the beautiful worst

2.14.17 vol. 3 - issue 4

How did you get the idea for Cassandra? How did the rest of the band form?

The summer before moving to LA, I was corresponding with some collaborators about the vision for the project. We had a Google Doc to which we would all post little snippets of inspiration, like quotes and images and song ideas, and one day I posted a picture of Cassandra, Tia Carrere’s character from the movie Wayne’s World, which was my absolute favorite film for all of my childhood and adolescence. And I was like, WAIT. That’s it. She’s the absolute essence of the project – a glittery jumpsuit-wearing woman who embodies an erotic sort of badass fearlessness in her rock & roll artistry.

The band has always been described as a fluid and mutable collective, which is true – we have pretty much never had the same lineup of performers in any of our performances, and instead try to adopt the philosophy that whoever shows up are the right people. I am at the center of the collective, so sometimes it is just me – like, on the record I am the only vocalist that appears. And then sometimes we’ve done shows with upwards of 10 women onstage at a time. It just depends on the context. Some of Cassandra’s members are longtime collaborators – I’ve known Megan since we were both at the University of New Mexico almost a decade ago. I met Vanessa in line for a free Karen O show at Amoeba music during my first month in LA. The following year, Megan and Vanessa and I performed as Cassandra, as a trio, on a lineup with one of Mónica Mendoza’s bands, and now she’s our guitarist. I met our bassist, Gina, in dance class! So, most of our LA performance crew came together in that inexplicable way: witches that just gravitate towards each other because they have a set of shared values/aesthetics/energy and are drawn to each other by some profound vibration. And then when we perform on the East Coast we often collaborate with women from the Royal Frog Ballet theater collective, with whom I have been collaborating since college. So, it’s a widespread coven, a rich ecology of women with a lot of dynamic relationships and herstories.

Cassandra’s message and aesthetic expresses fierce, active feminism. How do you create a feminine message using rock music?

In general, we look to the idea that the personal is political, and make sure that we are telling our stories and attending to our art in a way that feels honest and true. But beyond that I think that there is simply something about liberation of the body and the voice, and then the visibility and amplification of the liberated female body and voice, in whatever manifestation feels true at the time. We are very concerned with autonomy, and self-determination of representation. And power. I think that is a central conceptual question for Cassandra: in what ways we can use the prescribed aesthetic codes of rock and roll – a genre that has long been known for misogyny and sexism and rape culture – and reclaim them as postures and platforms of power for ourselves? To claim territory for ourselves in a way that feels unbound – the screaming, the flailing, the shredding, the wailing… there’s something about owning the intersection of freedom and power and vulnerability in the rock and roll space that feels very feminist to me. Omg, and rage! For women to go through a state of rage in a public space and have that be celebrated instead of stigmatized feels very very crucial.