LYDIA LUNCH
New York No Wave Royalty Returns to Oz.
The queen of New York’s No Wave movement, Lydia Lunch, is returning to Australia this June for a run of shows that honour the legacy of legendary synth-punk duo Suicide and the late, great Alan Vega, marking a decade since Vega’s passing in 2016. Lunch, who first crossed paths with Suicide in 1970s New York as a teenager and forged a lifelong creative bond with the duo, will be joined by Andrew Coates of acclaimed Melbourne electronic trio Black Cab to perform the songs of Suicide alongside Vega’s solo catalogue. The tour follows a sold-out impromptu Melbourne appearance in 2024, when Lunch surprised audiences at the Tote during her Spoken Word tour, backed by Black Cab - a night that made clear this music deserved a proper antipodean run.
Woven into the ‘Songs of Suicide’ dates is an additional treat for Australian audiences. Lunch will team up with Beasts of Bourbon and The Cruel Sea frontman Tex Perkins for a series of exclusive co-headlined shows in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney under the banner of ‘So Real It Hurts’. In these performances, Lunch will deliver her characteristically confrontational spoken word while Perkins - performing as Tex Perkins Basic - presents a new electronic soundscape set he describes as “cyberpunk karaoke,” built from laptop, guitar and voice. There will also be limited screenings of Beth B’s incredible documentary, ‘Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over’, and ‘From The Page To The Stage’, a women only spoken word workshop. Together, the various strands of this tour paint a vivid picture of an artist who has never stopped pushing boundaries — raw, uncompromising, and as vital as ever.
Bad Batch were honoured with an audience with the singer, poet, writer, actress, author, photographer, fine-art practitioner, spoken word artist and self-empowerment speaker in the lead-up to her tour...
We have to start off by asking, will the coat hanger be bought out for Andrew Coates and Tex Perkins, this tour during rehearsals?
Well, I hope not to have to employ such techniques with such budding geniuses. No, I don’t think so. Unless they request.
You never know. Have you got a special case for it?
We’ll just see what happens, won’t we? I mean, I don’t think I will have to do any kind of corrective schooling for these two gentlemen, at all. Maybe they’ll school me on something. Who knows? Doubtful, but whatever.
Are you still deflowering prospective collaborators? Should we be warning these guys about it?
Well, both of you are a bit too old, and I think so are they. No. I mean look, that was a training camp I had for young men when I was a younger woman in the service of other women. I just thought I was doing a good service to ease young men into their sexual realities, because it can be a terrifying thing. And I didn’t seek them out, basically, they sought me out. And by the way, I was underage most of the time, too, so I wouldn’t call that a... dirty act. [chuckles]
Oh, I never said it was a dirty act.
I’ve been thanked many times for my encouragement.
So, where are you living at present?
In my body, as always [chuckles]. Right now, I’m in Brooklyn, but I’m about to relocate in a couple of months. I don’t know where, but as a nomad, I’ve moved to many places, many cities, and I’m getting the itch to move again, so...
Do you find your environment affects the output? Like, what you’re writing or…?
Okay, interesting question, because I’ve moved many times, sometimes not knowing anywhere, anyone where I was moving, because why? I don’t have to. Sometimes I take a survey on tour - in Pittsburgh, for instance, one once. Or I would live in a cheaper city, because I knew I’d have to move to a more expensive city, you know, going to LA. Like a squirrel with nuts, gather for that. After living in Barcelona for eight years, I was a nomad for four years. I wasn’t in my 20s, 30s, or 40s - I’m a nomad for four years in my 50s, which is ridiculous, because I didn’t really want to live anywhere, and I was on a rent strike. So, I would just watch cats, watch dogs, watch birds. Had a few friends that would take me in. I don’t even know how I did it. But at that time, I knew 2 or 3 other female artists that were like, “I’m not paying rent. I’m moving around as well.” Okay, well, there comes a point where that’s gotta end. But, the nomad nature… I usually live in a place two to four years, and it’s for a variety of reasons. It might be the architecture. Hardly ever is it the collaborators. Except in New York, it has been. It could be that I don’t know anybody. It could be the size of the environment for the price you pay, because I’m on tour a lot, and when I’m home, basically, I don’t leave my house. You want to see me? You come to see me. Why should I leave the house if I’m not getting paid? I don’t go to bars when they don’t pay me. That’s ridiculous! Doesn’t make sense. So, I’m not a shut in, but I prefer entertaining in my own home, so, wherever I am, they will come… Or not, I don’t care. [chuckles]
So, what does your average weekend look like?
