Original subtitles

MUSIC: 'Anxious Kings and Queens' performed by Suzy Harrison

- I think it is a problem if there's a really distinct lack of females in the band world.

It's weird, I don't often think about it you know and maybe it's because I've always been

in a scene where I haven't really felt it was a problem before. How do you get more

girls involved?

- I've noticed a distinct lack of women within

the music scene.

- There's always male drummers, there's always

like a male bassist, and guitarist...

- What's it like being a woman in a band?

I don't really understand why it has to be any different to being a man in a band

- Why is there only five girls to a hundred lads at our gig?

Where are all the women at? And more importantly, why are the women not here?

MUSIC: 'Anxious Type' by Shit Present

- I've always loved music, there's, there's photos of me as a two and three year old with

massive headphones on. Apparently I was bopping away to Dire Straits and Bruce Stringsteen.

- When I was about four years old, I just have like memories like dancing in the kitchen

to ska and reggae and stuff like that and The Specials was quite prominent in my childhood.

- My dad's always listened to loads of music and we used to listen to music together when

I was like really young, just all the time, that's all I remember.. just music, music,

I loved playing like records when I was little.

- My dad played me X- ray Spex

and The Slits quite often when I was a kid

- My dad used to make us mixtapes and it

would be like a lot of, like '90s, in the '90s, '90s female artists so there'd be Garbage on there

there'd be Lush, Juliana Hatfield.

- My mum was always quite supportive of whatever

I wanted to do so, you know, she never disapproved and thought that I should be playing like

a more girly instrument or anything no, nothing like that, but she didn't necessarily, you

know, influence me in anyway. Like she's not very musical.

- My dad'd sit, sit in his chair and put on the live version of 'Free Bird' by Lynyrd Skynyrd

that lasts ages, I think it's like 15 minutes long or something and you'd just see how excited

he'd get and that's really infectious. It's not my favorite song by any means, but just

like seeing the influence that music can have, the positive influence that music can have

on people that are so close to you and that you respect and hold in really high regard.

That was very much a catalyst I think for me being interested in music.

- My dad gave me guitars that he sort of found and kind of built. He taught me open chords

on a Spanish acoustic guitar and kind of learnt from there.

- I started playing piano when I was really little and I've always really loved music

and then started playing flute when I was a bit older and then violin and then I got

a bass guitar when I was in my early twenties and started playing in bands. I played in folk

bands I've played in gay bands, I've played in indie bands and punk bands.

- My first instruments were the flute and piano. I started when I was really young and I already

had a real love for a particular era of French impressionist music for both flute and piano

so I only really had sights to go on to be a classical musician.

- I sorta started like writing songs when I was very young,

stuff about like

SINGS #mum why wouldn't

you let me have some chocolate?#

yeah, just stuff like that, when I was like a kid like,

about.. I don't want to say as young as five but it could have been

that young.

- I've got quite musical family, so me and

my dad my sister started from as soon as he could get us to stand up and play music.

We used to do 'Mary Mary Quite Contrary' with me and my little baby sister and do harmonies and

stuff when we were really small so, just family stuff really.

- Someone gave me a drum kit when I was like 12, it was like this horrible yellow drum kit and

and like the snare drum was all like put-through and it was horrendous. My

mum's pretty cool and she used to have all like my friends' bands practise in her house and stuff and

it just kind of progressed from there. Went to music college decided that drums weren't

the most sociable instrument to play.

- None of my family are like musical or anything

like that, like no one plays an instrument or anything it was kind of more like I had

loads of shit that I wanted to stay and like loads of things

that I'd see everyday that were just like wrong or like oh, or just wanted to get across or

like be like this is.. oh I just had loads of shit so basically I wrote a lot always and was

like, 'okay being in a band is a pretty good way of getting

this out, really'.

- When I was I would say sixteen going on seventeen,

I started dabbling in stuff, like you know, drums, guitar and then I was just really inspired

by like female guitarists I was like I want to be a guitarist

I wanna be a guitarist, like Juliana Hatfield, I've watched

my dad would always like play her

in the car and I'd watch videos and I'm like 'that's what I wanna do'

And then I just stuck with guitar and then I started

playing bass when I joined The Tuts.

- I was always into music but I kind of rebelled

against it cos my dad always wanted me to do music but then my sister Harriet, she started

a band Colour Me Wednesday and she needed a singer, I was like 'okay'

- I was a violin player and played in loads of orchestras and then got into Nirvana and

decided that violin was rubbish, I wanted to play guitar and be in a punk band so I started playing

guitar and singing.

- I probably started like playing properly when I was

about 16 and then started playing in bands when I was about 19 or 20. It took me a long

time to think it was even a possible thing you know from playing guitar in your bedroom to

actually like playing in a band. - I sort of went through a stage of like thinking

that that was like really uncool like to like write songs so I kept it very secret,

like when I was at sort of high school sort of age.

- I always found it quite nerve-wracking

being on a stage and the smaller the band the more nerve-wracking it was,

whereas orchestras and things I used to do was absolutely fine. Um,

so when when there was a venue that was asking people to do monitors,

I was like, this sounds interesting. I was doing music tech anyway and it was

like a new thing at school to try out and I hated Music Tech, absolutely hated it, which

is really funny that that's now my job.

- My friends he was he sent me a text message one day saying 'there's a band

playing near you and you'll really like them - they're called Straight Lines.

I think you should go and take photos of them and

I was like I can't take photos of bands that's an incredibly scary thing to do.

So I took two of my friends down and I had like a manual 50mm lens on my camera

and I took photos and I had the best time.

- I'd sort of always wanted to play drums but I'd never been

confident enough to do it and Hilary from Cowtown sort of encouraged me to

do it because she started playing drums in Hilary and the Hate Crimes and she sort

of just said why don't you come along and I'll teach you what I know and she

did and then sort of went from there

- I played in a metal band when I was about

14 then when that stopped I didn't really have like the confidence to do it

again and then I joined other bands but only as like a backing vocalist for like

a long time and I was like always just like a backing vocalist and then I

started writing songs on acoustic guitar and that was like a really important

point because I was like yeah I can make music on my own and it can be just me

and then from there I was like right I want to do this with other women so I

did a tour with Perkie and Katie Raine just us and then we started a band together

Feralus which was like an acousticy band like mainly just harmonies and stuff.

- Feralus happened with Ren and Katie Raine

which was a completely eye-opening experience. That's when I sort of started figuring stuff

out and I was like I'll hold on a minute this is why I'm so angry

- (Ren) And then that was really important for me because

it gave me the confidence to then start Petrol Girls and shout which is what I

wanted to do from like the whole time

- (Perkie) Sort of joining forces with Ren is

definitely when things started to get really like exciting and I started to

feel more like empowered.

MUSIC: 'Run' by Perkie

#Run run run run, run run run

#Don't wanna be tied up to this town

#Where the hell, where the hell

#Where the hell, is your sense of adventure now?#

MUSIC: 'Influx' by Copasetics

- Against Me!

- Kate Bush

- The Skints

- The Slits

- Wye Oak, Courtney Barnett

- and Fat Freddy's Drop

- Waxahatchee

- Gil Scott-Heron

- Debbie Harry

- Perkie

- Elastica

- Amy Winehouse

- Dolly Parton

- Hollie Cook

-Taylor Swift

- Blink-182

- Björk

- Debbie from The Flatmates

- X- ray Spex

- Linda Ronstadt

- Anti-Flag

- Juliana Hatfield

- Nina Nastasia

- George Watsky

- Suzanne Vega

- Bob Marley

- Bikini Kill, Riot Grrrl

and all that kind of movement

- Belly and Throwing Muses and

in The Breeders.

- Your traditional English

folk music like The Watersons

- Joan Armatrading, Aimee Mann

- Courtney Love

- and quite a lot of the classical musicians

- The Shop Assistants

- Eliza Carthy

- Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy

- Aggi and Bernice from The Pastels

- Louis Armstrong

- Dave Grohl

- Tori Amos

- Good Riddance

- Petrol Girls

- Cyndi Lauper

- Kate Rusby

- Lyn-Z from Mindless Self Indulgence

- Skin from Skunk Anansie

- Alanis Morissette

- Ani DiFranco

- Everyone and everything really

- I only started listening to music when I was maybe 14, 15 and I started listening to

terrible music like Three Doors Down and

Goo Goo Dolls and thinking 'this is music, this

is what I've been missing out on this whole time'. No. Terrible. And then I started listening

to like Pink and you know kind of more female- fronted stuff that way, and then I got into

Tegan and Sara and there was no going back from Tegan and Sara because they were openly

gay, they were women, they were unapologetically feminist (though I don't know what the opposite

of that is, find apologetic feminists).

They were great, they were songwriters they

toured and it was just really influential to me and I thought, 'yeah this is cool, I

want to do this' and I got into a lot of music through them as well because they toured with

a lot of women in their bands and their kind of you know support bands had women in them

as well.

- Cyndi Lauper. Forever, forever. Yeah, Cyndi, I grew up just like loving her and like she is amazing

and she just did what she wanted to do and how she did it and the things she'd say and

just everything about her I just like admired and loved and thought that she was awesome.

