Sexpod

Goddess Blues (Slab)
An interview with Alice Genese (bass, vocals) and Tia Sprocket (drums, vocals)
by Sheril Stanford

So where’d you guys play last night?
Alice: New York, Coney Island High. It was good, it was packed, people were singing and rocking.

Tia: Yeah, it might have been one of the loudest shows we’ve ever played in terms of people screaming. Last time we were in Boston we MADE people move. We heard people don’t move here.

How many shows have you done so far on this tour with Powerman 5000?
Alice: Just three so far – tonight’s the fourth. We have, like, 30 or something.

Tia: We go to Providence, Rhode Island tomorrow night, back to New York City after that to sleep, then to Pittsburgh, and I don’t know where we go after that.

Is it true that you don’t even have a manager, and you do everything yourselves?
Alice: Yeah, we tried having a manager for awhile and it just didn’t work out, so I think we’re gonna try to hang on like this for a little bit longer until we find the exact right person.

I noticed the last time I saw Sexpod play live that you each have such distinct stage personas. How do you get along?
Alice: You just described exactly how it comes out in the music.

Tia: It works very well. We’ve known each other and played together for so many years, even before Sexpod. It’s almost like a family – you have your good days and your bad days.

Alice: We know what we have and we want to care for it as best as we can, because there’s a reason why we’re together, and why we do what we do the way we do it.

I’m certain you don’t want to be considered “chick rockers” for all the obvious reasons, but I have to say that it’s hard to ignore that you are women musicians – the music and the band are just very… sexual.
Tia: Well, rock and roll has always been androgynous and very sexual, kinda shot from the hip.

I think it’s been really asexual for awhile.
Tia: And how boring. We’re bringing it back. I think the three of us are very sexual.

Alice: And very sensual. I think there’s an environment surrounding each of us when we play – our music is also very sensual. I hate it when people come up to us and say, “Hey, did you ever hear of…?” whoever… “they’re all girls, too!” Nobody walks up to guys and says that. I’d love to get to a place where we don’t have to say we’re a girl band – it’s just so obvious that we are…

I like the fact that you don’t avoid the issue of sexuality, but you’re not playing it up either.
Tia: You know why? This is a real turning point in terms of evolution. Women have been punished for thousands of years because of their power, basically, and the world is being destroyed because there’s so much lopsidedness between masculine and feminine – people just don’t know how to balance it anymore because they’ve shoved it under the rug, and burned women and deleted them from history. But it’s coming around now, and it’s behind us, and that’s why the power is there. If people are really aware and open to it, there’s no way that it can be snuffed out. We accept it and we’re willing to carry it – we’re torch bearers in a way.

How long have you played your instruments?
Tia: I’ve been playing since I was fourteen, although there were about nine years there where I didn’t play at all.

Alice: I’ve been playing since I was about twenty, but I played other instruments, too. I had some formal musical training – I played the piano and the flute and played a little guitar. I never really felt at home with any of those instruments. I started out as a dancer. I think the bass felt most comfortable because there was a lot of rhythm involved. That bass looks so big on you.

Alice: That’s funny – somebody said that to me last night, too. It doesn’t feel big. It’s just an extension of my personality, like another arm or sometimes another voice. I’m not really comfortable singing, although I do it. The bass is really my voice. Those are my feelings pouring out.

So every single review in your press kit compares Sexpod to Patti Smith – is she an influence?
Tia: Who?

Alice: I’ve listened to some Patti Smith, but I listen to a lot of other stuff as well. Obviously, we’re all influenced by everything we listen to. I think Patti Smith is brilliant, and I think Karyn (Kuhl, guitar, lead vocals) is brilliant too, but I think there’re obviously some major differences between us and her, and anyone else that you compare us to. People tend to compare bands with something else because they don’t know how to put you in a league of your own. I think Sexpod is in a league of its own. That’s really good, but it’s also been very difficult for us to forge this path to get to the place that we’re at.

You were called Gutbank in your earlier incarnation – how are you different from that band?
Tia: The album that we made as Gutbank is a rehearsal tape with 14 songs on it, and then there’s this album and it’s a natural progression. Someday, if I could put all those down in some sequence on some kind of CD, that would be a tremendous gift, because it just makes total sense, how we grew.

Like looking at photographs?
Tia: Exactly.

Alice: I think as you grow you get more secure in yourself, in who you are. I think that shows in our music, too. I mean, obviously, when I get up there, I’m nervous – it’s hard to play in front of people, you feel naked or something. But there’s also something about it that you get off on. You learn how to be secure in that, and I think our music does the same thing. It’s probably cyclical – the better you get, the more respect you get and you feed off that…

Alice: Yeah, and then there’re the days when you just feel like you suck all the time!

