At that point. Were you looking at people and trying
to figure out how you would dress, Like would you
take things from people you would see or was that
not even something you were interested in.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I just didn't feel like I could do that all
black thing at that time. Like I just felt like, yeah,
this is not me or that's too easy, you know,
Like I had, like I bought a pair of these
pink like pat and leather and swayed knee boots at
uh nine to nine records for ten dollars, you know,
so I would wear those with you know, whatever pants
(36:53):
I was wearing at the time or something, or like
it would I have one thing that I kind of
thought was sort of cool, but I was kind of
hopeless that the whole dressing thing.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
That sounds bold though at least you were taking chances.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, I guess so I think I was like stabbing
in the dark.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, outside of music, what else are you working on?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Not too much? I mean, I you know, doing some
work in my studio or painting, but I really have
been pretty caught up with this and memorizing lyrics, so
it's hard to like change heads. So yeah, I was
a small book coming out that about my brother. It's
more of like an art book that Calm Press is
putting out in March or April. It'll be out and
(37:39):
it's just kind of a you know, he died last
year and sort of a celebration.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh, I didn't know he died.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, he was like us. He was a schizophrenic and
so he never really got to fulfill his potential in
any way. And so I often, you know, I've been fun.
Writing is a good way to make something positive out
of something and just think about you know. I can't
think sometimes unless i'm writing.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
So yeah, the writing in your memoir Girl in the
Band was great. I listened to the audiobook version, which
I recommend because you can hear you tell your story
and your own words.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Oh NICs.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But yeah, the writing was very direct and poetic. I
really enjoyed it and was that hard for you to write.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
It was hard to write, and because I also was like, well,
it wasn't my idea to begin with it. I think
after the success of Patti Smith's book, people were looking around,
like who else would be good? And then I was
when I was trying to write, It's like, I don't
really want to write about myself. So I tried to
make it like a portrait of la in the sixties,
(38:46):
seventies in New York in the eighties nineties. Yeah, and
like halfway through, I thought, oh, these should be essays.
That would have been a better, more enjoyable form, and
so I decided the way to write about the band
would just be to pick songs that I sang and
then write things around them, kind of more an essay form.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, I thought it was really excellent. Was it hard
to get so deeply personal in the book?
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Of course it was, But I felt like I have
to include this. I don't want the book called book
to be about this breakup, but it's part of my story,
and so I have to. It makes sense to put
it in.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
The hardest thing was achieving the right tone for it.
And you know, I mean just tons of stuff I
got to put in but just you know, the sort
of purpose. Actually, one of the hardest things about writing
it was just figuring out how to explain the art
world and write about people that because you know, memoirs
(39:46):
are such a popular culturist thing that writing about artists
like is it going to be boring or you know,
like people aren't going to know who anyone is? And
then but then writing about people who are known sounds
kind of name droppy, you know, like Sophia Coppola or
you know, Spike John's or something like that.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
But you know, are the Kurt Cobaine sections?
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah, but I mean Kurt was more intertwined in things.
But anyway, they're just people who I knew at this
certain point in their life, you know.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Anyway, so that was kind of that was hard figuring
out how to write about that.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, I imagine that was a hard press run after that,
because then you get questions about all the personal stuff, right.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I remember being on Terry Grosse's show and she was
pushing me to talk more about it, and I kind
of said, I think I already said everything I want
to say about it in the book. Yeah, And she
didn't like that. At all because she likes to dig,
you know people that dig, and I don't know, she
kind of like closed up after that.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Oh she got pissed off.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I think she did. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
I always like to ask people what they're listening to,
new music, old music, whatever it is, what you're liking.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Well, Bill Mason, new record app that I like, it's
on Drag City. I just watched this really cool movie
actually called The Black Power Mixtape.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Oh I've heard of that.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, it's based on footage that this these Swedish journalists
shot from I think sixty one to seventy five or
something like, are sixty seven to seventy five interviewing a
lot of you know, Soukley Carmichael and a lot of
the people involved. But also like the footage of Harlem
(41:41):
at that time is so cool. But this we'd just
saying is like it things seem different in a way,
just you know, the wealth gap and oh yeah, there's
a scene where these Swedish tourists are going through Harlem
and the guys explaining to him in Swedish like don't
get out here and just talking about like the drug
(42:04):
use and you know, in the meantime, like US government
is like fed drugs into the Ikta and you know,
propagated this credible, horrible situation. And anyway, it was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Oh, I'll check that out.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
It has a music contemporary music in it and interviews
with over voiceovers with different musicians. It's really cool cool.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Well, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate
you coming on and talk about the new album and oh.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Thanks to Kim Gordon for talking about her career and
her new album, The Collective. You can hear it along
with our other favorite Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth songs
on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. Subscribe
to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast, where we can find all of our new episodes.
