The Blow's Khaela Maricich: The New Gay Interview

It worked! A couple weeks ago I posted a review of The Blow’s recent show at the Black Cat and ended it by begging for lead (and only) singer Khaela Maricich to let me interview her. I forwarded the item to her people and it turns out that some folks in the music industry still have hearts, because they allowed this awestruck homo to have some time on the phone with one of his new favorite artists.

All that you really need to know about Khaela can be found in the above hyperlinks, but I’ll say again that she’s an out lesbian who doesn’t make a big deal of it while singing really smart dance rock. And she’s incredibly patient on the phone, maintaining her composure through a bad connection and my continued mispronunciation of her name.

Usually, if the media is going to cover a gay musician it will be someone like Elton John or Melissa Etheridge who has become entirely defined by their sexuality, so it is refreshing to speak with someone who is a musician first and gay second, someone who will perform 3/4ths of a concert without using gender-specific pronouns and then give a shout-out to her girlfriend on stage.

Khaela will not be touring again for some time, so read this interview, buy “Paper Television,” and twiddle your thumbs or something until she comes back in town.


The New Gay Zack: How many times have you been through D.C.? What do you think of it?

Khaela Maricich: I’ve been to D.C. five or six times. I went there as kid in high school and I’ve played there a handful of times. I like the institutional aspects of it, like the museums. I have a little view into the music scene and it seems pretty powerful.

TNG: How was touring without your collaborator, Jona Bechtolt?

KM: Its great. It was fun in the days we’d tour together and play a dance party, but its also fun to tour solo.

TNG: Does the audience respond differently when its just you?

KM: Absolutely. With Jona it was a raging dance party. It wasn’t as contemplative and that was really exciting. There’s benefits to a show that has talking and benefits to a show that has partying. The dance shows had a pretty young audience while the solo appeals to a more broad age range. Everyone was dancing [when Jona was there], he was really good at pumping up the crowd

TNG: You're basically the indie dream girl- you had the
audience rapt from your first song. How do you keep yourself so
engaged when you're performing?

KM: I don’t know, its kind of like the story I tell is an organism that grows and changes as the tour goes along, its always morphing and changing.

TNG: Parentheses is such a great love song. How did you make a love song that is small-scale enough to actually feel real?

KM: I feel like its useful to sing about something beside you and the other person if there’s an element to it beside your love. I feel like I’ve only ever written one love song and I’m singing about me, another person, and then the strangeness of trying to live in the world. Its a bizarre circumstance to be alive, and how scary it really is and making a three way with you, another person and the love. There’s something you’re both relating to, which which adds an extra element to it. There’s more of an entry point, having it be about me and the universe.

TNG: You have an interesting use of pronouns: “Hey Boy” is about a boy and “Come On Petunia” is about a girl, but a lot of your songs and your onstage banter avoided pronouns altogether. Why is this?

KM: I realized that the only song about a boy is “Hey Boy.” Every other song is about a girl, and when I’m on stage I feel like I skip pronouns because that's not the point of the song. If I talk about a boy people imagine it one way, a girl another way, but without pronouns they can do whatever. [Gender] isn’t the point of the story, the point of the story is the common human feeling that other people can relate to.

TNG: There is currently a new wave of queer musicians known foremost for their music. For example we have you, The Gossip’s Beth Ditto and The Cliks' Lucas Silveira. How is it being a gay female musician that doesn’t fit the typical acoustic, Ani DiFranco or Indigo Girls mold?

KM: I’m not really interested in defining myself by my sexuality, that's not something I’m given to do. I liked Ani in 1994 and then I was over it by 1995. People look for all different kinds of ways to define you, they look for ways to define everything. Everyone’s in this process of simplification. everything is so overwhelming, it makes sense that people want to tamp it down and define it so they can understand you. My interest is not in marketing myself in a way that's immediately definable by my sexual orientation. Some people gain strength from it , like the Indigo Girls. I’m in a different time and place. Its not a [big deal] for my audience to incidentally know I have a girlfriend, that does more for my gay cause than proclaiming it does. Me looking how I look and being who I am and singing things that everyone can relate to- my mom likes my recent record and she’s pretty conservative. I’m making something that can cross boundaries, not putting on shows that say “I’m gay, deal with it.” Its not a big deal that I have a girlfriend. I’m not hiding it but I don’t have to talk about it all the time either, that does more for making people feel that being queer could be something normal.

TNG: A highlight of your show was when you gave a shout-out to your girlfriend and told everyone it was your anniversary. How have you handled being on the road while having a girlfriend?

KM: I’m really lucky because she comes with me. She’s an artist, so she has flexibility over her life. I’m lucky that she’s willing to come with me because she has better things to do with her time.

TNG: Finally, you mentioned that you wouldn’t be on the road for a while. What will you be doing?

KM: I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I need to contemplate my next step before I know what I’m doing.

TNG: Is there more music in your future?

KM: I don’t know, everyone will have to stay tuned.