Tia, someone asked you how Sexpod came up with the name and you said…
Tia: (laughing) Which one? I give different answers all the time.

The one about the space angel mutant pods. So what do you think of the mass suicide in California?
Alice: Yeah, that was pretty intense.

Tia: I waver, cuz you know what? Whatever you believe is gonna happen. So guess where they are? They’re on a spaceship that’s flying behind the Hale-Bopp comet.

Alice: Of course, there’s the human element, the families that are left behind. I’d hate for that to be my child. But everybody’s gotta do what they gotta do and we just have to release them…

Do you write on the road?
Alice: We’ve never done it before. This is the longest we’ve ever been on the road.

Tia: At a sound check we started a new song. It’s not that we write a lot, we just start playing.

So the music comes first and the lyrics come later?
Alice: Not always. Sometimes we’ll write an entire song as a band, sometimes each of us will write a different part. Without the three of us, a song wouldn’t be our song. It takes teamwork. You know, if you have other musicians playing on it, it’s a different song.

Tia: We all contribute equally.

What’s in your CD player now?
Tia: Bad Brains – I just can’t put it down. I play it over and over again!

How are you traveling? How do you decide what to listen to?
Alice: We have a van and we all have our own head sets. Ironically, I started out listening to Bad Brains, and I finished up listening to Björk.

Tia: We were really enjoying Sade last night.

Sexpod was almost signed by Island. Any regrets?
Alice: None!

Tia: I wasn’t even here yet!

Alice: We were on the fence for a long time and we’re so grateful, because it would not have been the right thing. We could have pushed and gotten signed, but then we would’ve gotten dropped a year later and we’d be starting all over again. I really believe, maybe not for every band, but for this band, we needed to build our way up. There was a little more money on Slab then there was on Go-Kart, but still we’re small. If we’re happy, we’ll stay there. We’re kind of taking it one step at a time. I think it’s like climbing up a pyramid. If you jump right onto the top, there’s nowhere to go but down.

Yeah, it’s like growing up too fast. You lose something along the way.
Alice: And people are so mean. It’s like, if you sign a huge deal, everyone’s gonna come and criticize you. They’re gonna try to find everything that’s wrong and every reason why that label shouldn’t have signed you. But if you work your way up, they can’t do that. Of course, they still do… But they can’t say we haven’t earned it, because believe me, we’ve paid our dues.

I have to point out the way you two are sitting – do you hate people asking you questions?
Alice: No! No way. I’m just freezing!

Tia: Interviews make me a little bit uncomfortable. I enjoy it and have fun and I hope it comes across that way, but people take things out of context. Besides, how many times can you answer the same questions? That’s why I give different answers.

Speaking of which, how do you keep your sets fresh, performing night after night?
Tia: We get re-energized every time we play.

Alice: It’s a different crowd, a different night, a different city.

Tia: Yeah, a friend of mine said, just think about it, man! You’re gonna get to play god in every circle of souls in every state! I thought, wow! What a way to think about it!

Alice: Who was that?

Tia: Barb Morrison, Itchy Trigger Finger.

How old is the oldest song you have?
Tia: “Foot on the Gas” is nine years old maybe. We wrote it when we were Gutbank. We still play it and people love it. It’s on Goddess Blues.

Alice: I don’t know if I was around for the beginning of that one. Tia and Karen kinda started it without me, then Karen and I did it without Tia, then the three of us did it and now it’s totally different than it was on the Go-Kart album.

How did you guys get that thing with the ESPN X-treme Games?
Alice: Our label set it up. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect place for our music, but we were in good company and anything that gets our stuff out there, you know?

Tia: I’ve concluded that every band gets to where it is in a different way. There’s no set of rules. When I realized that I was like, oh man, now I can just relax. You can’t be calculated about it. That’s why we’re sticking to managing ourselves. We’re gonna stick to it until we get burnt out. It’s a lot of work.

Alice: It’s a hard thing with managers. They really have to come to you and be interested. And you have to trust them with your entire career, and that’s a lot of trust.

Tia: And we have a lot of experience with getting fucked over. We’re proceeding on instinct, our gut. It’s like, P-Funk wrote that song “Cosmic Slop.” The title of that song is the closest you can come to explaining what happens to musicians when they get together and have chemistry. You almost can’t explain it. It’s very big – it’s nothing small.