Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Julie Ruin, Le Tigre)
After I read this interview I was wowed. I love this girl so much more than I already did, its amazing.
I'm not expecting many or any comments on this since its so long because us live journalians are so lazy & only read the short ones, but here it goes anyway:
There's not much that you can say about Bikini Kill that hasn't been said, so I won't say it. Suffice it to say that Kathleen Hanna was a huge part of the band's two great accomplishments: saying a lot of shit that needed to be said, and rocking hard. After Bikini Kill broke up in 1997, she turned attention to other matters. At the time she graciously agreed to be interviewed for Jes' Grew #2, she had just released Julie Ruin, a radical departure from her previous oeuvre. We talked about punk rock, revolution, and Kathy Acker. A short update about her current whereabouts follows the interview.
I was thinking about the new album [Julie Ruin] and how it's such a huge departure from things you've done in the past, so I was wondering·
'What the hell were you thinking?'
Yeah, what the hell were you thinking? Not in a bad way, though·
What the hell was I thinking? I don't know·it's just like punk rock; you don't know what you're doing and you wanna learn, so you call your friends and you ask them to teach you things. Maybe you didn't have enough money to make it sound really crisp like Green Day or No Doubt or something like that. One thing about punk rock was that people decided, "This is what we wanna sound like." Then the Phil Collins-es of the world came out of the woodwork to tell the Sex Pistols or the Adverts or whoever that they were fucked up and stupid and they didn't know what they were doing, that it was crap and it was a novelty phase and it would go away. The same thing was said about hip-hop and rap; "This is a fad, this is a novelty, it'll go away." But it's all about people needing voices that are separate from uptight, bullshit Corporate America. I definitely don't think I'm inventing a new form by myself, but I was trying to see myself in that historical legacy of not knowing how to do something and really wanting to do something. Because if you don't know how to do something, your mistakes become a huge part of your process. And so a lot of the record was mistakes, and I went after them instead of hiding from them. I wasn't trying to sing perfectly, I didn't go back in and fix every word. When you're in a really nice studio, those people don't get it in one take, and that's fine. Maybe I'll do something in the future where I go back in and sing every single word until I get it perfect. But this record wasn't about that. I needed to do this thing so I didn't go crazy. And then I was like, "This record sounds really weird." I feel like there's not that many women except Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto and Lauryn Hill who produce their own stuff. I would love it if I was a girl and I knew that this person produced her own album and I was really into it. So I felt I should put it out.
I definitely see what you mean about mistakes, but honestly, my impression was that it sounded very polished.
You know what's funny? That's how I feel about it as well. The concept of it was about making mistakes, and something that I consider a mistake, not in terms of singing off-key, but in terms of not knowing the technology of electronic music, and then taking that mistake and turning it into a pop song. So I felt the same way, and mainstream writers would say things like, "Your album sounds like it was recorded in a chicken coop." To me, it sounds really professional and really poppy, and a lot less punk than anything I've ever done, in terms of sound and structure of the songs. It's way less punk, and I'm not screaming the whole way through. But to me, punk is an idea, not a style. You can be a secretary and dress really non-punk and no one would guess, but you can be punker than some kid who's got every Rollins spoken-word bullshit thing. Just because you don't look like a punk rocker and you're not using the same form doesn't mean it's not the same idea, cuz punk to me is about D.I.Y. and caring about your friends and your community and finding out what's really going on, not what the newspapers are telling you. That was my idea, kinda taking that back: "This is punk." Because everything now that "sounds" punk is on a major label; well, not everything, cuz we know there's a lot of great underground punk bands that still play punk rock - you know, r-a-u-k. Stuff like Green Day and things like that kinda threaten to take that away. I don't know if that makes any sense·
No, it makes sense because people think of punk as a musical style rather than· well, not a lifestyle, but·I think this record is a lot more punk than a lot of stuff because you basically played every instrument on it yourself. And you admitted you didn't know how to do it - 'I don't how to do this, I wanna learn how.' How do you learn how to do something? You do it. Punk rock is basically empiricism - 'I don't know how to play guitar, so I'm gonna pick one up and try it out.' And with you, it's like, 'I don't know how to use a sequencer, so·'
Actually, there's no sequencer on the album. It was all sequenced by hand.
Oops. Sorry. But anyway, when I was listening to it, and this is probably a stretch, but I was thinking about Tom Waits. His early stuff is pseudo-beatnik poetry jazzy-type stuff. Then he switched labels in 1983 and released Swordfishtrombones, and it was totally different from anything he had done before. He had megaphone vocals, and weird Eastern percussion, organ instrumentals and stuff, and everyone was thinking, "What the hell is going on here?!" There was no precedent for it in anything he had done before. And I was thinking there's no real precedent for Julie Ruin in anything you did for Bikini Kill. Were you afraid at all of how people were gonna react to it?
I don't know. I feel like I'm at the point where I can't really care. I have to follow my thing. I have to do things that are entertaining to me, cuz there's not much in this world that's interesting. There are a lot of books that look interesting to me, and a lot of music that I haven't had a chance to check out that I wanna check out, but in terms of doing something myself, I have to do what's really fun and interesting and engaging to me. If I feel like painting pictures that day, then I'll do that. I can't worry what people are gonna think about it. And if they hate it, great. One of the best things that happens to me is when I get a bad review, because it really fuels me on. I don't know if I hadn't faced so much adversity in my life if I would feel as cocky as I do. Because I've faced so much adversity, I think my food tastes better, because I really fucking enjoy it, you know? I know a lot of people have faced a lot of adversity and they know exactly what I'm talking about.
Like someone who's been homeless really appreciates having someplace to live, because they know what it's like not to have that.
Exactly.
"Because I've faced so much adversity, I think my food tastes better, because I really fucking enjoy it, you know?"
And if someone gets criticized a lot like you've been through Bikini Kill, then it makes your accomplishments that much more rewarding.
But also, I don't believe fake bullshit praise any more than I believe fake bullshit criticism. I can see through either one right away. Basically, one person's opinion is one person's opinion, and that's fine. The more people who voice their opinions, the better. I appreciate a bad review, because I know that person is being honest; either about their feelings or their own prejudices towards women in music or myself specifically, because I refuse to grant them an interview, and therefore they feel they have to write some fucked up bullshit about me. It just doesn't matter. At the end of the day, if I think it's good, or even if I don't think it's good, who cares? You put something out and it's not necessarily for it to be good - it's for people to think about it, and go "This fucking sucks! I can do this ten times better!" Some of the best inspirational things for me have been when people put out really shitty albums, and it would make me so depressed that I'd say, "I have to make an album." Because it would be so depressing in terms of the scene that I just couldn't take it.