You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
(43:02):
Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Ben tollinany. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
(43:24):
ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app
Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. At seventy years old, Kim Gordon, the former bassist
and founding member of Sonic Youth, is somehow making the
most abrasive music of her career right now. This month,
she dropped her second solo album, called The Collective, with
producer Justin Raisin, who's previously worked with artists like Drake
(00:37):
Loyati and Charlie XCX. Kim's spoken word like vocals on
The Collective are the perfect accompaniment to Justin's distorted trap
style beats, especially on her first single, bye Bye, which
was originally intended for rapper Playboy Carti Cotish. On today's episode,
(01:06):
Lee Rose talks to Kim Gordon about her latest solo album,
as well as her memoir Girl in a Band, that
detailed her very public split with ex husband Thurston Moore.
Kim also delves into why she always felt like an
outsider in New York City's thriving downtown art scene, and
recalls Sonic Youth's story tour in the early nineties. Opening
up for Neil Young. This is broken record liner notes
(01:30):
for the Digital Age. I'm Justin Mitchman. Here's Leah Rose's
conversation with Kim Gordon I saw.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
That you're getting ready to play some shows to support
the new album. How are you going to translate the
album or the songs or the new music to the stage.
What are you guys thinking?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Well, this is so it'll be the same group of
girls that I toured the last record with, but the
drummer will have probably have some kind of hybrid kit,
so she'll be uh what she'll be doing, She'll be playing,
like you know, some of the beats and then sampling stuff.
(02:10):
I guess, uh huh. Same with a guitar player and
the bass player. They're all very technologically savvy. I'm kind
of the only one who has sent and then there'll
be some things on backing tracks that we just can't reproduce.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
And for the actual for the recording of the songs,
were you playing with a live band or was it
mostly okay, it's mostly programmed stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
It was it was basically me and Justin Raisin. He
was my collaborator. Like I said, I wanted to have
more beats on this record, and he would basically send
me beats. Like I talked about what sort of you know,
hip hop I liked, and I'm sort of inspired by
rhythm because I'm not a very melodic singer in my
(02:58):
range as kind of limits it, let's just say. Anyway,
So he would make up beats with some sounds and
send it to me, and I would decide what I
thought I could work on, and then I would go
in and make up guitar parts in the studio and
lay down some vocals, and usually start out with some
(03:20):
of the songs I had complete lyrics, but I still
didn't know how I was going to place them, you know,
And then other songs I would have, you know, half lyrics,
and then I would sort of start improvising or other
things would come out around my mouth. Where'd that come from? I?
And so then it became like for him like sort
(03:41):
of a shaping editing kind of process. And then you know,
sometimes he would sample my guitars, put it back in,
and and then I would go back and then usually
add more guitar vocals.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So the guitar is you playing.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, although there might be some things he played guitar on,
but mostly it's me. And then I had Sarah come
in in the end and add more dense and noise stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
What were the reference the hip hop reference tracks that
you gave him.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know, like schooly D, how Gucci time, oh, old school?
Yeah yeah, mostly like yeah, eighties or nineties. Okay, I
didn't really give him that many references. But and then
for the last record we talked about, you know, I'd
played them different things, like even esg or there was
this single I really liked by this banda Jellies, just
(04:36):
like a super minimal kind of fun song. I'm like
eighty two or eighty three.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's cool. I thought some of I mean, some of
the music sounds like kind of like blown out dub
and trap beats. So I thought maybe you were referencing
more more recent stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Well, yeah, there is some yeah, reference to recent stuff,
but it's kind of like, well, I liked the last record.
I really liked that song Peprika Pony, which is a
trap speed so like. But yeah, no, I know that
he makes beats for other people, and so I knew that, yeah,
that would involve other things, but it wasn't like I
(05:17):
specifically pointed out some you know, contemporary person.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, it's I've been reading some of the things that
are being written about what's been released so far, and
people are like, you know, like you're dropping bangers like
trap bangers, and it's just it's so great.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, I mean yeah, Justin gets a kick out of that,
Like he couldn't wait for like his hip Hop World
or whatever to hear a record or something.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
How did you two meet? How did you start working together?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Super accidentally actually met him through his brother, uh Jeremiah,
who uh I think curates beats for Drake or something.
