bit of that punk rock spirit.
Would you say that much of your music is selfexplanatory? (If so could you tell us how/why) Yeah, I would definitely say that my music is selfexplanatory. You know, I think there’s not a lot of nuance and subtlety to my songs. I mean my second home was called American Queers. I make what I tell people. I’m a queer pop music and that’s definitely, you know, partially intentional because you know, I make music as a queer person and you know obviously I for everyone, but also first and foremost for queer people for people like me and you know, I think it’s getting better in our society, but it used to be so much that and sometimes still is that queer things or even queer positive messages are kind of like hidden or implied or you know in this very subtle way and you know I want with what I do to be very blatant and Blash very proud, loud and proud about who I am and what I do. part of it also is to just like, you know, I started you know my first band that played in more punk rock bands and punk rock is all about you know being very loud and blatant and obvious and you know if I think something comes through and what I do still comes through and what I do in my music and my lyrics as well. So, a little
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Beyond the actual music, lyrics, are there any other ways you try to express your creativity? (Discuss your video, and/or your photo shoots) Yeah, absolutely. I think another outlet for me for creativity that kind of ties into my music is through YouTube and through videos. I recently started doing some kind of tutorial videos on YouTube. Partially just because I completely do everything myself. I record, mix and master myself, and I’m pretty much completely self-taught in that aspect. Like, everything I know about mixing and mastering pretty much comes from YouTube or some other guide on the internet that there’s so many of now. Which is amazing, you know! It’s never been a better time to be a self-produced, self-recorded, self-mixed musician. But, you know, the vast majority of them, obviously there’s some exceptions, some great exceptions, but the vast majority are, you know, made by white, just men, white men on the internet. And so I want to just be like one queer trans woman making tutorial so that people could learn about mixing and recording without listening to cis-white man talk with them. So, I try to make those videos. I like being creative in how I film in them and kind of like the look of them. And also, I talk about them… For example, I did a tutorial on how to make a like a D. I. Y. microphone out of a vintage telephone, like a telephone as a microphone. It’s actually really easy to do and actually pretty cheap if you’re like bio thrift stores that have those phones. And you know a lot of those videos they talk about like cables and plugs and like in electronics and electrical engineering or whatever and plugs they called like the pin end the male and the plug in the female. And it’s really gross and fucked up. And so, like I just talk about that in the video and I’m like, I don’t call it that lets you know, like, please start calling it the pin end of the plug in. Don’t bring genitals, especially this transfer of glens of genitals into cables and music equipment. But yeah, so I just always try to bring those things into the videos and that’s been like a really fun, great way, to give back a little bit to the community that I learned a lot from, and also to just be another voice in that arena. Yes. Last June you were raising money for Black Justice & LGBTQIA+, what experience was like for you? I was honored to be able to give to the movement, JUNE 2021 / WWW.RADIOONECHICAGO.COM