Do you think, after being in a band so long, this album is just a way of saying, "Okay this is me, deal with me for a while."
It's partly that, and it's also wanting to do and have something that was totally different. I know there's no way I'm ever gonna get away from Bikini Kill, and I don't need to destroy that history and blow it up with dynamite like in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon in order to create on top of it. I loved that band, and I had a really cool time, and I met some amazing people all over the country and all over the world. I had a really cool time in Bikini Kill with them and those three people really changed my life in ways that I could never, ever...I just think they're awesome. Making this persona does have something to do with being sick of seeing my name in print next to the words 'retarded slut' and 'stupid' and 'fat'. If they would just spell it p-h-a-t...
...then that would be awesome!
Yeah, that would be awesome! But I think I just wanted a new persona, something that was separate from me, because even though it's cheesy, I just wanted for this timeframe to start thinking of myself as an artist and a musician. It's really awkward if you're a 'punk rocker' who's always been really anti-professional musicianship, really anti "I'm an ahtist." But the other thing is, I'm a woman, and I felt really uncomfortable claiming that I'm good in anything, or saying, "This is what I do! This is what I wanna do! This is what I crave doing," and I don't wanna be embarrassed anymore. I've always wanted to be an artist, I've always wanted to be a musician. I don't necessarily want to be a professional artist, or a professional musician. I don't wanna think I'm an expert and look down on other people. But this is what I've always dreamed of doing, and I don't wanna be ashamed of it anymore. Julie Ruin was a way of saying, "I'm an artist, ha ha ha·"
I can see that in the lyrics especially, with songs like "V.G.I.", where you're seeing yourself in this commanding role. The album on a whole seems to be a testament to that defiant self confidence. Cuz like you said, women aren't really valued at all for anything beyond physical appearance; especially in the art world, where all the women are usually in the background and somebody's wife. I also love how whenever they talk about women, they say things like "You can be this and a mother," as if doing one or the other would make you less of a woman.
Bikini Kill in the studio, from Anti-Pleasure Dissertation. L-R: Tobi Vail, Kathleen Hanna, Kathi Wilcox
I know what you're talking about. There is a self confidence that's a part of "V.G.I." and the whole record. I used to get really frustrated with Bikini Kill, where it was like, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I realize this now in retrospect. When people are assholes and they're threatened and they're being jerks, you can't have conversations with them like they're real people, because they're just really freaked out. And they are human beings, and they do deserve respect no matter how fucked up they are. But I'm not necessarily the one to give that respect.I think that one thing I didn't realize when a lot of criticism was being directed against Bikini Kill and a lot of things were going on that weren't pleasant, was that a lot of people were gonna be unhappy no matter what we did. The fact that we were alive was bad. If we didn't sell any records, we were total assholes and we weren't reaching a wide enough audience and spreading our message. Whatever the fuck that was, I'd love to know. Girl power? That's being spread all over the world by the Spice Girls and look how fucked up that is! People would say we were elitist because we weren't reaching enough people. And then other people would say 'You're selling too many records, you're sell-out assholes.' Now with Julie Ruin, I was kinda like "Oh, that was a way to keep our mouths shut, and I'm just not gonna stand for it." I just wanted to do something that was kinda 'ha ha, nanny-nanny-boo-boo,' I'm still gonna stick around, I'm still gonna make records and be in bands and doing all kinds of stuff. Hopefully Kathi and Tobi and Billy [of Bikini Kill] will, too.
You said in a recent interview that the album had a lot to do with "being eight years old and listening to the radio." Is that really what you were trying to communicate, that little-kid fascination with stuff?
Well, in Bikini Kill I was more writing lyrics thinking about what the audience needed and wanted. So now I was thinking about my own personal history and being a little kid. I used to sing a lot when I was little, and I used to use the radio as a way to sing. What I used to do was put the dial between two stations so that it was kinda fuzzy. I didn't wanna hear the singer because I didn't know the words to a lot of songs when I was real little, so I would put the dial in the middle so all you could hear was some of the music and the drum beat and I would make up words to the song. It was kinda about that. It was an interesting process for me as an artist to allow myself to let my personal history come into things more than I have in the past. It was a little bit more for me this time. And hopefully that will balance out in the future so I can think about an audience and think about myself, not negating myself for the audience and not negating the audience for my own self-vision. I mean, I was thinking about the audience on this record, but I wasn't excluding myself as much as I sometimes felt I was in Bikini Kill, which is no one's fault but my own.
Are you planning on touring at all?
Yeah, I'm planning on touring in February or March, and I'm not sure if that's gonna be as Julie Ruin or an actual band starring Julie Ruin, with these two other friends of mine. We're working on it right now. We've already written a bunch of new songs. I don't know if there will be another record first or if that'll come right after the tour.
"What I used to do was put the dial between two stations so that it was kinda fuzzy. I didn't wanna hear the singer because I didn't know the words to a lot of songs when I was real little, so I would put the dial in the middle so all you could hear was some of the music and the drum beat and I would make up words to the song."
So you're recording right now?
Yeah, that's why I'm in New York, using the same eight-track.
Do you have any time table at all, or are you taking it as it comes, like the first time?
I'm taking it as it comes, because things with touring are a lot harder. One of the people I'm going to tour with is in Chicago and she's gotta come here. I just got my first video back for "Aerobicide." It's really funny. It looks like a cable-access show, but I love it.
Are you gonna release it?
It's gonna go on a Kill Rock Stars compilation. I almost wanna send it to MTV cuz I know it'll be rejected. If you saw this thing, there's no way they would ever play it. Not because it's so controversial, but·you just have to see it.
Is it like cable-access, channel six circa 1981 or something like that?
Yeah, like an 80's cable-access show; not even a 90's cable-access show. It's not retro, cuz I'm not trying to do retro. I hate retro shit; as if the 80's were better? As if the 70's were better? It's just that the 80's technology is available and cheaper. If the 60's technology was available and cheap, I'd do that
In a lot of interviews you've done lately, you've been talking about the relationship between language and music, how you think the two are more closely intertwined on Julie Ruin than stuff you've done in the past. Was that a conscious effort on your part?
