Veteran queer punk rocker Jon Ginoli, founder of Pansy Division, just had a traumatic morning, yet still finds a way to connect the bizarre event to gay politics. This is to be expected from a member of the longtime, in-your-face, gay rock band.
His boyfriend was injured ( he's okay! ) that morning, but Ginoli still found relevance in the scary situation. 'I have healthcare through the store [ a record store he works at ] , and he's on my healthcare,' he said. '… It's all because gains that have been made in the last 30 years. …It's good to think about these things, and how actions have had an effect for the better on gay people's lives.'
Ginoli, an Illinois native, had the dream to create the first all-gay rock band while in college. He never thought it could truly happen, but in 1991, history was made. Now the band is back in the studio after five years and kicking off a tour with the newly reformed version of the influential, but short-lived, punk band The Avengers. A Pansy Division documentary is nearly completed, and Ginoli just finished a book on his experience. Ginoli talked to Windy City Times about being at the right place at the right time, the relevance of his band today and more.
Windy City Times: When the idea was first conceived to have an all-gay band, did you even dream it would last this long, or that you would come this far?
Jon Ginoli: I think if I had to predict between either one of those happening, I would have picked 'lasted longer' than 'gotten bigger.' The fact that we had this big surge in the mid-'90s made it so there were people that had heard of us then that are still interested in seeing us now. There's still a new group of people who are finding out about us.
… MySpace is amazing for being able to find out that that's what the teens are doing and there's a whole bunch of teens discovering us. I'm just happy that we're still around so that there's all these people who have found us recently who didn't get to see us in the hey-day who will hopefully come see us on this tour now.
WCT: In April you went back to the studio for the first time in five years. What brought you guys back in there? Was it the political climate or just because?
JG: … The new recording came about because I said, 'Look, I got two songs I really want to do. These are songs that if we were doing another album, they'd be right on it. … If you guys are too busy to do it, I'll find other people to do it with. They are really important songs for me.' We decided to record those, and we ended up recording two more. We liked them so much, and they turned out so well, we realized we've still got a quality level here that we're satisfied with, so we'll continue. … We'll be playing some of the new songs on the tour.
I'm very interested in the political climate. … See, we do songs that are topical, and then we do songs that are outrageous. The new outrageous song is called 20 Years of Cock. I thought, you know, that's something to celebrate. That you've been out long enough ( it's been more than 20 years for me ) to be able to say, 'You can live this way. You can have a life this way.' It's not a big political statement, but it's still a statement about freedom, and freedom is really under attack these days from the right wing. Part of what got our band started was we get this idea being brought up in America that America is the land of freedom and we're free to do whatever we want. So, I feel like doing the out gay band is a real expression of the potential of what individuals can achieve by doing something in public that is very personal to them. And other people respond to it because of these personal experiences.
Besides that, we're actually on tour this year opening for another band. … The fact that I now share two band members from them is just amazing! What's awesome about The Avengers, other than I really like their music, is songs from 30 years ago are topical now. They were really writing things that were about the problems of then that relate to the problems of today. It's come full circle.
WCT: At what point did you first come up with the idea or dream of creating a gay rock band?
JG: I grew up in Peoria, and I ended up going to the University of Illinois. I came out when I was in college. I had a band that had made a few records, and that band broke up in ྒྷ, and I thought that was pretty much what I was going to do with music. Had a few fans. Didn't get big. … At that time, I was the only gay member of that band. My band members were fine with that, but I didn't feel I could be real specific about certain things without it sort of taking the focus off the band and putting it on me. That was really quite where I thought having an opening gay band would be helpful, but it seemed like a really unlikely scenario. I left Illinois in ྔ and came to L.A., and then went to San Francisco in ྕ. It took me about a year and a half here before I saw that there was some possible audience for this idea that I had, and I thought the time might actually be ripe for it.
1990 was the year of the queer. That was when the word 'queer' suddenly started being used by gay people as a weapon. We're not going to take this as an insult any more; we're going to wear it as a badge of honor. That was the moment that I first thought that maybe I could really do this. What I'm thinking is right along with what seems to be happening. We were liked from the beginning—a very unlikely scenario.
Pansy Division was the band without commercial possibility that ended up lasting much longer and being much more successful than the band that I started that I hoped would achieve some sort of success.
WCT: Did you kind of wonder what was going to happen with this because most of the music for gay audiences at the time was club music?
JG: You had this clubby music for gay men and folk music for lesbians. I remember going to a meeting at the University of Illinois for their gay student group and people sat around strumming Holly Near songs, and I thought, 'I like her politics, but I really don't care for her music.' … I'm not going to like something just because it's gay! It needs to be good. I admire Holly Near, but I wanted to break the stereotypes of what a man should like, what a woman should like if you're gay. I felt like being gay had unlimited possibilities, and I wanted to explore.
WCT: Gay people can rock out, too.
JG: It seems obvious now, but it wasn't happening back then. The other thing worth mentioning is right when we started, the year before we had our first record come out, … was the Riot Grrl year. That was real exciting for me. I remember when Bikini Kill came out, and I had been waiting to hear a female band like this for years, the same way I had been waiting to hear a gay band for so many years, and realizing I was going to be the one to have to do it. I couldn't form the women's band—that just wasn't going to work. [ Laughs ] It just seemed like we came up when the possibilities seemed wide open.
It's kind of hard to decide what things are nowadays. One of the things [ we ] asks ourselves is, 'Is there still a point for the band? Is our band still relevant?' We came out of the moment. I think what we found is yeah, there is more acceptance for certain things than there was 15 years ago. Even though there are more gay musicians now, not all of them are singing specifics like we do. If you listen to our music over the years, there is a continuum of topics we've addressed in songs, and an evolution. We started off really brash, got more thoughtful, and now we have both strands of that woven in. we're kind of romantic, too. I think our band is dirty and sweet at the same time.
WCT: A lot of your songs are about sex. Have you ever gotten comments from people that you're perpetuating a stereotype?
JG: Sometimes I've heard that. The argument usually is that we should be more mindful of stereotypes of gay men, and not sing about sex so much. … I think a part of what got us started was the idea that we were outspoken people, and we were going to write songs that reflect us and not come up with material that downplays our personalities. … Some people are going to feel that way but sex is part of life and I just feel that's the advantage of being gay. Gay people seem to be able to be more open about sex and that kind of approach to sexuality that makes a band like us interesting.
WCT: What do you think of today's queer music scene?
JG: … I'm encouraged that there seem to be a lot of gay people doing hip-hop these days. I'm not a real big hip-hop fan, in general, but I think it's great that people are taking on that form. It's like rock music—it's inevitable. There isn't any reason why gay people shouldn't be doing anything that they like to do musically.
Check out Pansy Division and The Avengers Oct. 20 at Reggie's Live, 2109 S. State. Doors open at 7 p.m. for the all-ages show, and tickets can be found at www.ticketweb.com .