There is no average.
I know you’re a big fan of forensics.
I’m a big fan of forensics. There is no average anything. I have no idea. Um, as prolific as some people I think I am, I compare myself always to the comedian Red Skelton, who wrote 8000 songs. I’m a slacker compared to that. I’ve written 400 and maybe 50. I’m slackin’. Yup. He painted, like, a thousand paintings of clowns. I’ve met about a thousand clowns, so on that level, we relate highly. I mean, he’s dead I’m not, but... [laughs]
There is no average anything. I can be a completely luxuriating, lazy, lazy lady. Which I do deserve and love. Ah yeah, forensics, true crime, books about true crime, psychopathology. I should have been a forensic scientist - there’s still time - true memoirs, whatever. Visits from the intelligentsia… so called.
Yeah. Well, we’re both obsessed with the macabre as well. So, what do you think it is that draws…
[Bad Batch mascot, Clawdette, jumps into frame]
Wait a second. Did I just… Did I just see a tiger cat?
Yeah, It’s Clawds.
By the way, my last cat could have been that cat’s brother. I love tiger cats. I love grey cats. Grey cats and white pumpkins, kind of my fetish but, I don’t see any white pumpkins, but I have some in the other room. But I love a grey cat.
Yeah, well, this one’s constantly getting in the way…
Because I travel so much, I can’t have a pet right now, but in my backyard, which I can’t go into, I can only look out my window at. Every night, there is a great tiger cat that comes stalking around, and I just… When I happen to look out the window, I know they are there. Just looking up. Stalking me. Haunting me. Because it knows I’d love to go down and pet it, but I just can’t. I can’t get down there, but anyway...
What do you think it is about the macabre that draws people in?
Well, anything to get out of their boring lives or to overcome their trauma, to find something that is even more outlandish, ridiculous, or wonderful. I have no idea. I mean, the freaks find each other, and they find freakish things.
Yeah, well…
That’s a stunter. That’s a stunter.
Has the age of the podcast had any effect on the spoken word audiences?
You mean my podcast, or podcasts in general?
Just in general.
I have no fucking clue what has any impact on anything. I mean, my podcast, ‘The Lydian Spin’; we have over 450 - I don’t even know 450 people – episodes. What it has allowed me to do is proselytise, as I like to say, and the intros for whoever we have on there. Who we have on this week is incredible. He’s a physicist. I call it science porn for me because as I’m reading his bio, I have no fricking idea what he’s on about, but I love it. But he’s also a jazz scat singer who invents his own language. Now that’s macabre! So, I mean, I did not know all the 450 people we’ve interviewed. Tim brought some. I brought some. Some people are recommended. But I find it a service, and I find it definitely a way for my spoken word. Obviously, I would like to be performing every night of my life and getting paid for it, just by opening my mouth, like some other fucking asshole, men mainly, in American podcasts. But that’s not gonna happen, so, I just dish it out for free in 15-minute increments as an intro to my podcast; thank you very much. [chuckles]
You’ve turned your trauma into art. Do you think your art would have been different had therapy been on the table back in the ‘70s?
