Artist Interview with Bitch and Logan Lynn - KRS.gay

As part of our 2021 Pride collaboration with queer indie label Kill Rock Stars, we will be chatting weekly with OUT artists from the KRS roster! This week we are chatting with Bitch and our own Logan Lynn, who just released a Pride collab (at LoganLynn.gay!!) and each have new albums coming out on Kill Rock Stars in 2022. Check out our conversation below!

What has your experience of being an out artist in the music industry been like?

Bitch: For the most part, I have felt incredibly supported for being out. I built my career playing one show at a time, and had the support of more established artists saying, "We love your wildness, come along." I never expected support from the big labels and never tried to go that route. I sang from my heart and it resonated with other queers and allies.  

Logan Lynn: Honestly, it has not always been great for me. I think that is because people were always trying to make some weird mainstream thing happen, and I was a little early to be so completely unhinged and queer and have mainstream anything still be on the table. It was the 90s, I had just moved to Portland from the Midwest, and it was a really different time in the world. Also, I was on bad drugs back then, and people had never really heard somebody make the type of insane crybaby techno music I was making when I was a teenager just coming up. At a certain point that all changed — namely, when Logo TV came out — and suddenly being a gay musician was the reason why I was having my gay videos played on national television and started hearing my gay songs on the radio. All in all, I’m grateful for how it has worked out... but my experience of being a young, out artist in 1998 was very different than what young, out artists are experiencing now. I’m glad everybody isn’t having to fight quite as hard these days just to be heard and have a shot, but the industry still has a long way to go before we can really say it broadly celebrates and lifts up LGBTQ musicians and songwriters. We just aren’t there yet. 

How has being signed to such an explicitly queer label influenced that experience?

LL: Well, I was just signed to the queer label of my dreams this past year and it’s so rad. I’ve been out here in these streets for decades and certainly have been signed to other labels in the past — some large, some small — but never with a team of people who really understood what I’m about and actually knew what to do with that. It’s been really cool to be seen and be able to trust that my work, my name, my gay ass, is safe. Feels great to have found a home at Kill Rock Stars where my songs — and who I am — are celebrated. I still kinda can’t believe it! 

B: There is nothing better as an independent artist to have someone come to you and say "Hey, we like what you're doing and we want to join you in getting your message out there." Kill Rock Stars has always been such a supporter of queer artists, long before there were corporate Pride campaigns. To feel celebrated in any way in this world is a win, and having them sign me in this moment of my career was like a whisper from the Goddess that I am on the right creative path!

Have you experienced any changes in how out artists are recognized and included over the course of your career? If so, what has that been like?

B: Oh, absolutely. In the late ‘90s when I first started touring, it was not even an option to think that there could be politically wild queers on TV or in mainstream media in any way. I never thought I would be accepted or allowed anywhere but the fringes. Luckily, people like Ani (Difranco) scooped us up and shared the fringes that she had built — but it was an act of rebellion. Our spaces were always “the other.”  Now, it feels like people are getting more conscious of inclusion. And in some cheesy way like capitalism always does, it has tested the market and realized, “Oh, people want to see queer people and gender non-conforming people. Their stories are interesting." We have known that all along, and they are just catching up!  

LL: Yes, for sure. There were so many homophobic gatekeepers working A&R at labels and covering music in the media when I was just getting started. The internet and social media really changed the whole game — in some ways terribly, but in a lot of ways, it opened up opportunities that didn’t exist before and kinda leveled the playing field. Record executives and labels have finally started seeing what Kill Rock Stars has always believed and practiced: that LGBTQ artists matter and we deserve a chance to create and be ourselves alongside our non-LGBTQ peers. 

What does the concept of Pride mean to you?

LL: I was raised in an anti-gay church with so much shame about who I was and what I had done to my family just for being born. Everything I’ve created since has been about unwinding that, untwisting myself back into who I was born as. For me, Pride has always been an expression of that journey. Not gay as in “happy.” Queer as in “fuck you!” 

B: I read something the other day describing how when we are young and we receive only cis and hetero-normative messages, we spend our young lives trying to hide the part of us that feels different than that. Then, as we start to understand or accept ourselves, we have to undo that part of us that hid. To me, Pride is about integrating our authentic selves and getting to experience the world loving them too!

