Le Tigre - November 2004

Hot on the heels of the release of This Island, their major label debut, everyone's favorite electronica-feminist-punk-rock ladies are bringing their own special brand of political roller-skate jams to the masses.

T. Cole Rachel chats with Le Tigre's Johanna Fateman.

TCR: Your new record sounds like the perfect union of all the things you guys seemed to be hinting at in your previous records. What was your plan of attack when you went in the studio?

JF: Well, the early record kind of map out who we are as a band, but we never really felt like we captured sonically what is was we were all about. We wanted to make political dance music that felt really celebratory, but wasn't just empty, nihilistic party music. As artists and producers, we wanted to make music that you could really feel in your body, and I'm not sure if we had really done that before.

TCR: There's also a real consistency in this record all the way through.

JF: Yeah, we always played around with making music in different genres and stuff, but this record is the most fully-realized thing we've done. Sonically, it's much more even.

TCR: Do you guys take a lot of crap for daring to marry your political ideas to music that's so fun and danceable?

JF: Not too much. I mean, journalists love to ask us about that, and sometimes people will ask us if we feel like we're making light of political issues by addressing them in such a playful way...but our audience has always been overwhelmingly appreciative of our political element. I think that people like it that they can come to our show and dance and party, but still feel like their value system is validated by what we're doing.

TCR: It's weird that there is this assumption that political music couldn't also be fun.

JF: Yeah...or that the only way to be political is to be angry.

TCR: Do you ever feel like the political elements of your work overshadow the fact that you make really fun dance music?

JF: Yeah, in a way. It sometimes feels like we're basically being asked to be spokespeople for certain issues, or like we're expected to be these like...I don't know, progressive tastemakers or something. We can't really complain though. We have a great vehicle to talk about our ideas, which is great. But at the same time, we're also artists and producers and I wish sometimes people paid more attention to that. I'm proud of what we do, and I don't think we really sound like anybody else. It's nice to be recognized as an artist sometimes, and not just as an activist.

TCR: Your first single from the record, New Kicks, features samples of anti-war speeches by people like Susan Sarandon and Al Sharpton. How did that song come together?

JF: Well, we'd made the music for that track and none of the vocals we had tried with it seemed to work for it. At the same time, we were going to meetings and marches and rallies about the war and it suddenly became clear that the song should be about that. JD had recorded some speeches from the big rally, so she brought those in to the studio...and there you go.

TCR: You guys have always been very connected to, and very supportive of, the gay community. Aside from the fact that there is a gay person in your band, where do you think that strong connection comes from?

JF: Well, I think there's a very natural affinity and overlapping of issues in regards to both feminism and queer politics. There's the shared investment in deconstructing gender norms and stuff like that...and I guess that's just our scene. You know? Those are our people! We're in a lucky position-we get to provide a platform for feminist ideas and queer issues, plus serve as something kind of weird in mainstream culture. It's pretty great.