That was completely conscious.
I was thinking about that a lot because I'm in a band and I try to do that; usually I write the words first and then write music to reflect it. But in songs, especially, I struggle with ideas like, 'Does language really mean anything?' It's kinda frustrating, and I was wondering if you had any similar struggles.
Yeah, exactly. I used to question that idea from a real theory standpoint; not really reading anything, but just hearing my friends talk about it and then act like I was smart later. That whole idea of, 'Does the word signify the thing anymore? Have words taken on a weird life of their own? What role does communication play in killing experience?'
You know when something funny happens, and people retell the story so many times and it's not funny any more? And it's also kinda depressing because sometimes you wish you could just have that moment forever and not have to discuss it. Because in a way - this is gonna make me sound like I'm a big hippie but here goes - but you can think of an experience that's really alive as being a butterfly, and think of sentences as pins that are holding this butterfly down. I kind of integrated that sort of theory into my own personal experience. Then I lost some people who were really close to me to death, and I felt like I couldn't talk. I mean, I could still talk and communicate, but in the wake of that sadness I started to question how much language meant at all. Because when people you love die, you question everything. I started thinking about other people in different positions who suffer, because they don't have adequate housing, adequate shelter, adequate food, and the idea was, all you can do is stutter, because you're so sad. That was part of the weird things about language that are on the record, because I couldn't possibly try to put what I was feeling into words, but I definitely needed to sing. So I just sang whatever I could, and it helped me.
Have you ever read White Noise by Don DeLillo?
No.
Okay, well, the whole book is rooted in language and how it gets destroyed by advertising and things like that; there are whole paragraphs that read like ad copy, short and clipped. The main character is this college professor, Jack, and in one part of the book he gets taken by a colleague of his to the country's most photographed barn. They get there and there's nothing but people taking pictures of this barn, and flashes are going off constantly. So Jack's colleague says, "Nobody sees the barn," because the barn only exists as an experience and not an actual thing.
Because people have already decided what it is and what it means.
Yeah. Nobody's taking pictures of the barn; they're taking pictures of people taking pictures of the barn. So it begs the question, did anyone ever really see the barn?
That's kinda like people's experiences with punk rock with punk becoming this weird who's-authentic-and- who's-not thing. And then there's all the things you're supposed to have if you're authentic - "This is the real picture of Sid Vicious before he died," and "Who has the bootleg of the '77 show?" you know? I'm sorta being a jerk about it, because I'm a weird freak about certain feminist performance art that I would probably want the bootlegs of. And I'm definitely a music fan, but there's only certain things I'm really mad about.
The way I think about it, because I've been writing for as long as I can remember, is that it's a really insular and obsessive art, because it's just you, sitting there with a pen or in front of your computer. You draw on your experiences, but unless you have some way of getting it out to people, it's just you. I think music is the best way to communicate ideas while using language, because somebody has to hear you. You could be playing a show or jamming in your basement or something but somebody has to hear it. It's not so much a singular art.
But it is sometimes because a lot of people play in their house and never showcase it, and there are lots of songs I have on cassette that I would never play for anybody, because it's too embarrassing. I can't even listen to them without freaking out.
She's a pinball wizard(there'sgot to be a trick): Kathleen circa Reject All American
But I was thinking about if you're in a band and playing a show, you're automatically involving other people. Not just the band but the audience, because now they have to stand there while you say "Okay, here's my song." When I think about words, I think about air. And there's lots of agreed upon definitions, but then you ask 100 people and you get a 100 interpretations. So language essentially doesn't mean anything, but it's still powerful because people think it means something, you know?
There's lots of questions. Like do words really mean anything, and do they just reproduce these hierarchical values that we both disagree with? If you're talking about capitalism, then do words just become products of our experiences, and therefore they're sellable, i.e., by selling our books, our records, and things like that? But the reason why you and I are fascinated by this question is because we love language, and we love words, and we love talking, and we love writing. And if we didn't, we wouldn't give a shit. I know that certain books have changed my life, and certain punk bands have changed my life, and certain rock bands have changed my life. So I feel like before I have an analysis of why some of the things that have happened to me have happened to me, whether it's with landlords or sexual assault, just to have another theoretical analysis about it from another woman is way of knowing that you're not alone. That's how writing is powerful. It can create community. If you look at a punk show and you see you're involving a lot of people, that may just a be superficial reading, because everyone could just be staring at the band like they're TV set and they might as well be at home. I've had shows like that where I felt there wasn't a lot of involvement. You can have a thousand people at a concert and not have any involvement - go to an Aerosmith concert. But with writing, don't belittle it, because you could have someone who is shy of crowds for whatever reason, or maybe they've had really bad experiences with other people and they're really frightened. But they can take your book home and lay on the couch and read it and they really understand it. They feel really included, and it touches off ideas in them that get them writing in their journal for two days. And that's amazing. That's connecting with people on a one-to-one basis. That is completely crucial to people getting out of bed in the morning and feeling like they have a reason. I dunno, I get really sentimental when I start talking about writing·
I feel the same way, because I love reading and writing, cuz I'm a nerd. And I don't know about you, but I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. Even if I thought language meant nothing, made no sense at all, because this is what I do. It's the best way I express myself.
Totally, totally, cuz I'm a nerd too. And I did the whole written word thing, and then I met one of my favorite writers, Kathy Acker. She was my hero.
You met Kathy Acker? How was she?
She was awesome. I mean, she was a bitch, but in the best possible way. I say that with complete love and compassion. She told me I should be in a band. She told me my writing was good, and having Kathy Acker tell me my writing was good, well, I could die a happy woman. I did an interview with her. I wasn't even writing for anything, I didn't do a zine - I didn't even know what a zine was. But I pretended I worked for a magazine so I could interview her. And she totally disagreed with a lot of my ideas, and called me on my shit and told me a lot of my ideas were stupid.
