Miki Berenyi on Lush, Identity, and Her Trio’s Debut Album
With her unmistakable crimson hair, dreamy vocals, and whirling guitars, Miki Berenyi became a defiant icon of the shoegaze era, weaving soundscapes that blurred the line between beauty and distortion.
As a founding member of Lush, Berenyi played a pivotal role in the groundbreaking quartet, paving the way for the release of their five seminal 90s albums, Gala, Spooky, Split, Lovelife, and Topolino. Following the death of their drummer, Chris Acland, in 1996, Lush disbanded, with Berenyi stepping away from music for over two decades.
After returning to the stage with Lush for a short tour in 2016, she formed the band Piroshka alongside musicians from Modern English, Moose, and Elastica. Following the release of their second album, Love Drips and Gathers, in 2021, Berenyi published her memoir, Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success, to roaring acclaim.
Her newest outfit, Miki Berenyi Trio, releases their debut album, Tripla, on April 4th, as charming and progressionist as ever.
KP: You’re about to release the Miki Berenyi Trio’s debut album, Tripla. Congratulations, that’s very exciting! Can you talk us a little bit through the trio and how it came to be?
MB: Thank you! Okay, so Lush did a kind of reunion tour back in 2015-16, and then out of that, Piroshka was formed, which was me, my partner, Moose, Justin Welch, who was in Elastica… but he did the Lush tour. Sorry, this is going to get very convoluted; I apologize in advance.
KP: [Laughs]. It’s okay!
MB: So Justin was playing drums, and Mick Conroy was playing bass. Piroshka did two albums, and then Mick Conroy moved to America, so Oliver Scherer came in on bass to do the tour. So basically, we sort of formed the Miki Berenyi Trio because I had written a book. We were doing book events, and they always want you to play some music. “Can you do a few songs?” So that was when me, Moose, and Ollie kind of thought, “Well, we can do that. We can just do some backing tracks, we can do some basic Lush songs.” That's kind of where it started.
I was doing quite a lot of events – I can't say no to anything. [Laughs]. Eventually, we were actually just getting offered shows, or they were saying, “Oh, why don't we make a night of it? You can do a whole set, and then we’ll do the interview.” So it just kind of evolved from that.
But then once we were doing whole sets, I thought, “Well, I really don't want to be just a Lush cover band.” So then we started writing songs. It wasn't really planned, you know? It just kind of grew out of this thing, which is quite nice.
KP: Yeah, it feels very organic, which is often the best stuff, right?
So in the release for the album, you say, “There is something very ‘grassroots’ about what we’re doing. There’s no point in following the ‘announce the album, then tour, then record the next album’ route – we just want to wring as much enjoyment out of this as we can and hope that it resonates somewhere!”
I imagine that working on this felt very different from some of your releases in the past. Did being able to feel and be so free contribute to its recording or writing in any way?
MB: I mean, to be honest, it was a bit like the very earliest days of Lush, right? When you don't even know if you're going to get a deal, you're just playing? We just wanted to play live. I just thought, “You know, I did this with Piroshka,” as lovely as it was. It was like, we're just going to write an album, we'll go and record it, and then we will tour it.
And the way it works now is that there's very little money around – there aren’t the same sort of channels. You end up playing a handful of shows, and then it's all over super quickly. And I really like playing live, so I just really didn’t want to do that again.
So we did it the other way around. It was like, “Well, let's just write songs so we can play them live.” We can kind of actually just enjoy ourselves. We waited until we had enough songs, and then we recorded an album – just as we would have done when we started Lush, really.
KP: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It’s a great record, and I’m happy you can all enjoy it to the max.
Listening as a woman, “Big I Am” is instantly relatable. “Got to be a somebody / Coolest guy in town / Feeling like a nobody / Throws his weight around / Living a lie / Empty victory / Stereotype / Cliché masculine.”
Was there any particular experience that drove you to pen “Big I Am,” or was it more of a general ode to toxic masculinity?
MB: I mean, I think that a lot of it is actually just my age, you know? I think that I somehow naively thought that by the time I was in my 50s, some of these problems would – if not be solved – then at least be abated a bit.
KP: Well, I'm in America right now, so we're facing the absolute wrath of it at the moment.
MB: Exactly! And you kind of think that once a certain generation has filtered through, that people will think a bit differently about women, about their role in the world, and that things like sexual harassment will kind of work their way out of our society. But no, that hasn't happened.
