Wunky Zine Interview with Kitten Forever
Wunky Zine is a just released local zine that features interviews conducted by former Sharp Teeth frontwomen Erica Krumm with various local bands. There was a release show recently to celebrate the completion of the Zine and you can now get your very own copy at Treehouse Records and Extreme Noise. Erica was kind enough to share the interviews with us, so if you enjoy what you read this week as we roll out the interviews, make sure to support our local art scene and pick up a copy. For updates check out the Wunky Zine Facebook Page. Today we have a chat between Erica and Kitten Forever.
June 27, 2010
I showed up to catch Kitten Forever: Corrie (drums), Liz (vocals), and Laura (bass). They played a crazy good set in the basement of two of the member’s Uptown party house. Celebrating Kitten Forever’s fourth birthday, the kids all came out on a hot and humid Sunday night to dance, and sing along with all the band’s songs. After the show the party continued out in the yard with friends and family. Finishing each other’s sentences and constantly cracking up, the girls give off fun, radiating energy that is totally magnetic.
Erica- Alright guys, what’s your favorite time of year to play in this band, specifically?
Liz- For some reason, I feel like it’s summer. It’s always amazing.
Liz- Kitten Forever is a pretty sweaty band.
Corrie- Summer is always the best because it’s like, ninety five degrees
Erica- And you get all the toxins out?
Liz- I have so many toxins right now.
Corrie- (laughing) The hotter it is, the crazier people dance.
Liz- The winter is fun, too, cuz it’s like, we had an underwear party like a million years ago at the Pocket Knife [a house they all lived in together that held many shows] and it was like in October, November, and it was amazing cuz you could get naked kind of.
Erica- What is the hardest part about performing live?
Laura- playing bass
(Everyone laughs)
Liz- I feel a weird pressure sometimes.
Erica- What kind of pressure do you feel?
Liz- I feel nervous sometimes but not real nervous, it’s weird when I feel anxious.
Corrie- Yeah I have to pee like a hundred times before we play usually. Mentally I’m not nervous but my body manifests nervousness in urination. (laughing)
Laura- I think being too broke to afford good instruments…my things don’t perform the way I want them to.
Erica- How do you usually describe your sound versus how other people describe your sound?
Liz- When people ask me what kind of band I’m in I say I’m in a three piece all girl band with just bass and drums.
Laura- Some people will write that off as “Oh, you cant play instruments, then?”
Erica- I have to say you don’t miss a guitar when you watch Kitten Forever.
Liz- You have no idea how many dudes have been like, “Can I be your guitar player?”
Erica- People have said that to me and I am a guitar player.
Liz- Everyone sucks all the time. That should be the title of this story.
Erica- Why do you think there are still so few all women bands in the Mpls scene?
Laura- The female presence in bands is getting really big, getting awesome.
Corrie- It’s true though, you don’t see all women bands, ever.
Laura- I feel like there’s still the shitty thing happening of… I hate saying this cuz I don’t want it to be true but I feel like it is, but like female…
Corrie- Competition?
Laura- Competition. Its really upsetting, obviously, and I feel like that prevents a lot of girls from finding each other and realizing that they could make really awesome music together because there’s weird unspoken competition that doesn’t even exist it’s just in everyone’s heads…
I think people are afraid of being called a shtick, which we have been called multiple times for being all women in a band which obviously has been proven time and again to be complete bullshit because you know, all women bands can be just as shitty or amazing as all dude bands or girls and dudes mixed.
Erica- (To Corrie and Liz) Do you guys have anything to add to that?
Corrie- Well, I was going to say I think that we were like, lucky, it was really easy for us to start an all girl band because we were all really good friends from the get go and we started KF with the premise of “Lets just start a band together as friends,” and never care about playing out or being super serious and there was no real pressure to be like….
Erica- I think that’s how good bands start, anyways.
Corrie- Yeah,so we didn’t have that nervousness about playing together and nervousness about like being some sort of alpha female. Competition never existed with us.