I started doing public psychotherapy at the age of 17, so I have had therapy my whole life at the expense of the audience. Look, I have a documentary, ‘Artists: Depression, Anxiety and Rage [- A film by Lydia Lunch and Jasmine Hirst].’ I don’t have depression. I don’t have anxiety and I’ve paid for my rage. But when I started asking my friends, and the statistics are 75% of artists have some kind of trauma, depression, anxiety, or rage. When I started asking my friends, who I thought, “Oh, no, that person with happy disease can’t possibly...” Oh yes, they did. And by the way, speaking about cats, I was asking one of my friends, “Depression? Anxiety?” I thought he had the happy disease. “Uh, rage?” And he’s like, “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.” And I’m like, “When do you think your trauma started?” And his friend was there. He said, “I think the first time I had to turn homework in,” and his friend goes, “Oh, no, it was before that.” And just off the top of my head, I said, “Did it involve a cat?” And then he was like, “[Gasps] I think it does. I think, in the cradle, I would have a cat in there, and then one day he scratched my face, and then there was trauma.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s all that happened. Great.” [laughing] But it affected him deeply. I was like, “Whatever.”
I think because I was able to start speaking, not only for myself, but other people that have been traumatised; and realising at a very early age, that it just didn’t happen in my house. It happened across the street, across the pond, across the ocean, every country, continent forever and ever, trauma happens. Whether it’s religious persecution, poverty, parents, incest, genetic mutation, molecular memory. We all have some kind of trauma. It’s just how we relate to it. How we express it. What we do with it. How much we suffer from it. I tend [she sniggers] to pass the suffering on. Not that my heart is to cause others to suffer, and it’s actually a painful expression. Where I feel that I am the mouth for others that do not have a voice to scream, so… I’m very successful at that, thank you very much. I think without trauma, a lot of art would not exist.
That’s true.
By the way, what is it, 9:00 a.m. there? [laughs]
Yeah.
Wine o’clock for me. Hellooo. Are you often up at this hour?
Yeah, I’ve got two kids, so I have to rouse them for school and that sort of fun stuff.
That’ll keep you up. I have no set time limit for anything, so I’m up all hours of the day and night. Time is one long second that goes on forever.
That is a haiku for you. A one-line haiku.
Your relationship with the English language, is it the same as it’s always been or do you find you have to self-edit because of modern audiences?
Oh! Fuck no! Excuse me, self-edit! First of all, when I started writing for spoken word, I started writing very conversationally, so it was already very much pre-edited. No, I don’t edit... There is no politeness in this. But what I’ve had to do was, because when I first started spoken work, it was not such a hysterical level, like my music, Teenage Jesus - a hysterical level - that you then have to find other ways to sophisticate it. Because you can’t go beyond, for instance, can music go beyond Teenage Jesus? Mmm, I’m sure some has. Noise mainly. So, you just have to find a way to change it. To have another kind of language within the language. To find different ways, or with music, to find different musical collaborators to use as the machine for the bullets of the word. Also, being a kind of functional musical schizophrenic, and word schizophrenic, there’s all kinds of spoken words that I do. If somebody might have heard one thing, or one record, they might think that’s what I am, and fine by that, and really you can go out and investigate if you want. Good luck finding it all. Ah, no. What I started doing when I lived in Europe, because, obviously, the language barrier, but I would sometimes have translations up, people didn’t want that. I’d have backup vocalists, doing it. No. They’d rather see my lips move and not know, like America does not know half of what I’m saying. But I decided, after doing large monologues, to break pieces down into song size structures. With or without music. Because they were easier, I think, for people to comprehend, because a longer monologue, it’s almost too hypnotic. Hahahahaha, yeeessss. Which is grand, because I’m an intellectual sadist. So, I would love it when I saw people just getting stuck on maybe a sentence or word. Not en masse. But I knew there were some phrases, some images, that people would actually have a brain freeze. Which to me, unlike most artists, I love to not be completely understood, because good-motherfucking-luck. Am I saying the truth? Am I saying my truth? Am I saying a philosophical dissertation? Is this sarcasm? Is this just brutal poetry? Or is this just my tongue in your fucking ear, making something go in and come out immediately, that you may or may not comprehend? Well, what should I tell you what it is? Choose one of the above or all. Thank you.