KP: Right.
MB: And I noticed that even when my daughter became a teenager. It was just quite depressing, because you think, “Oh my God, so this is just happening all over again with another generation? There's a fresh crop of people who think that same way about women all over again.” And actually, it's probably gotten a whole lot worse, and I think – personally – that it’s due to the absolute availability of pornography. Blokes just spending so much time watching that stuff that it's actually made them think that it’s what they want women to be like, you know? The fantasy world and the real world have kind of blended together. They just think that women are there to be beaten down and controlled and put into the box that they want them to be in.
KP: Absolutely.
MB: And it's terrible for men as well. As a person who isn't far off being 60, you want to appeal to all of these young men and go, “I'm telling you, this will not make you happy. I'm telling you right now, this is not the path to a happy life.” It's just a real shame.
KP: Well, it's bad for everyone. And I think that's a point that a lot of people miss about feminism – equality of the genders is beneficial for both genders, right? It's not only good for one. So yeah, I still can't believe that we're facing this either. And it just seems to be getting worse.
I really loved “A Different Girl” for so many reasons. Can you speak a little to its writing and production?
MB: So that is actually Moose's song – he wrote the lyrics as well. What I do really like about the album is, you know, yes, it's Miki Berenyi Trio, but it's a bit of a branding exercise, really. It's the kind of thing where if you don't really label who the person is in the band specifically, no one pays any attention. But at the end of the day, it's actually an incredibly collaborative band, and different people write different songs. I mean, we all kind of collaborate together, but the genesis of the song will always be from one person.
And for Moose, I think that he was thinking about our daughter. There's a bit of a handover parent-to-child element to that song of, like, “Oh, my life is kind of waning.” It's a bit depressing, really. “My life is kind of waning, and I may not have achieved all of the things that I wanted to achieve, but there's this sort of passing of the baton – I hope that you achieve all of those things.”
I think there’s also an acknowledgement that when you're young – I think for a lot of people from that younger generation – it actually feels a bit like the world is worse now than it was then? Okay, it isn't. I'm telling you now, when I was growing up, we thought that the world was terrifying. So I can tell you – it's not necessarily worse. It is awful in many, many ways. But it's great as well, you know? And you will be fine.
KP: Okay, well thank you. I think that we all need to hear that. [Laughs].
In a chat with The Guardian, you said something that I wholeheartedly relate to, something that I feel we need a lot more of in this world right now. You stated, “One of my pet hates is the idea of going through life feeling like a victim, waiting to be bruised by everything, and on the lookout for harm. I’ve had people react to my childhood and say, ‘God, I can’t believe that that social worker came around and saw the state of the place and didn’t recommend you to be put into care.’ What, and that would have been better, to grow up in care?”
In a modern society where so many people are desiring oppression, essentially seeking bruises in order to win sympathy, attention, or to take some moral high road, what do you think it is in your character that refuses to see yourself as a victim?
How were you personally able to find any good through all of these difficult experiences that you went through?
MB: Because I think of people who have been in far worse situations than myself. I mean, I grew up in the 1970s, so something like the Second World War was literally just over your shoulder, you know? There were people walking around who had been through it. And it was quite difficult being a young person in the 70s, feeling sorry for yourself when you’re constantly reminded of how much worse it had been for an entire generation of people before you. It was very difficult to sit there and kind of whine about being a victim.
Every generation has its terrible sort of burdens and things that they have to get through. But, you know, the truth is that you would see documentaries full of people who were Jewish – they had lost their entire families in concentration camps, yet they somehow still had this kind of spark and a joy over the terrible losses that they had. They had this sort of survival in the way that they pieced their lives back together – all of the memories that they shared.
So that’s a shining example. You get through these things, you become a wiser person, and you use those terrible things to improve yourself and the world around you. Well, hopefully – or you at least try to.
But I think the difference now is that I feel it's a bit of a pendulum swing, because I do think there are massive positives, right? I do think acknowledging that people have disadvantages can be positive. In my day, people just said that you were mad, right? But now we can sit there and talk about the autism spectrum or ADHD, all of these issues or problems that people have, and people are much more sympathetic to them.
But the other side of that, I do sometimes think, it’s this absolute – oh, great, I've got my label, now I'm just going to sit. That's going to define me now, right? Everywhere I go, I'm just going to talk about my mental health issue or whatever it is that makes my life a challenge. That’s the thing that comes before everything else – I think that is a mistake. Again, I don't think it makes you happy.
