I’m curious, you use the word male instead of butch. Why?
I would consider myself butch. But that is a word that is part of my gay generation.
I’ve found that I could speak about part of me being male. And feel comfortable with that. Rather than just say, I’m butch. I actually say, this part of me is masculine and this part of me is feminine, they come together and I am who I am. Which is slightly different than being butch.
I have such a strong male part of myself that I really feel it’s important to understand where that comes from and for me personally not get involved in misogyny. I understand the transgender quandary of being trapped in the wrong body. I understand it really directly. I always felt that way. It took me a long time to be comfortable with my body, the female part of me. And I have. I feel good about that. Not everybody does and not everybody can. I think there are some people who are so overwhelmingly in the wrong body that you really do have to change. I believe that. But all of these things are things that I didn’t even think about when I was first gay. These are things that have been dialogued about more and more in the past few years. It’s part of my dialogue.
I talked about you being more gay and out on this album I wanted to ask about the song Rural Faggot. That song is speaking to a lot of the guys. Were you trying to reach out more to a gay male audience?
Not on purpose. It came from a relationship that I had over the years that I had with a few of the boys in my neighborhood, some of whom turned out to be gay. And I watched them grow up in the last 12 years. I watched them go though puberty and go through their different levels of gay bashing with me.
Were they bashing you?
They would come over and be like really interested in me. They would tell me off-color gay jokes to see how I would respond. Or this one kid just a few years ago, he would be telling me how him and his friends would go down to Atlanta and make fun of gay people. And I was like, why are you telling me these stories, I’m gay? And he said, yeah, but you’re different, I know you. They were all guys for some reason, none of the girls were riding dirt bikes and coming over to my house.
All these little boys, I watched them grow up and some of them became gay and some of them became, for lack of a better word, rednecks. But they were all friends. They were all people that I felt had really valid stories. The song came out of that. It came out of a compilation of all the guys. I really didn’t think about a male audience. I don’t think about an audience when I’m writing.
I know you’re a big fan of punk rock. What is it that appeals to you about that genre of music?
Everything. My definition of punk is very tied to politics. It’s hard for me to separate it. Meaning that you really look at things from an independent perspective, underground, independent media, independent labels, independent businesses. It’s a whole community that’s interwoven around these things. We help each other out. You’re singing music that is of your community and that’s accessible to your community. I can’t really separate the politics from the music. Musically I just like it. The melodies and the volume, the beat and just the way it makes me feel. Like when I first heard Husker Du, or Elvis Costello or Patti Smith. I just remember thinking, “This is it. This is what I’m feeling.”
Who are you listening to right now?
I’m listening to a lot of demos. As far as stuff that ‘s popular and current: Outkast, The Shins, The Distillers.
You mentioned a new love. Do you want to say anything about that?
We’ve been together for two years. She’s a Northwest girl. She lives with me in Georgia, but she goes to film school at Columbia in New York. She’s a filmmaker from Seattle. I always knew I would find a Northwestern girl.
One last question: L Word, love it or hate it?
Oh, boy (laughs) don’t put me on the spot! That is not nice. Just say, I don’t watch it. Actually I don’t. I don’t feel compelled to order Showtime to see The L Word. But there’s a part of me that’s glad it’s on there. I’ll just say that. And I’m rooting for them to rise above. I feel supportive, but that LA scene is not anything I can remotely relate to.
