Has Beth Ditto sold out her riot grrrl principles? Is she a one-hit wonder? What does she think of Lady Gaga? There was only one way to get the answers . . .
Lying in bed ? or at least on a bed ? with Beth Ditto is not the natural home for a socially awkward music journalist. We prefer to conduct our business over a beer in the hotel bar rather than on pink fluffy pillows under soft lighting. And we like to have our questions answered with relevant responses rather than things such as: "Oh, hang on, my boobs are popping out!" It just makes us blush.
A cynic might argue that Ditto knows this and uses it ? the bed-based interview is, after all, her idea. Thing is, it's almost impossible to remain cynical in the 30-year-old singer's presence. For a start, she greets me with a huge bear hug. Then she tells me it feels like "only yesterday" we were hanging out together (I last interviewed her in 2006).
Back then her band Gossip were breaking out from the underground and on to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Their hit, Standing in the Way of Control, was a blast of disco-punk that railed against Republican opposition to same-sex marriage yet still boasted a tune big enough to propel the band into the charts. So great was its success that it allowed Ditto to enter a world nobody could have predicted ? the celebrity circuit, where she ended up hanging out with Kate Moss and designing plus-size fashion ranges for Evans. For a self-confessed "fat dyke" from Arkansas who once admitted to being so poor she caught and ate squirrels, this was some journey.
But while Ditto's profile rocketed, her band's music seemed to get left behind. A subsequent album, Music for Men, was released in 2009 and although fine, it didn't advance the band's sound in a way that kept up with Ditto's rapidly growing persona. Is she worried the band has become a bit of a, well, a kind of . . .
"One-hit wonder?" she says. "Not really, because we're big in places that don't even know about Standing in the Way of Control. Music for Men sold more than a million copies worldwide ? just not so well in the UK. But the UK is so fickle anyway."
Ever since she leapt from the scruffy sheets of NME and on to Grazia's glossy pages, Ditto has been dogged by accusations that she has outgrown her punk roots or has fallen out of love with her band. She recently teamed up with Simian Mobile Disco to release a solo EP of electronic pop songs (she insists this is just a brief flirtation while the rest of the band embark on projects of their own). As for the former point, I tell her I had bumped into a fellow critic who bemoaned the fact that Ditto had sold out her riot grrrl principles to socialise with C-list celebrities.
"And let me guess, he was a straight white boy?" she grins.
Well, er, yes as a matter of fact.
"It's mostly all straight boys who say that ? nobody else! A lot of original Gossip fans are really championing that element of what I do."
She is infiltrating the celeb circuit rather than being used by it?
"I feel like I've made a difference for certain people and that's what matters. Growing up with riot grrrl, I feel like I owe it to the me of tomorrow ? without sounding too ridiculous ? to do this. The people who listened to Gossip when they were 14, they're 20 now and it's no longer cool, but when they're 30 they can look back and think, 'I listened to the Gossip and it was really helpful', and that will be how Bikini Kill or Nirvana were for me."
Did she have any reservations about the world she was stepping into?
"I was always afraid of losing part of myself, of people trying to control me. That was frightening. But I was never afraid of what people might think. But then, you can't join the punk scene if you're scared of what people think."
So doing the celeb circuit is no different to getting on stage in an Arkansas dive? "Like Vino's in Little Rock? Yeah! I mean, if I was living to please people, I'd have never been in a band at all. I wouldn't have anything awesome around. I'd just be bored."
Ditto keeps coming back to not forgetting who she once was and how important voices from the wider world can be. She points out that Lady Gaga's pro-gay rights stance may be a lifeline to isolated teenagers. "For my group of friends is Lady Gaga eye-opening? No. She's a less dangerous version of what was so cool about pop culture in the 80s. Back then it was so gay and so punk in so many ways. The idea that Prince ? Prince! ? could be the look and sound of a decade is fucking awesome. But I still think Gaga's great because she embodies that spirit a little bit."
From identity politics and Prince to her runaway breasts, we've covered a lot in 20 minutes. In fact, the only thing Ditto doesn't seem especially bothered about talking about is her new music. "I wouldn't call it a solo career," she says, before revealing that she was listening to a lot of Aaliyah and Whitney Houston before embarking on this dancier direction ("I wanted a song that made me as happy as I Wanna Dance With Somebody"). The tracks glow with a nostalgia for 80s pop and rave. This gives us another 10 minutes to skip through her views on Elton John's baby ("I did think he was going to be an old dad, but he's got money to stay young. New kidney? You got it. New heart? Done!"); the Velvet Underground's Moe Tucker campaigning for the Tea Party ("I was more concerned that she was working in Walmart ? why is a millionaire not funding her for life?") and the refusal of some newsagents to stock the NME issue where she appeared naked on the cover ("I never knew that! But you know that change is there when people refuse to do something").
Mere seconds after the interview ends she's draped over a chaise longue, pulling poses and reversing the roles by working the photographer: "You want to shoot me like this? How's this face for you? Perfect!"
"Look how gross that is," she exclaims, directing my attention towards her chewed-up paper coffee cup. "Eugh! I've got an old man's lips!"
It's all a bit of a daze. There's time for another bear hug before she's off ? dancing out of the room in a blur, no doubt to jump into bed with someone else and charm them silly.
Kate Groombridge Dania Ramirez Lucy Liu LeAnn Rimes Adrianne Curry
No comments:
Post a Comment