Corrie- Liz is getting dressed (laughs) the sweat is freezing outside.
Erica- What are the advantages/disadvantages to being in a band with close friends?
Laura- It’s really easy to not hold yourself accountable for getting stuff done. It’s kind of easy to be like, “Oh, we can always practice when we hang out, it’s cool, we can do it anytime,” and then you don’t have that scared thing of “Oh, I have to make sure that…”
Corrie- “Everyone in the band is gonna be mad if I don’t go to practice or something..”
Liz- We’ve never not shown up to practice either though, which is insane.
Corrie-But we don’t have that sort of like..
Liz- There’s no fear
Corrie- Work ethic, that sounds bad, but there’s not the kind of like, if you join a band with people you don’t know really well or something, then it’s like, you gotta show up and you gotta know your parts and you feel like you have to be pulling your weight.
Laura- Yeah, I was going to say prove yourself, but pulling your weight is appropriate.
Corrie- But the advantage is that we have a super, super good time, all the time.
Laura, Yeah.
Corrie- Every practice is just like, hanging out and..
Liz- Which is also a disadvantage. We always have practice and it’s like, “Oh my god, Laura, your hair looks so cute right now.”
(Laughing, laughing)
Liz- Or like, “What are you gonna wear tonight?” “What are you gonna do, what bar are you going to?” It just turns into hang out which is both positive and negative, I guess.
Corrie- Let it be known that David and Liz are currently exchanging a paper, rock, scissors death match.
Liz- C’mon motherfucker!
David- I knew you were going rock. Why did I go scissors?
Corrie- Liz won!
Erica- What does being in a band for four years mean to you guys?
Laura- I feel like I’m still excited that we are writing good, exciting songs. Our new songs are still really sweet we’re not getting really fried on our sound or anything like that.
Corrie- I think we all had a nervous fear in the beginning that was like, “How many songs can we write on just bass and drums and have it still be interesting and exciting?” and I feel like every time we write a new batch of songs, it’s like “Oh, well, this is awesome, these are the best songs we’ve ever written.” We’re always really excited about it. I don’t feel like we’ve been a band for four years.
Liz- It totally doesn’t feel like four years.
Corrie- I’m excited to keep being a band.
Erica- Where do you see yourselves on your fifth Kitten Forever birthday?
Corrie- Probably sitting in front of this house on this broken tree that will not have been cleared away.
Laura- The lawn will be like three feet higher, too.
Erica- O.k. If you could start a new band but still have it be you three, what would the genre/sound be?
Liz- goth.
Laura- Me and Corrie wanted to start a band before KF that was more like an L7 kind of thing, like really heavy, disgusting girl metal, and I feel like we’d probably just get heavier.
Liz- I feel like we’re getting heavier, though
Corrie- Yeah maybe
Liz- Magical Realism was super heavy.. it was heavy for us. Our two new songs aren’t really heavy but they’re intense.
Corrie- I think that me and Laura wanted to start a band where it was like total Donita Sparks pulling her tampon out onstage and that kind of super narly shit like that where we would play two guitars and drop D and be super gross, you know, and I would still be really excited to be in a band like that someday.
Erica- What is KF’s spirit animal as a band?
Liz- It’s probably not a cat.
Erica- That’s why I was excited about asking this question, because I feel like it’s not going to be the obvious answer.
Liz- For a while it was my cat, Scout, who doesn’t live with us anymore but he’s around.
Corrie- But now I don’t know what it would be.
Laura- Maybe it’s like that skull that we used on that t-shirt or something like that.
Corrie- Like the rotting carcass of a mountain lion or something?
Laura- Yeah…
Corrie- Or a guinea pig
Erica- Let’s just say the rotting carcass of a cat or a guinea pig because that’s awesome.
Corrie- (laughing) Some sort of small rodent. What are the one’s that are blind? Shrews?
It’s like a feminist pun, you know?
Writer / co-founder
