One of my personal favorite albums of 2009 is Music For Men by Gossip. The fantastic Heavy Cross, with killer remixes by Fred Falke, Tom Stephan, Jamie Fanatic and Siriusmo is currently top 10 on the Billboard Dance Chart and rising! Last week I got the opportunity to speak with front woman Beth Ditto – one of my favorite women in rock – about a plethora of topics including gay marriage, who she’d like to remix her work, what working with Rick Rubin  was like and how she feels about being on a major label

BETH DITTO INTERVIEW

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Beth:  Where are you now?

Camille:  In New York.  And you are home with your family?

Beth: Yes.  In Arkansas, yes, I am.

Camille:  Where you there for Christmas?

Beth: Um, no.  No, no.  I just popped in, I surprised them just, like, 2 days ago.  I have a really huge family, so it’s always good.

Camille:  I’m sure you don’t get to go home very often with your busy tour schedule and all that.

Beth:  No, I don’t.  So when I can, I just kind of do it for, like, a few days.  I’m only here for like 4 days or something so it’s just kind of like pop in and see everyone and leave.  It’s hectic.  Right now, I think we’re going 80 or something down a country road.  My sister’s driving; she’s late for her hair appointment.

Camille: Oh boy!  So how is it when you go home?  Does everybody recognize you and know that you’re in a band?  Is it very different?

Beth:  Sometimes, yeah.  I feel like I’m actually just related to half the state, so I honestly feel like they already know who I am.  It’s really funny.  The last time I was in Little Rock, was a few months ago, we played a show here, and I was flying home to Portland.  I was in the airport and, it’s just so country here sometimes, the security guy, the TSA man, I showed him my Oregon ID and he was really suspicious of it so he was like “Do you have any other forms of ID?” and I was like “Yeah, sure, I have my passport” and he looked at me like I was crazy and he was like “Yeah, I was thinking more like a Kroger card.”  Like, a shopping discount grocery card.  That’s what he asked for when I offered him my passport.  He didn’t know what it was!  Like, I’m positive.  The airport security guy looked at it like “Uh, yeah, lady.  Get out foreigner.  All the way from Oregon.”  It was really funny.  That’s Arkansas!

Camille:  You’ve been making music for quite a long time now, I know that you broke on your 3^rd or 4^th record, but how has your sound progressed from when you first started making music with Gossip to this point with the new album?

Beth:  At this point it’s just kind of a surreal experience, just being able to ___ yourself as a little business, it’s such a crazy thing.  I think growing up with kids, like we were in our sea it’s like you had your own little island of people and in this big way, you felt secluded then and now you feel even more secluded because there are these four people that you see all the time and you see them more then anyone else and they see you more than anyone else so it’s even more secluded and more like an island than it ever was.  Being able to make a living is really insane and being in control of your own life is really awesome and surreal, but completely in control.

Camille:  How do you think your sound has changed?  Do you think moving to a new label and working with Rick Rubin had any influence on the sound of your record or did you try to hold your independence?

Beth:  I think that one of the things that we liked about Rick and that he liked about us is that we felt like we could understand each other and give each other the room that we needed.  I feel like the room, or the encouragement, or the honesty that we needed to give each other.  I think he’s “woo woo” and we’re “woo woo” too, a little bit so I think that that was really helpful.  Working with somebody like that, you know that you’ve come somewhere where you’re being respected and that boosts your confidence.  Working with him is so incredible on its own just because he’s a really great producer, but then when you know that you’re being asked by this person, he wants to work with us, you know that you’ve done something right and it makes you feel really good and all of a sudden your door opens to things that you were always afraid to do.  For instance, just to have someone like Rick Rubin produce your record.  I think where we come from, it’s not necessarily the coolest thing to do.  Not that he’s not cool!  I think it encouraged us to take risks.

Camille:  Typically when bands like you move in to larger labels, a lot of people say “Oh, they’re selling out, they’re doing this, going the corporate route.”  Have you encountered that with this album?

Beth:  I think that one of the things that’s the most interesting is how the local media treats us and I think that they’re really resentful.  They’ll almost say blatantly that they’re resentful because we spend more time in Europe and things like that, but it really is that thing where I never really cared what people said about me or us and I don’t think now is a good time to start.  So, I think the most important thing is how you treat people and if you enjoy what you’re doing, if you like the sound of what you’re still doing.  Aesthetically, if you like how you’re still looking or if you like the people that you’re around.  What’s important to me is that it’s still genuine, it doesn’t matter what person puts out our records.  I think the hardest part to go to a major wasn’t what people were saying, but it was hard to leave Kill Rock Stars, the label that we were on for so long because it was such a family to us and we were so taken care of.  Definitely, I feel like we were so spoiled by indie labels.  They put out the records that we were listening to as kids that made us who we are, so it was such a deep rooted thing, even if it wasn’t for them as much as it was for us, it was really hard to leave that.  You know, you’re like “I’m going to go to a major with a room full of men who don’t understand me or women who don’t understand you, and make a weird reference to some random person and I’ll be like “what are you talking about?”  And sometimes that happens, but for the most part, it’s been a really smooth transition.

Camille:  I went to see your concert in New York when you were here in the fall and it was a really good show.  I don’t know if you remember, but there was a guy in the front who was pushing and shoving and you totally called him out in front of everybody.  I just thought that was the coolest thing, you made him apologize- it was just a really good moment.  What’s the live experience like for you?  When things like that come up you obviously seem quite good just rolling with it.