- It was John Lydon from the Sex Pistols but he was in Public Image Limited and I was four

years old and I saw his video and just decided there and then I wanted to be that. And then

Nirvana happened and I realised I could do that, that girls could pick guitars up because

then with Nirvana came Riot Girl and then L7 happened and I was like 'that's it I have got

to be that.' It was a long process I just always knew that that was the path I was gonna go down.

- I guess I look up to Carrie Brownstein from

Sleater-Kinney they're one of my favorite bands ever and actually all of them, they're

all just massively brilliant musicians and I've always admired them for being seen as

a band rather than just a 'girl band'.

- I became aware of like Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail and all of them and so yeah I got

into them and obviously they became a huge influence.. not so much like to do with what kind

of music I was into but more to do with making sense of things that I'd already thought and

how I saw things and they kind of unraveled that for me a bit I think.

- The Slits is probably my biggest one because I think I started sort of finding out about

them and reading about them when I was sort of 18 or so and this was when I was stuck

in this kind of acousticy phase and I'm really not very competent on any musical instruments

like I've been playing guitar for years and I'm still shit at it but then kind of listening

to that music and reading about their attitude to that music and like how groundbreaking

they were, just inspired me like so fucking much and like all of the like books and stuff

around that band I think is incredible and like they just sound phenomenal. And for me they're

the most important like early punk band.

- Patti Smith. Definitely. - Yeah definitely.

- The way she like combines like poetry music.

- Mm, definitely. That's a massive inspiration for me as well.

- Patti Smith is one of those people who can

just seem to be herself and just do it.

- yeah I think she's really inspiring because

she kind of disregards her own gender which is, if you're a woman, quite a useful thing

to be able to do and it's like certainly not ever held her back you know being a woman.

- I adore Björk she's probably my favourite like female musician ever. I've had so many

people go 'oh but she can't sing' or 'oh oh she's so weird' but that's what I love, to carve out

that your own thing, you know, especially as a woman it's quite powerful.

- Mindy Kaling is like my favourite human being, I want to be her! If I was like a movie of

my life I would hope she would play me because she's just.. like I read an interview and she was

like there was no one in TV that represented me so I created my own like character and

I created the person that I wanted and I feel like that's what I do in the music industry

sometimes, like I can never see someone that is the same as me and like so I'm just like

well I'll just create my own thing. If Mindy Kaling can do it, I can do it for me!

- I suppose along the way I've met many people on the road and just saw how amazing. The

one thing I always told other engineers that I taught as well was choose your favourite engineers

and pick the best parts of them and then do that yourself. So like you know there'd be one engineer

that'd be very technical and he'd like to move all over the desk when he was mixing

and he'd touch everything at once to just perfect it and he never stopped and I was like 'I like that', you can

just never stop, it's never perfect, so you just gotta keep going, keep mixing and then

be other guys that would be very calm in the way that they plugged everything in and

their persona and I was like I said good attitude to have around musicians.

- Like my main thing that got me into music originally, listening to music, was 1950s rock 'n' roll

like Buddy Holly and stuff like that of which of that sort of genre there weren't really

any women doing that kind of thing.

- I guess I've got like a lot of different role models and I think when I was younger they were more

male because I sort of grew up listening to quite male indie music or then one of my heroes

for a long time was Joe Strummer but I'd say Joe Strummer was quite a feminist man so a

lot of the male role models are you know men who believed in equality and justice

- There's nothing wrong with looking up to men as well as women in the industry I think

or you know any kind of job you know it's more about the people that inspire you and

I think it was also about the people that never treated me as any different they just

treated me as another engineer and another person they were teaching it was never that

you know they're teaching a female engineer or you know they were treat me any differently

than the others they taught me exactly the same way and they they spoke about sound

exactly the same way so yeah I think that's more why I respected them and looked up to

them because there was no difference.

- I think anyone can be like a role model

to you, you should be that to each other. Marcia has been a role model to

me in terms of like maybe I should learn another instrument because here's this girl who's ten

years younger than me and she can play everything you know and in a nice way not it's not jealousy

is it but like it's a kind of it's inspiring.

- I remember just watching Sonic Boom Six

play and just watching Laila and thinking 'you are incredible', like I couldn't believe that she's so

little and she was commanding this whole room! I just thought that was an incredible skill

And I wished I was that confident.

- So many girls that play in the UK that I'm

friends with and know that are inspirational. Like my friend Lande who just doesn't give a shit

about anything and just wants to play and doesn't care. Thing for me is that

I care a lot about what people think and you're not supposed to. So anyone that kind of has

that about them that they don't care, like it doesn't matter that's always like quite

an inspiring thing.

- If you're going on the sort of maybe role

model theory unless there are bands up there already playing with women in them then people

might think that they can't do it because they're a woman.

- If they're more similar to you for example like a gender it's easier to be more inspired by them.

- Boys see blokes in bands and boys see boys

playing drums and they think that could be me like naturally as you would. Girls don't

really see that... so they would never look at a bloke sweating and wearing a vest and

think that could be me, so that you know so therefore they would just naturally think

of like oh I'll do something else.

You know so I think there's a lot of that - there's just the lack of role models

- Growing up I grew up with typical '80s cock rock

so I didn't really have any women to look up to. My mum was really into, um yeah

all the typical hair bands of the '80s - Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard so unless you were a

woman writhing around on a car or in a bikini it didn't really seem like there was

a focus or a place for you.

- So I loved people like Tori Amos and Björk but I thought that to be female in music that

you had to be a soloist and I knew I didn't want to do that. And then in the

metal scene I saw a few women but they tended to be always bass players and I didn't want to

be a bass player. I just didn't know where my place was so... like when I was growing up

it was difficult for me to think about people I wanted to emulate

- When I was trying to find my

singing voice I think that's when it really hit me.

I was like, 'where do I fit? my voice doesn't sound like any... Who do I practise to, to kind

of make my voice strong?' and it was actually a friend of mine called Kyle, he said 'sing

male songs, if you can't find a female range that really fits your practice, sing a guy's song'

and I was like oh yeah, I dunno, but then there was still a longing for, where's someone? where's me?

Where am I in culture?

- A lot of people don't have that chance to do, to see stuff and see live music and be able to

think that they can do it. I think that's important thing especially

especially as a woman as well like being able to see yourself in in the things that you're

watching and the things that you're enjoying is really important. So as a kid at a gig like watching

girls playing bass is the reason I play bass.

- When I got my first Bikini Kill record, probably like most women in music, a different

type of music was opened up to me so that's when I saw that I could be involved in music

rather than just watching and so Bratmobile and Hole, bands like that followed on.

- I guess Riot Grrrl was like a specific time, specific place and a scene you know in the early nineties

that has created waves and repercussions you know - amazing!

- You realise that people have done this and people were there and people like have been through

everything that you're going through and stuff and it's, it's really encouraging and

important and it Christ if I'd heard Riot Grrrl when I was like 14 or 15 then I would

have started playing in a hardcore band like six years earlier than I did.

- When I was younger like my inspirations was a lot different to what it is now I think

but I still you know because it was like more sort of pop like cos the only thing

I had access to was like stuff that was like maybe on like MTV or whatever so it was like

stuff like Pink and the Distillers and stuff that sort of introduced me into punk rock.

- Even within the pop world where there's now like a real feminism view and people like

big names are hanging on to 'feminism' as a word and educating younger people and I think

that's really positive because they are the role models to especially the kind of

pre-pubescent kind of twelvey kind of kids. That's when they need to be learning because that's when everything

really changes. So I love that and I do think that music should have a message.

- Powerful female role models like that, like like Lady Gaga, like Taylor Swift, like Beyoncé,

Katy Perry, you know, they're amazing and actually I think we live in an awesome time for that

cos they're really powerful women and I really hope that that inspires young women

to actually get into their own music careers.

MUSIC: 'Belay' by Esper Scout

- There are so many variables to being in a band, jobs that get in the way, personalities clashing

and music tastes that like when you get a band that really works it's very, it's magic.

And I love that.

- Doing the music is great but there's all those little bits as well that bring us all together

to be like organised and it's fun

- cos you have to enjoy it - and then all the other stuff it's just like bonus on top

if people like it and people are inspired

- The stuff I do in the music industry is like, I get a lot of personal satisfaction from it cos I really really really like helping people do something

and I really really like being able to shout about stuff that I love and Punktastic gives

me that opportunity. Yeah I just I'm so about promotion and helping people that's my favourite thing.

- I really actually like organising events so promoting for me is great like the idea

of like booking some band that you really like and them turning up and looking after

them all day and loads of people turning up to see them and having a brilliant time and all

that kind of you know that hugely appeals to me so that's... when that comes off and works

really well that's when I feel like really happy and I'm doing a kind of good thing.

- I got into punk and DIY punk because I wanted to be me and I wanted to express who I was

and not feel different so I find DIY punk really welcoming.

- Once I started actually going to gigs sort of at The Brudenell for example and things

like that, I actually realised how friendly people were and how people would actually

talk to you and make you feel really welcome so that's actually what kept me in Leeds so

it's the sort of the social the friendship aspect of music that's my favourite thing.

