Kat Bjelland

Pow! Right in the kisser! The aggression of Kat Bjelland was not to be ignored over these years, as she made music lovers sit up (but far from shut up) as the lead guitarist for punk-rockers Babes In Toyland. If you listen back to sensational songs like “Sweet ’69”, “Hello”, and “Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft”, you’d be forgiven for thinking Bjelland was endorsed by pedal companies back in the day – after all, she douses her tone with that much of the stuff. Overdrive, fuzz, distortion, tremolo… The extent of Bjelland’s experimentation was infectious.

Of course, the surprising thing about Bjelland’s musicianship is that until 1993, she never actually played with any effects (a fact she revealed in an infamous interview with John Peel in the same year). That means everything you heard on the Babes In Toyland albums SpankingMachine,

Fontanelle and Painkillers was simply the ingenuity of Bjelland in an attempt to personify her guitar, much in the same way many ladies would do in subsequent years. Lashings of tremolo in “He’s My Thing”, and the crunch of what you think is distortion in “Fontanellette” – it’s all Bjelland and her treatment of the guitar.

“If you learn how to play without effects,” Bjelland explained to Peel, “You have to learn how to make your guitar speak instead of the electronics.”