She wasn't really offensive, but she didn't baby me either. She treated me like I was another scholar. The fact that she questioned and challenged me hurt my feelings at the time and made me walk away from the thing feeling like she thought I was a joke. But she also invited me to read with her, and I opened up reading for her two nights; right before I saw my first Fugazi show, by the way. It was amazing that she was strong with me and told me when she disagreed with me, because it was totally more respectful than holding my hand and treating me like a toddler. And I think that when Kathy went on to wherever she went on to, her next great adventure, I really felt the imperative that I really needed to be like that in my life. Even though I didn't know her that well and I only hung out with her a couple of times, she gave up for me, and she's my favorite writer. I had done spoken word before and opened for her and I thought I was a writer. So she asked me why I wanted to be a writer and I said it was because I felt like no one had ever listened to me my whole life and I just wanted to have a voice. And she said to me, "Why are you doing spoken word? That's such a dumb thing. Nobody goes to spoken word. People go to see bands. You should start a band." So I went home and started a band about three days later called Amy Carter. And out of that, eventually I joined Bikini Kill.
For those of our readership unfamiliar with Kathy Acker, what would you recommend?
I actually haven't read all her books, but there's only so much now that she's gone, so I wanna take my time and read and re-read. Blood and Guts in High School is where I started. I think everyone should read Blood and Guts in High School. There's a freedom she exhibits in her writing that rarely any of us will actually experience on earth. One of the things that you realize when reading Kathy Acker is not to be so obsessed with finding the structure or the plot. I think she does have definite structure and plot, but why are we so hooked on that?
You've talked a lot lately about the concept of "writing through the body," and how language can be male and female·
With the whole thing of how plots build and build and then there's a climax, and comedown, hugging and smoking a cigarette.
Yeah. There's a book that talks about that from a musical standpoint, with male and female versions of music, by Susan McClary called Feminine Endings.
Yeah, I've actually read that, and some of the ideas you were just talking about I kinda got from there. The book's not that great, actually.
I didn't read it, I just came across it in another book. I have to get most of my references third hand. But I was just wondering how much credence you put in a theory like that. I think it's an interesting idea, but·
But some of it is really biologically deterministic, which is about saying men and women are totally different, and I don't fall for that either. That can reinforce sexism, because then you could say, "Women are biologically inferior, their body types are inferior·". And when you get into biological determinism, saying that women are inherently different, and we come up with different writing forms because of that, I think it can get kinda creepy. It can get into the goddess thing really quick, and I'm not interested in the goddess thing. But the other part of it is, it's not just about women doing this kind of writing; it's about displacing the structure of language and logic which is singular, and some people might say male. And when I say male, I'm not talking about individual men, because there are men that don't fall into that category and completely disagree with it. I'm saying a phallic structure, where men are defining and categorizing and analyzing and using certain forms of logic that hurt marginalized people. A lot of people think that if we as marginalized people use that same structure, we're gonna reinforce the same oppression over and over, on ourselves and on others. So it's up to us to come up with new ways to express ideas. Ways that aren't reformist; ways that are radical and revolutionary. Part of that is going to be about like 'writing through the body,' where women are trying to displace the phallic way that language is arranged. I was trying to discover that and experiment with it on this record. I don't think I was totally successful, but it was a part of that experiment to do things like singing nonsense words, and singing "and-of-it" over and over. With Bikini Kill, what people liked was that it was very easy to figure what the songs were about. And that was something easy for people to eat and consume and shit out. So I was trying to come up with something that wasn't so easy to digest and couldn't be consumed in the same way. It wasn't an obvious product saying, "You are supposed to feel this way! You are supposed to love yourself!"
"A lot of people think that if we as marginalized people use that same structure, we're gonna reinforce the same oppression over and over, on ourselves and on others. So it's up to us to come up with new ways to express ideas."
I feel like that just walking around the city, because I'm obsessed with signs and delis and diners. And it seems like, especially in New York, you see bizarre signs and ads all the time. Just these random, found things that make sense to somebody, but not you, and which you can therefore reinterpret. The world in general seems to baffle me·
Have you ever been to Chicago?
No, unfortunately.
They'll have lot of places where they'll have some sign that says "Groceries," and then someone will have crossed something out and written to the side "and Beer." All over there are these signs that are half manufactured and half hand-written. Some part of it will have written right underneath it, "No We Don't Sell That!" It's bizarre...
As far as revolution or change is concerned, who gets to revolt? You talked in Punk Planet about how kids who get pissed off about people charging for things like 7"s and zines are the kids who live at home and don't have to pay their rent. That made me think of my parents and the kinds of neighborhoods they grew up in here in The City, because for them it's like the 60's never happened. They didn't get to rebel; they had to go out and get jobs.
That's an obsession of mine. I'm trying to write this really long essay about irony and hypocrisy. Tobi [Vail] actually wrote a great thing in one of her fanzines, Jigsaw, about how people who get marginalized for whatever reason don't get the option to not be hypocritical. For example, I am a woman in a culture that hates women. All I am is a body, and if I get fat I'm of use to no one and if I don't have a baby by age whatever I'm useless. But in society that doesn't want me to exist, my being alive in it is already a contradiction of what should happen to me. My just walking around is a walking example of a contradiction, or hypocrisy. So any marginalized person who gets told they're a piece of shit that says, "No I'm not," even just by making something they care about, whether it's considered political by others or not, it is political, because they're not dying. A lot of times I think that people who make theory are people who haven't really experienced it first hand, and the people who need the analysis the most aren't the people who are writing or reading the books about it. My friend wrote me a letter for one of my fanzines called "I'm Sorry," and in it he said, "I'm sorry for hating capitalism while still holding a 9-to-5 job." I mean, if you can give your zine or 7" away for free, great. I've done that and gone broke just because I wanted everyone to read it so bad. But I'm talking about kids whose parents print their records for them and hand them out at shows, while you're standing there thinking, "Gee, I wish I could afford to do that·". Then when you've got your own thing coming out and you have to charge for it because you need to make your money back to do it again, people tell you that you're fucked up because the last person set a precedent. So who can afford to have integrity? Who can afford to be generous? Who can afford not to be hypocritical? Those are questions we often don't ask because we accept these stupid fucking value systems, especially thinking that being hypocritical is the worst thing that you can be. I think there are things about being hypocritical that can be good. I mean, corporations do them all the time.
I don't think it's being hypocritical, or even contradictory. It's just that not everything has to jive together about yourself and be so linear. You can do the 9-to-5 thing and still be a punk rocker. Not everybody has mommy and daddy to support them while they pursue their wacky lifestyle.
Unfortunately, a lot of times the people with the loudest voices are the ones who are saying, "So-and-so's contradicting themselves because they do such-and-such-a-thing, and that's not punk." So, A: I don't even listen, and B: Grow up. I mean, nothing against being young, but evolve your mind about those criticisms, because they're fucking people up and making them feel shitty.