That’s fair enough.
[laughs] Fair enough…
What can we expect to see on this trip out? So, you’ve got some spoken word…
With Tex Perkins. Can’t wait. I do believe we are doing a duolette of ‘Hard For You’, which I had done with Shotgun Wedding years before. We’ll see about that. I’m just gathering what I might do. There’s a variety of things I could do. And also, it depends on what the atmosphere of the club is. Or the space that we’re doing it in. So, it could be a number of short pieces, or it could be a rather long story. I don’t know. I’m bringing a collection of things. It will be dependent on my mood on that night.
How the mood takes you?
That’s right. But I’m very excited to be doing it with Tex, and I’m very excited to be doing the Suicide shows as well.
So, with the Suicide shows, you’re so prolific yourself. You’ve got so much going on, like, Retrovirus right back to Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Why do somebody else’s work when you’ve got so much to draw on yourself?
Well, first of all, I think it was so important, not only to me but a lot of people. I think there’s a lot of leeway within the sparsity of the lyrics to put something else in. It’s a very mobile event, because there’s only two people. Whether it’s me and Mark Hurtado, or me and Andrew [Coates of Black Cab], who are doing it, which also takes it in a slightly different feel, you know? So, I just think that the words that Alan Vega did are very important, but it allows me plenty of room. I could just do stand-up solo spoken word for the rest of my life and be very happy, but I think in paying tribute to the first people I met in New York. To the first band other than Mars. I mean, I’d love to do that. Can you imagine if I did a Mars cover band? Nobody could do that. So, it’s just really, you know, bringing something back to people that might be familiar but taking it somewhere else. And it allows me the freedom of saying what the fuck ever I want, so it’s just a great backdrop. You know? And it’s psychopathological. With Suicide, what I love is, the concept of both doo-wop to psychosis.
[laughs] That’s great.
Very. Very interesting. Yeah. Kinda a big turn on. Big turn on.
Will you be bringing the stage show as well? Like, are you going to be wielding chains and...
Oh, please, come on now. Keep your fantasies to yourself. The music just speaks for itself, god…
I live in hope.
I mean, bring your own chains, goddamn it. Come on, now. No, and I won’t be slapping myself in the face with the microphone. Which was a grand affect that Alan Vega often did, because his cheeks were tougher than mine but no, no, no...
You’ve worked with some of the greats in that, sort of, avant-soundscape world, and then you’ve said, “the only thing worse than a guitar is a guitarist.” So, how do these people take that comment?
Well, that’s their frickin’ problem, man. All I can say is that’s their problem. Pfft. Look, I’m not insulting the ones I’ve worked with, of course, because I mean Rowland S. Howard, Thurston Moore, doesn’t really get any better than that. Weasel Walter, it doesn’t really get any better than this, so… It’s a useless instrument unless wielded in the right hands. Let’s face it, there are too many guitar players, and maybe too many guitars. But what does that then leave? I mean, J.G. Thirlwell, a great collaborator. Omar Rodríguez-López, a great collaborator. I’ve been very lucky, and most of these people, I have pursued, except for Omar Rodríguez-López from Mars Volta. He’s one of the few that ever approached me to do something. Like, “Here’s a 17-minute piece of music. Just do your goddess stuff.” Thank you. All right, very obscure, one EP out there somewhere. Mars Volta, one of my favourite bands, when they were in existence. So…
You’ve collaborated with Hubert Selby Jr. as well, have you not?