People send him beats. It was actually just in a
restaurant and I was with a friend and he was
with this girl, and our tables were so close together,
and they had kind of a friend vibe. But then
(06:08):
sudden they started talking about their sex life together, and
our tables were so close that we just all turned
to look at each other and started laughing. So we
just started talking and and he was kind of like, yeah,
my brother's a producer and he did the Discover Our
record and that was kind of a cool record. But
I when usually people say the word producer, my head
(06:31):
kind of just turns off. I don't know, necessarily, It's
not the way I've ever worked. So but then yeah,
Justin started dming me and he was working on a
project with Lawrence Rothman and they were having different people
come in and do vocals along with Lawrence. And I
wasn't actually living in La then, I was saying in
(06:51):
an airbnb and yeah, I thought it was sort of
a character, but I he kept sending me sup but
eventually he sent me something that okay, I could do
something on this, and so I went over and he
has this home studio in his garage. It's a very
big garage, LA style, and I did some vocals and
(07:11):
he basically took what was left over and put a
very trashy drum track to it and sent it to me,
and I was really surprised. It was just like, oh,
he really knows my sensibility. And so I went back
and I did. He had Stella from Warpaint come in
and put drums over it, and I put some guitar
(07:33):
on it and vocals and that became murdered out. And
then it wasn't until like six months later that I
think we actually started working on a record.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Sounds fun.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Yeah, it was kind of I really didn't have any
desire to do a solo record. You know. I played
with the Bill Mace. We have a experimental guitar duo
improv group and Body head and so and I have
you know, I make visual arts. So I wasn't really
thinking about launching a solo career in that sense.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Does Bill like this solo stuff that you're doing.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He's very supportive, you know, he says he does, but
I don't know what he really thinks.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
The thing that struck me about it as a lot
of the people that we talk to as people get older,
things start to get quieter, their music starts to slow down,
and this is the opposite of that. It's so noisy
in the best way. Is that something that you were
(08:38):
intending to do from the beginning. Was that part of
the original concept?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
No, I didn't really think about it, actually, not at all.
I don't know, Like, it wasn't really until it was
done that I thought, oh god, it's really a loud record.
I mean, I'm I'm kind of a slow developer. I'm
just not making a really loud record. Yeah, I don't know.
I guess I kind of see the record as an
(09:05):
intervention into the culture or what does that mean? Like,
because it's so different and so kind of abrasive in
some way and not an easy listening kind of record.
It has this other thing about it and I think
(09:26):
people seem to be more and more ready for things
that aren't conventional. And I don't know, so I think
it's just meant to be a little bit of a
disruption into what is business as usual.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But it didn't really like I didn't. You know, this
is all like I'm saying this, but it's kind of
unconsciously done.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Do you listen to loud music normally?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Uh? Not normally actually, you know, if I'm just around
my house now, like I'll listen to like even John Fahi,
you know, or like Brazilian music or Bardo Pond, you know,
kind of Actually I love Barti Pond, Like I love
that there's something really glorious and beautiful about their drone.
It's very soothing to me, even though it's kind of loud.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I don't know if this is a connection between earlier
music you've made with Sonic Youth, but seems like you're
sort of comfortable with the drone.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Do you see any sort of connective tissue between the
music you were making with Sonic Youth and the new
solo music.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
I mean, you know, in some ways, like if the
songs that I sang on were the ones that were
kind of more abstract slabs of music and you know,
songs that we'd kind of make up all together sitting
around as opposed to ones Often Thurston would come in
with a melody and he would know what he wanted
(10:48):
to sing, and then we'd find our parts to it
and still arrange it all together. But other songs it
was kind of a challenge like how am I gonna
sing on this? And in a way like being presented
with like beats and pieces of music would sound and beats,
it wasn't dissimilar. You know, it's kind of okay, what
can I do with this? And you know, if I
(11:11):
didn't feel like I could do something, obviously it wouldn't
do it. But you know, some things would immediately like
move me. And that's also the way it was with
in Sonic, you like, oh yeah, I could definitely do
something you know, like massage history. I knew I could
do something like that. It's funny. It just occurred to
me the other day that it's kind of not dissimilar
(11:31):
in that way.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
M hm.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
And then we did do some things that were like
you know, cool thing or nature scene that were kind
of had moments of what reference to hip hop.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Or Yeah, I was surprised to see. I don't remember
where it was from, but I read an interview with
you where you were saying for cool Thing that llll
cool Jay's going back to Cali was one of your
favorite music videos of all time. I thought that was
super cool.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, yeah, it was definitely an inspiration, and the song
kind of came about, you know. I was I was
supposed to review l A Cool Day's new record, and
I interviewed him and I asked, I was always curious
how working with Rick Rubin was and what his knowledge
of rock was or you know, or wasn't all Rick,
(12:19):
you know, who brought what? And because I really liked Radio.