I'm not expecting many or any comments on this since its so long because us live journalians are so lazy & only read the short ones, but here it goes anyway:
There's not much that you can say about Bikini Kill that hasn't been said, so I won't say it. Suffice it to say that Kathleen Hanna was a huge part of the band's two great accomplishments: saying a lot of shit that needed to be said, and rocking hard. After Bikini Kill broke up in 1997, she turned attention to other matters. At the time she graciously agreed to be interviewed for Jes' Grew #2, she had just released Julie Ruin, a radical departure from her previous oeuvre. We talked about punk rock, revolution, and Kathy Acker. A short update about her current whereabouts follows the interview.
I was thinking about the new album [Julie Ruin] and how it's such a huge departure from things you've done in the past, so I was wondering·
'What the hell were you thinking?'
Yeah, what the hell were you thinking? Not in a bad way, though·
What the hell was I thinking? I don't know·it's just like punk rock; you don't know what you're doing and you wanna learn, so you call your friends and you ask them to teach you things. Maybe you didn't have enough money to make it sound really crisp like Green Day or No Doubt or something like that. One thing about punk rock was that people decided, "This is what we wanna sound like." Then the Phil Collins-es of the world came out of the woodwork to tell the Sex Pistols or the Adverts or whoever that they were fucked up and stupid and they didn't know what they were doing, that it was crap and it was a novelty phase and it would go away. The same thing was said about hip-hop and rap; "This is a fad, this is a novelty, it'll go away." But it's all about people needing voices that are separate from uptight, bullshit Corporate America. I definitely don't think I'm inventing a new form by myself, but I was trying to see myself in that historical legacy of not knowing how to do something and really wanting to do something. Because if you don't know how to do something, your mistakes become a huge part of your process. And so a lot of the record was mistakes, and I went after them instead of hiding from them. I wasn't trying to sing perfectly, I didn't go back in and fix every word. When you're in a really nice studio, those people don't get it in one take, and that's fine. Maybe I'll do something in the future where I go back in and sing every single word until I get it perfect. But this record wasn't about that. I needed to do this thing so I didn't go crazy. And then I was like, "This record sounds really weird." I feel like there's not that many women except Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto and Lauryn Hill who produce their own stuff. I would love it if I was a girl and I knew that this person produced her own album and I was really into it. So I felt I should put it out.
I definitely see what you mean about mistakes, but honestly, my impression was that it sounded very polished.
You know what's funny? That's how I feel about it as well. The concept of it was about making mistakes, and something that I consider a mistake, not in terms of singing off-key, but in terms of not knowing the technology of electronic music, and then taking that mistake and turning it into a pop song. So I felt the same way, and mainstream writers would say things like, "Your album sounds like it was recorded in a chicken coop." To me, it sounds really professional and really poppy, and a lot less punk than anything I've ever done, in terms of sound and structure of the songs. It's way less punk, and I'm not screaming the whole way through. But to me, punk is an idea, not a style. You can be a secretary and dress really non-punk and no one would guess, but you can be punker than some kid who's got every Rollins spoken-word bullshit thing. Just because you don't look like a punk rocker and you're not using the same form doesn't mean it's not the same idea, cuz punk to me is about D.I.Y. and caring about your friends and your community and finding out what's really going on, not what the newspapers are telling you. That was my idea, kinda taking that back: "This is punk." Because everything now that "sounds" punk is on a major label; well, not everything, cuz we know there's a lot of great underground punk bands that still play punk rock - you know, r-a-u-k. Stuff like Green Day and things like that kinda threaten to take that away. I don't know if that makes any sense·
No, it makes sense because people think of punk as a musical style rather than· well, not a lifestyle, but·I think this record is a lot more punk than a lot of stuff because you basically played every instrument on it yourself. And you admitted you didn't know how to do it - 'I don't how to do this, I wanna learn how.' How do you learn how to do something? You do it. Punk rock is basically empiricism - 'I don't know how to play guitar, so I'm gonna pick one up and try it out.' And with you, it's like, 'I don't know how to use a sequencer, so·'
Actually, there's no sequencer on the album. It was all sequenced by hand.
Oops. Sorry. But anyway, when I was listening to it, and this is probably a stretch, but I was thinking about Tom Waits. His early stuff is pseudo-beatnik poetry jazzy-type stuff. Then he switched labels in 1983 and released Swordfishtrombones, and it was totally different from anything he had done before. He had megaphone vocals, and weird Eastern percussion, organ instrumentals and stuff, and everyone was thinking, "What the hell is going on here?!" There was no precedent for it in anything he had done before. And I was thinking there's no real precedent for Julie Ruin in anything you did for Bikini Kill. Were you afraid at all of how people were gonna react to it?
I don't know. I feel like I'm at the point where I can't really care. I have to follow my thing. I have to do things that are entertaining to me, cuz there's not much in this world that's interesting. There are a lot of books that look interesting to me, and a lot of music that I haven't had a chance to check out that I wanna check out, but in terms of doing something myself, I have to do what's really fun and interesting and engaging to me. If I feel like painting pictures that day, then I'll do that. I can't worry what people are gonna think about it. And if they hate it, great. One of the best things that happens to me is when I get a bad review, because it really fuels me on. I don't know if I hadn't faced so much adversity in my life if I would feel as cocky as I do. Because I've faced so much adversity, I think my food tastes better, because I really fucking enjoy it, you know? I know a lot of people have faced a lot of adversity and they know exactly what I'm talking about.
Like someone who's been homeless really appreciates having someplace to live, because they know what it's like not to have that.
Exactly.
"Because I've faced so much adversity, I think my food tastes better, because I really fucking enjoy it, you know?"
And if someone gets criticized a lot like you've been through Bikini Kill, then it makes your accomplishments that much more rewarding.
But also, I don't believe fake bullshit praise any more than I believe fake bullshit criticism. I can see through either one right away. Basically, one person's opinion is one person's opinion, and that's fine. The more people who voice their opinions, the better. I appreciate a bad review, because I know that person is being honest; either about their feelings or their own prejudices towards women in music or myself specifically, because I refuse to grant them an interview, and therefore they feel they have to write some fucked up bullshit about me. It just doesn't matter. At the end of the day, if I think it's good, or even if I don't think it's good, who cares? You put something out and it's not necessarily for it to be good - it's for people to think about it, and go "This fucking sucks! I can do this ten times better!" Some of the best inspirational things for me have been when people put out really shitty albums, and it would make me so depressed that I'd say, "I have to make an album." Because it would be so depressing in terms of the scene that I just couldn't take it.