- I've spoken to other people from different music 'scenes' for want of a better word, music communities maybe

that are less like a community and people are just in it for money or success and like

step on each other to get there so I'm really glad I'm part of the DIY punk community that

generally doesn't do that, I think if someone does do that then they're not really tolerated

for very long.

#Stop the Hatred#

- Twice in the last few years we've had to crowdfund. One time the landlady put the building

up for sale and then the second time we had to soundproof the roof and everything that

came about those crowdfunded experiences was incredible. We had bands like come and

play and they played for free and they did it because they loved the pub and the messages

of support was incredible and it just it kind of just builds why you do what you do. Kids in

Glass Houses came and played a gig for free they could have charged thousands at the time

but they came here and played for free because they appreciate, appreciated what we'd done for them.

- One thing I like about what we do is just being able to go anywhere in the country or

the world even I guess and be a long way from home but still play somewhere and there'll

always be either people you know or people that know people who you know and it always

just feels like a little bit like home.

- We tour on mainland Europe a lot and we've just met so many incredible people and we

get to go like such crazy cool places and hopefully next year we'll go like even further afield

But, it's just like an amazing way to go and see places

- You get fed and get loads of free

beer and you're instantly in the middle of the party and that's really good. Instantly

you know people in different countries and I've had people from different countries come

and stay with me as well so I feel like I've made friends with people all over, all over

the world really.

- There's just so many posi' things going on tour and playing gigs and you know just having

positive feedback or selling my first record and all that kind of stuff, that''s ace. Going into the studio

and being really really shit at first and then getting loads of help and yeah.

Just being in a band is brilliant,

I love it, I love it so much! I love it, I love it!

- Playing music. I love it.

- I think it's good for my confidence and it's just what I've always wanted to do since

I was young you know is to be in a band and play to loads of people and everything that

goes with that - going on tour, recording albums and things like that I just love it.

- I never thought that I'd I'd be able to sing in front of people ever. It really gives

me like a sense that stuff can always better and you get always get better and yeah.

- It just makes me feel like a more well- rounded person, I think without it I'd be rudderless,

I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

- There's no other explanation to it, than it is part of your core essence and you have

to honour it otherwise you'd go bonkers and I go bonkers with it sometimes but I'd go

I'd go even crazier without it, that's for sure.

- If I feel shit and I play guitar it makes me feel better if I feel amazing and I play

guitar it makes me feel better. I think it's to express yourself primarily and even if

you're an audience member to do that through dancing or through singing along you know

it's that tapping into those feelings in a constructive way if you like.

- Music ultimately for me is about, you can listen to music and escape and when you're

singing you're doing that and when you listen to music you're doing that and I

think that's why music sort of like universally brings everyone together.

- I love primarily playing live or playing full stop! I love it! You know just being

able to emote and sweat and like just feel the emotions that the music makes you feel.

- I find like playing hardcore and aggressive music just a really important release for

a lot of like pent- up anger and frustration like and for me just having a proper good

shout is so important, like I need it. I get really miserable if we're not touring or gigging.

- Singing is so cathartic it's just even if I'm feeling ill it makes me feel

a bit better it just feels like it's coming from some really like natural part of me to

sing and I think that a lot of female singers for me it feels cathartic to watch because they're

really good expressing their emotions.

- I wrote about what I was feeling at the time or experiences that were going on at the time,

so that could be anything from I'm so hung over I think I'm actually gonna die from this

one to like my auntie died and I wrote a song about it but it didn't necessarily have to

be the whole song it might just be one line in a song or somebody would say something

to me that I would find offensive and it would be forever immortalised in words in my song,

so I've got lines that I've actually that have been said to me and I thought well I'm

not gonna get that so it's there forever now.

- Sometimes it's just a feeling and I put it into woahs instead of really specific lyrics

recently been writing about how gender roles are too set in stone and you know the frustrations

in when you sort of don't respect other people and when you see other people not respecting

other people, it sort of you get so down- heartened because you think people should

be a bit more humane.

- When people come and talk to you about what you're singing about and if it like affects

them or if they get it or if they want to do something or if it's changed something or if it's

sparked like an argument or if someone disagrees it's just like really amazing and it's getting

things out there and issues that if you believe in yourself like quite important things to

do with the world to do with anything and you're getting out there and people are listening

and have like good bad neutral whatever sort of reactions or questions

or rants that they want to say, it's getting something out there that wasn't out there before.

- Like with Onsind especially, they just sing about causes that affect me that I'm passionate

about and they turn it into a beautiful like package that I can then share it easily with

people that disagree with me or don't understand the subject so I can go 'here's a cconversation

starter, listen to this song and then let's talk about it.' And that's been really

amazing and I've been able to have very deep political conversations with my partner because

I've got him to listen to the Onsind record. I'm like 'let me talk about gender fluidity with you'

and he's like 'oh I don't know' and then at the

end he's like 'oh that makes sense! Thanks! Yeah that's really cool!' and it's been an eye-opener for

people that don't usually engage with that whole, with the whole scene.

MUSIC: 'Heterosexuality is a Construct' by Onsind

#woaaah oh oh oh! I'm not a heterosexual man

#For ticking your boxes that's not who I am

#I don't fit i to your neat little plan

#And I never will!

#I'm not a heterosexual man

#For ticking your boxes

#That's not who I am

#I don't fit into your neat little plan

#And I never will#

- I never felt more powerful on stage than when

I was six months pregnant like waddling around. I actually felt more real and more meaningful

then than I ever did in younger, slimmer, prettier, whatever days you know. I felt like it was

a real symbol of female power and I did enjoy that but I would still have things like crowd-

surfers coming towards the stage and just like sometimes at venues you don't have a

backstage room and things like that became what I could deal with when I wasn't pregnant

became unbearable because of that need to protect something other than yourself.

- We didn't tell anyone I didn't make any great announcement but it was a very healthy pregnancy

and I was completely fine and I knew exactly what I was doing and my child was in no risk whatsoever

because if she was I wouldn't have... I'm not a stupid person, just because I'm a punk

musician doesn't make me frivolous with that things that I hold precious.

- I'd see guys that we were supporting or different bigger gigs and they'd have like

a nightliner and their wife looking after the baby and they'd be like 'oh yeah I've

got a kid on tour too' and I'd be there in like a shitty van with like no help and

just be like 'oh it's just not the same for you'.

Even though it's still tough.

Sometimes we would find that utmost support from the male

promoters and then get us hotels make sure we were comfortable make sure we had food

or other times we'd be sent pregnant porn and people would say 'why don't you guys go

off and do this now?' and it's like... I don't need that I'm an expecting mother you know

that's not cool to do.

- I took him on tour or did a few gigs when I he was four months old. And I was literally,

I breastfed him as well so it's a very... you can't leave them with anyone else and urm

I would just be on stage and my boobs would be filling up and I'd have to run off and

feed him and like the guys would come and be there telling me like 'oh he hasn't moved

this and that' and I just be there like this is too much, you know, that there's no respect

for what I'm going through in this world.

- I was eight and a half months pregnant with my first child when I stopped playing just

to, you know, give birth and you know to start being a mother so I started back up again when she

was about three or four months. I went on tour when she was six months old which caused no

end of arguments and rifts in my family and judgments, you know 'how could a mother do that? how

can a mother leave their child?' and I only went for two days, three days.

- I've had a few frowns in the past the fact that I've gone back to work and I've got a

baby at home and it's funny you'll get this kind of look of you know it's it's not

a neglect thing... they kind of look at you like you're being selfish because you've gone to

work and it's like wait a minute I'm working for my baby, I'm working for my family,

whereas if a guy goes and does it then that's not selfish he's he's supporting his family

so why can't as a woman, why can't I support my family? It's really weird! It's really old school

and I think it's just about changing those attitudes.

- You can do both, you can have everything. Like I've got a 19 year old daughter who's

grown up in this pub and running a punk rock venue has not stopped me being a mum. She's

in uni, she's beautiful and clever and funny and she's not suffered in any way because

I work in a punk rock venue. You don't have to stay at home, if you want to stay at home,

stay at home, but you don't have to. You can go and tour the states and you can go play gigs and you

can get drunk with your friends at punk rock shows if you want and still be a mum.

- You know your kids won't appreciate you for quitting a job that you absolutely loved. They want

you to be happy in you know the same way that they want to be happy so you should really

just push for you know what you enjoy doing and make it work with them and so far

it's working, you know. He's been to two festivals so far and quite a few gigs and a few rehearsals where's he's just had

his ear defenders on, crawling around the floor and he loves it. So yeah maybe it'll

inspire him to be a musician. Fingers crossed! (laughs)

MUSIC: 'Caravan' by Helen Chambers

#We could travel round the country

#In an old caravan

#And go swimming in the ocean

#And living off the land

#And forget the shirts and collars

#We're not working for 'the man'

#And we'll drink to health and happiness

#And live life while we can#

- I mean I was at a gig a couple of weeks ago and I think there was one... there were three different

bands, so maybe about 15 different musicians, and there was one female.

