Are we not divas? We are MEN! Q&A with JD Samson

JD “the girl with the mustache” Samson is perhaps best known as member of Le Tigre, having joined the “Deceptacon” trio in 2001. The band acquired quite a following with indie labels Mr. Lady and Chicks on Speed, but not long after their major-label effort in 2004, most of the noise surrounding the group was rumors of breakup. Although they haven’t split up entirely – the three recently worked with Christina Aguilera for her new album – JD’s main focus for the moment is MEN, a new band with Michael O’Neill and Ginger Brooks Takahashi, integrating themes of gender inclusivity and queer rights into catchy, danceable pop beats. MEN are now touring throughout Europe, including a Berlin stop on the 20th of April at Festsaal Kreuzberg. I recently had a conversation with JD about the tour, Christina, Amanda Blank, the forthcoming MEN album and the New York University Library’s new riot grrrl collection.

For the audio interview, visit BLN.FM.

Hi JD! This is Joey. How’s the tour been going so far?

Great. We are playing a bunch of shows in France right now for a women’s music festival called Les Femmes s’en Mêlent. Our show in Berlin is tied in with the same festival.

I wanted to ask what your take on this “women’s festival” is. How do you keep gender pride without alienating a larger audience? When you instantly tag something as “women” or “feminist”, then some people are going to stop paying attention. What’s the best way to keep that balance?

For us, we don’t find it too difficult because our feminism is encompassed by all our political beliefs, as well as our interest in equality for all genders. So we love playing at women’s festivals, queer festivals, and anti-racist festivals. It’s all the same for us. That’s more of a question for the festival. They were inviting us as we have female members in the band. I think it’s also really important to think about each different country’s specific women’s communities and what “feminism” means to that country. We definitely want to celebrate the gender continuum and get away from gender duality, but we definitely feel that women should have equality with men, and that’s why we feel comfortable playing this festival.

MEN perform their (finger-)bangin’ anthem “Credit Card Babie$” live with JD’s girlfriend Sia

The lyrics of “Credit Card Babie$” really caught my attention, although I’m not entirely sure I’m clear on the meaning: “Why procreate / and overpopulate / there’s insecurity / questioning our liberty”. It seems to be about, especially in America, the right to marry and to adopt is not equal for same-sex couples, even though to me, the ideal parents would be same-sex, because then there is never an accidental pregnancy, never an unwanted baby. Am I on the right track with that?

Well, originally we wanted to write a song about how difficult it is to be queer and to have a baby, because you can’t just, “Oh, you’re ovulating now, let’s have sex and have a baby.” Even adoption is hard. So the song came out of frustration, in that it has to be such a big “to do”, whether that be trying to find sperm, or coming up with the money to use a sperm bank. We wanted the song to be a kind of anthem for this new queer community interested in starting families. That’s why the song is poppy and fun and disco, and the vocal “I’m gonna fuck my best to get a little tiny baby” and “I’m gonna fuck my friends…” was really part of the idea to keep it light, but speak about real issues and real options. That’s why the two verses are so different: the first one is about wanting to have a baby, and the second is about the greater issues, like, do we really want to overpopulate the world? Do we really want to bring children up in a world that is less than perfect? But also, I think our music is about our feelings about politics. Rather than preach and be didactic about a certain idea, I think the song speaks to our personal, specific opinions about this matter.

Alright, well moving on, I noticed on the Christina Aguilera site, the track you and Le Tigre did with her is going to make her next album. Can you tell us anything about the song, or the process, or maybe even sing a few bars if you want? (Laughter)

(Laughter) I can’t do that – it’s very illegal. But it was a really cool process, actually. It was really interesting how we took different steps. Myself, Johanna and Kathleen kind of worked on the track separately and sent each other ideas, and then we met up in Manhattan and talked about what options we were going to give to Christina. Then Johanna and I went to LA and spent a week with Christina working on two songs. I think one of them is going to be on this record. We’re really excited. We loved working with her. She’s really brilliant! She’s an amazing musician, producer, and vocalist, and we were pleasantly surprised at how easy and wonderful it was to work with her, and how professional she is, and how feminist she is.

In a past interview, you named her along with Beyonce, Beth Ditto, Amanda Blank and Peaches as examples of females moving things forward in the music industry. Now, having a critical eye looking at Amanda Blank’s MySpace, I noticed the entire team behind her, from her producers to her management to her booking, is all males. And that’s not to say I think a separatist approach is the way to go; I think it’s good for men and women to work together. But how can we be sure that women are not compromising their vision when they’re being dependent in a male-dominated industry?

I guess part of the reason I chose her is that I know her personally and I know her background in the punk rock world. She’s worked very often with other women and other queer people as well, and so that’s one of the reasons it’s so great that she’s making it, pushing herself out there. I think that in some cases, separatism is really interesting and important. But for this specific situation, I think her real intent is to make it to the mainstream with the politics she has, which is being a feminist. Whether that comes across immediately from her MySpace page could of course be criticized, but I think that using men in the process to get there is just as empowering.

Sure, and I don’t mean to pick on Amanda Blank in particular. That’s just one person you mentioned. It’s just a difficult question…

Yeah, and I don’t mean to pick on Peaches in the same way, but she just made a record with all men as well. So I guess they are doing a similar thing.

JD’s buddy Amanda Blank makes an in-store performance of her hit “Might Like You Better”

That’s true. So moving on, can you tell anything about a full-length album from MEN? Is that in the pipeline?

Yeah, we actually just finished the recording process. We have 12 tracks. We are now searching for the right mix engineer and the right label. Obviously the music industry is in a pretty strange place, so it’s been interesting for us to see what’s our there, and try and make a decision about whether or not it’s important for us to have a label, or to just put the record our ourselves. We’re trying to be creative and check out all of our options. Unfortunately it’s taking a bit longer than expected, but hopefully the record will be out this fall.

Something else I wanted to ask you about is how the New York University Library has recently acquired some zines from your Le Tigre bandmate Kathleen Hanna’s personal collection. They have a new “riot grrrl” collection. I think it’s really cool that it’s being recognized within academia, but I was wondering if you or she or anyone in your crew have concerns about being trapped inside academia. It’s a little bit isolated and not really infiltrating a mass audience, so if you want to make a political difference, what are you doing to make sure your message is being heard by the everyday person?

I think it has less to do with academia, actually, and more to do with history and the idea of archiving. I think that anything that has a questionable existence – how much did it really matter? what did it really do? – something that maybe didn’t have the publicity that it should have had at the time – everything like that deserves to have an archive, a place where people can actually look at things and make their own judgments. So I think that’s why this riot grrrl achive is really important. The one thing that’s questionable to me is what goes in there: is it only zines? Is it only videos from shows of these specific bands? Are there queercore bands being represented? Those are all good questions, but I think the person in charge at the library is doing a really good job, as she was really part of the riot grrrl movement.

OK. Cool. That’s about all I have to say. Is there anything else you want to tell Berliners in advance of your show here?

We’ve revamped some of our songs, and have been on tour a lot since last year, and we’re excited to show everyone what we’ve got!

MEN, along with Human Toys and Cat N’Guyen, will play Tuesday, the 20th of April at Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin. Check their MySpace for further tour dates.