I knocked on his door one day, when he was in total obscurity and I was a young upstart, and I just said, “Do you know how important you are to my generation?” To which he said, “No.” Like, “Well, can I come in and tell you?” [she laughs] And so he let me in, and, yeah, I brought him on the first tours he was ever on in Europe, and then he did write the introduction for one of my editions of ‘Paradoxia’. A great joy! And Jerry Stahl also; I work with, and do a lot of shows with. One of my favourite shows was, The Knitting Factory in L.A. was doing a Beat Generation thing, and I’m not into the Beat Generation. I’m into Hubert Selby and Henry Miller, I’ll do something anti-Beat. So, I call up Hubert Selby, and he said, “Yes.” And somebody suggested I call up Harry Dean Stanton, who had that fabulous monologue in [the Wim Wenders film] Paris, Texas. Now, Harry Dean Stanton did not know me, but through a friend, I just said, “Hey, Harry Dean Stanton, this is Lydia Lunch. Your friend told me to call you. Wondering if you want to do this show with you and Hubert Selby.” They were both 72 at the time. They did not know of each other. They did not know each other, they did not know the work of each other, which to me was shocking. Harry Dean Stanton had been sober for 40 minutes, and Hubert Selby for 40 years. So, I was the sandwich meat between these two, and it was just one of the big joys of my life, I have to say. Oh, and so, to convince Harry Dean Stanton, I said - ‘cause I knew he would read [Charles] Bukowski or Sam Shepard - “I’m like Bukowski, only more physical.” He said, “All right. I’ll do it.” Thank you very much.
Nice! Have you ever worked with Bukowski?
Oh, no, I wasn’t in the same place at the same time. No. What would I have done? Pour him a beer? [laughter] I was lucky. I was really lucky to work with Hubert Selby. He would always say, “You’re rotten, kid! You’re rotten!” I’m like, “Thank you!” [laughs]
Was that captured at all? A recording or…?
I had released a record, it’s now out of print, called, ‘Our Fathers Who Aren’t In Heaven’, where one side I read Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby, and myself, and they read pieces on the other side. And then he wrote the introduction for one of the first editions of [Lydia Lunch’s autobiographical book] ‘Paradoxia’, but other than that, I don’t know if there’s any footage. Mostly, we did… I don’t know how many shows in Europe, basically, that was that.
Yeah, wow!
Henry Rollins, myself, and Hubert Selby.
Would have been nice to be there.
Fucking amazing!
Is there anybody you haven’t collaborated with?
Plenty of people I haven’t collaborated with, but that’s not the issue. The issue is, the concept comes before the collaborator. I get a concept; who best fits that need? So, I never think, “Oh, yeah, I’d like to work with, mmmm.” No. Because I would say, “I don’t know right now.” It’s like, not that there aren’t people, but what is the concept? Somebody I’m very thrilled-beyond-thrilled to have done some shows with, is Umar Bin Hassan of The Last Poets. My heroes! I mean, ‘This Is Madness’, his big track. ‘This Is Madness’. Doing that with him was unbelievable! Just phenomenal! And he is still alive, and that’s great pleasure to my existence, so... OK, is there anybody you think I should work with? How about that question? [laughs]
Oh, wow. There’s plenty…
Stumper. It’s a stumper.
Sunn O))).
Who?
Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley. Like, Sunn O))) the...
Oh, I love O’Malley.
… or Oren Ambarchi, the Australian guitarist…
Let’s go back to Sunn O))) for a minute. Not my particular kind of music, but I love the spectacle. But I don’t see why I would be needed in that collaboration; you know what I’m saying? I just don’t see how I’d be needed.
I just think exactly what Omar said. Just you “being the goddess” over the top of that noisescape would be amazing!
Well, you know, when he sends me to track and takes his robe off, I’ll be right there. Or he gives me a robe to wear. [laughs]
Well, fingers crossed.
I could always put it out there. I know we were in… I think we were in Greece together at one point, doing collective shows on the same bill or whatever; different nights, I don’t remember. No, maybe it was Istanbul? But yeah, O’Malley, he’s great.
One person I tried to get into Retrovirus when I was first forming it, was Paul Leary from Butthole Surfers. He knew a lot of my shit, but he’s like, “I know. I think I’ll just sit on the couch and collect royalty cheques.” I’m like, “Oh, fuck you. You’re like…” Whatever. Whatever.