I really liked that record a lot, and I was
disappointed to learn that it was he was really into
bon Jovi really and in a way it makes sense,
like h but again, like I think it's because Rick
(12:41):
probably you know, liked the big, chunky power chords of
bon Jovi. That was kind of you know, like that
went with the space and the beats he was doing,
and yeah, in some of the music and anyway, so
that's where it was part of the inspiration for the lyrics.
You know, like being disappointed in some many Well, you're
(13:03):
not into dissident guitars. And I always thought, actually hip
hop would be so much it'd be cooler if they
kind of were into more dissonet, kind of like their
idea of rock. It's kind of corny in some respects.
So anyway, So I think Justin someone who appreciates that.
(13:24):
I never said that to him, but you know, he
appreciates that this is going to make a trap speek
cent different, you know, like it.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Reminds me of have you heard Jesus Kanye's Jesus? I
wonder if Justin's a fan of that album, but it's
very like it feels like industrial music inspired.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, I heard him do it live and a horrible
at the met at this the Met Ball, and it
was the acoustics are terrible. I thought it was terrible,
but I didn't honestly didn't sit down and listen to
it the whole thing. But I I'm sure he was
a fan of it. I'm sure he wasn't. Yeah, hell,
he calls me Kanye sometimes so bad.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And now that you're in the full interview cycle promoting
the new album, how do you feel about doing interviews.
I know, it's like a strange thing to ask you
in an interview, but.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You've been interviewed so many times for so many years, Like.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think I've done over fifty interviews
for this record so far.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
And then I did a couple of interviews yesterday and
one was with someone an Think and Poland, and he's
quoting my interviews I've already done for this record, really,
And actually it was fine because I could clarify a
couple of things that were, you know, taken out of
context or whatever. But at the same time, I thought
(14:52):
it was kind of strange because I've been I think
I started doing interviews last fall when I was in Europe.
But you know, it's a necessary evil. Sometimes I like it,
you know, like it depends on the interviewer really, and
it's made me think so much about the record, and
I don't like that. Like I can give explanations for
(15:14):
most of the songs, but I don't feel like it's
always a good idea. I think it's nice when people
come to their own conclusions sometimes or like project what
they want or but for some things like the song
I mean, man it's kind of useful to explain it.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Does it seem like people are missing the mark with
the questions they're asking you about the.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Album sometimes, I mean, the worst question I've been asked
is why did you make another record? And like I
think they want me to say because of the pandemic
or some Yeah, I don't know, Like I don't have
a I don't have a good answer. I was just like,
I don't know. I was bored. I don't know what
else to do. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's
(15:58):
it's a difficult question to answer.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
It seems miraculous, like for some I don't make music,
and it seems like to create something out of nothing
just seems yeah, incredible.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, but it is like, uh, yeah, you make you know,
you you make something in a space I wasn't there before,
and that's it's like you made a roomers.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
You know, we're gonna take a quick break and then
come back with more from Kim Gordon and Li Ros.
Here's Kim Gordon with Lea Rose.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So yeah, so back to the dissonance Somewhere. I heard
you say that you felt like extreme noise and dissonance
can be really cleansing. Yeah, do you remember when that
first struck you.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Probably driving around uh in Western mass in this you know,
in my car and this everything covered in snow and
just kind of yeah, it's not sentimental, it's not emotional,
it's not I don't know, and it's just like looking
at suburbia, you know, it's just kind of like, I
just want something to cut through this. This is kind
of depressing. I was just like that idea. I could
(17:08):
be driving around this super bin l like, I mean,
some of a beautiful landscape, but then some of the
suburban parts, you know, depressing. And how kind of funny
you know about music that you can just have it
in your head and be it can contrast so much
with what's going on around you, and it creates its
own Yeah it's sounds stupid, but it creates its own architecture, environment,
(17:33):
space and transports you.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
So you said that before you started making the album,
you want to do something that was more beat driven.