I think that walking around feeling like a victim – feeling that the world is unfair – is a terrible burden to carry. I just don't think that it's a recipe for a happy life. And it makes you lash out at other people – it makes you feel like everybody else has to kind of bend to your will.
And now we're back to the Andrew Tate's of this world, who feel that they can just stomp their feet and get angry if they don't get it all their own way.
KP: Right. I believe that so much. And I think the younger generations – I'm a millennial; I was born in 1993 – but so many of us carry this concept of identity politics along with us, and some use it to solely define who they are. I think sometimes people conveniently use it as a shield rather than as a stepladder to try to get better, you know? Or to improve or fix things about themselves.
MB: Right. I mean, I think that's the point, isn't it? Identity politics, on one level, is great. Of course your experience is different if you're gay, if you're whatever race you are, or whatever. I mean, those things are all sensitive issues that in my day, people kind of railroaded over, right? And I'm not saying that that's a good thing, but I just think to allow it to completely define you is not the best thing.
Certainly for young people, this idea that you want to be put in some box that defines you… I don't know if people know what they're wishing for. The problem is that when you're put in that box and you're told, I don't know, that you're a girl, therefore you can't do certain things, then you're constantly trying to break out of that box, aren't you? Or you're black, so you can't become a president, or you can't hold certain jobs. I mean, you spend your whole life trying to break out of those boxes. It becomes this self-imposed jail, nailing yourself into this tiny little box that identifies you… it kind of escapes me, really.
KP: Well, when I was young, I was very much so a tomboy – I was always being told about what I couldn't do because I was a girl. I also happened to be gay. And now that I’ve gotten to become an adult, people just assume all of these things about me because I have a girlfriend, but none of them are true, right?
And so I'm somebody that never got into the far reaches of identity. I mean, I am who I am, and I certainly never denied it, but I never let it define me.
And I think you're absolutely right about generational divides. When I think back to the past generations – if we’re talking about the gay community – I think about how people fought so long and so hard to not be labeled, and now we've driven that so far in the opposite direction, where people feel the need to micro-label everything.
I think in a lot of that, you just actually lose who you are, right? Because we're all unique. Not all of ourselves can fit so neatly into a box in the way that labeling dictates.
MB: Yeah, I mean, I do sometimes wonder… I get it when young people are really not sure who they are yet, right? It can be a bit overwhelming, and you sort of see this identity that seems like it's going to solve all your problems. So you think, “Oh, well, if I identify as this, then I'll get all of these attributes that a certain kind of community has,” or I don't know, at least obtain a kind of quality that draws a certain admiration. But you just don't realize that there's a flip side to it, you know? You will also get stereotyped – you'll also get kind of presupposed. Do you know what I mean?
KP: Absolutely. And I think it's interesting – coming back to being gay again – that I’ve taken a lot of heat in my career for never doing queer press. I've been being interviewed now for 17 years – I got my start when I was 14 years old. People would say to me, “Oh, you'll talk to Vogue, but you won't talk to Out.” And I'm like, “Well, I don't want to fucking talk to Out.” I don't want to be pigeonholed. I don't want people to look at me as a gay person; I want people to look at me as a person. As a woman, as someone who could be incredibly far reaching. I want them to look at me as a human, do you know what I mean?
MB: I do.
KP: I think that people usually only see the positives of it because they want to attach all of these descriptors to themselves, but I think what they don't immediately see is exactly what you're talking about – how it can really box you in as well.
MB: Yeah, completely. I remember when I was growing up in the 80s; I remember talking to someone who was gay himself about stereotypes. And I said, “You do understand that just because you're gay doesn't mean you have to be, like, really camp?” Like, there are many, many ways to be gay. Don't feel like you have to just live out one certain stereotype.
KP: I feel that all the time. My girlfriend and I, we talk about this frequently. It's like… I mean, she has a cat. [Laughs]. But other than that, we're not really stereotypically gay in any other sense. We've never dated each other's exes, we don’t U-Haul, we don’t love nature or camping, we don’t like Subarus, we don’t use carabiners, and we aren’t best friends with our exes. [Laughs]. There are just so many things. And if you looked at us, we look straight. I mean, when people find out that we're gay – let alone together – they're like, “What the fuck?” [Laughs].