We’ve got a head off soon, but tell us about stealing food for Richard Hell and the Dead Boys?
Ah, no, it was for Mink DeVille. I didn’t steal food for either of those two. I stole food for Mink DeVille, Willy DeVille gave me my name. Well, come on, we’re starving, and somebody had to do it. I was always a good shop lifter, food thief, pick pocket, etcetera. Come on, that’s what you have to do to survive when you’re a young runaway. Yeah, alright. I’m hungry right now, so I’m gonna go steal myself some food. I’m gonna steal some of my own food for myself. Because at 7:30 at night, where it looks like 9:30 in the morning for you. You better go have some breakfast and feed those children.
Rowland S. Howard said that “…in her heart she’s this enthusiastic, cheerleaderish American girl.” Is that still the case?
Yes, it is. I mean, I’m still promoting. There’s 3 bands I’m promoting now, which, one is called Bog Creeper. You can get them on Bandcamp. A two-piece, totally psychotic, great. Genre Is Death, who’ll have an album out next week on In The Red Records. So, I just took on tour with Murderous… Again, which is me, Tim Dahl, Matt Nelson. And New City Slang, which is kind of a cross between the Stooges, New York Dolls - like, I mean, trad, good rock, nobody makes anymore. All of the song’s based on books. That’s also on Bandcamp. New City Slang, Bog Creeper, Genre Is Death, rah, rah, rah. That’s what I do.
That’s fantastic.
That’s why I have the podcast. I’m like the rah, rah, rah. Yeah, hello.
Yeah, well, we’ve got so many more questions, but we’ve been given strict instructions that 9:30 is the limit, so we’ve got to wrap it up.
You just have to make up the answers, I guess. Thank you so much.
We’re looking forward to seeing the show. We’re going to one of the Tex shows.
Where are you at?
We’ll be going to the Melbourne show, but we’re about 2.5 hours’ drive from the venue.
You’ll have to make the trek. Come on, if I can make the 16-hour trek from LA, you can make a 2.5-hour trek.
We hope you can join us in taking the trek from wherever you may be as well. Tickets are selling fast, so you best get to it…
LYDIA LUNCH PERFORMS THE SONGS OF SUICIDE AND ALAN VEGA
featuring Andrew Coates (Black Cab)
Sun 14 June - Meow, Wellington, NZ (as part of Lōemis) - Tickets
Wed 17 June - The Tote, Melbourne (with Black Cab) with guests Belle Phoenix & Jeffrey Wegener - Tickets – SOLD OUT
Thu 18 June - The Tote, Melbourne (with Black Cab) with guests Tongue Dissolver - Tickets - NEW SHOW
Sat 20 June - Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane - Tickets
Sun 21 June - Factory Floor, Sydney with guests Rebel Yell - Tickets
Wed 24 June - Ed Castle, Adelaide with guests Messianic Gloss - Tickets
Thurs 25 June - The Milk Bar, Perth with guests Streets of Separation - Tickets
SO REAL IT HURTS - LYDIA LUNCH & TEX PERKINS
Fri June 19th (two shows) - Kew Courthouse, Melbourne - SOLD OUT
Sat June 20th - Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane - Tickets
Sat June 27th - Riverside Live at Phive, Sydney - Tickets
pressplaypresents.com
Additionally, a special one-off screening of the film LYDIA LUNCH: The War is Never Over has been announced for Melbourne, with Lydia introducing the film herself:
LYDIA LUNCH: THE WAR IS NEVER OVER (A FILM BY BETH B.)
Tue June 16 - Brunswick Picture House, Melbourne
(Personally introduced by Lydia) - Tickets
FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE ~ Spoken Word Workshop with LYDIA LUNCH
Tue June 23rd - Oxford Art Factory, Darlinghurst - Tickets through Eventbrite
Don’t miss out! Order an issue here: BAD BATCH BANDCAMP
International orders: fantasticmessrecords.com