Anyone who follows his career for years, I would not imagine that the leader of Le Butcherettes is a shy person. To see her live is to be in front of an energetic vocalist, with a powerful presence. But in an interview with Sopitas.com, Teri Gender Bender She tells us that she is nervous about one of the many talks that she has arranged for the day.
From mid-2022 to date, Teri has given priority to her solo project with several EP’s and now, prepares the launch of one more under the name of Catspeak, certainly driven by his love of cats.
The best thing about it is that we will see it live very soon, this cWhen he comes to play as the opening act for The Mars Volta in CDMX in this month of May. Here we leave you our interview with Teri Gender Bender about your new extended playthis solo musical stage and other details.
Interview with Teri Gender Bender
For almost a year, Teri Gender Bender he has been constantly releasing music. Not in the increasingly entrenched format of just singles… She has bet on EP’s, among which several stand out as Chen I was a child, State of Fear o Saturn Sex.
For sure, Teri is one of the artists who has released the most music in the last year. And it is not for less, since many of these compositions come from old records and recordings that he made since he was 17 years old, and that he ‘left in the trunk of memories’. This is what she tells us about reuniting with those songs of hers from years ago.
“I have realized how happy listening and making music makes me, and just playing with this recipe… It fills me with a lot of happiness. It’s like that metaphor of when you cook for people, it fills you with pride and that pleasure… That’s how I feel when I teach my mom or my brother a song…
“Something that I can rescue from the time of the pandemic is that it gave me time to just sit down to organize the hard drives that have been accumulating since I was 17 years old. And that was a reminder, like a photo album of when I wrote this and I was sad, or when I was in the middle of a toxic situation, or maybe I was the toxic one and I wrote about it…”
The reunion with the adolescent Teri
And of course meeting these songs from the past it was an emotional moment for Teri Gender Bender. Like many of us, she remembers how music has been an outlet for those complicated moments in life with which one does not know how to deal with the problems that often hit us in youth. How was that reunion with the adolescent Teri for her?
“Tears came to my eyes at that point because I was like, ‘wow, wow.’ I was going through hard things at that time, I was so innocent and naive that I didn’t realize the environment, but I kept composing and doing my thing, and that was what gave me the illusion that everything was fine even though things were chaotic. At that time I did not appreciate that, now I am fighting to find that innocence again…”
The meaning of the ‘state of fear’ according to Teri Gender Bender
Teri Gender Bender has sent all these releases in recent months with quite striking titles. One of them is State of Fearthat perhaps at first listen one does not understand exactly what Teri refers to with the ‘state of fear’ specifically.
But once he contextualizes it and brings us closer to the past of his personal life, it all makes sense.. The composer details where this concept of the ‘state of fear’ comes from and what it means to her.
“When your mind is not totally balanced and you get lost in your own perception of things… Like when they tell you: ‘ah, it’s that you manifested it’… Maybe it’s a trauma, but as a child I was always afraid that My dad was going to die, I was thinking obsessively about it all the time, and it finally happened two years later. And I felt guilty. But someone told me: ‘don’t feel guilty, or if you do feel guilty, do something about it and don’t just stay with it.
“Art, movies, listening to other people’s music helped me a lot to get ahead. The state of fear is when you are a prisoner of your prejudices, and you become bitter. That’s my state of fear.”
The love for cats that inspired ‘Catspeak’
Now in this 2023, Teri Gender Bender is preparing for more releases. ORit’s not theirs Catspeakwhich opens on May 12. And the title of this new material is curious, since it has not been chosen at random. The background comes from the love and closeness she feels for cats, since she was a child..
“When I was organizing the EP’s, especially the material for ‘Catspeak’, several cats came up to the studio in the creek at our house. So, we adopted those who wanted to stay at home… It was crazy that I called the record that at that time and cats started coming.
“The album was called ‘Catspeak’ because it was inspired by the things that make me happy as an innocent, and as a child cats always calmed me down and were a place that represented peace; they are such spiritual beings. As a movie said, they are pure electricity that is contagious, like music.
Teri, the punk lover who likes current pop references
Although it is still very much in force in the old circles of rock or punk, there are figures from the scene who have broken the stereotype of musical tastehe. Teri Gender Bender is one of those artists who, although she is seen as a riot grrrl or a punk rocker, she does not deny her taste for pop artists like Lizzo, Billie Eilish o Taylor Swift.
For her, these new figures of pop music, Beyond the musically obvious, they shine for not being afraid to express themselves however they want.. And in that sense, Teri finds in them a marked resemblance to other incredible female musicians of the past.
“In addition to their voices and their super obvious talent, each one of them has their own personality, their own imprint and they are not afraid to show that side of themselves; that character. I see them as in wrestling, they are fighters and each one has her story, her ‘origin story’, and I love that.
“I’m a fan of women who look powerful, like in S’ailor Moon’, that each one has their own special power. Or like the Spice Girls, who each had her imprint even though they were in the same band. And that also applies to punk, like Wendy O. Williams (from Plasmatics) who is another great character, or like Betty Davis in funk… These big women make me feel like I want to do that.’”
