As Margaret Wappler aptly asserted, “the dirty little secret to ‘The Girls’ Guide to Rocking’ — a book by music scribe Jessica Hopper, ostensibly for teen girls — is that as a grown-up man or woman, you will learn something from every single page of this guide.” Real talk, but unsurprising to anyone familiar with Hopper’s work at the Chicago Reader, Chicago Tribune, and her blog Tinyluckygenius. If you have a sister, niece, or know anyone from 8 to 18 interested in forming a band, Jessica’s book comes highly recommended.
If you’re in Los Angeles, Jessica will be giving a reading today at the Santa Monica Public Library at 2 p.m. (with a performance from Mika Miko) and Skylight Books at 7:30.
Was there a Eureka moment that inspired you to write the book, or was this something you’d been thinking about doing for years?
I first thought about doing the book 16 years ago. I have this really specific memory of a conversation with one of my girlfriends—we were trying to start a band and had this succession of various bass players who we always looked to as some sort of authority. I’m not sure if it stemmed from that they were boys, or that they’d been in bands prior, but I remember talking to her on the phone about how I wished there was a book that explained how to do this.
When I was 16, I had all the eagerness and the passion and the energy, and the scrappy punk rock can-do, but had no idea how to put on a show, or keep a band together, or even how to write a song. It was so exciting but frustrating because all I wanted was to figure out how to sound like Drive like Jehu. I don’t know if that was a common desire in ‘92, but for me it was like, how do I play like that. I had a $90 dollar guitar, I didn’t play with a pick, I played with a dime. I had a Fender practice amp that I bought off street, that was my set up…pretty fancy shit. So I wrote the book that I needed.
It was something that I’d always thought I’d about. I’d been freelancing my ass off for the last few years and at some point, I always thought that I’d take time off to work on this book and work on my 33 and 1/3rd book about Billy Joel’s 40 greatest hits. Then one day I got an email from my future editor at Workman books, saying that she was looking for someone to write a How-To Rock Guide for girls. She’d asked a couple rock people at magazines who should do the book and people kept saying Jessica Hopper, so she asked her brother, who is Franz Nicolay [the supremely awesome keyboard player for the Hold Steady who looks like an 1890s French Unicyclist] and he had my phone number and that was how it got started. It was the biggest stroke of luck, if left to my own accord, I might have just started working on it now.
Did you have to conduct a lot of research or was the book primarily conducted off your own experiences in bands, publicity, and journalism?
Both. I understood what needed to be in there because of my own experiences, and there’s a pretty serious narrative in there to back up a lot of the research. I’d say its about half and half, there were chapters that I wrote entirely on my own, other ones where I consulted 40 different people to back up my opinions, so as not to pawn off my misbegotten knowledge on the future Taylor Swifts of the world. I was really lucky that in researching stuff I could call anyone whose number was in my phone. Nearly everyone got a call, if not four. I’m lucky to have a lot of friends in bands and if they couldn’t help, they’d tell me to call so and so. As soon as you tell someone that this is a guide to help teenage girls record and play shows, no one told me no. People were e-mailing me out of the woodwork to help out. It was nice to be able to pass on the wisdom of dudes from Tortoise or Annie Clark from St. Vincent, or Craig Finn from The Hold Steady.
Was writing the book your way of helping girls understand that rock didn’t have to be this all-boys club type thing?
It was definitely to give them that extra push that girls need sometimes. Sometimes you grow up lacking confidence, dealing with the idea that rock is for boys hanging heavily over you. I interviewed Erika Anderson from Gowns for the Girls Guide blog and she told me how she’ll meet girls at shows and they’ll start talking to her about being a guitar wizard, and they’ll say ‘well, I’m not that good.’ But no guy ever walked up to her and said ‘I play guitars or I play drums, but I’m not that good.’ They never qualify it.
