Mexican rocker Teri Gender Bender calls herself an
ignorant punk, still her band Le Butcherettes released one of the
best albums of 2011. As DIVA's Bella Qvist looks back at the year
gone by she remembers an interview with a nervous girl who touched
her heart.
It was earlier last year that Teri Gender Bender of Le
Butcherettes spoke to me in an interview that got under the skin of
the feisty punk rocker. Voicing strong opinions with heartbreaking
honesty this 23-year old likes to cover herself in blood on stage
whilst breathing new life into queer feminism.
"Hello, I'm so sorry I left my cell phone on silent and I didn't
hear anything and I was in the car but everything is good now and I
apologise with all my heart."
Teri Gender Bender answers the phone speaking in a speedy and
regretful manner, standing on a car park pavement in Los Angeles.
She has spent the day travelling and subsequently missed me calling
her for the last twenty minutes. Once she gets talking though, she
doesn't really stop.
22 years ago Teresa Suaréz was born into a poor and corrupted
Mexican society ruled by men, violence and the Catholic church.
What she experienced as a child planted seeds in her mind and the
life of this rebellious young woman was soon shaped. At the age of
17 Teresa, under pseudonym Teri Gender Bender, started Le
Butcherettes with a female friend.
"No one really believed in us and a lot of people [thought] that
because of our gender we weren't going to amount to anything, that
it was just something for the men to go and see and enjoy in a
nasty perverted kind of way."
Playing relentlessly in small bars across Mexico the music
eventually spoke for itself and Teri's message soon became clear.
By playing angry punk music and wearing 1950s housewives' style
clothes and aprons covered in blood, she represented women enslaved
to the kitchen and challenged the deeply rooted stereotyped ideas
of what a woman should be.
"I used those elements [female attributes] on stage but it kind of
contradicted with what I felt at the moment which was a bunch of
rage. It was like therapy for me. That's where Le Butcherettes came
from."
It wasn't long until Mars Volta's Omar Alfredo Rodríguez-López
discovered the band and brought Teri and her new male band mates
over to the States where their success blossomed. Playing alongside
heavy metal bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Queens Of The
Stone Age she is now often the only girl on, and off, stage.
With shows that have been known to feature a real pig's head, Teri
isn't afraid to let her inhibitions go even when she's surrounded
by a bunch of male tattooed rockers.
"There's no right way of doing things. Don't feel shame of just
being… your true self. Let your energy out, let it be on stage or
writing a book or cooking a delicious meal, just don't limit
yourself with rules."
"When I'm on stage a lot people think I'm acting but I think it's
quite the complete opposite. When I'm off stage I have to keep
myself together and pretend in a way that everything is okay, to
not make others feel uncomfortable and that is unhealthy because…
it starts gathering up and it starts blocking the arteries until
eventually one little thing might make me explode. So playing on
stage helps me vent."
"And that's what this band has been doing for me or what I've been
doing to the band… It's also helping find out the stereotypes of
what a woman should be which is why I wear the dresses and the
apron with blood on it. It's more symbolic."
The call breaks up and when I ring back Teri is even more
regretful than when she first answered the phone. And she is
starting to sound a bit stressed.
"A friend of mine is in a restaurant but this is cool, I have all
the time for you, that's good, she can wait for me. You can ask me
all the questions, I'm actually really grateful someone has time to
actually listen to them, listen to my…" she stops and laughs.
"Oh, I'm so nervous!"
Don't be! You were talking about how you are yourself on
stage.
"Exactly, yeah. I'm being myself using the elements that were
imposed on me when I was little when people were trying to make me
believe that I was just a girl and sometimes speaking your mind is
not so ladylike. I know it's kind of weird that people still think
like that nowadays but it still goes around."
"I did the pig head and the meat in Mexico because of the drug
problems that was going on and a lot decapitations and kidnapped
girls and mothers. All these things were just constantly happening
and the police would know and not do anything about it…"
"[I was] trying to make a statement but even my own people in
Mexico wouldn't understand it because I wasn't easy to digest… They
were like 'oh she's trying to copy the movie Army Of Darkness, she
must be a Bruce Campbell fan.'"
Do you ever worry you might alienate yourself from women who share
your views but who aren't fans of blood and nudity?
"Yeah of course… People who choose to be housewives because they
want to do it, I have nothing against that at all. I would some day
love to, you know, get married and have children and start a
family; there is nothing wrong with that at all."
"I don't want to insult… What I'm trying to send out is just don't
let people speak for you, always use your reason and also your
intuition as a woman."
"… it's the same thing with successful women that don't really
want to have successful jobs, they think they get a really good job
as a lawyer but they really don't want to do it, they just do it to
please their loved ones or their friends. Just, do something for
yourself!"
"Recently I was in the same position, well this is personal but
kind of to prove my point. I was living with a man for seven years
since I was fifteen, I just recently broke up with him because, and
he was amazing, but I just wasn't happy. I was with him because I
felt like I owed it to him and ironically I was becoming a
hypocrite… I'd let all my anger out on stage and my frustration,
but I was just really mocking myself… when I'd come back from tour
I'd go straight to my house to wash the dishes and not do it out of
love, just do it because I felt like I owed that person
love."
"My mother thank the god or world, she is a housewife but she's
really happy so she's inspired me to some day want to have
children… settling down doesn't necessarily mean that if you have
children or kids that means your life is over, quite the opposite.
You can always live your life if you want to… "
Asked about her unusual stage name Teri Gender Bender has said
that she chose it because she wanted to take her gender, bend it
and throw it out of the window.
What do you mean by that? Is gender not important to you?
For the first time, Teri doesn't have an answer straight
away.
"To me it was more like… When someone thinks of a woman they think
of curves and I don't know but then it's just like a general
interpretation of a whole western American society, a curvy lady
with big hips where big bosoms and feminine is the first thing that
comes to mind. Dress, make up, and that's really creation because a
woman is so much more than that cliché. And to me that's why it's
Gender Bender."
"Basically don't lose yourself within the invention of society,
that's what I mean with Gender Bender. I love you for who you are,
for what your ideas are and if they're different than other
people's ideas then oh my god, that should be taken into
consideration."
"Me being a girl, at school, I'd be taken for granted a lot
because of my sex, because 'oh she's just a girl, she doesn't
really know any better'. And it sucks, it sucks so bad that people
limit themselves to crazy inventions imposed on us. I know I sound
like an ignorant punk right now and my language is a barrier for me
and I can't really express what I feel."
Is gender important when it comes to the person you're with?
"I don't think so at all. I can play with musicians that are
female or male as long as they get me."
"In a sexual way I actually don't want to limit myself either…
Right now I'm in love with life and I don't see life as feminine or
masculine, I see life as both. And lots of people are kind of
weirded out by me when I stare at a woman walking down the street
and I'm like 'woah she's so beautiful' and they're like 'what are
you, a gay?' It's like why do you have to label anything, I feel
what I feel in the moment and if I want then I'll go towards it and
hey of course with objectivity and maturity one must approach a
person with empathy at all times."
She pauses as someone says something to her.
"Oh, I don't want to be rude but my friend is kind of giving me
the eye, I have to hang up."
And so I say goodbye to a truly inspirational young woman.
Le Butcherettes may not be hitting our shores for quite some time
yet but I highly recommend you keep an eye on Teri and her band in
2012. This is one bloody ignorant punk who definitely deserves our
attention.
To hear a bit more from Teri, listen to the audio
below