- Oh yeah I'm the only woman all the time (laughs). It's a lot less now than when I started it's got more mixed

but that's with like the kind of amateury photographers. If you're still in like a pit at Reading there's

only two women there and I'm always the only Asian woman. I'm generally the only

Pakistani person I see at a show but I'm always the only Pakistani woman in the pit.

- Yeah it's quite lonely like you don't think about it, but we've toured with Reel Big Fish,

The Blackout, Less Than Jake,

loads of UK bands. There's just no girls, but it seems to be changing.

- I've seen pictures that people have made up on the internet of flyers from festivals

and they've circled the bands that have got a girl in and there's maybe one, on the entire

weekend, maybe two.

- Someone in relation to Warped Tour said something about how 'I would book bands with

women in them if there were more good bands with women in them, I book good bands, I don't

look at gender', and.. I'm paraphrasing that but it was something along those lines and,

and it's people shouting those attitudes that make people ignore new stuff and I think a

lot of the bands with women coming up are new and festival rotas, especially big festivals rotas are so stuck in

the same bands because they need to book to sell.

- Some music communities are quite male-dominated kind of 'dude-bro' communities and if they're

friends of other guys that play music they tend to like put them on and it kind of like

forms this like social networks that aren't.. they don't really have many women in them and even

though there exist bands of women that do also similar music they might be in a completely

different social circle.

- If every, every promoter made a decision to put at least one band with one woman in it,

every gig that's not really too much to ask for but I think that would make a difference.

- I think that you do have to start being intentional about it though. I think it's

got loads better in the last sort of few years in the community that we're part of because

we're really deliberate effort to put women on bills and it shouldn't have to be like that,

but you do have to go through that phase for it to then become a normality.

- We've been trying to get gigs together where it's like majority female artists playing

or at least you know somebody there's one female queer person in the band, urm, but it's difficult.

And kind of our first experience with that was when when RVIVR came to Ireland and they

specifically requested on that tour that they wanted support bands that had female or queer

members in the bands and this caused uproar in Ireland because people weren't used to

that. Firstly we don't really use the word 'queer' it's kind of used like even I said

it today in the van and Niamh was like 'what you mean? like queer? weird?' I was like 'no I mean

like queer like you identify as queer'. And it was you know it's something that's not used as openly

as it is in the UK.

- I'm playing Sparkle Festival in a few months and that's, it's a trans celebration festival

um... have I guess why I was asked to play! (laughs) But yeah that's that's gonna be really cool

because there's, there's gonna be people from all sexes, all sexual orientations, all playing

music together and it's sad that that's the only place you're likely to see that or one

of the few places but it's again, it's segregation isn't it? We've been put into this little

little bubble that we can, we can enjoy ourselves doing that in this little sort of prescribed place.

- Sometimes it's great when it's 'women doing it in your face!' And then other times it's

like 'oh yeah it happens to be all women doing it and what?' and that all of these different

things is good - And also when it's you know mixed gender

because that should just be like normal... - Yeah that's alright! (laughs)

- No but that should just be like, you know, normal

- Yeah - But I really hate when it is also made into this like

kind of like 'look we're super-special we have one girl band on the lineup, yaaaaaaay!'

- It's kind of like with them saying you know it's an 'all-female band' they don't say oh

such-and-such is an 'all-male band' it's just it's an 'indie band' or it's a such-and-such

band but when it's a female band it's an 'all-female' band and I think the more

that we start to say it as well and the more that we use those kind of contexts and it'll become

the norm so yeah, if you act like there's no issue then they'll get used to, they'll get used to us being around! (laughs)

- It's very very easy for journalists and bloggers and stuff to compare a all-girl

band to another all-girl band so it's, it's nice to not put that on a press release and

just let them listen to it because yeah the lead singer has a female voice but you can't

tell that all the instruments are done by girls.

- Like if they've already got one girl band on the label they.. - They think that's it

- Yeah - They'll be like 'we've already

got a girl band' and it's like 'can you not have more than one?

- It's become a genre

- Or they'll be like 'oh yeah there's that other girl band that's like doing quite well at the moment'

and it'll be like 'yeah what's that got to do with me?'

- yeah they aren't even the same genre as us.

But they'll have loads of boy bands, but 'boy band' isn't a genre.

'Girl band' is a genre. Which is a real shame.

- I really hope we get to an age where girl- fronted band is not a genre of music that people are using

because at the moment I see tweets from sites going 'so-and-so's band, which is a female-fronted

punk band', it's like you don't really... I want to get to a point where you don't have

to say this is a female...it's just this is a really cool punk band,

go and listen to this punk band.

- That's the thing, when I think of playing music I don't think of my gender as part of

that and I don't want to and I don't want people to think of me as a 'female musician'.

I wanna be a 'musician'.

- No one says 'I don't like bands with male singers' like, no one that, yet if I say someone said they don't

like bands with girl singers it kind of sounds, like normal, like, you know, as in one

in ten people you've met have probably said that and I find it shocking. And I'm like 'okay, so

it doesn't matter what I do or create you're never gonna like it cos it's a girl singer'.

- You will get this feeling sometimes when you're on the stage that like half of the

audience are actually kind of thinking 'oh this would be great but why is she there?'

Do you know what I mean? Like almost like it's much more fun if it's all just blokes like stage diving

and crowd surfing and going nuts and then I walk on and it's like 'ugh' ruining everyone's

fun but then there's always some girls there who you can tell are kind of really pleased

that you're there you know and suddenly they kind of suddenly they're watching having been texting

all night you know, so that's good!

- Sometimes I'm aware that when there's a load of guys around I don't feel like myself, I'd

rather hang out with more girls you know but I wouldn't say it's a massive issue but that

has been something I've noticed.

- Sometimes it's lonely just for other females you know. Like you said you interviewed Marcia and I

remember me and her used to like be like 'ohh' backstage just because there was another female

like, we never really, I never felt competition with her but I have with other women and I

have experienced from older women in bands some quite horrible shit as well but like

there's definitely a lovely sisterhood side to it because you are such a minority!

- I do find when you end up like, in like all-male environment which I'm in a lot I'm happy

to be in that. I don't ever think 'oh I really wish there was a girl here' but I feel like, I don't know,

if I'm really pre-menstrual and feel teary and terrible about myself and then like

suddenly there's a girl around I don't even know well, I'll suddenly go like 'oh my god I'm premenstrual

and I really need to talk to you about this' and like, I don't know if they think that I'm really weird

but there is that sort of urge, like you feel comfortable around girls that might understand like, you know, it's

cliche isn't it, wanting to talk about your period or something, that's not I mean but just,

I feel like it's easier to be open and comfortable talking about your personal stuff with girls, compared to guys.

- The funniest comment I've ever had on tour with an all-female band, a tour manager touring and myself

in the US a guy said to me 'yeah, so do your periods all like sync up?' (laughs)

And it's like 'I beg your pardon?', 'yeah do they always sync up?' and I went 'I'm sorry but I'm English,

we don't talk about these things!' (laughs) I was like it was such a random thing to say!

You know, I don't ask him about his personal sexual organs (laughs), what kind of right do you have to talk about mine?

- We sometimes turn up at a festival and you know, there's no changing room and you know

we're not we're not really the most insistent band on having like everything on the rider perfect

but um, you know there are times when they don't consider that I'm not gonna wanna

change in front of other bands.

- Our rehearsal studio now has women's toilets in it and that's a big step forward for, for

women to be accommodated at a rehearsal studio. I think that's a really good thing and there's

a lot more women playing in bands now but I think there still needs there's still a

long way to go.

- The problems I've come across are mainly at like punk gigs and things like that. I've

been sort of pushed out of the way or not been able to get to the front and it's been

a bit, a bit sort of sad. A couple of people have actually come up and apologised to me

afterwards and said you know 'I didn't realise you wanted to actually watch that band' and

it's a bit like well you know just because I'm female, it doesn't mean I don't like this

music and it's really bizarre. So I've sometimes had to like stand my ground which I don't

really want to do. I just want to be able to get to the front and either dance or just

watch a gig, but sometimes I'm not been able to do that so urm, particularly, like, Out of Spite for example

on a couple of occasions I've just sort of pushed my way to the front and danced ridiculously

on purpose to annoy people! (laughs)

- Hardcore shows used be really like male-dominated and you literally because of like

the sort of physical, physical situ... I mean you go to a gig and like there's guys there,

there's girls there, guys are bigger, going mental for it, and it's like 'woah'.

- In the situation where everyone is equal you should be able to crowd surf and jump around

but there are smaller people in the front of gigs and we should be more aware of that

- Like when I was younger I used to just go get in the moshpits and didn't care,

but I wouldn't do it now but that's because I'm nearly thirty and I'm too old to do that!

I can't even sit cross-legged on the floor anymore! but urm, yeah it's just yeah being able to just

go to a gig and not care where you're stood or not worry about how you get home or whether

your friends are gonna be there or if your friends are all with you when you leaving to make

sure that they're all okay and and stuff like that. It's... I can't imagine being in that situation.

