Former Gossip girl Beth Ditto on going solo
She was the booming voice of an anti-Bush indie rock band but is now ploughing her own furrow
If there was one song to soundtrack the life of Beth Ditto, David Bowie’s Changes might be it. The 36 year old confesses that she bores easily, likes new challenges and experiences, both musically and professionally. She came to fame as lead singer of Gossip, the indie rock band whose track Standing In The Way Of Control became an anthem for all manner of rights campaigners in the Dubya era.
Beth was an unlikely style icon, posed nude on the cover of NME and spoke out in favour of LGBTQ rights. She wed Kristen, her partner of 14 years, in 2014.
Beth is now a solo artist, with an impressive new album, Fake Sugar. When the Arkansas native had to have surgery on her vocal cords last year, she says she relished the possibilities it might bring. ‘When I woke up after surgery, there was a little anxiety but soon I was more excited to see what would happen.’
‘The surgery happened during the middle of the making of the album. It changed how I sounded completely and I was thinking, ‘‘who is this woman?’’ What worried me most was would I be able to talk again. We don’t know each other very well, Danny, but let me tell you, I like to talk a lot. You’re not meant to talk after surgery for three weeks and I found that hell. My voice became, to me, very smooth. I was thinking “Oh oh. Got to get those polyps back again.” They were working for me!’
Her voice is perhaps a more refined instrument now. She can belt out bangers such as Fire and Oh My God from the new album but In And Out finds her more measured vocally. Gossip were hardly a one-trick pony but this is very far removed from their punkinformed indie stylings.
‘Actually, I think if you put those melodies over Nathan’s guitar it would sound a lot like Gossip,’ she says of the contribution of Nathan ‘Brace Paine’ Howdeshell.
‘I think what pushed it away from Gossip was simply that Nathan wasn’t there. He is such a talented guitar player. Without him there was no Gossip.’
The band split amicably last year. Beth embraced the positives. ‘Change is fun,’ she says again.
‘My wife is so afraid of change. She is such a Virgo. I’m a Pisces. I’m like, “Whooo! Let’s go.” I get so bored when things stay the same. Even in the living room, I’m always moving stuff around. She’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll be saying, “Hello… the couch is over here now.” If things stay the same for too long, I go a little crazy.’
She knew she had to get out of small-town Arkansas. She was the middle child in a family of seven from Searcy. Beth first moved in with her aunt at 13, then after five years in Washington, left for the relative bohemia of Portland. She got into Nirvana and Pearl Jam initially but then discovered punk and idolised Siouxsie & the Banshees and Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex. ‘Punk gave me a filter to see the world – to see that ugliness is cool,’ she says.
‘You can turn being different into art or a project of some type. When people saw Gossip first they’d say, “Why are you so angry?” I’d reply, “I’m not angry. I’m just loud and there is a difference.” People out on the west coast (of America) are chilled and quieter. Southerners, we’re just loud.’ She says her discovery of the multiple facets of punk gave her a happiness she had not previously known. ‘The way that some people find religion is the way that punk spoke to me,’ she says.
‘Instead of following the same pattern as my family of staying in the same town and having kids and conforming, I came to realise that there was a big world out there. Not everything is wrapped up in pop culture and mainstream media. Punk isn’t just about the music – it’s about politics, the scene you’re in. It’s about fashion. Where would The Ramones have been without their leather jackets? I began to feel you could invent your own life for yourself and that’s how it changed my life.’
Beth says her approach is informed by the tenets of a quote from punk icon, Patti Smith via author William S Burroughs: ‘Keep your name clean. Do good work. Don’t compromise. Don’t worry about money, fame or success… Let your name be its own currency.’ Ditto out. Beth Ditto’s Fake Sugar is out now.
‘The way that some people find religion is the way that punk spoke to me’