Beth
Ditto - vocals
Brace Paine - guitar, bass, keyboards
Hannah Blilie - drums
The
genre-bending DIY post-punk rock trio Gossip bring a new level of lyrical power
and musical sophistication to their ever-evolving, always-electrifying sound and
sensibility on 'Music For Men', the indie group's first major label studio album.
According
to Gossip guitarist and music creator Brace Paine, the idea of calling the band's
new album 'Music For Men' comes straight from Beth Ditto, the Gossip's iconoclastic
lead singer and charismatic front-person. "It's like a feminist joke,"
Brace offers by way of wry explanation.
And while the Gossip incorporate
a deft sense of cultural irony into 'Music For Men', there's nothing confusing
about the post-punk trio's musical approach: direct and visceral, pulsing with
a raw and unapologetic animal energy, drummer Hannah Blilie's propulsive rhythms
interlocking with Brace's heart-pounding riffs and Beth's aggressive and cathartic
vocals.
One of the year's most highly-anticipated event releases, 'Music
For Men', the Gossip's new musical manifesto, marks the group's first full-length
studio collection since their signature anthem-of-empowerment, "Standing
In The Way of Control," broke-out big in 2006. 'Music For Men' is the first
new music from the group since the release of its major label debut, 'Live In
Liverpool'.
On-board to make sure the Gossip got the studio sound they were
looking for was producer Rick Rubin, who the helped the band find its own distinct
groove in every track. "He is a true mystic," Brace observes "All
we talked about was John Cage. He's only cares about music, speakers and sound
systems. He's really amazing to work with. I'd say 'make the bass sound like PiL'
and he'd know what I was talking about, he got all the references. He would let
me do whatever I wanted to do. Such awesome energy."
Brace admits that
the band's experience cutting 'Music For Men' at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu
marked "the first time we ever had access to a studio like that. I can see
if you let a musician loose in this big studio to just ride all this stuff, I
can see why somebody would just come up with this huge thing. Having restraint
was so important. I hate the over-production sound."
"We wrote
a lot of this album in the studio," Brace continues, again referring to Shangri-La.
"The Band built it in 1976 and Bob Dylan's old tour bus was in the back.
It was empty so I turned it into my own little studio with my computer with GarageBand
and my guitars and stuff. I loaded up all my gear into Bob Dylan's 70s tour bus
and that's where I wrote. Beth would come in and I would play her demos. All the
vocal lines are hers, the lyrics are hers. I do the sounds and she sings over
it. She'd come in the Bob Dylan bus and we did a lot of demoing on our own during
the day because it was more comfortable. She'd come in and sing into GarageBand.
I'd write some things to her vocals. 'Dimestore Diamond' was actually her humming
the song and I started playing bass to it."
While "Dimestore Diamond"
lays the escapades of a punk-rock Second Hand Rose across a deep funk bassline
and crackling rhythmic static, "Men In Love" fires up the ultimate dance-floor
groove, as sweaty as it is transcendent. "Heavy Cross," the album's
first single, finds Beth first cooing, then belting a confrontational challenge
to the status quo of a cruel world.
Other new songs on Gossip's "Music
For Men" include "8th Wonder," "Love Long Distance,"
"Pop Goes The World," "Vertical Rhythm," "For Keeps,"
"2012," "Love and Let Love," "Four Letter Word,"
and "Spare Me From The Mold."
"She's got a serious set of
lungs. She's a great singer. I'm always blown away by what she does," say
Brace admiringly of his bandmate. "Everything she did was on the first or
second take."
When it came to the overall sound and vibe of 'Music
For Men', "We kept it really simple. There's usually not more than two things
going on at once on the record. It just started out with bass lines and then I'd
put a guitar over it or synth. I thought a lot about how it's gonna sound live.
We're a live band so much. We have a fourth member, a bassist, on-stage. I play
keyboards at the same time as guitar."
The journey from "Standing
in the Way of Control" to 'Music For Men' has been a wild ride for the Gossip.
"We have been out on the road a lot," says Hannah. "The shows are
great, every tour gets bigger, and the shows are more and more fun. We're really
good friends and we're having a great time."