Do you think, after being in a band so long, this album is just a way of saying, "Okay this is me, deal with me for a while."
It's partly that, and it's also wanting to do and have something that was totally different. I know there's no way I'm ever gonna get away from Bikini Kill, and I don't need to destroy that history and blow it up with dynamite like in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon in order to create on top of it. I loved that band, and I had a really cool time, and I met some amazing people all over the country and all over the world. I had a really cool time in Bikini Kill with them and those three people really changed my life in ways that I could never, ever...I just think they're awesome. Making this persona does have something to do with being sick of seeing my name in print next to the words 'retarded slut' and 'stupid' and 'fat'. If they would just spell it p-h-a-t...
...then that would be awesome!
Yeah, that would be awesome! But I think I just wanted a new persona, something that was separate from me, because even though it's cheesy, I just wanted for this timeframe to start thinking of myself as an artist and a musician. It's really awkward if you're a 'punk rocker' who's always been really anti-professional musicianship, really anti "I'm an ahtist." But the other thing is, I'm a woman, and I felt really uncomfortable claiming that I'm good in anything, or saying, "This is what I do! This is what I wanna do! This is what I crave doing," and I don't wanna be embarrassed anymore. I've always wanted to be an artist, I've always wanted to be a musician. I don't necessarily want to be a professional artist, or a professional musician. I don't wanna think I'm an expert and look down on other people. But this is what I've always dreamed of doing, and I don't wanna be ashamed of it anymore. Julie Ruin was a way of saying, "I'm an artist, ha ha ha·"
I can see that in the lyrics especially, with songs like "V.G.I.", where you're seeing yourself in this commanding role. The album on a whole seems to be a testament to that defiant self confidence. Cuz like you said, women aren't really valued at all for anything beyond physical appearance; especially in the art world, where all the women are usually in the background and somebody's wife. I also love how whenever they talk about women, they say things like "You can be this and a mother," as if doing one or the other would make you less of a woman.
Bikini Kill in the studio, from Anti-Pleasure Dissertation. L-R: Tobi Vail, Kathleen Hanna, Kathi Wilcox
I know what you're talking about. There is a self confidence that's a part of "V.G.I." and the whole record. I used to get really frustrated with Bikini Kill, where it was like, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I realize this now in retrospect. When people are assholes and they're threatened and they're being jerks, you can't have conversations with them like they're real people, because they're just really freaked out. And they are human beings, and they do deserve respect no matter how fucked up they are. But I'm not necessarily the one to give that respect.I think that one thing I didn't realize when a lot of criticism was being directed against Bikini Kill and a lot of things were going on that weren't pleasant, was that a lot of people were gonna be unhappy no matter what we did. The fact that we were alive was bad. If we didn't sell any records, we were total assholes and we weren't reaching a wide enough audience and spreading our message. Whatever the fuck that was, I'd love to know. Girl power? That's being spread all over the world by the Spice Girls and look how fucked up that is! People would say we were elitist because we weren't reaching enough people. And then other people would say 'You're selling too many records, you're sell-out assholes.' Now with Julie Ruin, I was kinda like "Oh, that was a way to keep our mouths shut, and I'm just not gonna stand for it." I just wanted to do something that was kinda 'ha ha, nanny-nanny-boo-boo,' I'm still gonna stick around, I'm still gonna make records and be in bands and doing all kinds of stuff. Hopefully Kathi and Tobi and Billy [of Bikini Kill] will, too.
You said in a recent interview that the album had a lot to do with "being eight years old and listening to the radio." Is that really what you were trying to communicate, that little-kid fascination with stuff?
Well, in Bikini Kill I was more writing lyrics thinking about what the audience needed and wanted. So now I was thinking about my own personal history and being a little kid. I used to sing a lot when I was little, and I used to use the radio as a way to sing. What I used to do was put the dial between two stations so that it was kinda fuzzy. I didn't wanna hear the singer because I didn't know the words to a lot of songs when I was real little, so I would put the dial in the middle so all you could hear was some of the music and the drum beat and I would make up words to the song. It was kinda about that. It was an interesting process for me as an artist to allow myself to let my personal history come into things more than I have in the past. It was a little bit more for me this time. And hopefully that will balance out in the future so I can think about an audience and think about myself, not negating myself for the audience and not negating the audience for my own self-vision. I mean, I was thinking about the audience on this record, but I wasn't excluding myself as much as I sometimes felt I was in Bikini Kill, which is no one's fault but my own.
Are you planning on touring at all?
Yeah, I'm planning on touring in February or March, and I'm not sure if that's gonna be as Julie Ruin or an actual band starring Julie Ruin, with these two other friends of mine. We're working on it right now. We've already written a bunch of new songs. I don't know if there will be another record first or if that'll come right after the tour.
"What I used to do was put the dial between two stations so that it was kinda fuzzy. I didn't wanna hear the singer because I didn't know the words to a lot of songs when I was real little, so I would put the dial in the middle so all you could hear was some of the music and the drum beat and I would make up words to the song."
So you're recording right now?
Yeah, that's why I'm in New York, using the same eight-track.
Do you have any time table at all, or are you taking it as it comes, like the first time?
I'm taking it as it comes, because things with touring are a lot harder. One of the people I'm going to tour with is in Chicago and she's gotta come here. I just got my first video back for "Aerobicide." It's really funny. It looks like a cable-access show, but I love it.
Are you gonna release it?
It's gonna go on a Kill Rock Stars compilation. I almost wanna send it to MTV cuz I know it'll be rejected. If you saw this thing, there's no way they would ever play it. Not because it's so controversial, but·you just have to see it.
Is it like cable-access, channel six circa 1981 or something like that?
Yeah, like an 80's cable-access show; not even a 90's cable-access show. It's not retro, cuz I'm not trying to do retro. I hate retro shit; as if the 80's were better? As if the 70's were better? It's just that the 80's technology is available and cheaper. If the 60's technology was available and cheap, I'd do that
In a lot of interviews you've done lately, you've been talking about the relationship between language and music, how you think the two are more closely intertwined on Julie Ruin than stuff you've done in the past. Was that a conscious effort on your part?
