Brightest Young Things

Words by Phelps

Chat briefly with the magnanimous Lizzi Bougatsos, artist and frontwoman of downtown electro-grime beatmongers Gang Gang Dance, and you might understand how the group has persevered through several tragedies that would leave less resilient outfits broken.  It’s pretty clear she has an innate and rare ability to take her work seriously but not herself as she laughed throughout the interview.  I couldn’t help but reciprocate.  It also can’t hurt to stay busy producing physical, visual, and auditory art for over 10 years with plenty of opportunities to bleed one into another.  Both Lizzi and bandmate Brian DeGraw show frequently at James Fuentes’ gallery and the group has practically been the house band for contemporary art happenings like a mirror projection show at the Whitney Biennial, MoMA’s Armory Show opening party benefit, and recently the Max Fish pop-up at Miami’s Art Basel.  Even now the band described as NY to the bone gristle is rehearsing for a tour, writing and prepping for recording, and Lizzi herself was at a sign manufacturer gathering material (or a sign) for her solo art opening April 7^th at James Fuentes’.  Apparently, some spare time is also made for shopping as per her two-page spread in the Village Voice last week.  While I’m not a NY style maven experimenting with art and music and trading clothes with Chloe Sevigny (although I’ve been told I look like Bill Paxton – Weird Science or Big Love, I don’t know,) I am well versed in the fact that Gang Gang breaks it fucking down all day long.  It was enlightening to discuss the new record, her unique singing, and the upcoming Gang Gang Dance, Black Dice, and Animal Collective tour.  Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow your fixed gears.  It was her DREAM yall.  You can check Gang Gang solo tomorrow at the Rock and Roll Hotel down on H Street.

BYT: Hey, Liz?
Lizzi: Yes.

BYT: Hey, whatsup?  This is Josh from Washington, DC, how are you?
Lizzi: Good, how are you?

BYT: Ah, really good! Thanks for taking the time to talk.  I write for a DC art and culture site, Brightest Young things, I’ve been a fan for a while and finally you at Ottobar last year in Baltimore.  So, I’m excited for the show Tuesday, and maybe tomorrow.
Lizzi: You gonna come to both shows?

BYT: Well, had tickets to Baltimore before you announced DC so I may give them to some Baltimore friends and just come to DC.
Lizzi: Ah, ok, sounds good!

BYT: I was reading today in the Village Voice about your art show coming up.  “Slut Freak” at the James Fuentes Gallery?
Lizzi: I do, I’m actually at a sign manufacturer at the moment, right now (laughing.)  My show is opening on April 7^th, and yeah I’m really bustin’ it between rehearsing for the tour and making it work (laughing.)

BYT: What’s the medium you’re working with in your art?
Lizzi: Right now I’m working with neon, and found posters, and inflatables, and, um, those are basically the mediums.  I usually get my materials from the street so I don’t have to pay for them (laughing.)

BYT: Um, ok (laughing.)
Lizzi: That’s how I make art.  I just don’t really, you know, when you spend ninety-eight dollars on some plaster, I’d rather find something on the street (laughing.)  I mean, plaster I like to fabricate a lot but I don’t wanna have to buy some rubber thing that I’m gonna have to make a tongue out of or something like that, you know what I mean?

BYT: Yeah.  Your Village Voice piece came out today so I was reading about the art show.  You guys and a handful of other bands have played art shows, or art openings or celebrations like the Armory show or the Whitney Biennial.  Since your bandmates are artists as well, is this what gets you guys into these somewhat alternative venues?
Lizzi: Yeah, you know as far Brian and me being visual artists, and I think I’ve worked in the art field for over thirteen years - actually, I’ve known a lot of the artists that ask us to play.  The person that founded the Armory was my old art dealer (laughing,) and my history in the art profession and knowing other artists and showing at galleries and working with galleries has really been a long time.  So, yeah I think it does definitely contribute.  But also when you work at galleries you start from the grass roots up, you know?  You have to not be afraid to get your hands dirty and I think that that DIY aesthetic applies to the band as well.  We kind of relate, you know?  In an aesthetic or metaphorical way.

BYT: You're with Leg Up Management which seems like a pretty good group and a roster of artists that are like minded in your diversity, how did that relationship start? (Here we get interrupted by a bevy of sirens) Ummmm. (Laughing)
Lizzi: Uh, hello?

BYT: Yea, hello? (laughing)
Lizzi: Sorry, sorry! (laughing) Are you asking me how I got with Leg Up?

BYT: Yea, they just seem to have a real interesting roster of forward thinking artists.
Lizzi: Oh OK.  I’m sorry, can you ask me that again? (laughing)

BYT: Hah, sure.  They just seem to have artists that are expansive in their ideas as far as the music and the presentation.
Lizzi: Right, right.  Well, my old drummer, he suggested that we work with Leg Up but, you know, we also shared a practice space with Animal Collective when we first started and I think that when your friends make a move, you kinda think, “OK, this makes sense.”  We wanna be around our friends, we wanna work with our people, you know what I mean?  It was just an instant, “let’s try this” kind of situation.  And it is a neat thing ‘cause we both do make films, we both - I think there’s the element of excitement to it, like Dam Funk joining the roster, he’s pretty great!

