When Corin Tucker’s pre-Sleater-Kinney band with Tracy Sawyer, Heavens to Betsy, announced their first show in 32 years, they did it the old-fashioned way: by plastering flyers across Portland. Nevertheless, the show sold out almost immediately, and I, all the way in Seattle, was seething with en vy. The 1994 album Calculated is one of my most treasured pieces of music and my favorite thing to come out of the riot grrrl movement, and, despite attending high school nearly two decades after the album was released, it soundtracked so many angry walks through the hallway. The band’s unabashed anger and violent fantasies about gouging out the eyes of cat-callers and watching entitled customers burn in hell validated a rage within me that felt ugly and unwanted. But for me, Heavens to Betsy also held so much positivity and much-needed wisdom. Their lyrics became mantras that helped me persist through adolescence: “I’m one of the bravest girls alive” (“Stay Away”), “What you do comes back to you” (“Waitress Hell), and “No man is gonna rule my life” (“Decide”).   Luckily for me (and you), the duo has since announced a reunion tour with a stop at Neumos this Thursday, alongside Olympia-based psychedelic-rock band Nudity. I chatted with Tucker ahead of the show to discuss teenage clarity, customer service horror stories, and the newly unearthed demo tape baby’s gone (out now on Kill Rock Stars).   How did you first find your singing voice?TUCKER: I grew up singing. My dad is a hobby musician and folk singer. From an early age, he would have me sing while he played guitar. I thought it was just what families did. I also sang in the school choir, but eventually got self-conscious as a teenager. Tracy and I met when we were 13, and both got really into bands. I think part of us wanted to start a band ourselves, but we didn’t know how. I was always constantly studying other bands and trying to understand them, but it was complicated. We grew up in an era with MTV and hair metal bands. It was a pretty sexist dichotomy, how the music industry worked. It took me a while to find my people and find my way in. Which singers and musicians influenced you as a teenager?TUCKER: I had a lot of influences. I would sing in my bedroom all the time—to the annoyance of my family. Sinead O’Connor was a huge influence. She was such an incredible singer, and her moral compass was really inspiring as a teenager and as a young woman. She was so truthful and forthright, and what she had to say as a musician was really inspiring to me. Also, the B-52s, Indigo Girls, Kristen Hirsch of Throwing Muses, Kate Bush, Lone Justice, Patsy Cline…basically all the women of college rock. I sang all the time, and I had a lot of musical idols. What do you remember about the first Heavens to Betsy show?TUCKER: It was so frightening and magical at the same time because we had never played a show before. We were so young, but it was such a special night because it was Girls Night at the International Pop Underground Convention. All of our local musical heroes were there. Bikini Kill, Fugazi, Beat Happening, and Mecca Normal were all standing in the front row.  My friend Michelle Noel, who helped book the festival, was like, “I want you guys to play.” We had no songs. We had nothing except for my big mouth saying, “We’re in a band!” So we had to pull it together quickly. We wrote some songs, practiced, and then got on stage a couple of weeks later. It was terrifying, but we knew that those were our people and we had a sense of our mission as a band. It wasn’t about technical proficiency or musical training. What was so incredibly special about Olympia was that you were appreciated for your artistic voice, values, what you had to say, and your sense of cultural responsibility, which is so rare. It was built in opposition to the 1980s music industry and gross commercialization, which valued only what artists looked like. The scene in Olympia was totally separate from that: It was built on really interesting, simplistic, and musical writing. Getting up on stage, I felt like I had been handed the sword. There was a sense that the community was there to listen. It was really special because, even though I was so nervous, I immediately felt like part of the group. How would you describe yourself as a teenager?TUCKER: I was a very shy and introverted person until I found other riot grrrls. I eventually became friends with Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman (of Bratmobile), who were so mouthy and funny. I wanted to be like them. My stage persona was kind of schizophrenic. I was really mouthy at times, but I was also shy. I had no real stage banter. Looking back at old Heavens to Betsy footage, I literally said nothing to the audience. I would turn my back and talk to Tracy in a whisper, and then turn around and play the next song! One of my favorite Heavens to Betsy songs has always been “Waitress Hell” because it really