Perez might seem mean, but find a Johnny Rotten interview that wasn’t nasty.
Think about how much shit Siouxie Sioux got walking down the street before she got famous. That’s the thing about punk. If you did it right, you got made fun of a lot in your life. So when it comes to the mainstream getting made fun of, it’s like, “Yeah, so?” People love to hate. I met Yoko Ono and she asked me, “Who is better off, the person who was nurtured, the person who was hated or the person who was ignored?” I guessed the one who was nurtured, but she said, “No, the one that was hated.” Yoko fucking Ono said that! After that, I don’t give a fuck about anybody anymore. I have the people I love. I have the people I like. I have my reasons and I don’t have to justify it.
You have this extraordinary situation where that attitude gained you notoriety.
One of the hardest things about it is that you can never convince people that you didn’t set out to do these things. Because to me, the ideal for me, career-wise, was Sleater-Kinney. Those were the people that we looked up to 15 years ago.
Very few bands sustain that sort of career.
Me and [The Gossip guitarist] Nathan [Howdeshell] were staying in a hotel room together. And he was like, “I get lonely on tour. And I feel like there’s no bands like us.” When you’re playing festivals in Europe, you’re around a lot of bands. But if you’re a woman in the band or if you’re Nathan, straight boys do not understand him. They’re there to play guitar and snort coke and fuck girls. And Nathan’s so far from that. When you’re walking backstage there are all these different trailers that belong to every band. And there’s shitloads of bands just hanging out. But there’s certain dudes that won’t even look you in the fucking eye. They are so unnerving. You can’t prepare yourself for that. I always think about Kurt Cobain—and I’m not saying we’re anywhere near the level of Nirvana—but I think that I know exactly what Kurt felt like now. I can’t imagine the fucking fuck-offs that tried to hang out with him and talk to him about shit. Not even the crowd, but certain people you meet, it’s like, you’re so scared. Everybody’s backstage talking about getting signed. Who cares!?!? That’s not how you start a band.
Do you think it’s less important to be signed now because there are so many other routes to get your music heard?
I think it depends on you and what your needs are. Other than to not have a fuckin’ day job. How many times can you work at the Subway for six months and hope they’ll let you back cuz you’ve been gone on tour for 2 months? Come back and work at Burger King for 2 weeks, then leave again. All we wanted was to not have to do that anymore. One day people were like, “If you did this, you can have this,” and money came up. And I said, “Wait a minute, does this mean I can save some money to go to beauty school? Fuck yeah, I’ll take it.” I have no qualms about that at all.
Read the other half of URB’s cover story, an interview with Perez Hilton, here.
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