music: interview

> TRACY BONHAM SPEAKS HER MIND: PART II
Record label problems are behind this good woman as she pushes forward with a recent marriage, a new album and a tour with Live.

THE STATE OF MUSIC TODAY

EE: What do you think of the whole music scene in the past few years since Lilith Fair happened? It was very much focusing on women in rock and how that was going to change everything and since then, it's been a lot of candy music.
TB: It's amazing. I'm really baffled because three years ago the question was asked "Do you think the door is wide open for women now in rock?" and I said "Absolutely, how could it close?. I don't even foresee that happening." And it did. It closed hard. And I don't know why. I could make all these theories about why like it's a backlash or whatever but I don't know. The only females that we see that are doing really well are the Britney Spears and the Jennifer Lopez - all the bubble gum stuff or all the boob central stuff. For rock, it's like we can't even get arrested and it is so discouraging. I am so completely confused about that one.

EE: Women were a trend?
TB: I was so ignorant. I really didn't think I was popular because of a trend. I thought I really thought it was on my merits and I think it's a combination but now when I look back it really was part of a trend. Women were a trend and that's so weird because women in music is nothing new. It's just that the industry, God, they just manufacture this crap and it's weird to look back now on four years ago facing all those questions… 'How's it feel to be a woman in rock?' That was my worst nightmare. I hated that question. I would try new ways of answering it but…

EE: How does it affect you since you're classically trained as a musician to see all of these other people who probably can't play an instrument and is it hard to differentiate yourself as a musician compared to other artists?
TB: If I let myself go down that road, I can get really frustrated but I think I've gotten over this thing where "Gosh, I'm a trained musician. Everyone should know that." I really wanted to prove myself for awhile there but I had to realize that I've chosen this path where I'm surrounded by people who don't really care. It's all about what they're doing now. It's not really about being trained. And especially the music I'm playing right now... it's got this dichotomy because it's dumb rock. I don't want it to be sophisticated technical playing when I play guitar. I want it to sound as dumb as possible because that's what I like. I really like that ignorance in playing. I know this doesn't make any sense because I've spent my whole life in music school and I do want people to know that I'm doing this consciously. So I'm confused about this one because I'm a musician's musician and I want actually to have… respect from other musicians is really the ultimate, more than say the masses. But in rock and roll, there's not a lot of people that would actually notice that I… it's hard to describe this but…

EE: So you don't think the average fan would know that you…
TB: That I was good? I question that at times because then maybe the same person would just like freak out over Kid Rock and think "Oh my god, he's so talented". I wonder.

EE: That's scary.
TB: Yeah. So that's why I'm confused about that because I consider what I do completely different from what someone like Kid Rock or who else? I could list a million of them but that's where I have to not think about it too much because I could get really depressed and think this is music and it should be revered. I just can't bother myself too much because it's a reality that I have to face. People like pop culture, pop music and it's not about the quality.

EE: I've been to a few concerts where the artists have actually complained about the state of music today during their shows. A Perfect Circle - and I know you worked with Josh Freese, the drummer - the lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, stopped the concert and…
TB: just started ranting?

EE: started talking about how music sucks today…
TB: Wow.

EE: and how we should all go out and buy extra copies of albums we really like to try to fight back so that was interesting. Trent Reznor made similar comments during a nine inch nails concert.
TB: He whines about everything, though but, no, that's interesting.

EE: In another interview, he says things like you can either complain about it or you can go out and actively do something about it - spread the word and put your music out there and hope that people pay attention.
TB: True. Complaining is one thing but maybe actually schooling people is another thing. I think that maybe people do need to hear other artists complaining or speaking out against this because I know a lot of artists feel really strongly about this. I think people need to hear that from other artists. I could just go out and play my music and hope that people somehow see where I'm coming from but I think that the business is too big.