Do you remember why you wanted to do that.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Because I feel like, yeah, I'm inspired by rhythm I
really like And when I first started playing with these
two girls, when I first started playing guitar back in
nineteen eighty or something. It was for this artist, Dan
Graham's art performance. It's called mirror performance audience, where he'd
(18:04):
have a mirror standing behind a huge mirror, like a
giant wall mirror, and he would just stand there and
describe the audience their gestures, they're shifting in their seats,
and then he would turn around and describe himself in
the mirror, harving the audience. It was all very self conscious,
and he wanted to do the piece with an all
(18:26):
girl band because he was writing articles about the slits
and feminism and rock and all this stuff. So he
introduced me to this school Miranda sat and Miranda and
we started playing, and then this other musician, Christine Han,
joined us. But it was my idea was like a
(18:47):
drum machine with someone taught me how to play like
half jazz chorts, just like pretting the bottom three strings,
so kind of doing that and then getting lyrics from
like women's magazines ads for different colored lipstick. And there
was like a talking song that we did that is
(19:09):
taken from kind of this first person text on the
back of Cosmopolitan's, like I'm a Cosmopolitan girl and I
describing the whole thing anyway, So that was a song.
So I kind of like from the very beginning I
sort of did that.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Anyway, Was that around the same time you were writing
for you started writing for magazines in New York. Yeah,
so you were writing about male bonding and what happens
between men on stage in bands. Was that the actual
impetus of you joining what became Sonic Youth.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well, yeah, Dan was writing these are articles about women
in rock, and so to be sort of rebellious, I thought,
I'm going to write about men in rock. But there
was this composer Rhese Chatham who was influenced by but Lama. Yeah,
he started with leam, but he applied it to electric guitar.
(20:04):
So he and he told Glen Bronca. So they were
both doing kind of writing pieces of music with open etuning.
So Reese had this piece called Guitar Trio. It was
so what they would do is they would take a
hit of anal nitrate, this stuff called locker room. It
was a popular drug in the West Village among sort
(20:27):
of a gay community. They would take a hit of
that and then downstroke on the guitar wars and in
this rhythm. Anyway, So the first thing I wrote was
just a description of that performance. It was very short.
It is called Trash, Drugs and Male Bonding. It was
for this art magazine called Real Life. Yeah, and then
(20:49):
I wrote longer pieces have been involved a group of
male artists. Whatever. But in order to do my research,
I read books by John Retchie because I couldn't really
find any material that described that talked about male sexuality
in a certain way. John Retchie books were kind of
(21:11):
about the gay bar scene in the West Village and
kind of this idea of needing distance for desire. And
then yeah, but I did feel like, well, maybe I'll
learn more about male bonding if I'm in the band
or something. But I met Thurston through Miranda and we
started playing music together.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Do you think the desire to go that far was
learning what it would actually be like by embedding yourself
in a real band of boys. Do you think that
has anything to do with your dad being a sociologist?
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Well? I thought maybe so in retrospect, because he did
have this book on his bookshelf called Men at Work,
and I used to look at it and wonder, what's
that about it? And why isn't there a one that's
as women in Work or something? But yeah, I don't know.
I guess you know in a way that a lot
of lyrics on the record are kind of stemmed from
(22:06):
a sort of sociological kind of observe interest, and some
of it is emotionally reactive.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Did you actually ever learn, like, did you ever get
the knowledge that you were seeking in the beginning, like
what happens between men on stage in bands? Did you
have any big takeaways from being in the band for
so long?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Not really actually, I mean no, nothing that surprised me.
But there's a difference between playing bass and electric guitar,
I think, and maybe it has to do with this
sound you get from electric guitar, but it definitely feels
like this more of a sense of power, and you know,
(22:51):
just electricity is kind of an interesting thing to use
that way, and you can subvert it with your body
and move with your body and some of those heroic
gestures windmills and things like that. It become staples of
you know, arena rock or just like a kind of
rock or like they do something to the sound in
(23:13):
a way, you know. Yeah, But I think it also
is kind of has to do with people playing in
bigger and bigger places and then make so the gestures
become bigger, more perform more performative or something.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
But now it sounds like you play with mostly women.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah, just kind of happened that way. The first incarnation
of the band was there was a male drummer. This
guy's serving laws is great. And then after the pandemic,
you know, people had other commitments, but it's great, Like I, yeah,
I have so much fun playing with them.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
It sounds like you became more aware of being a
girl in the band after Sonic Youth was signed to Geffen.