Brace and Beth have been
friends since Brace was 15 and each of them was formulating a cosmopolitan world-view
encompassing far more than their lives in small farming towns on the outskirts
of Searcy, Arkansas. A punk mixtape made its way from Brace to Beth (via a mutual
friend, Kathy Mendonca, who'd later become the first drummer for the Gossip) and
the seeds of a long-standing friendship and musical union were planted.
"I
ended up hanging out with her quite a lot," Brace, a budding local indie
music entrepreneur. "I put out a tape of her band Little Miss Muffet."
It wasn't long before Beth, Brace and Kathy moved to Olympia, Washington where
"We lived in a punk house together and started the band in the basement."
Right
from the beginning, the Gossip felt they were on to something special. "Beth
was doing this bluesy thing," Brace remembers. "It was more lo-fi. We
never did sound checks. Everything was super-loud and distorted. I didn't know
how to play my guitar at all. Then we got this new drummer...."
Once
drummer Hannah Blilie came on-board, the Gossip line-up was in-place, ready to
shake some action and kick down some walls. The young indie trio broke-through
with 2006's Standing In The Way Of Control, which reached #1 on the UK indie chart
and #22 on the UK album chart while the title track became widely associated with
the popular UK teen drama, "Skins."
The success of "Standing
In The Way Of Control" and the Gossip's incandescent performances rapidly
established newcomer Beth Ditto as a cultural icon in the UK -- she was named
the NME's Coolest Person In Rock (in one of her four cover appearances), took
home the Glamour Awards' 2008 International Artist Of The Year, appeared on the
cover of the premiere issue of Love magazine, and is a much-sought-after guest
on UK television. Beth and the Gossip's music were becoming recognized in the
UK and Europe as a major force.
In a surreal world where he's talked to
Karl Lagerfeld about the Velvet Underground during French Fashion Week, Brace
claims that "Our lives have -- hilariously -- not changed at all really.
We live in the same town. "
And though the daily lives of the band's
members remain unaffected by the Gossip's growing notoriety, the heat of their
music and the adrenaline-rush of their live shows are an ongoing source of excitement.
Since
the group's formation, the Gossip has opened for and/or toured with a wide variety
of musicians including Le Tigre, Chromatics, Tracy and the Plastics, Sonic Youth,
Pre, YYY, Sleetmute Nightmute, Glass Candy, the White Stripes, CSS, Pretty Girls
Make Graves, Erase Errata, Stereo Total, and the Kills among others.
The
summer of 2007 found the Gossip on-board the True Colors Tour -- as part of an
eclectic bill including Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry, Erasure, Rufus Wainwright,
the Dresden Dolls, the MisShapes, the Cliks and host Margaret Cho -- for a series
of concerts benefitting the Human Rights Campaign.
That summer found the
Gossip closing the Glastonbury Festival, with Beth Ditto paying homage to the
late John Peel, the massively influential British DJ/journalist/television presenter,
during the group's set exclaiming "JOHN PEEL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE UNDERGROUND!!!"
The Gossip was invited back to Glastonbury the following year.
2008 saw
the release of 'Gossip - Live In Liverpool', a deluxe live CD/DVD documenting
the group's incendiary show from July 9, 2007, focusing on the deep raw power,
energy and intensity of the Gossip's live performances. In April 2008, in support
of their live release, Gossip set off on a mini-tour of select US venues which
included SRO shows in New York and a career-defining performance on the "Late
Show with David Letterman."
"We are always on tour," says
the band. As popular on the festival circuit as they are in the world's post-punk
clublands, Gossip is lined up to play Radio 1's Big Weekend in May 2009 as well
as a series of UK summer festivals including Latitude, Leeds, and Reading.
When
the band's off the road, Beth, Brace and Hannah get together to practice at least
twice a week. There's a club in Portland called Dunes, where Brace sets up shows
and DJs "a lot." The group plays host to local post-punk parties and
including a mythic underground soiree (now in hiatus) called "Suicide Club"
where Brace whispers, "we would play post-punk records and show Joy Division
videos on the wall. Maybe 30 kids would come. It was a great club. There was no
sign because it was illegal."
With "Music For Men," the Gossip
bring together the vital elements of danger, thrills and passion to their sound
and vision, partying like it's 2012!!!
www.thegossipmusic.com
www.myspace.com/gossipband
'Music
For Men' is available now.
