.gay Music Monday Feature: COMMANDO
Ready to take a stand against hate this .gay Music Monday Feature?
Then be sure to check out Kill Rock Stars band COMMANDO's latest EP LUGGAGE N' UMBRAGE, for some powerful music that will inspire change. This fierce Queer band tackles racism, queerphobia, and transphobia through some really catchy tunes.
We caught up with them to get the inside scoop. Don't miss out on this electrifying interview below.
What inspired you to start playing and making music?
JK: I come from a family of artists and musicians. My mom is an actor and singer and has performed locally, nationally, and internationally since the late 1960s and I began performing in Chicago area children’s theater in the late 1970s.
Lynnee: I got sober and I needed new trouble to get into.
Drew: I’ve always wanted to be a singer since I was a kid but hearing some rando sing the national anthem on television before a baseball game really sealed my faith. I've been obsessed with performing and writing ever since, even tho I didn't form my first band til I was 26.
Honey: I’ve always been a singer and performer - I was rolling on the ground gurgling to Madonna before I could walk - I was in choir from a young age, pursued musical theater in college, and worked on an EP in my 20’s that was a mix of covers and original music. Music itself is a motivator - a cathartic, healing part of the human existence - there is nothing else quite like it.
Travis: I was a first generation MTV kid. And my mother was a Jazzercise instructor and I loved the music and singles they’d use to program aerobics routines.
Andy: I heard Dookie by Green Day and wanted to be Tre Cool.
What do you like most about playing music?
JK: As far as the band experience goes, I dig to collaborate on songs as well as the energy of the live performance. The music we do has a mix of analog and digital elements, and the ongoing creative possibilities of working with the members of COMMANDO are something I really enjoy.
Lynnee: The life or death onstage rush of words yelled n sung to loud as fuck tunes played by scary fashionable fine ass crews
Drew: The rush of walking on stage, the lights, the people but most importantly I love the behind the scenes stuff too, the writing sessions, the friendships, the band brunches.
Honey: The act of creating music is it’s own reward - my favorite part of the whole creative process is rehearsal, especially before things are solidified and we can still experiment and play around - that part never really truly changes, I think what makes music so beautiful is that it can be both flexible and highly individualized and yet also be extremely collaborative and structured. It’s just fun. Getting to do it in front of an audience is always special and gives you something to work towards. Ultimately helping connect people to your music and sharing a musical journey is really special, but it’s that feeling of connecting to and being of service to the muses of music that fulfills me.
Travis: I like building songs and watching the evolution. Making a 3-4 min space to park your thoughts. Playing music, I like the pure distraction of it.
Andy: Immediacy, connection, and collaboration make the act of playing music really special.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
JK: My main thread during music making, whether solo or collaborative, is my interest in popular cultural minutiae. I do a lot of digital sampling, so my memory of little bits of sound from old tv shows, commercials, and radio spots end up as parts of songs or informing a song subject.
Lynnee: Punk. It’s the new folk.
Drew: A fan once described my music as "Cunt Punk" which I thought was funny.
Honey: Eclectic
Travis: Ecstatic
Andy: Uncompromising, ideally.
Why do you think it’s important to be out and proud in the music industry?
JK: Our notions of “out” are very often informed by Western cultural standards, so making pronouncements about that as such can be tricky at best and, at worst, lack a serious consideration of context. “Coming out” and the timing of such is affected by one’s experience(s) of class, race, gender, geography, ability, and more.
I’m Black, bisexual, cisgender, and non-monogamous, among other things. I don’t have a simple or neat story about my coming out, but it’s a part of my music that’s interesting and important to me, and I’m lucky to be able to make music that includes my stories.
Lynnee: To loudly announce we’re everywhere, therefore known, therefore loved, therefore harder to kill cuz we’re a big impenetrably charming glamgang.
Drew: If you're out you're living and if you hide your life is only being half lived. Same goes for the music you make.
Honey: First of all, not all of us have the luxury of choice - some of us can’t hide who we are if we choose to… but even if I could, I wouldn’t choose to - I think it’s really important, life-saving even, to have this type of representation across the spectrum - music, art, business, politics, and religion… we are everywhere, and we all deserve to be seen and honored for who we are as well as what we bring to the table.
Travis: Music is where we go when we’re our loneliest selves. And I think we go there to feel less lonely more than to wallow. I think it saves lives hearing someone you have something in common with offering to be seen.
Andy: It’s important to be authentic wherever one is, no matter the field or position. The alternative both reinforces a dangerous status quo and causes a lot of sadness.
As an LGBTQ+ artist, what do you want to convey with your music?
JK: I want to convey my truth. A big part of my truth is that I am fulfilled by the spaces in which I get to serve the communities I navigate and am a part of. A big part of that service is encouraging the creation of spaces where people don’t feel they are required to leave pieces of themselves at the door to be a part of my artmaking and the work I’ve had the privilege of making with COMMANDO. I like to make space for complicated emotions and for people to have fun. I don’t feel there’s a point otherwise.
Lynnee: We will fuck up any bigot that fucks with our friends. And our parties will be lit and the bigot parties will be tired and straggly.
Drew: Sex, violence and big hair.
Honey: We are both human and divine - that we are powerful, beautiful, magic.
Travis: I am not an LGBTQ+ artist. But the band I am in is a multigenerational coalition of people who identify as such. I grew up with a trans sibling, and our music and the people in this band give me a meaningful perspective on a full spectrum of human existence. I think the music that we make reflects that: we sound like people who have had many different lives having a shit ton of conversations to craft something fast and mean and beautiful and strange and at the end of it all, kinda friendly.
Andy: That the spectrum of what’s possible creatively, personally, and rhetorically is infinite.