That was completely conscious.
I was thinking about that a lot because I'm in a band and I try to do that; usually I write the words first and then write music to reflect it. But in songs, especially, I struggle with ideas like, 'Does language really mean anything?' It's kinda frustrating, and I was wondering if you had any similar struggles.
Yeah, exactly. I used to question that idea from a real theory standpoint; not really reading anything, but just hearing my friends talk about it and then act like I was smart later. That whole idea of, 'Does the word signify the thing anymore? Have words taken on a weird life of their own? What role does communication play in killing experience?'
You know when something funny happens, and people retell the story so many times and it's not funny any more? And it's also kinda depressing because sometimes you wish you could just have that moment forever and not have to discuss it. Because in a way - this is gonna make me sound like I'm a big hippie but here goes - but you can think of an experience that's really alive as being a butterfly, and think of sentences as pins that are holding this butterfly down. I kind of integrated that sort of theory into my own personal experience. Then I lost some people who were really close to me to death, and I felt like I couldn't talk. I mean, I could still talk and communicate, but in the wake of that sadness I started to question how much language meant at all. Because when people you love die, you question everything. I started thinking about other people in different positions who suffer, because they don't have adequate housing, adequate shelter, adequate food, and the idea was, all you can do is stutter, because you're so sad. That was part of the weird things about language that are on the record, because I couldn't possibly try to put what I was feeling into words, but I definitely needed to sing. So I just sang whatever I could, and it helped me.
Have you ever read White Noise by Don DeLillo?
No.
Okay, well, the whole book is rooted in language and how it gets destroyed by advertising and things like that; there are whole paragraphs that read like ad copy, short and clipped. The main character is this college professor, Jack, and in one part of the book he gets taken by a colleague of his to the country's most photographed barn. They get there and there's nothing but people taking pictures of this barn, and flashes are going off constantly. So Jack's colleague says, "Nobody sees the barn," because the barn only exists as an experience and not an actual thing.
Because people have already decided what it is and what it means.
Yeah. Nobody's taking pictures of the barn; they're taking pictures of people taking pictures of the barn. So it begs the question, did anyone ever really see the barn?
That's kinda like people's experiences with punk rock with punk becoming this weird who's-authentic-and- who's-not thing. And then there's all the things you're supposed to have if you're authentic - "This is the real picture of Sid Vicious before he died," and "Who has the bootleg of the '77 show?" you know? I'm sorta being a jerk about it, because I'm a weird freak about certain feminist performance art that I would probably want the bootlegs of. And I'm definitely a music fan, but there's only certain things I'm really mad about.
The way I think about it, because I've been writing for as long as I can remember, is that it's a really insular and obsessive art, because it's just you, sitting there with a pen or in front of your computer. You draw on your experiences, but unless you have some way of getting it out to people, it's just you. I think music is the best way to communicate ideas while using language, because somebody has to hear you. You could be playing a show or jamming in your basement or something but somebody has to hear it. It's not so much a singular art.
But it is sometimes because a lot of people play in their house and never showcase it, and there are lots of songs I have on cassette that I would never play for anybody, because it's too embarrassing. I can't even listen to them without freaking out.
She's a pinball wizard(there'sgot to be a trick): Kathleen circa Reject All American
But I was thinking about if you're in a band and playing a show, you're automatically involving other people. Not just the band but the audience, because now they have to stand there while you say "Okay, here's my song." When I think about words, I think about air. And there's lots of agreed upon definitions, but then you ask 100 people and you get a 100 interpretations. So language essentially doesn't mean anything, but it's still powerful because people think it means something, you know?
There's lots of questions. Like do words really mean anything, and do they just reproduce these hierarchical values that we both disagree with? If you're talking about capitalism, then do words just become products of our experiences, and therefore they're sellable, i.e., by selling our books, our records, and things like that? But the reason why you and I are fascinated by this question is because we love language, and we love words, and we love talking, and we love writing. And if we didn't, we wouldn't give a shit. I know that certain books have changed my life, and certain punk bands have changed my life, and certain rock bands have changed my life. So I feel like before I have an analysis of why some of the things that have happened to me have happened to me, whether it's with landlords or sexual assault, just to have another theoretical analysis about it from another woman is way of knowing that you're not alone. That's how writing is powerful. It can create community. If you look at a punk show and you see you're involving a lot of people, that may just a be superficial reading, because everyone could just be staring at the band like they're TV set and they might as well be at home. I've had shows like that where I felt there wasn't a lot of involvement. You can have a thousand people at a concert and not have any involvement - go to an Aerosmith concert. But with writing, don't belittle it, because you could have someone who is shy of crowds for whatever reason, or maybe they've had really bad experiences with other people and they're really frightened. But they can take your book home and lay on the couch and read it and they really understand it. They feel really included, and it touches off ideas in them that get them writing in their journal for two days. And that's amazing. That's connecting with people on a one-to-one basis. That is completely crucial to people getting out of bed in the morning and feeling like they have a reason. I dunno, I get really sentimental when I start talking about writing·
I feel the same way, because I love reading and writing, cuz I'm a nerd. And I don't know about you, but I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. Even if I thought language meant nothing, made no sense at all, because this is what I do. It's the best way I express myself.
Totally, totally, cuz I'm a nerd too. And I did the whole written word thing, and then I met one of my favorite writers, Kathy Acker. She was my hero.
You met Kathy Acker? How was she?
She was awesome. I mean, she was a bitch, but in the best possible way. I say that with complete love and compassion. She told me I should be in a band. She told me my writing was good, and having Kathy Acker tell me my writing was good, well, I could die a happy woman. I did an interview with her. I wasn't even writing for anything, I didn't do a zine - I didn't even know what a zine was. But I pretended I worked for a magazine so I could interview her. And she totally disagreed with a lot of my ideas, and called me on my shit and told me a lot of my ideas were stupid.
She wasn't really offensive, but she didn't baby me either. She treated me like I was another scholar. The fact that she questioned and challenged me hurt my feelings at the time and made me walk away from the thing feeling like she thought I was a joke. But she also invited me to read with her, and I opened up reading for her two nights; right before I saw my first Fugazi show, by the way. It was amazing that she was strong with me and told me when she disagreed with me, because it was totally more respectful than holding my hand and treating me like a toddler. And I think that when Kathy went on to wherever she went on to, her next great adventure, I really felt the imperative that I really needed to be like that in my life. Even though I didn't know her that well and I only hung out with her a couple of times, she gave up for me, and she's my favorite writer. I had done spoken word before and opened for her and I thought I was a writer. So she asked me why I wanted to be a writer and I said it was because I felt like no one had ever listened to me my whole life and I just wanted to have a voice. And she said to me, "Why are you doing spoken word? That's such a dumb thing. Nobody goes to spoken word. People go to see bands. You should start a band." So I went home and started a band about three days later called Amy Carter. And out of that, eventually I joined Bikini Kill.