We could talk about this for hours and hours, but you're so right. It's a lot to think about. And I will probably continue thinking about it after this. [Laughs].
But the subtitle of your book, Fingers Crossed, is “How Music Saved Me From Success,” which is brilliant. And speaking of success, you’ve spoken about it often, saying that, “I would question whether half the people who have success actually get to enjoy it for very long, because very quickly on the heels [of success] is how do you maintain it?” You later said that you would have either become “a total fucking monster or a tragic figure.”
You saying this made me reflect on the experience of success in a forward-facing industry, which I have thought about for so long. I succeeded very accidentally in the fashion industry at the age of 14 as the editor-in-chief of my own publication, and I was whisked away from total obscurity and horrible bullying and catapulted onto the pages of Vogue and the front rows at fashion week.
Ultimately, in my early 20s, I decided to leave my life in the fashion industry behind – I was unrecognizable to myself when I looked in the mirror – sometimes on the outside, but always on the inside. I’m undoubtedly grateful for the success that it afforded me because it gave me the platform to start more meaningful companies, such as this, but it really did absolutely destroy me. It truly turns you into, as you said, a monster. I really don’t think that there are any winners when it comes to public-facing success.
You’re a magazine editor now, which, naturally, I love. How did walking away from it all feel? I’m going to guess not, but have you ever regretted it?
MB: Well, before I answer, can I just say, like, oh my God, talk about a trial by fire if you were that young and in the fashion world? I mean, my God, that's tough.
KP: Yeah. And the thing is, too, that I knew nothing about fashion! It was always this strange dichotomy because I'm so not a fashion girl. I only made a magazine because I loved print. And I only made it about fashion because it was tongue-in-cheek – I was always made fun of for what I wore and what I looked like – it was born out of me just having a self-deprecating sense of humor.
So I got kind of whisked into this world that was very superficial and very judgmental, but that's just not who I am at my core. It was very hard for me, and it changed who I was in many ways. I had to rediscover who I was for a very long time, strip myself down to the real me.
MB: And, you know, it strikes me because the fact that you weren't obsessed with fashion, I genuinely think that it's the people like that who are very interesting for coming into those sorts of careers, because they bring something completely different, like –
KP: An outsider's view, in a sense.
MB: Exactly.
KP: I mean, I didn't know what Balenciaga was; I couldn't even tell you how to spell it, but I ended up doing all of these things. I don't want to say that I ever took it for granted or that I regret it, because ultimately, me succeeding in that industry is what allows me to sit here with you today. It was such a gift in a sense, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, but it takes you a very long time to unlearn what it ingrained in you, you know?
MB: I can imagine. I mean, I probably felt the same with music in that, you know – it's not like I was playing guitar from the time I was a child, or felt destined to get into music. It was quite accidental as a teenager that I met friends, that we started going to gigs, that we lived in London… there was lots of music going on. There's a whole scene where you meet loads of people in bands. And it’s only then that you realize, “Oh, I could probably do this, because everyone else around me is doing it.” So you think that you’ll just have a go at it, then one thing after another happens, and suddenly you find yourself getting signed.
But I think that, as you say, you come into it as an outsider with a kind of fresh perspective. You're not trying to climb some sort of ladder and tick all of the boxes. I never understood the kind of people who were interviewed and were like, “Yeah, we want to play Wembley Stadium; we're not going to be happy till we’re a headliner.” I think, like you, when you fall into something like that, everything just feels like a lucky break. You think, “Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening.”
KP: And like, how? That was always my question. How me?! [Laughs].
MB: But I do think, you know, as you do get in, it's impossible to not get affected by the world that you’re being drawn into. And I think – quite possibly sometimes because you have an outsider status – you're not really prepared for some of the things that are going to happen to you. And the influences, you know? You're so trusting, you're so wide-eyed, and kind of like, “Oh, look, all these people are being so lovely to me. I'm getting invited to all these places that I never was before.” I mean, I felt quite dazzled by it. I was having a great time.
But there's this point where suddenly it turns, you know? You're suddenly being asked to think or do things that you’re not about. People are telling you that this is what you need to do, or this is where you need to be. It’s difficult to put a limit on that because sometimes it’s really not a good thing. Sometimes you begin to just feel trapped in this world, and it happens very suddenly. All of these expectations are on you, and suddenly other people are relying on you to do certain things because their living depends on it as well. You know, managers, agents, whoever…
KP: Oh, 100%. And that's something too, I think, that made me walk away from fashion. I had hired a full team – an agent, manager, and publicist – by the time I was probably 15. It took me a few years to realize that they’re not trying to make you the best version of yourself; they’re just trying to get you to be the biggest that you can be so their pockets get filled.