ON MP3s AND NAPSTER

EE: Another thing a lot of people are talking about right now is the whole MP3/Napster controversy. Do you have any opinions on that?
TB: Well, as artists we have to protect ourselves because this is what we do. This is our livelihood so I am scared of it and I really hope that there is a way that we can figure out how we can not let money that would help us do what we do not just go somewhere else. But the thing is, I'm actually flattered when there are bootleg tapes of me. I come from that era of trading tapes and being so excited about a band that you bootleg them and then give or sell them to someone else. It's really kind of flattering to me because, if someone cared that much, then that means they really like my stuff. But obviously that's not very smart or I don't protect myself if I think like that, so I'm kind of on the fence with it all.

EE: So there's a bit of a difference between somebody downloading your entire album without purchasing it and somebody taping your show and trading that among their friends.
TB: Yes. Exactly. I find that different. Yeah. Yeah. So downloading my whole record without having paid anything for it - that kind of pisses me off.

EE: Right now there's Metallica on one hand and there's no happy medium.
TB: Right. It's just kind of a free for all.

TRACYBONHAM.COM & MERCHANDISING

EE: You have a website located at www.tracybonham.com. Are you involved with your website production at all? I saw you have a tour diary.
TB: Yeah. Exactly. It's the first time I actually went on the other day and ranted about the state of music and I'd never done that before because I thought maybe I should be really PC on my diary and one day I just said "fuck it" because I really did see the Kid Rock video the night before and I just couldn't even sleep. I was just like 'Oh my God. That asshole. What is he doing?" I actually got more responses from that diary entry because a kid from college said to me in person - he was interviewing me - he said "It's really good for us to hear what other musicians think. We can rant all we want and journalists can rant and this and that but when you hear an artist speak out, it kind of has a little more importance" to him at least. So I thought that was very cool. Setting up the Internet site was really exciting. It seemed like it took forever. I just wanted it out there but we worked together. I put my ideas in and my husband drew the little icons and I chose the photos. I wanted to make sure that it was really interactive and I could go on the message board and stuff. So I do [have involvement].

EE: Do you have merchandise available too?
TB: Yeah. Yeah we do. Over on the right. (Tracy points to the merchandising tables beside us.) There's a drawing of me from the video where I have the strap-on keyboard and then we have cute little baby blue t-shirts that have "Behind Every Good Woman" but they're in little cartoony - there's a "behind" and then the words "every good" and then a naked woman - cartoony.

EE: Does your merchandising company present you with designs or do you go and tell them what you want?
TB: I went ahead and did it and my husband's an illustrator as well so he he drew those and we did them together and presented them to my merchandising company and they basically said okay. I like to be involved. It's important to me. I don't want some stupid looking thing out there that represents me whether it's a t-shirt or poster or definitely not a video or anything like that. I'm not very hard to work with but I think I'm becoming a little more involved and I want to make sure that people are doing their jobs.

WRITING AND INSPIRATION

EE: Are you writing a lot on the road? Or bits and pieces?
TB: Well, not really. I started to think about it less than a week ago and I really was almost getting down on myself because I haven't even thought about writing and that scares me that I can do that. It scares me that I can go for months without even having an idea and I don't want to scare myself right out of out of writing but I know I have to keep those channels open. I have a notebook. I have the pens. I have everything that will inspire me to go to that notebook but I guess starting this tour it's just not where my head is. I'm not at that point where I'm thinking about writing.

EE: You're more focused on performing?
TB: Playing. Performing. Yeah Touring and [we're] a new band so we're getting to know each other and we're having a blast. I think because the touring thing is wearing on us, even though we've only been out for a month, that's when I started to feel like writing again. I find that kind of interesting. I became a little more introverted this last week where the past four weeks we've just been partying and hanging out 24/7 and now I've decided I wanted to put on my headphones and listen to more music and that's what's been inspiring me to write again.

EE: So are you listening to other people's music and that's inspiring you?
TB: Yeah, exactly. That's what's doing it for me.

EE: What are you listening to?
TB: Right now? Well, I was working out this morning and I have this on my headphones. My CD player. (Tracy opens the portable CD player she has in her pocket. She also has been wearing large headphones around her neck.) It's nine inch nails - the last one - and that started to get me excited about making a record again.