- I'm being taken back to one particular time. It was at Nottingham Punx Picnic and I can't remember

who was playing it might have been Oi Polloi but anyway there was, there was definitely

a big shirts-off culture for the lads in gigs for quite a long time and maybe it's

still going on, but my friend who's a woman decided to join in, and she had her shirt off

and you know she didn't have a bra on and there was a massive hoo-hah but the most people that

were fussed about it were women and you know they were being really derogatory about her and

suggesting she was a slag and things because she'd taken her top off. And it's like well

you know, if we want equality then we shouldn't be then calling people slags

and stuff based on what society maybe would say.

- We were watching Ferocious Dog and we went into this cabin thing and there were just

loads of like really sweaty white men like with their tops off like in the audience like

being really like aggressive. So yeah, I just took my top off as well like I didn't even

want it to be like a statement thing like that's the whole point. I just wanted it to be like

'let's see like if people can just ignore this and like not see it as a thing'

but then obviously in my head I'm still thinking 'this is a thing, this is a thing' cos

that's just the way it is sadly, and Jen ended up joining me as well like and it was really,

like, fun but also made it even more like obvious how bad things are in that sense, because

quite a few of the men got really angry with us, made all sorts of horrible comments.

- Respect at shows is like a big thing that needs to come back into the picture sort of

like respecting everyone and if you want to do something that's awesome and that's your

decision and like go for it, do whatever you want, but you don't have to like affect or

involve or enforce it on anyone else.

MUSIC: 'Respect' by Muncie Girls

#I could turn a blind eye

#Take the cruel with the kind

#You, you won't listen anyway

#But I've always been taught

#That you have to spare a thought

#And if you’ve got something you wanna say…

#For the next few years you can laugh and joke about

#Your next victim

#but when you’re all grown up

#and your daughter cries, you'll be

#sorry you did this

#For the next few years you can laugh and joke about

#Your next victim

#but when you’re all grown up

#and your daughter cries, you'll be

#sorry you did this#

- There's quite a few gigs that I've been to where people have thought that like oh

she must be a girlfriend she like must be like with the band but not in the band and it's

always funny like just going up on stage when we soundcheck and them being like 'what's

she doing? why's she up there?' and then I actually play a they're like 'oh I get it now'.

- I've always been asked the question of who I was there with, rather than... so it was

always looked as if I was a 'dressing'. I must have been at a gig or at a metal gig because I was with

a male counterpart, rather than being there because I wanted to be or I was in interested in the music.

- It's sad that if you're a woman in you're working at a punk show the immediate reaction some

people can have is that you're only there because you're a girlfriend of a band or a groupie.

- I'm actually that person who when a girl turns up with a band here I'm thinking like

'is she in the band? why is she here? why is there a girl here?' you know, I'm also

that person whereas, but I like to try and think 'hopefully she is the drummer' you know, but yeah it's

so rare that you get a band with girls in. It's even rarer that you get a female tour managers

or sound engineers - I think we've had two in 20 years with touring bands which is absolutely

appalling when you think we've had like four touring bands a week for 20 years.

- I was refused entry to urm, to the desk once in Germany which I always found very funny

and the security guy was 'no no no' I had my headphones, my access all areas

pass, my setlist, the band were going on in five minutes, and he's 'no no no'... I had to get the

sound engineer to come over and go 'no it's okay she's a sound engineer'

and he's like 'really?!' (laughs)

- I've not been allowed into places like to gigs that I've been playing before, like cos they

didn't believe that I was playing.

- The classic was if you're going into a club and the guy on the door or whatever's not

familiar with your band or who's playing and you like go in and they're trying to charge

you on the door... I'm like 'I'm with the band' or 'I'm in the band' and they're like 'but are you actually?'

I've had that a few times, like 'no yeah really I am. I'm a female in a band.

Stop the press. (laughs)

- It's been quite positive on this tour we've had a few kind of sound engineers have gone

'now you need to turn down your guitar, do you know how to turn down your guitar?'

'you serious? you're actually asking me that?' or like you know fixing my microphone, like it's

okay, I know what height I am, I can do it myself.

- I had a guy once that kind of looked at me like I didn't know what I was doing,

so I said to him about 'is there any limiters on the PA? it sounds very squashy like you know it's

not loud enough' and he's went 'oh yeah there's this limiter' and he went and showed me the limiter

and explained how it worked and how it needed passwords and things like this kind of stuff,

And I was like oh cool. So halfway through the gig when he'd buggered off, I went and turned it off and it

was a lot louder! (laughs)

So you know if they're going to treat you like you're naive and stupid

then you might as well play on it

and just get you know get your way out of it!

- When I worked at Jumbo Records

lifting things around and just setting up a PA for an in-store,

I think some of the bands that played sometimes, they would, they would unplug things and plug things

back in to check that I'd plugged things in right. I'm like 'it just goes in there' like I know

what I'm doing because it belongs to me. I've set it up thousands of times before but they still like

to double-check that I've done it right, sometimes.

- Or if there's something wrong like a fault or something they'll be like 'have you got it plugged

in properly? Have you got your switches on? It's like yeah because that's what I do every time

I do this! But I don't know whether they do that to everybody or whether it's just me? - nope

- (laughs) so yeah or whether they do it to guys as well, I don't know.

- I would find like if I was too soft that a lot of men in venues would

kind of trample over me a bit or try to and if I was assertive I'd find that they would

you know I'd get that impression that they thought I was like some ball-breaker or you'd

get that, sound men calling you 'the bird'... 'can I hear the bird's vocals?' some guy said once.

Like he didn't even talk to me as a person. I've had people look past me and talk to the

guys and I've been there going 'they don't know the answer to this question' like I'm

the person you need to ask and I've said that but they would still rather deal like man

to man.

- In the DIY scene I'm quite lucky that I don't come across it that often but when I

didn't work at the DIY scene it was more of a regular thing. And you get talked down to

a lot and like you know people talk to you like you're a small child which I don't think

guys get as much.

- Working in a record shop was, was really great and we had um, we've got a, the shop's

lucky in that it's got a 50/50 gender split but um, there were certain customers that would

only want to speak to the male members of staff about stuff like... especially stuff like

Elvis and the Beatles and rock 'n' roll and stuff that, even if you don't really know that

much about music you know who the Beatles are, but they'd specifically ask for

male members of staff.

- Certainly like when I was in my twenties I used to find that all the time you know

this kind of like patronising kind of you know 'all right, where's the, where's the manager?'

Like 'right here!' you know and I'd have that continuously for about ten years.

- You get overlooked sometimes when you put in a lot of effort into something but your

editor is a dude and I am nothing against my Editor, I love him, Ben is the best

human being, but like PRs and stuff attribute stuff that you do to like other people because

they overlook your contribution sometimes and I hate that, but you know, you have to fight

against these things, which is what I always do.

- Even the women who do get to you know front bands or kind of have their musical projects,

um it's kind of the way they are talked about is maybe they don't make their own music, someone's

behind or you know their bandmates probably make all of it they just sing it.

- Sometimes I feel like when we had a male drummer which we had for many years and we

had a male bassist for a few years as well, that people only took us seriously because

'these men say these women are okay'. It's like a lot of bands with one woman in get further than,

you know, bands with one man in.

- I always thought that sexism didn't touch me but my husband recently has been pointing

out that it could be because I've got a really thick skin because there's been times that

people have been rude to me and I've just assumed they're rude to everyone but then

he's pointed out that they've been perfectly nice to everyone around that's male and I'm

like oh my god maybe that was sexism because I generally I don't, I think I don't think of

myself as any less equal so therefore I don't assume that it's because I'm a woman I just

think they're just ignorant and rude.

- Thing is that I guess for me that thing kind of thing does happen, not necessarily a cat

call but like someone shouting at you like something weird or like a car of lads that like drives

past and like all laughing or like honk at you on your bike and yeah you feel a bit stupid

but I forget about like that. Like it's not something that, which is probably really

bad it should be something that, you know, I think other people might go home and get

angry about that and be like 'what the fuck is going on in the world? this is not okay'

whereas I go home and urrr I didn't even remember that, like I just think it's like become really

immune to those kind of little things. That's what that everyday sexism Twitter, like, internet

movement was really great cos I'd read all of them and go like yep, yep, yep, yep yep, oh shit!

That's really like terrible! But they're such small things at the time that they don't,

they don't feel like a problem.

- It's the smaller things that just kind of they break away you know it's like one thing

after another and it's more an attack on your self-esteem like you're kinda, you're building up

confidence as a musician and just as a performer and as a person you know and just kind of

having to stand on stage, is daunting, it is and that's not really talked about much and kind

of being a woman you know, some times of the month you're more capable of doing it than

others you know and sometimes, something someone will say to you on stage you know

be it a sound engineer, a promoter or somebody heckling you from the crowd, can really get to you.

- I think the age when boys often get into playing those kind of instruments and hurling

themselves about on stage I think that girls, uhh, now are they naturally more self-conscious

or are they conditioned to be more self-conscious? I don't know, but I think that when girls

have got a lot of stuff going on in their early teenage years that blokes don't have and I

think that a lot of the time, you don't wanna be stuck on a stage with a light shining on you

or being given an instrument - 'have a go on that' you know, you feel like you're

just trying to survive, you know, in the playground.