BYT: Yeah, he just played a warehouse here last weekend and was at SXSW too.
Lizzi: He has a good vibe, a really good vibe!

BYT: Yeah I saw pics from the show, it looked amazing.
Lizzi: Yeah!

BYT: Pretty recently, you did some European tours with Animal Collective, right?
Lizzi: Oh yeah, we had some shows together which actually hasn’t happened in a really long time so we were really excited about that.  We wanna play more shows like we did back in the day.  We used to actually alternate band members and play with each other at live shows, we’d listen to each other practice, it was a pretty intense relationship.  I don’t know, I really enjoy when we get to play together, it had been almost ten years since we’d been on the same bill, or six years, I don’t know.  The day that we do a tour with Animal Collective, Black Dice, and Gang Gang will be like a dream come true, you know? (laughing)

BYT: Yeah, right!  Not just for you guys, I was sad that it was just in Europe! (laughing)
Lizzi: Oh , no!  That’s very sweet!  Yea that’s been a dream for a really long time.

BYT: Speaking of rehearsing, between the last two full-length albums, God’s Money and Saint Dymphna, were a few years.   With your side projects as far as the art and all, are you still continually writing, is there -
Lizzi: Oh! I’m sorry, I just have to say one thing really quick, can you hold on one second? (laughing)  Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sharing lunch with my art dealer right now! (laughing)  OK, what was your last question?

BYT: (laughing) It’s OK.  Are you guys working on a new record right now, are you always working on new compositions?
Lizzi: Pretty much every time we play a live show we compose new material.  The last show, I think it was a month ago at the Williamsburg Music Hall, we had three new songs and this time we’ve added two more songs.  Completely new material most of the set.

BYT: Wow.
Lizzi: Yeah we’re putting a lot into our live set.

BYT: So you plan to put it on record in the next year or two?
Lizzi:  Yea, yea, you know we are actually recording in May.  We’ve been gearing all the rehearsals and practices towards writing the new material and we release it while we play but it will eventually be recorded, if we haven’t done a lot of it already.  A year ago we started recording, we had a makeshift setup and recorded stuff in a house.  We moved the whole studio out to Joshua Tree and recorded in somebody’s house that we knew.  All of that stuff has actually evolved over the last year, but, you know it’s the same situation.  The music’s different but we’re gonna use some of those tapes too.

BYT: As for as your singing, and lyrics, a lot of times it just sounds really unique when you’re not singing the lyrics straight, just feeling the music, making sounds.  What are those influences?
Lizzi: I think there’s a lot of Ethiopian music I’ve listened to over the years.  Mostly Ethiopian singers, and Iranian singers.  I just relate to that music ‘cause I’m Greek, and I know it doesn’t sound like I listen to them but there’s a huge Ethiopian influence in the way that I sing, and Bollywood.  There’s a lot of drama in the way that I sing, I try to do that in a way that a lot of Bollywood inspire me to sing in that way.  So very, very inspired by, like, Timbaland’s beats.  I actually write my melodies from drum patterns.  I try a rhythmic, you know a guttural rhythmic element in the melodies themselves and then I add lyrics to them later.  Sometimes it’s just more a song without words, or jus sounds.  But yea there’s usually a mixture.

BYT: When you play the drums on stage, are those based on some of the lyrical melodies you create?
Lizzi: No, that’s how I write my vocal melodies but those drum patterns are specifically created for the song structure in our writing process.

BYT: I read about your Ghostface t shirts, you a fan?
Lizzi: Yea, totally!  I like Wu Tang because they just keep it real, and I relate to the way that they put themselves out into the world.  Everything is on their terms and I just always thought of our band as sort of an enterprise in that way (laughing.)  Not really enterprise but like, you know a clan, nomadic, like our own version of the Wu Tang or something.

BYT: Nice!  Well I won’t keep you much longer, I was just curious as to what was the weirdest spot you’ve played since there seems to be a wide range of spaces outside of music clubs?
Lizzi: Hmm, Romania was interesting.  It was like a cave in the wall and a lot of people from the audience ended up playing with us so that was pretty cool actually!

BYT: Sounds sick.
Lizzi: Yea it was like a cave in the wall off of the ocean.

BYT: Cool, well I’ll let you go, and we’ll get this interview up and shout out the art show too.
Lizzi: Great, thanks!

The 1st band photo is by Takahiro Imamura.
The 2nd band photo is by Josh Wildman.
The pic of Lizzi solo is by Jason Rodgers.
The 3rd band photo is by Josh Wildman.

Gang Gang Dance hits the Rock and Roll Hotel tomorrow night with HighLife.