Who are some of your queer or trans heroes or musical influences? 

B: Seeing Ferron play for the first time changed my life. Sia did too. Tracy Chapman. Leslie Feinberg. Bernice Johnson Reagon. Ani Difranco. Meshell Ndegeocello. Kinnie Starr. Prince. Peppermint Patty. Indigo Girls. When I was about 9, I wrote to Cyndi Lauper to ask her if I could have the newspaper skirt she wore in the "Time After Time" video. Still haven't heard back. There is a band in LA called Object as Subject that is one of the best live shows I've ever seen. They inspire me.  

LL: My ears were formed around Kill Rock Stars records and pop from the 80s and 90s. I have continued down that path as an adult, so KRS bands like Gravy Train!!!!, Gossip, and Xiu Xiu — who now I get to call labelmates! — have always been part of the soundtrack over here. I feel a deep connection to Alessandro Michele’s vision at Gucci and I also take a lot of inspiration from effeminate villains from the cartoons I watched as a baby gay, like Strawberry Shortcake or He-Man and She-Ra. I’ve always had big Purple Pie Man-meets-Skeletor energy and have definitely identified as a sissy cartoon villain for as long as I can remember. 

How do you feel about having your music labeled as “gay music”, “queer music”, or “trans music”?

B: Proud!

LL: Yeah, I love it. But I also used to scream “THANK YOU!” at dudes who called me a faggot and knocked my books out of my arms in high school, so I’ve never been one to shy away from these labels. I’m very down. Label me harder, daddy.

Would you consider your music political?

B: Yes, I absolutely do. It used to bug me when people referred to me as a political artist, only because I felt like it was code for keeping me out of certain spaces. Now I think the only way to be is political. It's a political act just to wake up every morning and do your queer thing, even if you are singing about 'not political' things. It feels like we are finally examining every move we make and how it affects others, from industry to wealth to where we choose to live. I am grateful for and acknowledge the Black Lives Matter movement for bringing those conversations to the forefront, as well as our queer activist elders who fought for us to have civil rights and spaces to share our art.  

LL: I think I would consider my music political too, just given how openly and unapologetically queer it has always been... but there is also this punk part of me that still feels like it’s bullshit that the way I love, or who I am, is somehow inherently political just because my existence or what I do with my body makes snowflake bigots upset. Fuck that noise. 

Do you have any advice for LGBTQ artists just coming up now?

B: Do it!! You're amazing!!

LL: Yes! And don’t ever let a straight record executive convince you to wear a sailor suit on tour unless you in fact want to dress like a sailor. I’ve had so many moments where I lost my dignity over the years just to get a leg up, and that’s fine. I did what I had to do at times to get where I was trying to go... but I would tell more people “No” if I had it to do over again. And I would believe in myself earlier. Not believing I am worthy is always a critical mistake. I’d say bet on yourself every time, for as long as it takes. Sometimes it takes 25 years. 

Why is support for art, music, and venues so important for the well-being of LGBTQ people? 

LL: Gay loneliness and isolation is really prevalent in our communities — and there are tons of factors for why — but being with each other continues to be the antidote. We have always been able to find one another on dancefloors. Those were often the only safe places for us to really be ourselves, especially for those of us from the old gay world. Music and gay clubs will always represent freedom for me and so many others. It’s where we first found ourselves and our community. It’s where the terror of the AIDS crisis melted away for a night and was replaced by gay joy. These spaces and the music that fills them are absolutely sacred. 

B: Visibility as a queer artist sends a message to the next generation that we are everywhere, that they do not need to hide, and that they are valid and accepted and powerful.  

What messages do you hope your LGBTQ fans or listeners receive from your music?

B: That there is a queer witch, her name is Bitch, who rebelled through a long line of women to get to where she is, so poetry and music could mix, and feminist liberation could scratch the queerest itch. STAY WILD!!

LL: I think my message has always been that we are all fucked up and it’s ok. Dance it off. Make out. Love each other. Gay is good. 

For more on Bitch, click HERE.

For more on Logan Lynn, click HERE.

For more on KillRockStars.gay, click HERE.

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