The Two Kims – November 1995

Kim is the ultimate women’s rock name. Like its masculine counterpart, Mick, it has a hard snap to it, announcing a cool, dangerous presense. But former Pixie and Breeder Kim Deal, and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, are more than just namesakes. Though both artists enjoy saint’s rank in the indie-rock canon, each has made her real contribution by reconfiguring pop into something more haunting than activity, yet infectious all the same; hits for an enlightened Top 40. It follows then that the friend’s first recorder collaboration will be featured on the soundtrack of director Allison Anders’s forthcoming film, Grace of My Heart, which charts the career of a fictional songwriter during the Brill Building’s song-a-minute heyday in the ’50s and ’60s. Momentarily abandoning raw power, these two legends of noise glimmer sweetly on an homage to classic girl groups, “Shagri-La” (titled “Trouble Girl” on Sonic Youth’s new album, Washington Machine), a lullabye that hypnotizes everyone from Gordon’s baby daughter, Coco, to 37-year-old Luis Lerma, bass player for Deal’s latest musical venture, the Amps. With a new album apiece–the Amp’s Pacer is due out this month–the two women have a lot to talk about. Here, they hook up long distance to discuss punk, spit, mothers, and other great Kims.

KIM GORDON: So what are you doing, anyway?

KIM DEAL: We’re in Ireland, in a rehearsal studio.

KG: Those songs that I heard were really cool.

KD: Yeah? Thanks.

KG: But they were different from the ones that I heard before. Some of them were more raw, or comfortable. When are you going to finish your record?

KD: I don’t know. It could be done now, but there’s, like, a song and a half on it that I don’t like. If we chop it down I can like it. I might get my razor blades out and just chop out the bits I like.

KG: So do you like doing shows with Jim [Greer, bass player for Guided by Voices and KD’s boyfriend]?

KD: You know, I’ve just been thinking about that. i’ve always thought, Oh it’s going to be so much fun to tour with Guided by Voices, because, you know, they were playing Lollapalooza last year and that was a blast. And then I’ve been thinking about these shows, and you know what? It’s gonna kinda gross me out a little bit, I think.

KG: [laughs] Why?

KD: I don’t know! I don’t want to–

KG: You don’t want to say, “How was your set, honey?”

KD: Yeah. I don’t care. I like Guided by Voices, but I don’t care about him, you know what I’m saying? [laughs]

KG: Would you ever go on tour with them and just kind of hang out?

KD: On yeah, I would.

KG: You wouldn’t feel kind of bored after a while, or just be, like, Oh, I’m the girlfriend.

KD: No, because Bob [Pollard] always asks me to get up onstage and sing harmonies. There’s so much beer around I just love it and I have so much fun when I hang out with them.

KG: But do you think you’d feel like that if you weren’t a musician and you didn’t have a band?

KD: But do you think you’d feel like that if you weren’t a musician and you didn’t have a band?

KD: Yeah, probably. If I liked the guy and I wanted to be around him, and the band was bearable. [laughs]

KG: If there was enough beer.

KD: …and if there was enough beer.

KG: That would drive me crazy.

KD: What, just hanging around?

KG: Yeah, but I don’t drink as much beer as you do.

KD: Yeah.

KG: When you were a teenager, what did you want to be? Do you think about a musician?

KD: I wanted to be a cellular biologist. I liked cells.

KG: Wow. Did you go to college?

KD: For a couple of years. I graduated with an associate’s degree and asked in a laboratory at a hospital. The I worked at a biochemical lab doing test on urine, even sperm counts; sputum was the worst. I mainly worked with blood, though. Then I started getting away from that. I’m hepatitis-positive just because of working with blood. I’d open a vial and get sprayed right across the face and then I’d just wipe it off. I wasn’t as careful [as I should have been].

KG: Right, I guess you can’t really be punk rock about that sort of work.

KD: What did you want to be?

KG: I guess I wanted to be an artist. I used to do sculpting and painting, and then when I went to college I got into more conceptual and post-conceptual art. I post-conceptualized myself right out of it. [both laugh]

KD: Can you draw?

