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Rambunctious feminist, raw soul sister and “fire-breathing non-conformist”, Beth Ditto may be tough, but along with the sass, Millie Ross discoverd she’s also smart and sweet as pie

I am a recently converted Beth Ditto fan. Crowned “Coolest person in rock” by NME, the explosively soulful singer of The Gossip shocked us by appearing nude on the cover, yet it was her clued up comments and down to earth attitude that had The Guardian knocking on her door to pen an agony aunt style column called What would Beth Ditto do?. The editor has since asked if she can help Beth put her life story to paper – the book of which will be published early 2008.
Beth opens the door to her London hotel room sleepy eyed – “Oh I’m so spacey!” She laughs in her soft Southern drawl, “I’ve literally just arrived in London. Everything sounds like it’s in stereo – I feel really weird!”
MR: What was the first song that you ever wrote?
BD: I remember the first poem I ever wrote, I don’t really remember the first song I ever wrote. When I was a little kid in day care the people that used to take care of us would listen to country music, and I would make up the words to the intros, and everyday I would keep singing the same ones from the day before to the same melody, I was just singing the same thing over and over again. Which is exactly how I write songs to this day.
MR: Right so you start with a line and then you build on it?
BD: I get a line to a song and sing it over and over again. I write them without thinking, it doesn’t really matter as long as there’s a really good hook. That’s how I write – in terms of hooks, verse and chorus will be the same, that’s why every single Gossip song the verse and the chorus are the same!
MR: What was the progression from writing songs for fun to doing it for real?
BD: Gossip started by accident, I never really sat down and thought, “I’m going to be a songwriter.” I still don’t consider myself a songwriter and I still don’t take myself seriously as a musician.
MR: What were you doing before music, did you start out with a different career in mind?
BD: I never had a career, I was always very content doing what I was doing, which is the nice thing about being in this position, because after we’ve worked really, really hard – if it ended tomorrow then I’d just go and work a coffee shop job. Because that’s what I was doing before, I worked in coffee shops, at a Subway. I‘ve worked lots of trashy jobs, everybody did that where I was from. It was Olympia, that was what you did – you worked and you were broke all the time and you just played music because there was nothing else to do in the town.
MR: How did you envision things would eventuate when you
first started?
BD: I thought it was fun and that’s what it was, really fun. Anything that’s ever happened to us has come along as a total surprise, we’ve just been like “Really? Really? Really?” Even staying at this weird hotel, I was like “Really?” I’m not one of those people who’s like “Nooo it’s not about the money” because a lot of the time it is about the money and you feel really lucky that you get to make money for a thing that you’d do for half that. That you completely stumbled upon – it found you, you didn’t find it. Fate is so strong in the will of god it is really incredible, I’m just like how did this happen.
MR: You’re still pinching yourself?
BD: Yeah, all the time.
MR: What was the best part about growing up in Arkansas?
BD: The best part? The woods, there was a lot of space to run around, and my brothers and sisters too. Definitely. I love them, they’re really smart, really sweet people, I have six brothers and sisters.
MR: And the worst part?
BD: Probably the guilt that people have living there, for enjoying themselves. Christian guilt is the worst. It ends up being a really hateful and bigoted culture, the way people accept lies and racism and what the country is doing to the world.
MR: The contradictions?
BD: It’s not even registering as a contradiction because it’s not what matters in the eyes of god, there’s always some justification for them.
MR: Is your frame of reference when writing songs very different now to when you first started writing?
BD: Yeah, because when I began writing songs for this band I’d just come out of the closet. I was like 18 and just off the truck from Arkansas and completely culture shocked – everything was amazing and all my songs were about having sex! And now it’s really different, everything was in retrospect, because I never realised what it was all about until afterwards.
MR: Your time before success hit, when you were a band trying to make it, there was probably a lot of time spent absorbing much more, because you were not moving
as quickly?
BD: That’s true, the difference between us as a band is that we didn’t try to make it. Everything that has ever happened to us we thought we had made it. Everybody was in a band, but you weren’t trying to make it. Making it was just if your friends liked your music or you could afford an amp. Made it meant you made rent. It’s just a completely different world. In the UK, bands are like “Oh we’re still not signed”. Who cares?
Or, “We just got signed” and I’ll be like “That’s great!” But it’s this thing
to impress you, or bro down with you and relate to you – how about somethin’ else?
MR: Does the success ever scare you?
BD: A little because I don’t feel that at ease with half the people that come with the baggage. You know, just like weird people who you don’t know what their motives are. You’re used to being able to trust everybody around you, it’s kind of like becoming a lawyer when you’re used to being around school teachers. You know it’s just a different world.
MR: Do you see songwriting as a means to tell the world, or even yourself, about yourself?
BD: Yeah! I learn about myself through songs and the words I write all the time. And through other people’s songs too. I think it’s a really good platform for lots of stuff. Music and politics, music and fashion, and politics and fashion have always gone hand in hand. I mean even down to the really fucked up politics like Hugo Boss designing for Nazi Germany, to the uniforms for the Black Panthers – all that stuff has really strong musical ties. Music for the most part is such a resistance naturally.