And for me, again, I didn’t love fashion, so I wanted to lean my work towards things that were more humanitarian, things that at least would help the world in some way, but they wanted nothing to do with that. You get very stuck into filling these certain roles for certain people, and sometimes it casts you even further away from who you truly are, you know?
MB: Yeah. And I suppose it's about developing your inner self as well as your outer self, you know? I think part of the problem with a lot of those industries, I mean, by their nature – fashion, acting, all of these things – is that there comes a point where you kind of reach a bit of a sell-by date if you just keep doing the same thing over and over, you know? And if there isn't any kind of real substance or core to what you're doing – if you are just jumping through those hoops to try to please people – it just all wears a bit thin. And then the next person comes along, and that beam shifts away from you and onto them, and you're just left there. It's cold, you know? Like, what the fuck happened? I did everything that you asked me to. Why is everyone leaving, you know?
It was a bit of an unstoppable train with Lush, you know? In one way it's a shield having a band because there's four of us – we are kind of at the core of it. We’ve got each other – like you had all these managers, publicists, whatever, right? So you do have a group that gives you a bit more strength. But at the same time, you know, those are still people who are relying on you.
So I think for all of us, Emma didn't particularly like going back to America and touring constantly. I used to really enjoy touring, but it's incredibly difficult if one member of the band doesn't really want to do this one thing, or they want to play a different kind of music, or if they have a different opinion than you. And I think what really happened with Lush… well, Chris's suicide was the thing that just completely pulled the rug from under all of it.
KP: Right.
MB: And in some ways, you know, I don't know how it would have ended if he'd stayed alive. I think it probably would have crashed and burned at some point. But in that respect, it's not like I walked away – that thing happened, and then there was literally no choice. And I know that bands continue, but there was no way that was going to happen.
“You simply have to exist today as a woman – that is an act of provocation.”
KP: I can’t even imagine doing that. It must be so, so difficult.
But the 90s were a notoriously difficult time for women in music, with many often downplaying our talents and incorrectly reasoning away our success. Many have theorized, given certain experiences, that Lush would have been an even bigger act than you were if it weren’t for such misogynist music professionals and members of the press.
Would you agree with that sentiment? How did you manage to push through all the sexist noise?
MB: I mean, on a microcosmic level – as in, the immediate environment that we were working in – I didn't really have much of a problem. You know, 4AD was a great label for women to be on. No one was exploited in that way, you know? Throwing Muses, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance – there were so many bands with women in them, and no one was dangled around like some sort of tempting, alluring sex goddess or something. I mean, it just wasn't the format of the label – the focus really was on the music.
I think within the band, there were two girls, two boys… There really wasn't any kind of conflict in terms of sexual politics at all, you know? So I think on the closer kind of level, we never really had too much to deal with. There was a certain solidarity between us and the crew that we would hire – we’d just get rid of people if they were twats, you know what I mean?
But I think on a larger kind of platform – and it's very difficult, because you end up sounding a bit like you're looking for excuses to sit there and go, “Oh, well, we were never as big as certain bands because the world is a sexist place. Women aren't celebrated in the same way.” – but I do think that there's some truth to that.
KP: There definitely is.
MB: I do think that there were a lot of men who didn’t really like bands with girls in them, who didn’t listen to music that women would write. Not all, clearly – there are huge numbers of blokes who are absolutely fine with it, right? But the thing is, there are quite a lot of people who aren't, right? And then you're immediately on the back foot.
KP: Absolutely. It’s like you’re always playing catch-up.
MB: Right!
KP: Of your signature flame-red hair from the 90s, you’ve said, “I wasn’t going to stop dyeing it because some bloke would go, ‘Oh, you’d look really pretty if your hair was natural.’ The reason I stopped was because, once I had children, I thought: ‘I haven’t time for this.’ You’re thankful if you even have time to get dressed.”
We hear all the time at Noir that it is so difficult for a woman in music to take agency over her appearance. How did you manage to stay untouched by the pressures of convention?
MB: I mean, being in a band on a label like 4AD in the 90s, we weren't really up on that kind of world with stylists and the kind of machinery that now exists. It's much more common now.