It took stuff into account. I wanted to give them the extra encouragement to pursue music beyond being a fan or a consumer or a spectator. The main thing I wanted to impart is that playing music, being in bands with my friends and making music has been my whole life, and that’s the most fun I’ve ever had. I just wanted to encourage girls to do that. If I realized how much fun being on tour was, I would’ve joined a touring band 10 years sooner. I probably wouldn’t have been a publicist, I’d have been a roadie or done what I could to be powering down the freeway in some Ecoline Powered van. It might sound simplistic, but I want to every girl to start a band.
Do you feel that up until rather recently there had been a severe drought in the number of girl bands following the Riot Grrl/Lilith Fair explosion of the early 90s.
When I was in 11th grade, The Breeders, Liz Phair and Hole all had gold records, and there was this very prevalent notion of women as rockers. Then there was this lull and when Sleater-Kinney broke up, it seemed almost apocalyptic. It didn’t seem that there were other bands to fill the void. Now, The Gossip is getting popular, but look at Taylor Swift, she’s making Billboard History with two albums finish9ing in the top 10 on billboard in one year and eight songs simultaneously on the billboard top 100.. What I’m psyched about is that there’s a whole range of women in rock, not just the Chrissie Hynde, L7, or Joan Jett archetype, which is a pretty awesome archetype. But whether it’s Demi Lovato, or the other Disney stars, or Taylor Swift, or The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, there’s a lot of people for young girls to look up to today.
What are your thoughts about pop stars espousing something approaching a more feminist viewpoint like Lily Allen?
I think Lily Allen is the most appropriate female artist for the post-ironic age, she’s such a little lyrical genius. There was an article in the Independent or the Guardian a month ago, charging that Amy Winehouse (for whatever that’s worth) and Lily Allen have inspired this incredible wave of young British female women making solo records in their bedroom. They basically said that this is the new Sex Pistols and Clash—meaning that that was the last time they’d seen such a huge burst of explosion of music in the UK so specific to two or three bands, which I think is awesome.
But I also think the fact that Demi Lovato is playing and selling out the same sized stadiums in Chicago that Coldplay, U2, and R Kelly are selling out is awesome. Most of her fans are girls 6 to 16, and she’s connecting with people and inspiring girls and if that’s their jumping off point that’s awesome. She can play the guitar, she’s not the girlfriend of the Jonas Brother’s, she’s their mirror and opening up for them. Whether Disney is willing to admit this or not, I’m reclaiming Demi Lovato for feminism.
In recent years, the word post-feminism seems to have come into vogue and I’m not sure exactly what that means, maybe because it doesn’t really mean anything. How would you define feminism as it stands right now in ’09 and how would you say it factored into the creation and conception of the book?
I’ve never used post-feminism because feminism is still active. It’s something that will never go away. It’s very important to the book, although I only use the word feminism twice. I didn’t want to be doctrinaire or dogmatic, what girls are naturally doing by picking up guitars and forming bands is naturally feminist. I didn’t feel I needed to come in and be like ‘Girl power…you’re doing it….fighting the patriarchy…that sort of thing.’
I’ve always felt like that sort of approach had a latent condescension to it.
Well yeah, what they’re doing is naturally feminist and I’m not trying to shy away from that. Girls will find it on their own, they’d don’t need me to the old riot girll shoving dogma down their throat…’L7 was the end all be all’….she says from her walker.
However, it did bum me out a few years ago in that Rolling Stone interview where Jenny Eliscu asks Avril Lavigne, ‘are you a feminist’ and she’s like, ‘what’s that.’ It’s such a fucking bummer that people are scared to call themselves a feminist. All it is is the belief that you’re equal to them, it’s not the myth of the hair legged feminazi that’s been shoved down their throat.
You’re saying it’s less something inherently antagonistic, but more a matter of self affirmation.