In your book, you talked about how you would intentionally
center yourself on stage.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I don't really intentionally center myself on stage. That's just
the way there's someone of that. Oh yeah, no, I
mean there's nothing to do. I think it has to
do with separating the two guitars, you know, and having
the bass in the middle next to the drums. It's
really what it. I just was when I think in
my book I was describing being in the center of
the stage or something. Believe me, it's not what I
(24:24):
would have first shows. Actually, when we first started going
to England, you know, in eighty four, maybe that's when
people started asking was it like being a girl a band,
and why don't you have like a persona you know, like,
why aren't you all dressed up like Susie Sue or
(24:45):
Lady A Lane or somebody. That's when I first started
becoming for self conscious about it. I guess, yeah. But
then when we signed to GET and I realized, oh,
I have this platform. Now that's a little bigger. It's
not like we were really in the mainstream, and so
I thought, I have other lots of topics I can
write about as a woman or a girl, and yeah, like,
(25:06):
so that's her swimsuit issue. Because also right after we
signed TOGEP and there was this big me too moment
that happened between this big A and R guy and
his secretary. This was a ninety ninety or ninety one
or something. Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And then shortly after, I guess a year or so
after you were signed, you went on tour opening for
Neil Young. What did that change for Sonic Youth?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Ultimately, I guess that made our name a little bit
more known again. You know, people kept asking us what
it's like to be in the mainstream, and we really weren't.
And it was quite apparent from Neil's audience that we weren't,
but I think it did do something and we learned
how to play on big stages. But we didn't when
(25:52):
we toured with them. We didn't even have guitar texts,
like we actually had hired these two friends of ours
who played in a band who never guitar TechEd, and
we never really got sound checks in the beginning either.
So for a while, like every guitar Thirston would pick
up would be out of tune, and then he would
be frustrated and smash it a lot of times. And
(26:15):
then Neil's guitar tech Larry, who was awesome, would like
fix it. But it was it was a tough It
was a tough tour.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Actually, was that that the first time you played really
big stadiums And.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
Yeah, and the only show that wasn't seated was I
think the cow Palace and that was great because our
fans could come forward, but otherwise it'd be you know,
empty seats are like a hippie give me the finker
or something.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
After this quick break, we'll be back with the rest
of Kim Gordon and Lea Rose. We're back with the
rest of Lea Rose's conversation with Kim Gordon.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
How do you think growing up in la in the sixties,
how do you think that shaped your point of view
as an artist.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Well, it's more like the school I went to did
a lot to shape me. It was the Lab School
at UCLA, and it really was a lab school, Like
it was a lot of learn by doing. There was
like incredible grounds, you know, like neutrad building design and
a huge grass area, a huge cement concrete area with
(27:30):
a gully that ran through the school up into these
kind of maze of in pathways of brushes and bramble.
And then there's like an adobe house and a stagecoach
and an African hut. So when we were studying early California,
we would make die fabric and make shawls and make
fringe and grind corn and skin a cow hide, you know,
(27:55):
and go to Dana Point and throw it off like
the early settlers and stuff like that. And there was
like a you know, art program and a music appreciation
program and a eurythmics class. I loved it, like it
was great. It didn't prepare me for regular school.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
But what was it like skinning a cow when you
were were you.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Like well, we didn't actually skin. We didn't skin the caw.
We skinned a cow hide. They gave us this hide
that we stretched out in the sun and then we Yeah,
I didn't participate in that so much.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
That sounds crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
It was kind of gross, but uh, it was fun
going to Dana point and pretending. There's a lot of
pretend stuff.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And you wrote in your book that you've always known,
even as young as the age of five, that you
were an artist.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Well, I wanted to be an artist. Yeah, I mean
I didn't really. I wasn't very verbal, but I was
good with my hands, and I just didn't feel confident
articulating such because my older brother he was very verbal
and articulate, but he also was mean, so he would
(29:06):
make fun of whatever I said and call me stupid.
And I was afraid of making a mistake, you know.
So it was mostly like verbal mistake, you know, like
I didn't have a problem with I was making something,
you know.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, I was curious when you became a mom. After
hearing about your childhood, you said that you were on
your own a lot as a child. When you became
a mom, what type of mom were you? Number One?
Were you like an anxious mom. Were you sort of
hands off? And how was your parenting style different than
how you were raised.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
I was anxious for sure, And I read books, you know,
if I got stuck with some issue or something, I
would read a book. Yeah, And my mother always said
that I was really independent, So that's you know why
she she encouraged that. You know, Like, so I I
did that, you know, I mean, would let Coco, you know,
(30:03):
I wouldn't. I would encourage her to play on her
own or you know, but I tried to to be
more present and interactive with her, you know, as far
as telling her how I felt, Yeah, just talking to
her more.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
You know, you talked about in your book. You talked
about when your family moved to Hong Kong when you
were a young teenager, and the first day you were there,
you just were sort of like standing there and said
something like, how am I possibly going to survive here?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
And I was curious if there's ever been another time
in your life where you've had a similar reaction to like,
how am I going to get through this?