At the time, I can remember doing photo sessions, particularly in America, where suddenly there would be a stylist and a rack of clothes. And, you know, me and Emma would kind of look at each other in alarm and be thinking, “Well, hang on a minute, what's happening here?” I'd be sort of happy to play along with it to an extent if it was something that was, you know, a bit unique. But in terms of, like, say, your own album campaign, it just wasn't really in place in the way that it is now. I think that people are much more tailored, and there is an expectation to look a certain way… partly because normal people do it. Everyone's got their bloody Instagram filter on and they're curating their own image. We just grew up in more innocent times, I think.
KP: I just had a conversation about that recently. Again, this is so macro, I can't really go too deep into it, but to keep it very, very short –
MB: Go ahead!
KP: I think a lot of the downfall of our society today is because everybody thinks they have to upkeep a personal brand – that they need to package themselves. I'm talking about people that are not in public-facing industries, that don’t necessarily have a reason to even have a “personal brand.”
It goes back, once again, to putting oneself in a box, right? I am someone that’s very contradictory. Even in terms of music, I’m very much so a Top 40 girl here in America – I love really, really bad pop music. But then I also love very challenging music, even very eclectic stuff like CocoRosie. But I think when you make a personal brand out of yourself, you lose a lot of that color, all of these different people that you can be because you think you’re only goth or only industrial or only… You know what I'm saying?
MB: I know what you mean.
KP: And so I guess in a sense, it's kind of doing what we were talking about earlier with the personal box that people put themselves in. I think that everybody today feels like they need an aesthetic because they are a brand that people should buy into.
MB: There's a bit of me that thinks there's a kind of nice democratization that I would argue is fine. You know, certainly when I was growing up, the only people who had things like plastic surgery or high fashion clothing were millionaire Hollywood stars, you know? And you would get normal people sort of doing crappy, copied versions of that.
So there's a democratization that I think is quite nice – like YouTube videos that show people how to do their makeup. Not all of us had a big sister or a mother who could teach us how to do that, you know? There's something quite sweet about that, on one side.
But the flip side is that if you don't do it, you are even more of a freak than you would have been when I was growing up, you know?
KP: I think the other flip side – and this is more my issue; perhaps I saw a lot of it originally hailing from the fashion industry – is the ego that comes with it. The thought that because someone has more followers or got more likes, or comments, or what have you – that they hold more power. It’s an absolute fallacy, but it’s one that many young people hold to be true.
Some of the most influential people in the world that I know – stylistically, financially, whatever – have 2,000 followers. Likewise, I know people with six-and-seven-figure follower counts who really struggle, both personally and occupationally. It’s all smoke and mirrors, but it lends itself to a false sense of self, this false sense of ego.
I love the idea that you don't have to be – like you say – a Hollywood star to kind of start building your own image and living in that aligned reality, but social media can definitely be used as a tool for envy. I remember going out to clubs at 14, 15 years old (again, fashion industry) when social media did not yet exist, and people simply lived for the night. You compare that to now, and everyone is out with their phones, documenting their exclusive night out to make other people feel worse about their nights. A “look where I am that you’re not” kind of thing, if you will.
MB: Definitely, definitely. You know, if I did a photo shoot in the 90s, or whatever – hey, it was nice. It's nice to have a nice picture of yourself. It's a glamorous little thing to do. But it was literally a moment. And that magazine would come out; there's a bunch of people who will see it, but it's tomorrow's chip paper, you know? Nobody gives a shit, really. It's not there every minute of the day. But now, you know, everyone has a phone. Everyone will look at that picture if they want to, if it goes “viral.” Back then, you know, if a magazine sold half a million copies globally, that was insane, right? Now, something can easily get 12 million views.
You end up just living for the image of yourself, right?
KP: Exactly. So this circles back to what we were just saying a few minutes ago – that whole idea of a personal brand and almost getting stuck in this prison of who you feel other people need to view you as, versus who you really are.
MB: I mean, it's one thing to go to a photo session and spend a day with hair and makeup and photographers and everyone fussing over you. Then it's over and you're gone, right? You're not going to go home and look at that photo shoot and that one photo for two hours every day for the next month. And I think that the amount of time that people have to spend curating that kind of image and making it look like it's effortless is kind of insane.