EE: Really?
TB: Yeah. With those textures and stuff.

EE: The instrumentals [on nine inch nails' The Fragile] were some of the most beautiful things I'd heard in a long time.
TB: Yeah, really, really nice stuff. Nice sound bytes and textures coming in and out of there.

EE: I went to the one concert and people in front of me were sitting down during the instrumentals and they were complaining about them, saying things like "why can't he play the good stuff?"
TB: Oh God, people are always going to have trouble. Those people probably just can't wrap their heads around it and they want to hear the hits. They want to hear the easy stuff. It's funny. Crowds are so weird because I've noticed now that we're playing to people that don't know the new stuff and it's frustrating. I read a Supergrass interview recently where they said their first tour, I think, of the States on their new record people just stood there. But they realized that it was because they were taking it in. This is the good part, they were trying to convince themselves, and I think it's true, that when people aren't familiar with it, they stand there and they soak it in. It's only when they're really familiar with it and they can sing every word and they don't have to think that they start bopping up and down and that's when the band thinks "ooh, gosh, they like us". So it's kind of a mind trip because you immediately think that they hate you if they're not jumping up and down. We've really had to get over this because we're playing to a new audience. They only know "Mother Mother" and a lot of them are not bopping up and down. And sometimes we go off stage just like "oh fuck, they hated us" but then people will come up to the bus afterwards and say "wow, you were great". So, it's really a learning experience.

EE: I've noticed with your lyrics that you can listen to a song again and again and you get something a little different or deeper. There are many levels to them and they're a bit more cryptic than the average pop song.
TB: Good. That's what I mean to do. I like lyrics that do that. I like poetry. I like it when you can find the different levels each time you go and maybe it's something that you find that I might not have even meant but if it's for you then it's yours.

EE: Do you find it awkward when you find that people think completely different things about what you wrote?
TB: Yeah. Actually for "Mother Mother" - very frustrating - always defending that I don't hate my mom. A lot of people didn't get the joke that it's irony. It's supposed to be funny. "Everything's fine." I'm screaming, yes, that sounds aggressive but it doesn't mean that I hate my mom.

EE: So people really thought that you hated your mother?
TB: Yeah or people thought "yeah, I hate [my mom] or my mom's a bitch, too." Even Howard Stern. I went on his show and he was like "I just love the way you scream at your mom like that. Yeah, I scream at my mom. She's a bitch" or something. And so even people on that level, not to say that he's the smartest guy in the world but he is pretty clever, and like in Europe in certain countries, like Germany, I found it was interesting they didn't get the joke. Maybe they just don't have the same sense of humor but I was hoping the video kind of helped with that because it is my real mom in the video and it's a funny video so most people got the joke but a surprising amount didn't get it. Now the same thing [is happening] with the song "Behind Every Good Woman" that we're trying out as a single. A lot of people think I'm a man-hater or that I "ooh, trail of men… you must be a man-eater" and I am just trying to convince these people that it's a joke. It's supposed to be funny.

EE: It seems very tongue-in-cheek.
TB: Yeah. Exactly. I think people, actually especially in America, are afraid. Maybe they don't even see past this thing where it's like "Strong woman? Oh my God, what do we do? She must be lashing out. She must hate everybody." They don't even see past that and see that there's actually humor. And that's what I'm having the biggest frustration with now. And I think people are pretty uptight. They don't know how to categorize a strong woman. She's either a bitch or she's a lesbian feminist. And there's nothing else. I'm trying to break down those barriers but it's really hard especially playing in some of these midwestern towns where you just walk on the stage and immediately they're going "Show us your tits" and yeah I know that I've got my work cut out for me.

EE: Are those college crowds or regular crowds?
TB: A little of both. I just point to my guitar player now and I say "Danny they want you to show them your tits" and he's like "Okay". It's my favorite reaction to that one though.

EE: What are your plans following the Live tour?
TB: I don't really know what my plans are for the summer yet. Going to Europe soon…

EE: Well thank you. I really appreciate your time.
TB: Thank you.