MR: Do you think that if you didn’t have this platform that you would still be speaking out about things?
BD: Yeah of course, that was always the first instinct from the beginning. I don’t think I could do it without being outspoken. For one it wouldn’t have gotten The Gossip anywhere because I don’t think that people will take a chance on a person that doesn’t call them on something.
MR: Do you feel that because you have this limelight it’s your duty to be a role model for other women in the music industry?
BD: I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror if I didn’t take it seriously and use it as a positive thing. Role model is such a strange word. Kathleen Hannah, who is one of my idols of all time, used to get called a role model and I think she had trouble with it too... People like Björk or PJ Harvey or whatever, say they are not feminists, but it was because of feminism that you get to have your job and do what you do today. I don’t care what any woman says, if it weren’t for the women’s separatist movement there would be no women voting. That is feminism. I think a lot of people just don’t want to be connected to something that has so many negative connotations, especially when you’re in a boys club like music. And I just couldn’t give a fuck about being in a boys club. I’m down with boys who are down with me, and if you’re down you’re down. Guys are afraid of me, I don’t understand.
MR: They’re afraid of powerful women.
BD: Especially girls who don’t give a shit if you want to sleep with them or not.
MR: It’s intimidating.
BD: Especially, I think if you were raised with that thing that fat girls will do anything for you because they’re cute. You know in movies, the big girl is always really thankful or really sad when the popular guy or the jock doesn’t like them. They don’t know what to do when that whole reversal is changed and you couldn’t give a fuck.
MR: Have you seen a change in the attitudes towards women in the music industry since you’ve been in it?
BD: I think NME did an amazing job. Of course there was that bullshit thing that I’ve talked about a million times, that the coolest top ten were majority women, for the first time ever, and it was also the first time that the coolest didn’t make it on the cover. Lily Allen was really pissed about it and LoveFoxx was really pissed about it, I was really pissed about it. I think it’s sad that none of us really got together and said anything about it together. But when I met the editor the first thing I said to him was, “That was really fucked up”, and it worked, the confrontation worked, it wasn’t to be shitty or arsey, it was to point it out that you can’t do that and get away with it. Lily Allen’s response was to never work with them again, which makes sense, but to me I think it’s way more empowering to be the person that was on the cover, it goes to show that you do make a change. Some people are like, “But you were completely naked!” But that’s a completely different set of politics. It goes back to the role model thing and being a person with contradictions.
MR: Was the naked cover their idea or your idea?
BD: Their idea! There’s no way I’d be like, “You know what, I wanna pose naked on the NME!” But the most amazing thing about that was that I was on my period, people asked if it was photoshopped – of course, and the number one reason was because I had to wear underwear! It’s always so hard to explain to people that nothing that has ever happened to us we asked for, from the labels we’ve been signed to, to shows and the covers of magazines, we’ve never approached anybody ever. I think that’s the best way, also because we don’t have the self-esteem to approach people, we don’t want the rejection, so we just wait for people to come to us.
MR: Playing hard to get!
BD: Yeah playing hard to get or just feeling really bad about yourself in the corner and never asking anyone to dance.
MR: You don’t seem like the type of person to stay in the
corner though.
BD: I’m not a real go getter – I’m motivated and I have ambitions but I don’t chase things.
MR: And how did The Guardian column come about?
BD: The editor just asked me to do a rant, and I was like, “What the hell do I do a rant about?” I said I don’t think I could think of something every two weeks to write about. We ended up making it an advice column instead. I love it, the first and last time I miss a deadline was last week. They didn’t print the column because I didn’t do it in time. I was like, ”Oh I let you down!” I felt so bad, just because someone else’s arse is on the line, ‘cause you’re not there to fix it.
MR: What has been the highest point of your musical career so far?
BD: I think Reading was pretty unbelievable this year. We’d never played it before and it was pretty magical I thought, just because we flipped out, when we played Standing In The Way Of Control everyone went crazy, and I was like, oh yeah, I forgot that this was like a Top 40 hit over here. And I think the editor of the NME apologising was the coolest.
MR: Do you see yourself doing music forever?
BD: No, I like it but music was never my career choice, it chose me you know. People are always like don’t you think you’re going to get bigger than the band or do you ever feel guilty because you’re asked to do things by yourself without the rest of the band, I never said I wanted to be in a band for the rest of my life. We all get along really great and it’s really fun but it was never my number one – being a hairdresser was my number one choice. And now all these other options that have arisen – like I love to write. When I was a kid I wanted to be a journalist, I loved Barbara Walters! There’s just so much out there you know?
The Gossip are touring Australia from 11–16 December. For more tour info head to www.myspace.com/gossipband

Words Millie Ross
Photography John Mortimer

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