Hey, I have to post things on Instagram. And of course, I get sucked in, and I sit there. I don't know why I get shown certain videos – there's a lot of childcare ones, a lot of baby things, and a lot of people looking after their kids. And I think, ”I've just seen this 30-second thing of this delightful child and the perfect mom, and the blah, blah, blah.” But now show me the other 23 hours and 59 and ½ minutes, because I can guarantee you that most of it is drudgery and a fucking nightmare, right? This perfectly presented 30-second clip is not the full picture. And I think in the same way that when people curate this public image, it’s a lie. I mean, it's a nice thing to look at. But if you are spending that amount of time focused on something that is completely false, then I don't think that it's a particularly healthy thing.
KP: Well, I also think what you're saying is totally correct. I’m in America, so I’m coming at things from an American standpoint, but I’m saying, “God, we are so fucked right now, and all you guys can do is show your outfit of the day?!” There are so many different things to fight and so many ways that we can mobilize in our own micro ways that all add up to be part of the macro, but everyone is too busy posting TikToks to support their own personal brands and mythology.
MB: Well, it’s a complicated one. I kind of get them to some extent, you know? I do think that in difficult times, people need distractions. I mean, I can remember a time probably 100 or 200 years ago when people were saying that reading fiction was distracting you from the important things in life, right? So I get that people need an escape.
I suppose what I actually think the problem is, personally, is I think it creates its own stress. I don't think that it actually makes people happy. It brings more stress because there will always be someone who has more followers than you, more likes than you, you know? We all know how that works. One shitty comment is going to ruin your day, no matter how many great ones you get.
KP: Definitely. I stopped giving into it.
I used to be a very bad girl on Instagram when I was younger – I would just post whatever I wanted and say whatever I wanted, so I've gotten many accounts taken away from me through the years. I don't even know how long I’ve had the one that I use now, God knows, but this used to be my old backup account.
But I just rarely upload anymore, you know? I've tried to really be mindful about what I post, how often I post, and I'm just like, “Get to work,” you know? Focus on things that matter and build timeless things that you’re proud of.
And I turned my comments off a long time ago. If I don't follow you, you can't comment. I really tried to make it very insular, in a sense, so that it keeps me focused on what I should be focused on and not spending this inordinate amount of time, like you said, building shit that doesn't really matter, you know?
MB: And you know, it's a tool. It's meant to be a tool, right? I mean, Moose refuses to go on social media at all. I think he tried Twitter for a while – this was probably about five years ago. And he was like, “Fuck, it's melting my mind.” And I was like, “Well, yeah. I know what you mean.” So, you know, I'm on there – I have to post all the stuff for the band – it's difficult to not get sucked in. But hey, at the end of the day, I understand there's lots of people out there – creatives or people who have got stuff – and they need to publicize it. They need to make people aware of it. They embellish their social media profiles to draw people in or whatever, do you know what I mean?
It's a tool, so I completely understand using it for that purpose. It's clearly been hijacked by a lot of mental illness and a real kind of anger and sadness as well. I don't know if it will eventually calm down if people will learn to not invest quite so much of their lives into it – I think that's kind of what's created a lot of the problems – people think that it will save them, or it will make them happy. But it's just a tool. It's just a tool.
KP: My girlfriend's a tattoo artist – she's an incredible tattoo artist – she works at Bang Bang here in New York. And we talk about this all the time because she also hates social media. People are always telling her, “You have to post yourself more often. You have to post videos of yourself.” And she's like, “I don't want to be on video! I don't want to be photographed! I just want to show my work.” But I’ve seen so many tattoo artists online say that once they deleted their Instagrams, they lost so many clients. That’s how people find you today – for better or for worse, it’s a necessary evil. We don't have newsletters anymore or bulletin boards, or even online forums in the way that they used to exist for certain genres of music, and things like that. All of that has gone away. If you delete your profile, you just fade into oblivion.
I think this is all a construct of big tech, though, right? It’s really just one big monopoly, when you think about it. The only way to cripple them would be for all of us to leave all at once and assemble in other ways, but I’m not sure whether anyone would ever actually do that, no matter how much they complain about the topic.
MB: Right. We're still learning, aren't we? We're still kind of in the throes of it. And it will settle – I do think it will settle. I do think that people will learn what is making them deeply unhappy, and that tends to be spending hours and hours on social media.
KP: I really hope so.
Switching gears, what advice would you lend to women who wish to break into music today?