KG: Yes. I’m real rusty, but I can draw. [pause] So, do you ever want to have kids?

KD: Yeah. I think if I wait too long I’m going to really regret it, you know?

KG: But you have to quit smoking first.

KD: I know!

KG: But [having kids is] fun.

KD: Maybe I don’t want kids because I just can’t quit smoking. Oh, God, that would be awful, wouldn’t it? I keep saying, “When I have a kid I’ll quit smoking,” and maybe I’m psyching myself out of ever wanting to have a kid so I won’t have to quit.

KG: Maybe. But at least you’re being responsible about it. [laughs]

KD: So what’s Coco doing now?

KG: She’s running around throwing all the CDs and records. [KD laughs] Munchin’ on the videos [both laugh] She likes to sit in the cat’s bed, that’s her favorite thing–with the cat. She’s getting her Ph.D. in cute school. So, Thurston and I were doing an interview the other day talking about how we’re always asked what we think punk means–it’s such a popular word. And we actually determined that there are really three different kinds of punk rock.

KD: O.K.

KG: Don’t you think so? At least three? There’s stuff like Green Day, which is sort of pop punk and, actually, the pop-punk has become disco in a way, because it’s so popular. You know how people used to say, “Disco’s replaced punk”? And then there’s the more underground, more radical punk rock, like Bikini Kill, and … I’m trying to think of what the third one was…. It’s very confusing, that’s the thing. I think people are really confused about punk.

KD: I don’t even consider it a type of music. I never think of it unless it’s, like, the Devil Dogs and it’s obviously a genre, do you know what I mean? Shudder to Think, I think they’re way more punk.

KG: Oh yeah, the third punk was techno-punk, like Moby or Nine Inch Nails. Shudder to Think?

KD: Yes! I think they’re like a punk band, because when they get on the stage you hate them and they’re antagonistic. I don’t think that Green Day could possibly be a punk band if they are interacting with the crowd.

KG: But people think they’re punk. I mean, they are.

KD: They’re taking a genre of music and using a slightly British accent on it, that kind of whiny, snotty British singing that John Lydon made popular. But just because somebody’s singing in a whiny, snotty voice does not necessarily mean they’re punk. Punk means that you’re not going to interact with a crowd of 30,000 and get half of them to say, “Tastes great!/Fuck you!” I think it’s funny and the crowd is probably amused, but that’s not punk. Punk means that you really don’t give a shit whether the audience is clued in or not, and you’d prefer it if they didn’t like you. So there would be some kind of antagonism going on.

KG: See, I think that you’re one of the biggest punks I know.

KD: [laughs] I’m good.

KG: There’s also Kim Punk–it’s like a whole category in itself. I could name so many: the girl who used to be in Cupid Car Club. Her new band, Delta 72. So there’s her, there’s you, there’s me….

KD: Isn’t there a Kim in Fastbacks?

KG: Anyway, three is enough, there’s so many I can’t keep track.

KD: You know, that no-noise stuff in New York seemed way more punk to me than Green Day.

KG: Oh yeah. They were total punks. They were, like, the true punks. They always said, “We’re killing rock `n’ roll,” but the no-wave people said, “No, we’re really killing rock `n’ roll.” [KD laughs] But Green Day comes out of that Southern California, Descendants tradition of power-punk adolescence.

KD: It seems like it’s not even a genre, it’s just a fundamental difference in how badly you want to entertain people.

KG: Well it’s also about what you think is entertaining, and I think my idea of entertainment is totally different from most people’s. For example, I’d almost rather see a band fall apart than play a really tight set. Let’s talk about “Trouble Girl.”

KD: Isn’t that lovely?

KG: Yes, people really like that song.

KD: Yeah! Luis, our bass player, loves it. He has insomnia, and he says the sha-la-las put him to sleep. I don’t know if that’s good…. Is there going to be an actual girl group faking that they’re singing that song?