Absolutely. I was raised by a feminist mom and I didn’t know that I was a feminist because I came up in an environment where I was always pro-choice and interested in the rights of women. I was very conscious of the injustices upon women whether it was in my 6th grade class or the world, and when Riot Grrl came along that saved my ass. I remember when my major authorities on rock were two dudes on the JV Bowling team who sat next to me in Health. They were a band and Knew…then Riot Grrl came along and said you don’t have to listen to them, your own voice is your authority, your own voice is a powerful thing. And that kept me from having to be in a Doors cover band. That was a terrible future, two dudes wearing Red Hot Chili Peppers shirts.
Suddenly, I was greeted by the open encouragement of ideas. You can do this however you want to do this. By virtue of being a fan of Fugazi and Bikini Kill and Hole and Babes in Toyland, and The Clash, I felt empowered. Those bands were doing things their own way and I felt so lucky to have that network of girls embodying radical feminism.
What do you think it was that led to the rather moribund stretch of girl rockers during the late 90s and most of the 00s?
For a long time, people would say Riot Grrl didn’t pan out, but that always a really strange assumption for me. Sure, Bikini Kill broke up and Le Tigre did too, before they got back together. But I’ve done tons of interviews with girls who grew up on Riot Grrl, there are so many people who cite them as an influence. Annie Clark from St. Vincent started playing when she was 14 and described herself as a Riot Grrl stalker. Melissa from Screaming Females was a huge riot grrl fan. It’s wonderful to see all these different bands coming down the pike, girls who are 19-22 and are incredibly driven musicians thinking really big. They’re not just out going and saying I’m a feminist, they’re post riot grrl musicians and their empowered natures are the long lasting effect of Riot Grrl—they’re the legacy, that girls can keep up with the boys, and that’s rad.
Hip-hop also used to be partially defined by girl groups from Salt and Pepa and JJ Fad to solo artists like MC Lyte, Da Brat, The Lady of Rage, Queen Latifah. Lately, there’s been an increase in girls rapping, particularly those down the Jerkin’ movement in LA. It seems the downturn wasn’t just endemic to rock.
Definitely, and I don’t want to be too Rockist where I’m like guitars will liberate us all, we need girl MC’s as much as girl drummers. I’m really psyched that Mac Books are now coming with Garage Band, because I hope it will inspire girls to get into production.
Do you think it was just a matter of it being a cyclical downturn or was it more a matter of it being a cultural by-product of the times?
It’s hard to say whether it was just the belief that during the Clintonian arm chair years, we don’t have to work for anything because shit’s fixed, or maybe it was because we had bigger fish to fry. But there was this long declining stretch of women involvement, whether it was hip-hop or emo, sure we have Hallie from Paramore, but I know that during that era a lot of women just got frustrated and started DJ’ing or remixing.
But I really feel like the accessibility of technology will make it so that we’re just at the beginning. Young women have the tools know so that they don’t have to wait for some dude to say ‘yeah, I’ll record your band.’ Even watching American Idol, they can see some generic singer and be like, ‘hey, that can be me.’
If you could distill the book down to a few basic tips, what would they be?
It can be really hard to get a band together when you’re young, so just try playing with anyone who’s available. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your emo cousin who plays the flute or someone who’s a new player. All experience is good experience—playing with other people who are just beginning means that you can explore a bunch of weird ideas, playing with people who are better than you makes you a better musician.
When you first buy equipment, don’t buy the fancy stuff just get what works. As you learn your instrument, and develop a style you can upgrade. If you play piano, it’s really easy to switch to drums. You don’t need to be Jimmy Page to start a page. If you have a viola, you can make it work. Just start doing it, don’t wait.
Download:
ZIP: Jessica Hopper’s Mini-Mixtape to Accompany the Girls Guide to Rocking (Left-Click)
1. Sandie Shaw-“Your Time is Going to Come”
2. Dominique Young Unique-“Music Time”
3. Cacaw-“Snakehead”
4. Mika Miko-“Sex Jazz”
5. IUD-“Daddy”
6. “Lily Allen-“The Fear” (Son of Vader Remix) ”
7. Glasser-“Apply (Tanlines Remix)”
