 On June 2nd, 2006 there was great
koncert in Zagreb
in Kset by
canadian band Lesbians on
Ecstasy.
Cunterview crew had sooo much fun and some questions
for them.
Q: You just came back
from a concert in Ljubljana, what was that like?
A: It was different than we thought it would be. We tried
for a long time to book a show in Ljubljana with the people from 'City of
Women', and the only day we had free was June 1st when there is a big festival
of music. So all the clubs were saying 'no no no don't do a show, don't do a
show', nobody will come.
So were expecting very few people, but it was actually
pretty packed, and the crowd was mixed, lots of girls, boys, men, women, small
dogs… It was cool actually, the people really responded to the heavier songs,
but that was not the surprising part (laughs). They were yelling 'more rock!’.
Q: Is this your first time touring Europe?
A: Alone, yeah. First time we toured with Le Tigre, but we
had maybe 6-7 shows with them out of 19, so we did book a lot of shows
ourselves.
Q: Who can drink more beer, you or Le Tigre?
A: Are you kidding? We drink them under the table, there's
no competition. We used to get in trouble cos we'd steel all their beer. They
didn't drink it! –So we would steal it, but sometimes they would want it and we
would've stolen it anyway. But they can always get more, cuz they're Le Tigre!
Q: Who did you collaborate with on your latest album?
A: We worked with Tracy and the Plastics on the Remix album
and with Chicks on Speed for a compilation which is not out yet. They are
putting out a two disc compilation called 'Girl Monster' which features girl
bands and other interesting band, and we have a song there. But Tracy and the
Plastics did a remix for the album we put out 'Giggles in the Dark'. And Le
Tigre are also featured even though we stole all their beer!
Q: Is that what you giggle about in the dark?
A: We giggle about a lot of things, we giggle all the time
actually.
Q: How did you meet?
A: Well, some of us knew each other a little bit before the
band, but it was Bernie and Lynne who started it. We knew each other through
assorted web of lesbian entanglements and connections.
 Q: So why do you do covers of songs by lesbians like Melissa
Etheridge, KD Lang, etc..?
A: Why not? It is a funny idea and it's fun to toy with. There
are a lot of different reasons, and depending on my mood I will say something
different every time you ask me that question, but I think there's a lot of
different ways to make music, and this is just what we chose to do. This is the
material we chose to work with, and it happens for different reasons for
different songs. Some songs we love and we wanna re-do them, and some songs we
hate and want to make fun of them. It is interesting to work with sort of
lesbian historical material, and see how it can fit into a more contemporary
music sound.
Q: Does your music have a message, are you political?
A: That's an interesting question, because there's so many
ways it is political for so many different people. I don't know how it is for
people who see us and perceive us, but I know for us, for instance we come here
to do a sound check, you saw for yourself – was there one girl anywhere?? This
is our life. And since our daily experience is being in a band, four girls,
four lesbians, four people traveling around, and that's political in itself.
Taking up that kind of space, dealing with technology, making your own music,
making spaces where people come to see you, just existing in that world. Cuz
it's not that common, and it's really crazy when you start to live this life
and you realize that girls don't almost exist sometimes, it's weird. Then you
wonder where the girls are? Doing lighting, sound engineering, all that stuff
is not that hard, but it's very rare that we see a girl doing that. In Germany
we saw a few; it was in some leftie squat where the women are involved.
Q: Was that on Ladyfest?
A: Yeah, we played the Ladyfest in Frankfurt, but they
brought her in from Zurich – they had a female sound technician, and because
they make a point of women doing everything they imported one because they
could find one there.
Sometimes people come up to us and say 'hey I bought an
electronic drum since the last time I saw you and now I'm playing ...' So just by the virtue of what we're
doing we make some space for women to do those kinds of things.
Q: Did you ever play in a place where you had a problem with
the name of your band?
A: Not really. The only place where we have a problem with
the name of our band is when we cross the border from Canada to United States.
It's a nightmare. They're super strict about drugs and stuff. We don’t use our
name to cross the border, we use L.O.E. So to answer your question, if there
ever was a problem, it has never been to our face, spoken to us.
Q: Are you open to playing places which are not as open to
queer?
A: Yeah, we played everywhere. It's interesting, one of the
worst situations we've had recently when we played in our home town Montreal,
where we got invited to play at a really big professional venue called 'club
soda'. And the sound technicians were total assholes! They were totally mean,
and we overheard one technician say to his friend – 'you just gotta know how to
count to four to make this kind of music', and he left halfway through our set,
and we were having sound problems and he was super rude. So he didn't do his
job very well, whereas we did our jobs very well. Sometimes we get that kind of
attitude from people who read our name and they immediately know what we are,
without ever listening…thinking, taking the time…
I don't know how many times we've heard something like ' I
came, I didn't know what to expect and you guys really surprised me, and you
were really, really great. And they go ' SERIOUSLY!' I think we have really
positive energy so I think when people hear us play it's really hard to get any
kind of homophobic anger for you. For instance this looks like a very straight
place, but everyone's very friendly, they know who we are and no-one's weird.
Q: What are you
listening now?
A: We're listening to crazy Euro radio!! We listen to a lot
of different music and we are given a lot of music by bands we play with, bands
we know but that gets a little bit tiring after awhile, cuz a lot of it is like
hyped, dance party music. We listen to a lot of Baltimore music and booty music
that's quite popular in North America, like DJ Rod Lee for instance. When I'm
at home I listen to for instance Jerk With a Bomb, Slacker… There’s so much
great music stuff our there it's hard to just wade through it. There's some
great bands in Montreal for instance the The Silver Mount Zion and the Tra La
La Band, Les Georges Leningrad... The Hidden Cameras is a one of our favorite groups
where there's one guy who composes it all, but there's ten of them on stage and
it's very orchestral with beautiful string sections, and with really gay
lyrics. They're on a European tour and playing in Vienna soon.
Q: How long are you still touring Europe?
A: Five more days. This is day number 40 on the tour. We
have two more shows in Austria and then we are going to Greece. We're doing
good, nobody is desperately ill.
Q: Do you ever have any problems with groupies?
A: We have some
different names for some fans. For instance we an 'Evil Fan' , an ‘Über Fan', and a 'Crazy Fan'.
Sometimes some people have different relationships with the band and they need
more than we can give them. The Evil Fan saw us play in many different cities
then we overheard her tell her friend ‘they’re not really playing, it's the
CD..' She would come to all our shows, and then hang around and say mean things
to us, she was obviously just trying to get our attention. Then we have an ‘Über Fan' who comes to all our
shows and brings us presents and is super sweet.
On this tour we've had a lot of very forward people in
Stockholm. They followed us and were very straight forward about what they
wanted.
Q: What about the name Lesbians on Ecstasy? There's also
Chicks on Speed, Dykes on Crack…Where's the beer?
A: (Laughing). We were just kidding. We don't have time to
do ecstasy anymore or drugs of any kind really. Except for hash...We never do
drugs on tour, and we never wanna cross borders with drugs, we never even let
drugs in our van. We were just kidding with our name. We pulled it out of a
hat. But the concept is – the lesbians whose songs we are remaking – if they
were on ecstasy how would they sound...
So it's them, it's not us. Yeah, we're not even lesbians. (Laughing).
Q: Vlasta Vučenik and Carla Ferreri
A: Lesbians on Ecstasy
Transcript: Vlasta Vučenik
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