Speaker 3 (30:45):
I mean that was definitely it was just such a
culture shock, you know. It was for some really being
around property and just just so hot and noisy, and yeah,
I didn't see anything I recognized. I didn't see any
popular culture. You know, it was way before globalization, and
(31:05):
I don't know, I guess you know. When my marriage
broke up, that was difficult, you know, like, am I
going to get through this? Yeah, it's just overwhelming. Yeah.
When I first moved to New York, that was kind
of tough too, like not having a lot of money,
and I think I got like some accident settlement which
helped me have enough money to get an apartment. But
(31:28):
before that, it was every two months I was subletting
and moving around, and I never had a backup plan.
I didn't have like I purposely never learned to type.
I love that I want to be a secretary, and
I was like, what an idiot I was. Yeah, somehow
I just never really doubted that I would just end
up okay.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So you never had a point in life where you're like, Okay,
I'm ditching this and I'm just going to go, like
get a nine to five Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Never, I mean I tried when I lived in LA
At one point I worked as a custom framer, and
that was really just hard having a nine to five child,
I get it. I guess sick a lot.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
If you're in a situation like that and you're getting
sick a lot, do you look at it like, oh,
this is my body telling me I'm doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
In your book, you talked about when you were first
living in New York City and people, maybe it was
just one person would call you a hippie and it
would just like drive you crazy.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Oh well that was my friend Dan. Oh No. What
he did is he told the landlord, this Belgian man
who he called himself a captive landlord, because he couldn't
raise the rent. You know, a rent was incredibly cheap,
It's like one hundred and seventy five dollars a month side.
But he told him that I was a hippie and
(32:52):
that I might at people crashing at my apartment. Why
Dan said that, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
That's the worst thing to say to a landlord.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah. He would say things, really unfiltered things sometimes.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Did you feel like in those early years when you
were in New York that you had to sort of
shut off your la neus. Did you feel different than
the people you were meeting in the scene you were
in kind of I mean like Reese, this same composer
who was actually the music director of the Kitchen at
this time.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, I'd have these conversations with him and he would say,
you're You're always going to be look middle class, you know. Yeah,
I definitely didn't feel very New York in the white
dressed or anything.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Did you find yourself changing the way that you looked.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, like, uh, well I didn't
have contexts, and I had glasses, and I got these
flip up sunglasses that I would wear that an attempt
to feel cooler or something disguise the glasses. But I
couldn't afford contexts. It's so poor.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
So after you were in New York and you started
to become more established and no more people in the
art scene. After working at gallery and started making art yourself,
you were meeting a lot of I guess the art
scene in New York City in the eighties, that's when
things got really commercial and artists were blowing up, and.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Yeah, it was beginning. Yeah, yeah, painting was becoming big.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
With all the successful artists that you've known, successful musicians
you've known. Is there something or a set of things
that you can point to that leads to somebody being successful.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
I don't know, I you know, honestly, I can't answer
that question. I think that you just, you know, have
to really want something, and so you don't really give
up or you're just kind of, you know, follow the thread.
If you can find a thread, that's all you need,
and maybe you just follow it.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
You described your early days there, or at least yourself,
like you were sort of unorganized and you felt like
you were a mess.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Do you still feel like that now or was that
just that point in your life.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I think it was more at that point in my life.
I mean, I'm still not a very organized person, but
it doesn't bother me. I mean, also I come a
manager house, so that helps.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
It's just hard when you feel like an outsider to
a community, you know, and the art community is probably
the roughest. And then I also felt kind of like
an outsider to the music scene in a way because
I was a visual artist and I don't know, like
I liked playing music, but I didn't feel like I
(35:50):
guess I felt like middle class, you know, I felt
I just felt supremely uncool. I felt, you know, like
you see you around people like wearing all black who
look incredibly chic, even though black as a color that
doesn't show dirt and it can be the cheapest clothes
in the world, but you know, at night in a
club or yeah, every once else seemed much cooler, you know,
(36:13):
and stylized in their look, and I wasn't. It wasn't
like that.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
At that point. Were you looking at people and trying
to figure out how you would dress, Like would you
take things from people you would see or was that
not even something you were interested in.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I just didn't feel like I could do that all
black thing at that time. Like I just felt like, yeah,
this is not me or that's too easy, you know,
Like I had, like I bought a pair of these
pink like pat and leather and swayed knee boots at
uh nine to nine records for ten dollars, you know,
so I would wear those with you know, whatever pants
(36:53):
I was wearing at the time or something, or like
it would I have one thing that I kind of
thought was sort of cool, but I was kind of
hopeless that the whole dressing thing.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
That sounds bold though at least you were taking chances.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Yeah, I guess so I think I was like stabbing
in the dark.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, outside of music, what else are you working on?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
Not too much? I mean, I you know, doing some
work in my studio or painting, but I really have
been pretty caught up with this and memorizing lyrics, so
it's hard to like change heads. So yeah, I was
a small book coming out that about my brother. It's
more of like an art book that Calm Press is
putting out in March or April. It'll be out and
(37:39):
it's just kind of a you know, he died last
year and sort of a celebration.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh, I didn't know he died.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, he was like us. He was a schizophrenic and
so he never really got to fulfill his potential in
any way. And so I often, you know, I've been fun.