KG: They filmed this group in a studio recording as if they were the Shangri-Las, then they played our song.

KD: It’d be really cool to see what looks like a girl group singing my thing, my voice, and to have dance moves to it and stuff!

KG: Swaying back and forth. You should listen to some of those Shangri-La records, because they have really weird songs to them.

KD: Real dark?

KG: Yeah, if you listen to the words they’re really twisted and kind of morbid.

KD: I like that about that time period–they sound so sweet, and I just have the idea that–

KG: They were so reserved and everything.

KD: Do you think they were?

KG: Well, outwardly I think they were. So what are you going to call your records?

KD: Pacer, I think. And yours is Washing Machine?

KG: We were going to change the name of the band on the last record to Washing Machine.

KD: Why?

KG: Because we thought that was the total indigenous indie-rock name. But we didn’t [do it] because I guess it was sort of a silly idea. I was really into it because I don’t think anyone has ever done that before. Anyway, the name Washing machine stuck around. It kind of fits our music.

KD: But you can’t beat Sonic Youth for a band name.

KG: Yeah, except people make fun of us now because we’re older! [both laugh] You have to say, “Oh, it’s metaphorical!” People don’t say “Neil Young, ha ha!” you know! But I guess that’s his real name.

KD: The name is cooler now that you’re not “Youth.”

KG: Anyone who takes it literally is kind of stupid, anyway. “Sonic Youth”–like, little kids with propellers on them, all silver and sleek. I don’t know. So what’s the song “Pacer” about?

KD: You know how sometimes when you start a song, the seed of it is about something that the rest of the song isn’t [“Pacer”] is about lots of different things, but the original idea is that when I was about eleven years old and riding my bicycle down the street, Mike Neal–he was, like a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy–was riding his bike past me and he spit a big snotty hunk of spit right in my face. I choked on it, man! It was in my eyes and all over my face.

KG: Oh man! That’s intense. So you’ve kept that anger? That’s what I mean: You are the biggest punk I know. People would listen to that sweet song and they would never realize what inspired it! That’s hot! What are some of the other songs about?

KD: Let’s see . . . “Tipp City” is kind of about living in Dayton still, being there in the winter.

KG: Is there any other place you’d want to live?

KD: I don’t really care where I live, actually. I know some people are city-proud–proud of Boston, proud of New York, and hate everyplace else. I don’t have any kind of feeling about cities in general.

KG: Yeah, I’m not really proud of New York … only compared to L.A. No, that’s not true–I’m from L.A. But I guess it’s just very convenient to live here. You can do nonstop flights more easily.

KD: So you like living there because you’ve got the quickest way out? [laughs]

KG: Yeah, exactly. But I like Dayton. Dayton’s cool. Do you have to keep your mom under control from calling radio stations and stuff?

KD: Oh God, she does it anyway. I can’s stop her. She’s given interviews already.

KG: Does she understand the darker side of what you do?

KD: Oh I think so, but then, for example, when the Amps opened for Guided by Voices in Dayton, I asked her the next day, “How’d you like the show?” She said, “Good.” So I said, “O.K., what’s the matter? What was it?” If my parents don’t like it, it must be great, if they do like it, there must be something wrong with it. But she said, “Well, Kim, I was reading the other day in the newspaper about Belly, they sell out big places and they have choreography.”

KG: Oh man!

KD: Well, I know Belly didn’t have choreography, but I don’t know how my mom got this. Evidently she didn’t like our show because we didn’t have lights, or choreography, or stage flair.

KG: That’s why I’m afraid to give my mother too much information.

KD: She’ll spit it back at you in a totally different way! Oh, it makes you nauseous.

KG: I give [my mother] so little information. But she just seeks it out. She goes to magazine stands constantly. Like, she probably tracks you, too. Anyone she knows who we know and have played with. Which is kind of sweet, in a way.

KD: Yeah, my parents are the same. I don’t know if they’ve ever heard a single song that you guys have done, but they like you guys, you’re a good band, “The Sonic Youth.”