- All the boys at school were in bands and I wanted to be in a band so bad but I never

did cos I was always a bit too intimidated to go band practice or intimidated to pick

up a guitar or a drum kit or anything so it's, I don't know it's um, I think that put me off

if anything. Like it put me off wanting to play drums and stuff because all the boys

at school kind of took over it and were better and showed off about it a lot and I was just

like 'oh well'... I was too scared basically to do anything.

- I don't see many female singers coming in looking to start career here, I see a lot of

little girls coming wanting to sing songs cos it's a novelty and it's fun, but there's

a sense that they'll grow out of it. Whereas when, when guys come in here and even younger

like boys come in they won't come in on it on an 'experience day' like a 'voucher special'

deal or anything like that. They'll come in because they're, them and their friends have

started a rock band.

- For so many years I've been to so many gigs and I've just watched so many bands and thought

'I could never ever do this like in a million years' and I'm doing it I'm like

'ohh yeah I can actually' it's really weird, it's still really weird. It doesn't feel like a real thing, so it is definitely a confidence... a confidence thing.

- Even things you can do well, you pretend you can't

do well like 'oh I'm not very good, oh I'm not very good' you know, when you're perfectly good at doing things.

So I think there's that as well, that kind of a bit of false humility cos you don't want to be thought of

as like a show-off or don't be thought of as you know, as though you think you're something.

- Women aren't... don't seem as able to blag it. And I think that women in bands are generally a lot better

musicians than their counterparts a lot of the time because they need that confidence

of being really good at their instruments to, to feel confident enough to play with other people.

Whereas men, literally, they can be rubbish and turn up and really hardly be able

to play, yet they'll come along going 'yeah I'm the guitarist' or 'I'm a really good drummer'

or something and they can barely keep a beat. If there's a woman who's just not stereotype

sexy looking, then people would really pull her out for what she's wearing, what

her hair is like, she's not punk enough looking or she's too fat or she's too thin or she's

whatever looking. People will really judge women a lot more than they will

judge the look of a man.

- There's issues around looking nice and that kind of pressure I think that, for me

personally I think I put on myself, that urm, you know as a front girl I should dress nice and

do all that and you generally like I've... 'I've, you know, I've put my lipstick on for you' but generally like

my look is very disheveled and no make-up and everything. I kind of wish if I could go back

with Dirty Revolution that I never would have entered into that pretty dress

thing.

- I had a really awful experience a few times where there was an expectation of me as a

woman. I think I went to see Daughters or someone and I wanted to wear a dress and I was dating a guy

and he was like 'no, you can't wear a dress to a gig' and made me get changed into jeans.

And I just did. And I remember going, afterwards thinking 'why would I do that?'

I'm not going there for him, I'm going there for like,

I'm going there to listen to music. I'm going there to like rock out some really dirty math metal

and I've just been told to get changed cos

I might embarrass some guy that I'm dating and, that was a pretty horrific experience,

and something that at the time I knew I felt unnerved and then looking back I realised

it was pretty awful.

- Definitely when I was younger, when I was in my teenage years, there was a lot of pressure

to make sure that I didn't look like I was trying too hard when I was going to shows,

so to make sure that I fit in and people thought that I was there because I wanted to see bands

rather than I was there to meet bands.

- If we play like a show and, I'd sweat ridiculously so I like play my bikini top or whatever,

like, I really don't care what I look like when I'm playing. If me and Tal play with

our like tops off we'll get like comments straight away sometimes maybe and it's like

like just like sex shit you know like 'wheeyy get your tits out' or whatever and it's like

Haig can be there on drums no top on, no comments it's just standard, as soon

as we do it's 'woaaah' 'wherrr' and all this like rowdy shit and you do get a slight feeling of like

'this would just be easier if I fucking kept my top on' and then it's like 'why the fuck

should I have to?

- Esper Scout at the Roundhouse did get our first ever 'get your rat out' and I didn't

say anything, I made a face I think, because I think it was mostly shock like

us?... us?

- I've been to gigs and done shows in, in certain places that have had people in that just can't

can't accept it and are very verbal about that (laughs) so I have had people sort of in between

songs just asking you why I'm wearing a dress or you know, not quite that politely but you

know I've always got a comeback! (laughs)

- My main example is gonna be being told by a very prominent punk musician in the in the

British music scene who absolutely everybody knows and has been going for a long time told

me my guitar was too masculine - I play Les Paul Black Beauty copy. He told me that I

should have a Telecaster, well I can't play a Telecaster because it's too trebally,

I don't want that sound and then he told me that I shouldn't be how I am on stage I should

writhe around in a see-through dress, like... now I can't imagine he told many other men

to go and wear sheer tops as they perform music that they'd written. And you know, when

he told me that I was actually quite crushed.

- It's a very honest, um place, a touring party you know, it's very, it's the kind of place

you say stuff that you you know really innermost think that you wouldn't roll out to the public,

you know. And I do get a bit of an inside look on how a lot of men view women especially

women in music and I think yeah it's made me self-conscious and you can become more

and more aware of how you look because it apparently really matters. You know, I did

really get on a train to improve the way I looked and like trying to lose weight and

all that stuff.

- I don't see myself as being any different than Barney, Nick, James, Luke.. I just don't.

I don't feel like because I'm a woman and they're men that it's any different but then when I look

back at it I think, wait a minute when we played in Barcelona and I couldn't go from the stage

to the dressing room because I was literally getting my arse grabbed every five minutes...

that's wrong.

- When I was in The Mingers one time as well in Wales, this guy just decides that while

I'm singing it's okay to come up and grab my fanny. I'm like, I was absolutely mortified.

I didn't actually know what to do. I think I was just so shocked. I think now,

cos I was younger then, I think now I'd just lamp him one! I kind of named and shamed

him, but yeah it's not... it's just not on.

- It's always there that like some guy might think he can put his hands on you because

you've been on stage whereas they wouldn't do that to your male bandmates you know at

the merch desk or something.

- We put our video on a famous website, kind of a popular punk news website and we got

comments that said the various things that men wanted to do to me and my bandmates, or

wouldn't do because we were ugly dykes and things like that.

- We played it this metal festival and the festival was great, the bands were great,

the organisers are great and they're lovely and we know them and most of the people there

were lovely but just after we played we were outside hanging around and this guy said to

Danni, who plays guitar and does vocals, he was like 'oh yeah yeah, you're a really good guitar player,

really good', and then he turns to his mate and was like, he said something along the

lines of 'yeah I'd rape her'. Yeah, I know. And it's just if she'd have been a woman,

I mean if she'd have been a man then there was no chance he'd have said that. There's just no

chance and um,

yeah it's you know, it's stuff like that, that sometimes that makes it hit

home, that actually there is there is stuff that goes on.

- I mean one I've written about a lot for zines and stuff like that is I got sexually

assaulted by a guy that plays guitar in a band that we don't really hang out with anymore

and, that was, I found that a really difficult experience not because it's the worst sexual

assault I've ever experienced - it's the backlash

- the backlash was fucking phenomenal! Like,

I didn't say anything for a really long time because I knew it was going to be bad and

then when I did kind of get up the confidence to talk to my girlfriends about it, they were

like 'yeah no of course it's not your fault, how could that possibly be your fault?' and

I was like 'okay, yeah okay it's not my fault', and then I told my boyfriend at the time and

he basically acted like I'd cheated on him and tried to talk me through what had been going

through this guy's mind at the time giving me like multiple panic attacks and freaking

me the fuck out and then I eventually confronted the guy himself and his girlfriend who was

there and it was just you know all my fault, I'm a slut and a whore etc etc.

LIVE RECORDING OF REN: Hi we're Petrol Girls

we're a feminist band from lots of different places. Everywhere we play

we talk about consent which is this idea that sex is great if everyone involved wants to do it

so if someone says 'no' it means no, if someone's really wasted or unconscious or too drunk or

has taken shit loads of drugs, they're not really in a position to give their consent, that also means no.

This song's called Touch Me Again the main chorus lyric is "it's my body and my choice"

and I don't normally talk about abortion when we play, but I think this time I just want to say that

we are very firmly a pro-choice band.

APPLAUSE

LIVE MUSIC STARTS: 'Touch Me Again' by Petrol Girls

#My domain my temple and my territory, my pleasure #Cut cut cut it out

#My desire my right to choose or to refuse this encounter #Cut cut cut it out

#My agency that non-consensual contact tries to take from me #Cut cut cut it out

#My fucking mind you undermine my sense of self, you pressurise

#Cut cut cut it out#

- A lot of my poetry is about feminism especially in the punk scene and I think it's just a

new way of delivering protest to people and new ideas and things like that and I think

it works really well.

- In terms of like the whole feminist movement supporting women and like oh you know advertising that

it's not about like women vs men. It's about just, you know, celebrating women for what they are and also celebrating

men for what they are, in equals.

- Women and men should be equal. That's it, that's as clear cut as it can possibly be. But then it's

all blurred because you throw emotions into it and you throw people getting defensive

into it, people being over, like too passionate, if you know and that's what causes all the

all the debate.