Writing is a good way to make something positive out
of something and just think about you know. I can't
think sometimes unless i'm writing.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
So yeah, the writing in your memoir Girl in the
Band was great. I listened to the audiobook version, which
I recommend because you can hear you tell your story
and your own words.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Oh NICs.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
But yeah, the writing was very direct and poetic. I
really enjoyed it and was that hard for you to write.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
It was hard to write, and because I also was like, well,
it wasn't my idea to begin with it. I think
after the success of Patti Smith's book, people were looking around,
like who else would be good? And then I was
when I was trying to write, It's like, I don't
really want to write about myself. So I tried to
make it like a portrait of la in the sixties,
(38:46):
seventies in New York in the eighties nineties. Yeah, and
like halfway through, I thought, oh, these should be essays.
That would have been a better, more enjoyable form, and
so I decided the way to write about the band
would just be to pick songs that I sang and
then write things around them, kind of more an essay form.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, I thought it was really excellent. Was it hard
to get so deeply personal in the book?
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Of course it was, But I felt like I have
to include this. I don't want the book called book
to be about this breakup, but it's part of my story,
and so I have to. It makes sense to put
it in.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
The hardest thing was achieving the right tone for it.
And you know, I mean just tons of stuff I
got to put in but just you know, the sort
of purpose. Actually, one of the hardest things about writing
it was just figuring out how to explain the art
world and write about people that because you know, memoirs
(39:46):
are such a popular culturist thing that writing about artists
like is it going to be boring or you know,
like people aren't going to know who anyone is? And
then but then writing about people who are known sounds
kind of name droppy, you know, like Sophia Coppola or
you know, Spike John's or something like that.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
But you know, are the Kurt Cobaine sections?
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah, but I mean Kurt was more intertwined in things.
But anyway, they're just people who I knew at this
certain point in their life, you know.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Anyway, so that was kind of that was hard figuring
out how to write about that.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, I imagine that was a hard press run after that,
because then you get questions about all the personal stuff, right.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I remember being on Terry Grosse's show and she was
pushing me to talk more about it, and I kind
of said, I think I already said everything I want
to say about it in the book. Yeah, And she
didn't like that. At all because she likes to dig,
you know people that dig, and I don't know, she
kind of like closed up after that.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Oh she got pissed off.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
I think she did. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
I always like to ask people what they're listening to,
new music, old music, whatever it is, what you're liking.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Well, Bill Mason, new record app that I like, it's
on Drag City. I just watched this really cool movie
actually called The Black Power Mixtape.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Oh I've heard of that.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Yeah, it's based on footage that this these Swedish journalists
shot from I think sixty one to seventy five or
something like, are sixty seven to seventy five interviewing a
lot of you know, Soukley Carmichael and a lot of
the people involved. But also like the footage of Harlem
(41:41):
at that time is so cool. But this we'd just
saying is like it things seem different in a way,
just you know, the wealth gap and oh yeah, there's
a scene where these Swedish tourists are going through Harlem
and the guys explaining to him in Swedish like don't
get out here and just talking about like the drug
(42:04):
use and you know, in the meantime, like US government
is like fed drugs into the Ikta and you know,
propagated this credible, horrible situation. And anyway, it was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Oh, I'll check that out.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
It has a music contemporary music in it and interviews
with over voiceovers with different musicians. It's really cool cool.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Well, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate
you coming on and talk about the new album and oh.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Thanks to Kim Gordon for talking about her career and
her new album, The Collective. You can hear it along
with our other favorite Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth songs
on a playlist at Broken Record podcast dot com. Subscribe
to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast, where we can find all of our new episodes.
You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
(43:02):
Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing
help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Ben tollinany. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
(43:24):
ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app
Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.