MB: I mean, I'm terrible at giving advice, you know?
KP: I think that you've given great advice so far!
MB: I mean, it largely depends on what someone wants to achieve. I think that so many people are so fixated on success and money and all of these things, that it really clouds the actual enjoyment of creativity. It's like people who want to write a book but all they can see is their photo on the dust jacket; do you know what I mean? They're not even thinking about what's going to be in the pages.
And to me, breaking into music, what do I think? Well, on a technical level, it is a lot easier. You don't have to have loads of money – you can literally sit there with a computer and record yourself. You can develop your skills and your talent and get lost in a world of just enjoying making music.
But personally, I think that communities are the things that are really important. Finding like-minded people and experimenting with working with them. It makes it so much more fun, right?
If there's a local venue and you get involved, go along to gigs, see bands, meet other people and go, “Oh, can I try some backing vocals?” You just jump into the pool – that's what worked for me. I think if that community of music hadn't existed when I was a teenager,then I would have done something else. I didn't have a burning desire to become Siouxsie Sioux or something, as much as I loved her. I didn't in a million years think that I could become a successful musician. It was really just jumping into a pool of like-minded people – it was just really good fun. That's the thing that really made me develop and want pursue to it any further.
It can hook you up with people – bounce ideas off of them. You might even meet a community of musicians, but really, it's the real-life aspect that I think makes all the difference because it's immersive – it doesn't feel like work. It just feels like fun. I think that fun is a very underrated concept.
KP: I think that's great advice.
MB: You know, it doesn't have to be serious. You just have to do it, enjoy it, and then everything else will come.
KP: I love that.
You’ve said of growing older, “There is something about being this age that’s quite shit… But at the same time, I look back at being younger, and I think about how beset I was being so scared and worried about being judged, whereas now, there just isn’t the time to care about that.”
What has aging taught you? And what advice do you wish you could give your younger self, in music or in life?
MB: I mean, my stock answer is that it doesn't really matter what I would have told myself at that age – I wouldn't have fucking listened anyway.
KP: [Laughs]. I think that's actually the most accurate answer that I've ever gotten to that question.
MB: I think that aging is just a process. I don't think it matters what era you're in. I think that when you're young, you're just wired differently. You haven’t lived through experiences where your dreams are either fulfilled or shattered, or a bit of both. I mean, that's what makes you grow and become something else.
I would love to have the energy and, you know, to not have aches and pains and all of those things that age brings, but I think it’s part of your brain actually calming down, accepting things. It's very difficult to accept things when you're young – you sit there griping about how unfair everything is – if only you could do this, or if only you could be that other person, then everything would be fucking perfect. It takes a long time to discover that that's not actually true. You’re just going to have to carve your way through life in the best way that you can.
What age brings is, yeah, experience. You've seen the kid who was the most popular at school – who you would have died to either be or be with – is, I don't know, a plumber in East London, who has three unhappy marriages behind him, or whatever. Do you know what I mean?
KP: Yeah, yeah, completely.
MB: I guess it's just that craving to be someone that you're not, you know? That you think you’re this terrible person, or you’re this shit person, or that you're ugly, or that you're not good at anything.
I think ultimately, that is something that every young person needs to be told, because it's the truth – everybody thinks like that. And if they don't think that, then they're fucking lying to themselves. We all have to go through that.
KP: We do; that’s definitely a journey that we’re all on. I’m not sure if it ever ends.
For our last question – what do you feel makes a provocative woman?
MB: Oh, that's quite a loaded word. It's a bit double edged, isn't it? Because on one hand, provocative can be like, you know, sexually provocative? That's the sort of image that springs to mind. But I think provocative can also be someone who prods at people, who changes people's minds.
So, what do I think makes a provocative woman? Anyone who doesn't play along with what is fucking expected of them – the beauty standards, the passivity, hiding your talents under a bushel so that other people don't feel threatened. I'm not saying that every woman should be out there acting like a man, because then the world really would be an appalling place.
KP: [Laughs]. That is true.
MB: But I think what makes a provocative woman is someone who just has the self-confidence to do something that they really want to do. They're not going to let the world stop them, you know? And it will try to stop them.
I think that's all women need to do to be provocative – you don't really have to go too far as a woman, because there's plenty of people out there who want to take you down.
You simply have to exist as a woman today – that is an act of provocation.
–
Photography: Abbey Raymonde
