The Chloës Interview & Gallery, Part 3

The Interview, Part 3

In In this con­clud­ing part of the Chloës inter­view, we hear the never-before-told story behind crowd-pleaser “Put that Dick Away”, plus we learn how the ladies really feel about men. Then we con­clude with our reg­u­lar fea­ture, Redeem a Song, in which we learn about some musi­cal guilty pleasures.

In part 2 of this inter­view, the Chloës’ Tiffany Byrd started to tell us about her favorite band songs. She had a lit­tle more to say on that:

Tiffany ByrdI like Arms, too. ’cause it’s got a coun­try vibe to it?

Mercury Photo BureauThat’s the title track on the new EP. Would you like to talk about that?

Leila WrightCan we pause for a sec­ond and talk about favorite songs? Nothing Lasts — it’s my favorite song; I’m always sad when we don’t get to play it at a gig, ’cause it’s like Arroooaarer! So, when we 1^st started play­ing together, it was really emo­tional to play? So we didn’t prac­tice it that much, ’cause it was always like, Do I want to go there? Eh. And the lines are so mov­ing; it’s like, Dirty ash­tray and a torn let­ter, and it’s like this idea of, like —

Lysandra ChapmanWell, it’s clearly writ­ten. And let’s not say, uh, we didn’t revisit what April’s rôle is; April does write 99.9% of [the songs] — which is great […]; I’ve been in bands that I’m respon­si­ble for writ­ing in it, and I’m not very happy about that. It’s so great when some­one writes really well, and says, Hey, you guys fig­ure out your parts; what do you think about this; awe­some! Done. It’s […] more effi­cient […], but very open if some­one wants to add, or write their own songs.

Brandie DawsonWe change things.

LysandraYeah, we change things. But, obvi­ously, the song’s about her. I mean, it’s very — I don’t want to give any thing away, but if you lis­ten to it, it’s very 1^st hand. […] It is very spe­cific, and yeah, Dirty ash­tray and a torn letter/​Nothing lasts for­ever. Yeah, it’s pretty intense. […]

Arms is very inter­est­ing; it is about think­ing that you’ve fallen in love with some­body, and you think they’re free and open and you’re really excited […] and all of a sud­den, [you learn that] they’ve got some­one who’s been hang­ing around for a while who they’ve got a phys­i­cal or emo­tional attach­ment to.

LeilaAnd the line is, He touched my elbow like it’s made out of gold, and then, She steps into the con­ver­sa­tion like a light­ning storm. It’s like, Rraaah!

LysandraI love [that] I know when she thought about this, because I’m not very good with lyrics, obvi­ously; so I actu­ally know when this hap­pened. Even if it wasn’t about her, I knew that she knew what was going on. And it’s like, I could totally pic­ture it in my head, which makes it more excit­ing. But then I real­ize […] every­body knows about that light­ning storm.

MPBThat’s such a beau­ti­ful metaphor. A light­ing storm is beau­ti­ful, pow­er­ful and destructive.

LysandraDestructive, yeah. […]

MPBI can’t do this inter­view with­out ask­ing you about [clears throat] the “crowd pleaser.” What’s the story behind Put That Dick Away?

LysandraNobody [but us] knows this story. […] My neigh­bor liked to come over and lis­ten; he loved music, and I was actu­ally with [ Kevin] [Sidenote: Kevin is Lysandra’s hus­band.] at the time; we had a lit­tle rehearsal space in back. Part of [the neighbor’s] pants had a hole in them, and he was hang­ing out while I was play­ing drums […]. I got very uncom­fort­able and I was like, I have to go, ’cause your penis is hang­ing out of your pants. So, we thought it was a 1-off [Sidenote: More like a jerk-off. — Ed.] , and then the girls came over next week. I had told them the story; I was like, This crazy thing hap­pened! So he came over, I was like, Yeah, sure, come in; come and hear us rehearse, and he-e-e had a hole in his pants again! — and had his junk out, and he backed him­self into a cor­ner and started touch­ing him­self. Which is … really inap­pro­pri­ate! Any time! But espe­cially […] when it’s 4 girls […] rehears­ing. And so I had to have Kevin […] come and escort him out.

And then, about 2 weeks later, all of a sud­den — or maybe not even that; maybe a week later, [April] had the song writ­ten. I hated it. I hated it; I thought it was like, very hokey, and I was like, This is like — are we Ween all of a sud­den? […] I don’t want to be [in] a joke band! And then all of a sud­den, [April]’s play­ing tri­ads, and she’s play­ing really hard­core, like, rock stuff, and I was like, That’s actu­ally really good. And then it became […] our anthem!

But it has a really hard­core mes­sage to it; like, Seriously, yeah, we will do what we have to do, which we did; but why are you doing that? Why do you feel the need to pull your dick out and mas­tur­bate while we’re rehears­ing? That’s totally inap­pro­pri­ate. And, so it is a big­ger mes­sage, and, I kinda like it now that it’s become our anthem.

MPBYou told me that you were happy, last night, to see so many men in the audi­ence singing along on the chorus.

LysandraThat’s maybe the 1^st time that’s ever hap­pened! Our CD release was really big with the guys get­ting into it, but last night at Norman Music Festival, all these guys! They were like, […] all these new fans! Never seen us before; I could see them walk in, all of a sud­den, oh yeah, they hear it, yeah! Put that dick away!

LeilaAt the CD release the bar­tender was up on the bar —

LysandraYeah, yelling [the chorus]!