For those of our readership unfamiliar with Kathy Acker, what would you recommend?
I actually haven't read all her books, but there's only so much now that she's gone, so I wanna take my time and read and re-read. Blood and Guts in High School is where I started. I think everyone should read Blood and Guts in High School. There's a freedom she exhibits in her writing that rarely any of us will actually experience on earth. One of the things that you realize when reading Kathy Acker is not to be so obsessed with finding the structure or the plot. I think she does have definite structure and plot, but why are we so hooked on that?
You've talked a lot lately about the concept of "writing through the body," and how language can be male and female·
With the whole thing of how plots build and build and then there's a climax, and comedown, hugging and smoking a cigarette.
Yeah. There's a book that talks about that from a musical standpoint, with male and female versions of music, by Susan McClary called Feminine Endings.
Yeah, I've actually read that, and some of the ideas you were just talking about I kinda got from there. The book's not that great, actually.
I didn't read it, I just came across it in another book. I have to get most of my references third hand. But I was just wondering how much credence you put in a theory like that. I think it's an interesting idea, but·
But some of it is really biologically deterministic, which is about saying men and women are totally different, and I don't fall for that either. That can reinforce sexism, because then you could say, "Women are biologically inferior, their body types are inferior·". And when you get into biological determinism, saying that women are inherently different, and we come up with different writing forms because of that, I think it can get kinda creepy. It can get into the goddess thing really quick, and I'm not interested in the goddess thing. But the other part of it is, it's not just about women doing this kind of writing; it's about displacing the structure of language and logic which is singular, and some people might say male. And when I say male, I'm not talking about individual men, because there are men that don't fall into that category and completely disagree with it. I'm saying a phallic structure, where men are defining and categorizing and analyzing and using certain forms of logic that hurt marginalized people. A lot of people think that if we as marginalized people use that same structure, we're gonna reinforce the same oppression over and over, on ourselves and on others. So it's up to us to come up with new ways to express ideas. Ways that aren't reformist; ways that are radical and revolutionary. Part of that is going to be about like 'writing through the body,' where women are trying to displace the phallic way that language is arranged. I was trying to discover that and experiment with it on this record. I don't think I was totally successful, but it was a part of that experiment to do things like singing nonsense words, and singing "and-of-it" over and over. With Bikini Kill, what people liked was that it was very easy to figure what the songs were about. And that was something easy for people to eat and consume and shit out. So I was trying to come up with something that wasn't so easy to digest and couldn't be consumed in the same way. It wasn't an obvious product saying, "You are supposed to feel this way! You are supposed to love yourself!"
"A lot of people think that if we as marginalized people use that same structure, we're gonna reinforce the same oppression over and over, on ourselves and on others. So it's up to us to come up with new ways to express ideas."
I feel like that just walking around the city, because I'm obsessed with signs and delis and diners. And it seems like, especially in New York, you see bizarre signs and ads all the time. Just these random, found things that make sense to somebody, but not you, and which you can therefore reinterpret. The world in general seems to baffle me·
Have you ever been to Chicago?
No, unfortunately.
They'll have lot of places where they'll have some sign that says "Groceries," and then someone will have crossed something out and written to the side "and Beer." All over there are these signs that are half manufactured and half hand-written. Some part of it will have written right underneath it, "No We Don't Sell That!" It's bizarre...
As far as revolution or change is concerned, who gets to revolt? You talked in Punk Planet about how kids who get pissed off about people charging for things like 7"s and zines are the kids who live at home and don't have to pay their rent. That made me think of my parents and the kinds of neighborhoods they grew up in here in The City, because for them it's like the 60's never happened. They didn't get to rebel; they had to go out and get jobs.
That's an obsession of mine. I'm trying to write this really long essay about irony and hypocrisy. Tobi [Vail] actually wrote a great thing in one of her fanzines, Jigsaw, about how people who get marginalized for whatever reason don't get the option to not be hypocritical. For example, I am a woman in a culture that hates women. All I am is a body, and if I get fat I'm of use to no one and if I don't have a baby by age whatever I'm useless. But in society that doesn't want me to exist, my being alive in it is already a contradiction of what should happen to me. My just walking around is a walking example of a contradiction, or hypocrisy. So any marginalized person who gets told they're a piece of shit that says, "No I'm not," even just by making something they care about, whether it's considered political by others or not, it is political, because they're not dying. A lot of times I think that people who make theory are people who haven't really experienced it first hand, and the people who need the analysis the most aren't the people who are writing or reading the books about it. My friend wrote me a letter for one of my fanzines called "I'm Sorry," and in it he said, "I'm sorry for hating capitalism while still holding a 9-to-5 job." I mean, if you can give your zine or 7" away for free, great. I've done that and gone broke just because I wanted everyone to read it so bad. But I'm talking about kids whose parents print their records for them and hand them out at shows, while you're standing there thinking, "Gee, I wish I could afford to do that·". Then when you've got your own thing coming out and you have to charge for it because you need to make your money back to do it again, people tell you that you're fucked up because the last person set a precedent. So who can afford to have integrity? Who can afford to be generous? Who can afford not to be hypocritical? Those are questions we often don't ask because we accept these stupid fucking value systems, especially thinking that being hypocritical is the worst thing that you can be. I think there are things about being hypocritical that can be good. I mean, corporations do them all the time.
I don't think it's being hypocritical, or even contradictory. It's just that not everything has to jive together about yourself and be so linear. You can do the 9-to-5 thing and still be a punk rocker. Not everybody has mommy and daddy to support them while they pursue their wacky lifestyle.
Unfortunately, a lot of times the people with the loudest voices are the ones who are saying, "So-and-so's contradicting themselves because they do such-and-such-a-thing, and that's not punk." So, A: I don't even listen, and B: Grow up. I mean, nothing against being young, but evolve your mind about those criticisms, because they're fucking people up and making them feel shitty.