captures the rage of working in the service industry. Did either you or Tracy work as a waitress? Did that song come from your lived experiences?TUCKER: Yes. I was employed at a facility in Tumwater, WA. It was a really crummy job at times because back then there was no sense of courtesy to customer service or wait staff. People were very rude and would say all kinds of things about my body and the way I looked. I didn’t have a way to talk back in that situation, which is where the song came from. I had a lot of resentment. I also felt like I should’ve been doing something different with my life. I held all of that, and I put it into the song. How does it feel playing these songs decades after you wrote them? Do you find yourself relating to the lyrics in a different way?TUCKER: It’s very interesting to come back to the songs with more life experience. I feel protective of that voice that I had, but more than anything, I feel inspired. You don’t have that window of raw truth as a young person for very long—life gets so much more complicated. I really want to honor that clear voice that didn’t worry one iota about what other people thought or what the consequences of my feelings were. It is pretty liberating and something that I think I was missing in my adult life. Having space to return to that spirit and honor it is pretty special. What Heavens to Betsy song resonates with you the most?TUCKER: I think they all do, but especially a song like “good food,” which is sort of about self-care, but was written before we called it that. It’s about putting up a wall against the bullshit ideas about your body and how it’s actually poison. It’s saying, “I will choose the intake of things that support me and my own value system,” which was pretty revolutionary to say at that time. And, with the onslaught of social media and cell phones, it’s increased by like 1,000%. And so I like that one in particular. It would be some really good advice right about now for my life. Something I love about Heavens to Betsy lyrics is that they’re sometimes gruesome, violent, or even scary. Do you find catharsis in horror movies or novels?TUCKER: Yeah, and there was this vibe in the ’90s of women taking up space in the horror genre and doing something different with it. I’ve seen some really cool stuff happen; there is a director, Sarah Jacobson, who made an amazing film called I Was a Teenage Serial Killer in 1993 and used Heavens to Betsy songs in it. It is really fantastic. Feminist horror films are always so interesting to me. A lot of the songs, especially on the demo tape, are about past trauma. How has it felt to revisit and perform those songs?TUCKER: It’s a heavy lift. This band is a heavy lift, and that’s part of the reason why we broke up. It’s heavy material, and there was no infrastructure or cushion to process it. I think the best way to deliver these songs is to feel them on stage—to feel the revelations in my body and in my voice—that’s how I experience them, and that’s how the audience experiences them. It’s very, very impactful and hard for everyone—hard for me and hard for the audience. But you know, I’m older now, and I have a different set of tools to care for myself and recognize, like, “okay, I gave a lot on stage, and now I need to take care of myself.” You have such an amazing scream on songs like “Stay Away” and “Terrorist.” Does that scream come naturally, or do you have to pull it out from deep within? TUCKER: It definitely comes from deep within…it’s a process of getting there. It’s related to the content of the music and to revealing the stuff that’s eating away at me, which can be really raw and ugly. That’s where the screaming and wailing come from. Women are rarely given the space to express rage in our culture. It’s still so often swept under the rug and renders us powerless in so many different ways. It’s so dehumanizing. I think finding that voice and finding the power to release it is part of the journey. But it can be taxing, and I have to be mindful of that, especially three decades later. My body and voice are different, and I try to scream in a way that is impactful without damaging my voice. Aside from music, how do you release your rage?TUCKER: That’s a great question. I think talking to friends is really important, and that was something we did a lot in the riot grrrl days. We needed to talk to each other, share our stories, and just express our outrage. I think it’s still incredibly important, and that can be amplified into meetings or protests or even stuff written online. There are a multitude of ways to do that now, and I do all of them. I go to protests. I talk to my friends. I write lyrics. I write poetry. I write things that are just for me. It’s so important to have an outlet for all that stuff. See Heavens to Betsy with Nudity at Neumos, Thursday, Nov 5, 7 pm, 21+ The post One of the Bravest Girls Alive appeared first on The Stranger. ...read more read less