LeilaI will add this; that we love men — good men. All of our songs are about men and rela­tion­ships; it’s not bashin’ on men; it’s kind of a different —

Lysandra[speak­ing to Leila] I think you rep­re­sent April very well there; I think what she wants to put across is that we’re not a man-hater girl group. And that is prob­a­bly — I’m not say­ing all girl groups —

MPBSome of them are, but I don’t think you come across that way.

LysandraIt’s even less so than when the riot grrrl stuff started; there was a lot of man-bash­ing then, but we really love men, and I love to see dudes sup­port­ing us.

MPB1 of the things that may have hap­pened is that when the riot grrrl move­ment was begin­ning, that was near the tail end of 2^nd wave fem­i­nism, and now we’re well into 3^rd wave fem­i­nism. You really have come a long way, baby.

LysandraConsidering when we started this, April and I could have eas­ily been part of the riot grrrl move­ment; all things con­sid­ered, maybe that’s why the uni­verse didn’t put us into this until now. Because we did always like men, and there was never a vibe in us to hate on men.

I just have to put this out there: we just got men­tioned in the [Dallas] Observer; [they] rec­og­nized us as 1 of the top 13 female-led bands [in the Dallas-Fort Worth area].

LeilaWe were num­ber 1.

LysandraAnd so [April] said some­thing that’s poignant and very accu­rate, that our biggest fans are men. You would think that that [would be] women, and it’s not. The guys buy our vinyl; the guys sup­port us and come out [to the shows]. […]

LeilaWe [also have] an awe­some les­bian fol­low­ing […]; they’re awe­some chicks! But that’s more a rela­tion­ship thing; we do have a great fol­low­ing of women, and I love to see the women in the crowd who are stand­ing with their boyfriends […]. At every show we’ve had, there’s at least 1 girl [who’s] unusu­ally enthu­si­as­tic. I think it res­onates with [women], but music is in a boys’ world, so they’re the ones who more con­trol the — the pur­chas­ing power feels like it’s com­ing from the men.

LysandraIt’s hard [for women]; look, I’m the only 1 [in the band] who has kids. And I know […] a lot of women our age are […] mar­ry­ing, hav­ing kids; there’s a focus on some­thing dif­fer­ent [than music]. And I think it’s very con­fus­ing to women at that point in their lives: Is there a place in my life for music? Is that lame that I don’t want to put all my focus on my kids? Can I say that I still love music and I want to go out and see bands? Very hard for women, and I can tell you, I bat­tle with it every day, about being in a band and rais­ing 2 kids and being mar­ried. […] I think that’s why we’re miss­ing that con­tin­gent of women, who are, maybe, our silent observers and do like us. We just don’t see them at shows; they’ve got other respon­si­bil­i­ties. Men [who] are sin­gle, or even have wives at home who take care of the kids are able to come out and see us.

LeilaIt’s more accept­able for them to geek out on music, even into their — up until their — there’s no age limit; for women there’s […] a sweet spot: they’re expected to geek out on music if they do, and then it kinda drops off after you have kids.

LysandraSo, I think that we do have that audi­ence; we just don’t know so much about it. We don’t see them at the shows, but we get sales, and we have “lis­tens” and we have “likes.” I think that they’re there. We would just like to [say] that, You can find a place for music; there’s noth­ing wrong with that.

[While we take a break so I can check the bat­tery usage on the recorder, Chris Sanders joins us and tells us his utterly depraved idea for a music video which involves base­ball uni­forms and sex coaches — Ed.]

MPBLet’s wrap up with our reg­u­lar fea­ture, Redeem a Song, where you tell me about a song you love that doesn’t get much respect, and explain why you think it’s a great song.

LysandraYou know, 1 song that I would never, ever admit this —

MPBExcept for right now —

LysandraMy hus­band would totally back me on this; you know that Cake song? The Distance is a good, damn song. And, if you think about it, every­thing that we encom­pass is in that song. You know, He’s going the dis­tance; he’s going for speed, it’s a good song. […]

TiffanyI’m pretty open about what I like; I don’t deny it. I like … coun­try; I’m a big coun­try [music] per­son. I am a small town coun­try person.

[I like] Keith Whitley, Kentucky Bluebird, which is pretty. There’s I’m No Stranger to the Rain, which is about fightin’ with the devil. He’s got a lot of deep lyrics.

LeilaI’ve got my song! I tried … so hard … to get us to do a cover of this song! And, it failed mis­er­ably, but it’s alright. It’s Like a G6; [I] f*cking love that song, and it’s like, when you’re in the zone, and —

LysandraWho does that song?

LeilaI don’t know; it’s, like, their 1 hit. [Sidenote: It’s party rap out­fit Far East Movement] Like a G6! Like a G6!

LysandraShe tried [to get us to play it] for 6 months! She wanted it!

Leila— and my karaoke song is Bust a Move. I do have legit­i­mate music taste; I’m not all stu­pid elec­tronic club music; but I love that song, and it’s — [crack­ing up] I f*ckin’ love it! So, this is our oppor­tu­nity for the Chloës’ to cover that!

BrandieWe’re big Tool fans; my cat’s name is Maynard [Sidenote: After Tool front­man Maynard James Keenan] . [laugh­ter] My favorite Tool song is Ænema. I don’t know; that song — it’s so angry. I love Maynard’s voice. And I’ve been to a Tool con­cert, and that was, like, the best song ever, because the whole crowd was, like, swirling and jump­ing. It was crazy.

MPBWell, Chloës, thank you for the interview!

The ChloësThank you; yay!

Read part 1 of the interview

Read part 2 of the interview

The Gallery: NMF6