- It shouldn't be like a special thing or you know it should just be normal. There should

be men and women in bands and you know all cultures in bands and... that's the idealism.

- The venues I go to really, like Wharf Chambers here for example is, it's a safe

space, everyone's really respectful to each other and you would never even... gender is

is irrelevant, should be irrelevant but here you can tell it's like, it's irrelevant.

- My ideal like world would be a world where gender was just irrelevant because it kind

it is. Like people are people and we have like bodies and people identify with you and

will treat you in ways like because of your gender even without sort of asking you or

knowing anything about you or knowing what gender you want to sort of like refer to

or be identified as.

- Generally in accepted society, at least in the Western world, there's two main genders

well, two, two genders, full stop. There's male and there's female. Um, and it's really hard

to grasp this if you have been brought up for that to be the case. Urm, but basically, urm

gender fluid's, is sort of a way of saying that there, that's not all there is, there's

a lot in between (laughs). I believe that I'm not quite male or female. I don't fit into either box

and the gender fluid thing, sort of it's generally some days I'm more female, some days I'm closer

to male but it's never really further than halfway (laughs). Urm, and my sort of presented gender

is always, always female. So that bit's a bit confusing for people, cos there's your,

your internal sort what how you feel your your gender is and then there's how you

present yourself as well which is two separate things.

- For me what we're aiming for is for gender to not even be a thing, like gender's this like

fluid thing. Like, like break this man-woman gender binary. Like, fuck that shit. But right

now like I experience the world as a woman and like I need to address that directly so

it's like multiple tactics. Some of them are moving towards the future and then some of

them are understanding why I'm treated the way I am now to enable that, like moving forward,

so the things that are considered "feminine" or "women" aren't negative because there's

men out there that want to be feminine but feel like they can't because it's like a negative

and all of this kind of stuff.

- Society teaches boys to be boys and girls to be girls and that means that girls

find find it quite hard to justify playing football or being in the music industry (laughs). Um,

boys find it hard to justify crying um, and there's this sort of middle ground for people that

that, where they don't fit into either of those.

- I think people are bombarded with images that are very binary gender role. This is it.

This is, you know, as urm, if you have a baby if it's a girl they wear pink, they have

pink pink pink pink pink, and if it's a boy it's blue blue blue blue blue. And you know all

the way throughout your life there's a whole range of things that you're bombarded with

like at work 'oh you're not meant to move the paper because you're a girl' and you have

to get one of the guys in the office to do that or something where it's not actually

that heavy... so if people stopped telling people they can't do stuff or stopped bombarding

people with 'this is how you should act', 'this is how you should look', 'this is what

you should wear', 'this is all this shit you need to put on your face, in order to make

you feel acceptable to the world.'

- Like my biggest bugbear is when you go into urm, I don't know, a magazine shop and the music

I don't know if it's so much now but the music section was always in the blokes section so

I've got to stand and look at FHM if I want to pick up Q Magazine. Oh and then there's

just rows and rows of this tripe on diet and celebrities and all this crap whereas you've

got Sound magazine, you've got all these magazines, with all the technical bits in. Why don't they just

have that one page of 'brilliant female producer of the month' in a women's magazine? That's it.

Just little things like that just to turn the tide.

- I mean when I used to read Kerrang! It was quite a long time ago, I promise! (laughs)

I was obsessed with Hundred Reasons! Urm, you know,

it was really male-dominated and I guess from reading that you just think again like it's

just a male thing like it's a male-dominated music scene.

- I think the gender divides across loads of different industries is quite prominent.

I would like it to feel like a safe and inclusive space, especially within punk like it's supposed to be,

for me anyway, this DIY political culture where people are going out and putting themselves

on the line and doing it for a greater cause and I would like to see that advertised more

as an inclusive space.

- I also think that girls are given certain kinds of instruments or encouraged in the

direction of certain... you know, I play the piano and the clarinet. Urm,

that's useful isn't it?! (laughs)

And, lots of girls you speak to play the violin, flute, clarinet, all these kind of things you know

and no one ever said like 'do you wanna go on a guitar? do you wanna go on the drums?'

you know, it just isn't, you know, an option.

- I've got to say growing up I, I didn't know many other females that could play the guitar

and I didn't really know why playing the guitar is particularly a thing that boys do more than girls, I

don't really know why that would be

- And I think in in like the general kind of more pop culture there are quite a lot of women

actually doing music but it's the roles that they kind of get to have within the music.

It's, you rarely see like instrumentalists, just you know, backing band musicians just

women kind of, you know, very naturally fitting in.

- A lot of girls will grow up seeing a girl being the singer and they'll think 'ah, I really wanna be

to be just like her' which is great, which is excellent. Urm, but you know on a more detailed

level, with specific members of the bands, really we need more girl drummers don't we?

But it's, you know, until some pioneers come along that start doing that. I think the

only female drummer I can think of right now is Sharon Corr and that was, well that was

the nineties! (laughs) So like yeah I mean we need we definitely need more people to just go 'well,

do you know what, there aren't enough of those, I'm going to do that' rather than thinking

'oh I like this person in this band because they're my gender and they're doing this thing

I want to do that as well'. I think we need people doing things that other people aren't

doing, you know, maybe that's really the way to think about it.

MUSIC: 'No Man, No Right' by Sonic Boom Six

#Yeah... no man no right, no man no right

#No man no right no man tonight

#No man no right

#No man, no right

#To tell me what i should wear

#What I put inside my body while pretending to care

#They've no right #No right

#And we can live our life the way we like

#No man, no right

#No man, no right

#To put himself in my head

#Judge the company I keep or what I do in my bed

#They've no right #No right

#And we can live our life the way we like

#No man, no right #No man, no right

#To define her sexuality

#By a tattoo on the base of her back

#No man, no right#

- It's not often that I'm reminded that I'm a female and that that's bad or that that makes me like

subordinate or whatever, to men. But, I know other women that are made to feel that way, so I'm flying

the flag for everyone. Like it's up to me and everyone else to collectively handle that

burden and to do something about it.

- I try to be aware of my gender because I know that by being a woman who plays in a

band you know if other girls can see that that can be a good thing you know,

it can be a positive thing.

- The more girls who do bands the more girls will do bands so there's just that thing of

like laying seeds, sowing seeds (laughs) and kind of getting, trying to get things to kind of

grow but it's incredibly difficult to do, but you know we've been seeing some results

here, which is good.

- Because there's been more female people doing it other girls are seeing it and thinking

'I'd like to do that and I can' not 'I'd like to do that but it looks really male-orientated.'

I think the more women there are, the more women there will be and it'll all fix

itself. As long as there are people like breaking out and doing it in the first place

I think it'll, it'll all even out eventually. Could take another 100 years but it's definitely

moving in the right direction.

- It just has to start so so young. People don't... they shouldn't be embarrassed if

their little girl wants to act like a tomboy. They shouldn't try and force them, 'tomboy',

they shouldn't try and force people to be something that they're not.

- Like now though, there seems to be definitely a lot more women playing, a lot more women in bands and

it's generally, compared to ten years ago whatever, it's not an equal split but it's still

it's a lot better so...

- Females are becoming more aware that like they can be included

in a music scene. I don't think we're obviously there yet necessarily but it'd be nice in some way

to encourage more females to actually like join a band or put on gigs or just be involved in

some way.

- I think actually I had a female engineer, a girl that's learning, in this club and I said to you if you go out

there and you stand at the side of the stage and you have big boots on and you cross your

arms and you hold your head up, no one's gonna question you. They'll just be like yeah not gonna

say anything (laughs) terrifying looking! But no, it's a confidence thing. If you look confident and

you look like you know you doing then you know, it's absolutely fine.

- It's having support when you're a teenager would help. You know, where that comes from

I don't know...

- This summer I went over to New York and volunteered at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls

in Brooklyn. Which was just so so amazing. I spent a few days there helping the girls

screenprint t-shirts and teaching them drums and a bit of guitar and a bit of mentoring

kind of positive reinforcement and stuff and just being around the environment. It was very

inspirational, for me, let alone the girls. Just seeing that kind of uninhibited pure

creativity and you see it in the lyrics or you'd hear it in the lyrics and that's something

that anyone of any age can really benefit from I think whether you're 7 or 70 I think

just that, that completely, completely internal unaffected expression is the most incredible thing.

And I cried at the Showcase just cos of how, how much of an impression I saw that

experience have on the girls. It's very cool, and I hope the UK can pick it up a bit more

as the years tick on. Yeah, it was ace.

- There's this thing in London at DIY space they're doing like a first timers

thing where they get you to make a band for the first time. They encourage at least one

female person and one gender-neutral person, or you know. It's just like actually encouraging

people and saying 'yeah you can do this'.

- Lande from Muncie Girls started a all-day workshop for females only called School of Frock.

You have spaces set up where one person teaches guitar say like I will teach guitar.

Lou from Caves teaches drums. And Lande will teach bass guitar. They kind of have

a go at each different one decide you know which one they'd quite like to try and play,

learn the song, and then perform it as a band. You get people coming that have never probably always

wanted the opportunity to play these instruments but never had a go and then they just perform

in front of all these people in the evening so it's a really safe space for women of any

age to come and just have a go.