Beth:  I feel like there’s one person who’s having a really good time and they’re pushing, a lot of the time their drunk, and the thing is they can’t ruin it for the other 10 people near or around them and make them miserable.  They won’t stop if you ask them to or tell them to, there’s no reason for them to be there.  I know they are having a really good time and I feel bad about it, I just think “if you don’t stop, then you’re just not being very respectful”.  He could do whatever he wants as long as it’s not hurting anybody or being gross.  I just can’t handle the fact that they’re ruining it for everyone else.  It’s like that one kid in school who made the whole field trip get cancelled because they did something crazy.

Camille:  So in general, what’s the live experience like for you?  You’re obviously a very good live act.

Beth:  I feel like we’re really comfortable with it.  Nathan and I especially really fly by the seat of our pants, we really like it when things break or go wrong, we like the spontaneity of it, just having to be quick on your feet.  It gives us a chance to use our wit or be resourceful.  Sometimes, especially now when things are so cush, it’s fun when things fall apart a little bit.  Nathan used to show up to shows without a guitar, just be like “ok, I’m ready to play.”   We would just figure it out when we got there.  It always worked out somehow.  I feel like that’s not our approach to playing live shows, it’s just like “we’ll see what we get.”  I’m always afraid to play big venues because no one’s going to come- I have that fear, I hate it.  So, I’m always like “can’t we just play 3 nights in a row in a 200 capacity venue?”

Camille:  But people are starting to sit up and take notice, I know you’re really popular in Europe, the U.S. seems to be catching on a little bit now.  You might have to get used to it!

Beth:  Yeah, get used to it lady!  I don’t really know.  I’m used to playing the U.S. and we played the same exact venues for years and it’s always a really awesome, loyal group of people.  A lot of the time you end up playing to the bands that you played with 10 years ago, you’re playing for each other, which is really cool.  I can’t imagine it being that way in the U.S., I just can’t.  Maybe because it’s been 10 years the same.

Camille:  I’ll try to talk to you again in 5 years and then we’ll see.

Beth:  Yeah, we’ll see.  We’ll make a mark.  That would be awesome, actually.  “10 years ago today…”

Camille:  Also at the show, you did a cover of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It”, I thought that was really cool.  Do you have any other cover songs that you play around with?  I know you do Aaliyah.

Beth:  We did Aaliyah, we did “Careless Whisper”, we do “I Wanna Be Your Dog” sometimes.  We do little mashups, like sometimes we’ll do “Psycho Killer” or things like that.  A lot of it is Nathan, he always calls me “The Queen of the Live Mashup” because when there’s an intro to a song, we’ll just do a cover and that’s usually how we figure out covers anyway.  Sometimes you just get bored of singing your own songs and you just want to sing someone else’s.  And our songs are so simple that you can almost do any song over it.  It’s a blessing and a curse.  It’s a curse when I hear a song and it makes me think of another song.

Camille:  The other question I was going to ask is you’ve obviously just been doing “Heavy Cross” in the U.S.  What is the next single?  Do you have any idea what the next one over here is gonna be?

Beth:  I don’t know what it’s going to be here.  I think it might be “Pop Goes the World”, I’m not really sure.  It was “Love Long Distance” for sure in Europe.  I really want to release the song “Four Letter Word”.  That’s my favorite song on the record, actually.  I hope that someday I get to do it.  We haven’t really talked about it.

Camille:  Do you have any people in mind that you would like to remix that for you?

Beth:  I would do anything.  Aeroplane, New Young Pony Club.  My ultimate dream in life is to have Timbaland work on something.  And not because I’m like “I want to be like Justin Timberlake” but really because I am such a huge Timbaland fan.  Like, an honest to God follower of his career and I have been for years.  Like, “Are You That Somebody?” is my favorite song of all time.  You could ask me 10 years ago, you could ask me tomorrow, “What is your number 1 favorite song?” and I’ll always say “Are You That Somebody?”  But I mean it.  I really just love him so much.

Camille:  That would be a hot mix.

Beth:  Or something.  Hot mix or hot mess.

Camille:  I have a couple of political questions for you.  You probably know that all the states in the U.S. are voting on gay marriage.  Have you been following it and what do you think about the situation?

Beth:  Honestly, I have a lot of faith in Obama.  I think that he is doing a lot of really cool things, I think he’s got more on his plate than any President has since I’ve been alive.  He’s got a lot of messes and I feel like in the grand scheme of things it’s really put on the back burner and rightfully so, I don’t think it’s the most important issue right now.  I think humanity is the most important issue and health.  As long as people are living and sustaining, I think this thing about Afghanistan, which is really confusing and I don’t really understand or agree with it.  We’re going to end the war and then we send, I think, 60,000 more troops there, so that’s really confusing.  I don’t really know how I feel about that.  I found the Nobel Peace Prize speech a little disappointing.  Everything else I feel really confident in and you can’t do them all.  I think what I think about gay marriage is there’s a lot of stuff to do first and I think I’m confident that he’ll get around to it.  He just selected the first trans person ever to the administration so I think that’s really awesome.  So that’s something for queer people that speaks volumes and actually it means a lot more to me- it means that he, in his personal life, is way more accustomed and used to it, it’s beyond tolerance, these are his peers and the people he trusts and he actually hangs out with them and trusts them to work and be in this huge position of power so I think that means more to me than gay marriage at the moment but I do think that he’ll get around to it and then we’ll all be able to get married and everything will be great.

Camille:  The last question I wanted to ask is what does 2010 hold for you?

Beth:  I don’t know.  It’s been really crazy.  I’ve had a lot of offers to do a lot of crazy things, I don’t want to say what they are because I don’t want to jinx some that I really want.  I have a lot of exciting things that are coming up.  I just went to a psychic and she was like “you’re going to keep doing it and doing it and everything’s going to be really well.”  We’ll see how it goes!

Thanks Beth!