Music

Armed with a giant phallus, Wild Daughter are taking aim


“It’s like getting on a runaway train, not knowing when you’ll get off” says James Jeanette, frontman of performance art rock’n’roll trio Wild Daughter. “I used to take loads of drugs to get out of my own head … now I perform instead.”

It’s certainly a more exciting statement of intent than you’d get from, say, George Ezra. And suggests why there’s quite a buzz for when said runaway train hits the ICA for a quite unlikely gig. Entitled The Moon Sextiles the Sun, it promises a night of performance and video art based around themes of “desire, addiction and gender fuckery”. Joining the scuzzy, Suicide and Cramps-inspired rock’n’roll of Wild Daughter on the bill will be Melbourne’s Spike Fuck, a transgender artist who claims to have invented the genre “smackwave”, and Berlin’s Die Hässlichen Vögel, who refuse to record or release any music.

Jeanette has even designed a new phallus for the event: “Inspired by Tatsumi Hijikata,” he says, referring to one of the founders of Japanese butoh dancing. “I saw a picture of him wearing this giant gold cock in the early 1960s … so we took that and made it Wild Daughter.”

Wild Daughter, from left, James Jeanette, Jacob Shaw and Stuart McKenzie.



Wild Daughter, from left, James Jeanette, Jacob Shaw and Stuart McKenzie. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

The band emerged after Jeanette had gone through a “traumatic” period of drug abuse followed by a stint in rehab – he started making music with poet Stuart McKenzie (guitar) and once the idea took shape bassist Jacob Shaw came on board (along with a drum machine). They’ve funded their music through selling screen-printed Wild Daughter T-shirts (apparently spotted everywhere from Poland to Peru), and gained support from the likes of Pulp’s Steve Mackey and Vivienne Westwood, who they spotted down the front at one show, dancing like she was back at the Sex Pistols. “She said, ‘You’re brilliant, the drums, the guitars, everything!’” says McKenzie. “That was nice, as she’s not known for her generosity in terms of what you’re doing.”

Even so, one gig in the band’s history stands out – the night they played at the Backstreet, London’s oldest gay leather bar.

“It’s the last of the underground, it really is,” says Jeanette, who enthuses about the chains and original Tom of Finland posters on display there. “I’d wanted to to play it for ages, because it’s like walking on to a film set of what a leather bar should be like. It’s not changed since opening in 1985 and, apart from it being a sex club, the energy there doesn’t feel seedy at all.”

After convincing the owner to let them play – which meant relaxing the notoriously strict leather/rubber only dress code and allowing women into the venue for the first time – they learned more about the club’s origins during the Aids crisis. “He told us how four of his barman died, literally month after month,” says Jeanette. “It’s an amazing place with beauty, but also a lot of sadness too.”

The band ended up writing Carry Me Home for the show, a song they describe as a “love letter to the artists who we lost” such as David Wojnarowicz and Jimmy De Sana.

“It was a dream to be able to do that set,” says Jeanette. “To see the audience, especially the younger ones, realise that a place like that still exists. It’s literally from another world, another lifetime!”

Watch a video of Wild Daughter playing at the Backstreet leather bar

The gig also adhered to their insistence that performance should involve not just great music but also striking visuals – Jeanette has performed in the past wearing little more than a jock strap and thigh-high boots.

“I don’t want to just be Stuart up there with my everyday issues,” says McKenzie. “I want to forget myself, to put on clothes and get that other Stuart out the way!”

Jeanette believes that everyone has an urge to dress up. “Although I can only speak from my perspective … I was running around the streets in my mum’s high heels since I was about four years old!”

There’ll be new outfits on display at the ICA show, as well as new music – the band are set to release their new double A-side single Mr G/Brando Bomb, complete with sleeve art by Richard Hawkins depicting an orgiastic fisting scene. There will also, should things go as intended, be a frisson of chemistry with the audience.

“It’s out of your hands where a live show goes,” says McKenzie. “I like going into the audience with the guitar and just ending up like a mass on the floor.”

“People are gagging for this kind of thing,” agrees Jeanette. “We’re just giving them what they want.”



READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.