- So School of Frock is strictly girls only and I think that's quite a good rule to just

have. I was actually talking to my friend earlier and we were talking about how would

the environment feel different if there was just one boy in there and we said yeah I think

it probably would and it's largely to do with the majority. So if the majority are female

I think they're gonna feel more confident because you know what's there to be scared

of? Girls aren't gonna judge each other in this sense and everyone's in the same boat.

There's no competition either it's just like a team effort. I think the reason why I feel

quite strongly about it happening in Exeter is like well, I work at The Cavern and it's

something that I see everyday, this lack of women and so that's quite close to my heart.

That I want there to be more women in Exeter doing musicy stuff. I think once I've tackled that

a little bit more and we can get more girls doing stuff here, then we can go to other

places. But eventually, hopefully, yeah that's the plan is just to not have this problem

that we seem to have I guess.

- If there's something like a School of Frock or something to go to then obviously that's

brilliant or like taking up lessons or something so because that also gives you not just the

knowledge but the confidence like 'no I know this is right because I've actually learnt

it and this is true' and then I suppose just try and get that conviction that you've

got to do it even though you don't sometimes you feel like no one wants you there or you're

not as good as other people or you've got nothing to say that's relevant you know and just try

and kind of bat all those kind of thoughts to the back of your mind and just get on with it.

- Whenever I'm feeling like scared or something I think 'what if there's someone who's like

a younger version of me that's scared? If I'm scared what are they gonna do? okay

I'm not gonna be scared so then this other person, maybe cos I have a younger sister

I have to set an example like 'this isn't scary, we can do this, it's fine' and you'll meet other

people who will inspire you and you'll inspire people. So try and inspire others

and don't focus so much on, on yourself that's probably a good way of getting over the haters.

- I saw the Smith Street Band actually and they were playing a gig to under 18s which

was awesome it was a 50/50 split of boys and girls both under 18 in the pit, singing along,

fists in the air, with all these political movement songs and stuff and I was like 'this is awesome'

and even they made a point of going 'I want all of you especially the women in here to

go home pick up some instruments and go and play'. And I thought it was a really positive

mantra and I thought more bands should be doing that, and just encouraging all kids, not

just the boys, or just the girls, like but encouraging them all to start bands. It's really nice.

- We love like inspiring young girls. Like last night we played and there was a girl who was like

'oh I've been meaning to play the drums for about two years now and like, you've just inspired me to like, pick

like up my sticks!'

- Cos then you know that you're not just having fun... you're having a ripple effect

- Yeah

- Like, it's really good, like

- A few girls have come up to us haven't they and said 'I've started a band because of you!'

And that's so nice!

- Other females do come up to you and sort of are like 'it's awesome to see girls in bands', 'it's awesome

to see this', 'it's awesome to see that', 'it's really it's like inspired me' so it is really

important that like females and women are just doing it, you know.

- And there were plenty of other women out there as well to talk to so there's

loads of websites and things like that and groups that you can join and chat to

and if you're ever having a problem with something there'll be a hundred more that have had the

same situation.

- If you find similar Twitter accounts to follow or Facebook pages and see if you can

join groups online it's a great way to meet people with similar interests and then you

can meet them and nowadays it's a lot easier to meet someone online and try and form a

little collective or group.

- I don't want to ever encourage someone like a girl to think that it's gonna be scary or

bad to be in a band because I think before I was in the band I did hear a lot of like 'oh it's really hard

being a girl in a band'

and people are gonna be really make you feel not welcome' and 'you'll

feel isolated' and 'beware!' And I just think that was a really horrible place to

go into it feeling like that and I think actually these little things that happen, someone offering

to carry your stuff for you or someone assuming that you're someone's girlfriend, are actually like

those people don't matter, the people that make you feel like that and so I think it's really important to

try and think that like you're, you're just much more important than that person that

made you feel like that. And it just doesn't... even though it's worth talking about in some

ways. Can you see why I have this like conflict about talking about it in a way? Cos I

don't want to make it sound like it's a really difficult place to be a thing to do at all

for a girl.

- I mean obviously don't see it as such a scary environment it's not at all, it's very

welcoming you know, there are... I think that's the thing, I found the higher up I got the

more male-dominated it was and became a lot scarier and I think it's when you get to that

level don't be pushed out so easily. I was pushed away from some really good jobs, and bullied out,

and I really wish I'd stuck it out and said no I'm not standing for this and you know

and just pushed through, held my head up high, looked confident and you know, I was doing

a good job there's no reason I should have, should have walked away so easily.

- I think people seem to think that like once you're an adult you should have already mastered

the things that you wanna do and already be good at it but I think it's just like nicer

to just be foolish and give it a go anyway cos that's fun.

- If you want to be in a band then just start playing music and even if you can't play any

instruments, get an instrument, just buy a really cheap instrument and make some noise with

some people that you like with no aim to becoming a big famous band. Just play music that you

enjoy, just do it and don't care what people say about you as well. If at your first gig five people turn up and

they all think you're rubbish then don't listen to them just keep going and just keep carrying

on and have confidence in yourself that even if people don't like anything that you do,

just keep doing it because you're doing it really, you should just do it for you and not

really care what other people think about it. And that's punk rock! (laughs)

- Yeah, and you don't have to be good straightaway - Yeah obviously

- Just enjoy sucking at your

instrument for ages cos that's what punk was meant to be about anyway. So just suck at

it and get some friends together and suck it and then go onstage and suck it and like,

just do it because it's fun!

- When you love something and you believe in it no matter what you are a photographer,

PR, journalist, someone putting on a show, you will be far better at your job if you're

doing it about something you love and that might mean you don't do something every week

you don't shoot a show every week or you don't do an interview every week or you only do one a week,

you don't you three but then you're doing one really brilliant thing. And if you're gonna be

a PR, like only do bands that you love because that you have to sell bands and how

are you gonna sell things that you hate? So yeah, my advice is, if you're gonna go into the music industry,

focus on what you love and never ever give into anything else no matter what

pressure they put on you.

- Try really hard to not give a shit about somebody else's opinions. There's too much

X Factor nonsense out there that has an expectation on a teenage girl to already be

exceptional at their craft and that's just nonsense. Just write about something you're passionate about,

play music like you don't care and get some good mates together and turn into something fun.

If you're not going out to make money or be famous, you're just doing it for the love of it that's the

best way to do it and if any guys ever gave you grief or any girls ever gave you grief,

just tell them to fuck off!

MUSIC: 'Kings and Queens' by Jesus and His Judgemental Father

#In the land outside this social scene

#The streets are filled with the gender police

#I guess the streets are no place for

kings and queens

#no the streets are no place for

#kings and queens

#I live in a city

#A friendly city I do

#But it is a pity

#Some people still can be rude

#Like the people that stop me in the street

saying 'what the fuck is that?' 'God is that some kind of freak?'

#People in the street

#Cos in the land outside this social scene

#the streets are filled...#

OUTTAKES

- That's Elizabeth the first

- Is that her cousin? Mary?

- Mary Queen of Scots

- She looks moody!

- And this is Elizabeth's got...

- Ah right...

- Edward?

- Sorry! (laughs)

- Historical journeys through time

- Hi TV!

- (off camera) that was weird

- that was weird

- (off camera) did they take a photo of us or not? (laughs)

- I don't know

- They'd suddenly want to hear it again

PHONE RINGS - but... sorry!

(laughing)

- (off camera) not right now!

(laughing)

- Gabrielle Aplin, have you heard of her? she's

TEXT MESSAGE TONE - acoustic

- oops sorry

- We play urm...

- (sighs) oh no, I don't even know what we play

- brain... function...

(laughing off camera)

- and

BELLS RINGING

(laughing) - (off camera) just wait a minute...

(laughing continues)

- (off camera) oh my God

- Shall I put it in shot? Or just start like eating it? - (laughing off camera) if you want

- Ask me more questions!

- (off camera) do you want to say that again? - what?

- (off camera) without me talking in the middle - No, I don't think you did?

- What? That I love Taylor Swift?

Oh I looked at the camera!

- I love Taylor Swift. A lot! (laughs)

- He's my mate, from the bar

- I have to sit up straight otherwise my auntie will complain that my posture is bad!

(laughing off camera)

- Just do it. Don't stop.

- Cyndi Lauper, for life.

(laughing off camera)

- hello...

it's really loud, is it really loud?

hello?

is that too loud? - (off camera) I can't hear anything

(laughter)

- yeah it's a festival, this is what they sound like (laughter)

- yeaaah, do it! #Do do do!#

MUSIC: 'Kings and Queens' by Jesus and his Judgemental Father

#Walking home alone

#From the gay bar where HE sang

#From the gay bar where HE sang

#And so the land outside this social scene

#The streets are filled with the gender police

#I guess the streets are not SAFE for kings and queens

#No the streets are not SAFE for kings and queens

#In the land outside this social scene

#The streets are filled with the gender police

#I guess the streets are not safe for kings and queens

#No, the streets are not safe for kings and queens#

MUSIC ENDS

APPLAUSE FOR BAND