Erin Broadley: How long has the band been playing together?

Brace Paine: We’ve been playing together probably three years as the Gossip.

Erin: Did you grow up playing music?

Brace: Yeah, we all did. I mean, we never had lessons or anything, but Beth grew up singing in church. I got a guitar when I was sixteen. We’re definitely all self-taught.

Erin: I read that during the recording process, you pay a lot of attention specifically to song selection.

Brace: Yeah. For us, when it comes to writing songs [in the studio], if we’re working with someone who we really appreciate, who has worked with other bands we like and makes us feel really comfortable, it’s easy for us to concentrate on the songs. We’re really perfectionists about which songs we select. All the songs we selected [for Movement] we are really pleased with. We’d rather have a short record than a long record full of crappy songs that we hate.

Erin: So you don’t believe in so-called “filler tracks”?

Brace: Exactly. We dumped hundreds of songs because we didn’t like them.

Erin: As far as constructing songs for a record, do you all sit down and write together or is it more an individual thing?

Brace: It’s a group effort, definitely. I write guitar parts, Kathy writes drum parts and Beth writes melodies, but we help each other too. We’ll help Beth with a certain melody and stuff like that.

Erin: How long were you in the studio for Movement?

Brace: Movement was recorded in three days in Seattle by this guy named John Goodmanson. He recorded all the Sleater-Kinney records, Wu Tang, Hanson, Nirvana.  He’s all over the map. He’s a punk. It worked out really well.

Erin: Considering you only recorded for three days, I’m assuming that, as a band, you figure out a majority of your music in advance so that when you’re on studio time all you have to do is lay it down.

Brace: Actually, we’re really into improv. I think that’s something we gathered from the experimental music side of us. That inspired this record a lot. Kathy and Beth have been really open to it lately, because I’m always listening to stuff like John Cage or free jazz or something like that. Two of the songs on the record, “Fire/sign” and “All My Days,” were all done from an improv session that lasted like five minutes. Musically, those songs were pumped out in a total of ten minutes.

Erin: Is spontaneity something you feel is characteristic of all your records so far?

Brace: Our new record is much different than [our earlier efforts like Arkansas Heat]. The thing I really like about being in this band and playing music with these girls is that they’re very into danger and doing things that wouldn’t be perceived as easy. On the new record, there’s lots of wrong notes and feedback. We’re really interested in that. We don’t want to be a “rock band,” you know? We want to do something that’s considered dangerous. After seeing so many bands go into the studio and have to get everything right, it’s nice not to [do that].

I know bands that have spent three months on their record, and then you actually listen to it and you’re like, “You spent three months on this?” They hit all the right notes but there’s nothing interesting, nothing dangerous about it. Especially these days with this “raw rocker” vibe or whatever. The music that people are saying is raw and dangerous isn’t. Like the White Stripes…to me that’s not dangerous. The Hives, the Strokes…that’s not raw, that’s not dangerous. We get lumped into that scene a lot, but I don’t know why. Especially if you see us live--it’s totally different. We want to be a dangerous band. We want to be a band that can never be on MTV because people would be too offended by what we do live or what we would say.  To us, the mainstream world doesn’t even exist. We don’t care about those bands. People want us to go in that direction really badly just because they want a new “raw rock” band. But we just don’t want to be a part of that. We’d rather play with cool, noisy girl punk bands that are interesting, weird and experimental.

Erin: So you feel that there is industry pressure to align yourselves with this “raw rock” scene?

Brace: Not pressure but you can definitely tell, especially from the press, that people want us to say certain things and want us to be part of that and don’t seem to have a real interest in us. We’ve only been a band for three years. I mean, that’s nothing. The press just wants us to roll with a stupid, thoughtless, non-political, non-interesting, sexy rock band thing and that’s just not us at all. We just play the music that comes to us naturally. We don’t set out to make it any certain sound. Three years ago, we were making music when this whole raw rock thing wasn’t popular at all and people didn’t know what to compare us to. They would compare us to Bikini Kill or the Cramps or Pussy Galore, which is fine to me because those are awesome bands that are really interesting and did cool things. But when this “raw rock” revival thing started people lumped us in with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the White Stripes. We’ve played tons of shows with those bands, and they’re really nice people, but we don’t feel connected to that scene.

Erin: Genres aside then, how would you prefer your music to be described?

Brace: I think raw is a good term for us. It’s just the whole scene that doesn’t apply. I think what we’re doing is really raw — vocals, one guitar with three strings on it and a drum kit that’s only halfway put together. Our instrumentation is loud but it’s very minimal. To me there’s a lot of soul in [minimalism] because you have to really think hard to come up with something on a guitar that has only three strings.

Erin: Musically, do you feel more at home in the studio or live?

Brace: Definitely live. Our new record does us justice as a live band just because we got into that vibe when we were recording it. To us it’s all about the performance. People pay money to see bands believe in themselves. We do what we do and we want it to be a great time for people. If you pay eight dollars to see a band, it should be loud and fun and chaotic and noisy. To me that’s the idea of a good show. That’s what we want to put forth. Something really emotional and driving but fun, with people dancing and stuff. I would also say we’re a political band but I think a lot of times our politics reflect the [sort of] people [that] we want to come [to our shows].

We want weirdos and jocks and normal people and art kids to come to our shows and all have fun together for one night. For us, that’s really exciting. We want people to come together and dance. We want to move and we want to touch the audience and break down that barrier. If you look at old punk videos with the Ramones, the Germs, Minor Threat and bands like that, there was no audience, no wall or barrier. Every one was together and there was this unity. We really want to recreate that. That’s inspiring to us. Even though now we’re playing bigger venues, we still can connect with kids in that way, whether it’s from jumping off the stage and playing on the ground or talking to people and having them come on stage.  It’s just sending out the vibe that we know they’re there and that we want them to be a part of this.

Erin: You mentioned your politics. Can you talk about that more?

Brace: We aren’t very specific in our politics because we don’t want anyone to feel left out. But we are definitely progressive people, feminists and artists. We’re progressive-minded people that want like-minded people to enjoy our shows. We all grew up in a small town and all got picked on constantly for being weird or not wanting to play sports and stuff like that. It made a huge impact on our lives. I mean, we grew up in Arkansas in a town with 10,000 people. We just never felt part of that place. Unity and community definitely play a part in our politics.  We want other kids who left out or felt weird growing up to come to our shows. We really want to impact the kids and have them come see something or hear something that really affects them.  We want them to come meet us and know that there are other people out there as weird and bizarre as they are.

www.gossipyouth.com / www.killrockstars.com