This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

Damn this country’s stringent immigration policies! Take-no-shit “girl group” The Pipettes were all set to play the 9:30 Club in early October, but a delay in visa processing caused them to cancel a handful of dates. They’re now relegated to the club stage at Baltimore’s Sonar, but it’s worth it. The Onion accused the girls of being a band that “wears polka dots first and plays music second,” but they are actually so much more.

The Pipettes were born in Brighton in 2004 when a local promoter named Monster Bobby thought it would be fun to recreate the classic ’60s girl group sound, but with girls that existed to do more than just swoon over the prom king. At first glance Gwenno, RiotBecki and Rosay wouldn’t seem like much of an offshoot from their predecessors- they’re three attractive girls who wear matching dresses and do choreographed dance moves while their all male band, almost an afterthought, plays upstage. Just looking at The Pipettes, however, totally discounts the freshness of their music.

Their first single, “School Uniform,” has a girl singing about how she likes a boy in school uniform…until she finds out that that boy also likes boys in uniform, which causes the girl to realize that she likes girls in uniform…and boys in uniform…and that she just wants to kiss everyone in uniform. It’s a far cry from “Baby Love.”

The girls played the Black Cat in early June but faced one of the most dour D.C. audiences I have ever seen. The small pockets of people trying to dance were overwhelmed by the static bystanders. Songs like “Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me” and “Pull Shapes” beg to be moved to, and it was frustrating for the performers and true fans alike that no one was moving. Lets hope that the Baltimore crowd actually does the girls justice. If we’re lucky, they could give D.C. a second shot.

The New Gay Zack: Where did your name come from? Were you causing riots?

RiotBecki: I’m RiotBecki because I’m a huge fan of Riot Grrrl. Kathleen Hannah’s an idol of mine, I love Bikini Kill.

TNG: You’re kind of bookish and Gwenno’s more of the hot one. Were all of your roles created before the band or were they tailored to your distinct personalities?

RB: We thought it could be fun for the band to create personas, but they’re based on our real personalities. Gwenno is very much the bombshell, she’s very glamorous. Rosay is very classic in a very “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” kind of way.

TNG: Do you all individually attract different kinds of fans?

RB: I don’t really know. When we meet people I don’t know which one of us they’re a fan of, so we don’t ever think about it. I think we get all types.

TNG: I’m sorry the crowd had to be so lame last time you were in D.C. Did it sour you on the city at all?

RB: We don’t get upset if people don’t dance, but we love it if they do. We hate going to shows and being next to some music snob that won’t let himself go and lose himself. We encourage people to let other people dance, to just hold their hands and dance with them instead, that the best thing to do in a small space.

TNG: You should know that homos here go apeshit over The Pipettes. Why do you think that is?

RB: We haven’t ever gone out looking for a particular market to play towards, we want to play for everyone. It’s always important that lots of different types of people, any age, creed, race or gender could enjoy us. I think we’re very fortunate in the fact that we do have a broad spectrum of people that like us, we wouldn’t want to change that for the world.

TNG: In songs like “School Uniform” and “Judy” your lyrics admit a real flirtation with bisexuality. Is this just for show? Are The Pipettes strictly straight?

RB: We were always supposed to be ambivalent, so to speak, we have to cover a lot of issues. All the songs don’t represent all of us, but they represent some of us, what we’ve been though. I have started seeing people linking “Judy” to lesbianism which I’ve never thought before, I thought it was about the girls at school that the other girls hate because they want to be her and the boys want to date her. It’s lovely that our songs can be read on different levels and that people can get different meanings from them.

TNG: So there’s no Pipette with a girlfriend right now?

RB: Oh no, unfortunately not. I’m not going to say whether we’re taken or not, keep it to the mystery. We like to have some mystery.

TNG: How did sexual empowerment become such a theme for The Pipettes?

RB: We’re very much writing at a time when women are more empowered sexually than in the 50s and 60s. The female body has become so much more iconic, its so much become about women’s bodies rather than minds, which isn’t something we’re interested in. Not using that sexuality for anyone else but yourself, that’s what I stand for.

TNG: You girls completely overshadow the men who back you- do the men mind?

RB: We were put together by Juliette, our original member, as well. It’s a female and male design concept, it’s not for the boys to be ignored, the boys play a very important role on stage as the girls do.

TNG: You had an original member?

RB: Gwenno joined two years ago, before that there was Juliette. She just decided to do stuff with The Indelicates, her other band. Being in such a large band as The Pipettes doesn’t appeal to everyone.

TNG: Is there ever a Supremes style battle of will between the girls? Do The Pipettes have a Diana Ross?

RB: No, we didn’t want that to happen, we never wanted it to be about egos or any of that nonsense. It doesn’t really promote sisterhood if you have three women fighting it out for the lead.

TNG: Which of the old girl groups do you identify with most?

RB: There’s literally too many to remember, I’d be a terrible historian on girl bands. There’s a lot of different bands that represent a lot of
different things. There’s something really nice about a girl group that has a certain aspect of irony to what they sing about. I love The Chiffons and the Shirelles, I think they’re the ones we’re closest to rather than The Supremes.

TNG: What do you say to criticism that The Pipettes are just another studio-created girl band?

RB: We don’t think of it as criticism, if people think our idea is that well thought through, like a production company, its quite flattering. We are a band that manufactured ourselves, we wanted commercial success. There needed to be a certain amount of manufacturing and there needs to be strong concepts to make sure that no one can come in and manipulate them, the last thing we want is for a record company to come in [and try to change us.] It needed to be set in stone when we formed the band.The notion of selling out doesn’t lend itself to The Pipettes. We’d love to!

TNG: Finally, what the hell happened to Phil Spector?

RB: Certain people in this world are geniuses and amazing in what they do, but to do that you have to be self indulgent and self involved. To have that much focus on anything means that you can’t spend much time on anything else except for what you’re doing, that would make anyone crazy eventually. I think the answer to avoiding that is to fulfill your life with many things, not just one thing.

TNG: What are the chances that Monster Bobby will wig out sometime soon?

RB: I think he already has. It’s got us all now- I don’t think many of us in The Pipettes are sane anymore.

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