Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, critic, model, zinemaker, dancer, choreographer, and quite literally, more.
An Oakland punk by way of Alabama, Brontez has just published his fifth book, 10 Bridges I've Burnt. I'm an enormous admirer of Brontez's writing, and am thrilled to chat about his queer tracks.
In this conversation, we discuss music by Carol Hahn, Emily's Sassy Lime, and his own musical collaboration with a special friend from his past.
Links to Brontez online:
Listen to all previous guest choices in one handy Spotify playlist, Selections from Tracks of Our Queers and follow the pod on Instagram.
Help keep Tracks of Our Queers ad-free by shouting me a coffee right here. Thank you for your support.
Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, critic, model, zinemaker, dancer, choreographer, and quite literally, more.
An Oakland punk by way of Alabama, Brontez has just published his fifth book, 10 Bridges I've Burnt. I'm an enormous admirer of Brontez's writing, and am thrilled to chat about his queer tracks.
In this conversation, we discuss music by Carol Hahn, Emily's Sassy Lime, and his own musical collaboration with a special friend from his past.
Links to Brontez online:
Listen to all previous guest choices in one handy Spotify playlist, Selections from Tracks of Our Queers and follow the pod on Instagram.
Help keep Tracks of Our Queers ad-free by shouting me a coffee right here. Thank you for your support.
Brontez Purnell
===
Andy Gott: [00:00:00] Hello. Welcome to tracks of our queers. my name is Andy Gott. And each episode I chat to a fascinating queer person about one song, one album, and one artist. They've soundtrack their life.
I try not to play favorites when it comes to the incredible guests. I'm lucky enough to chat with on this podcast. But Brontez Purnell is a very special queer indeed.
An Oakland punk by way of Alabama from a long lineage of blues players.
Brontez is the multihyphenate artist. He's a writer of poetry, memoir children's books, online journalism, television. He's a choreographer and dancer. He's a songwriter and performer with several bands as well as his own solar material. He's a riot boy and a riot girl, a sex positive black queer punk. And if you haven't worked out so far, A hero of mine.
This episode, we discuss everything from Billy holiday to Janet Jackson. Crying [00:01:00] in supermarkets, Rediscovered Australian disco, divas. And the very special relationship between a young queer teen and a friend who sees and understands them implicitly.
Brontez has just published his fifth book, a memoir inverse called 10 bridges. I've burnt, which you can find wherever you buy your books from. I love producing tracks of our careers and have no intention of stopping, but like most things in life, it does cost money. If you've enjoyed listening to an episode so far, there's a link in this episode, show notes where you can donate the equivalent of a cup of coffee. One caffeinated beverage to you.
It goes a long way in helping me hit the show light switched on, but telling a friend or sharing an episode in your stories is just as impactful and free. Thank you in advance for your support. Let's crack on. Over to Brontez.
how are you set up? do you not get uncomfortable when you're lying down and [00:02:00] typing on your laptop?
Brontez Purnell: Discomfort doesn't bother me.
Andy Gott: I love that. Great, I need to carry that more with me. Brontez Purnell welcome to Tracks of our Queers.
Brontez Purnell: Hello.
Andy Gott: Thank you for being here, thank you for making time for this chat. what's your earliest musical memory?
Brontez Purnell: My mom sitting me in front of the TV kind of like watching BET. And I remember like my stepdad was like, my stepdad was this military dude and it was always a fight to get me to stay up late. And I remember like they were up late one night and Prince and the Revolution was on TV.
It had to be like the Purple Rain era. I must have been like, probably something like three or four if this is correct. But I remember my stepdad saying if he says another word he has to go to bed. And I like, saw him and I was like, even then I was just [00:03:00] like, ain't nobody fucking telling me what to do.
And I was like, Prince! Guitar! And he was like, he has to go to bed now. Because I remember he was, Prince was wearing like the purple rain thing, but a lot of my memories happen around, early 80s. MTV BET. It was that. It's the one I remember most vividly is the Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer video. I wanna be your sledgehammer.
I just remember the stop animation and it just always really, really, really captivating me. And then I think besides that was the Janet Jackson Pleasure Principle video.
Andy Gott: a masterpiece.
What was the first physical piece of music you owned? CD, cassette. Do you remember?
Brontez Purnell: honestly, I think it was the Janet record. I think it was the
Janet [00:04:00] record.
Andy Gott: Do you remember which Janet record?
Brontez Purnell: Janet, the one that
was just called Janet
Andy Gott: Janet
Brontez Purnell: Yeah. When she said, that's the way love goes, it was like,
Andy Gott: And If and Throb. Yes.
Brontez Purnell: my god. You know, she gave us a lot.
She really gave us a lot.
Andy Gott:
Brontez Purnell: listen,
let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. And I've even thought this about myself. You can't really be the iconic black woman star unless there's some significant part of your career where you are banned. Let me tell you this.
Go back and read Billie Holiday.
Read Eartha Kitt. Read Nina Simone.
Read Lauryn Hill. Azalea Banks. What they
all have in common is they come out as these prophetesses, right? And we love them [00:05:00] until they start talking about how they feel about the world. And there always comes some significant part where this white congregation comes to correct them, ban them, burn them as a witch.
Josephine Baker is another one.
But there's this period of great growth, there's the period of their blacklisting, and then somewhere towards the end, they get their flowers again. It's Some of them.
Billie
Holiday. Billie Holiday died. Handcuffed to her hospital bed
because of this one FBI agent
fucking also all the flowers sent to her were taken out of her room
They really did a number on
her
sometimes I do think like Her proliferation as an immortal, like, came at the price of how fucked up they did her.
Sometimes, I
think. You know. There were plenty of other jazz girls going around, but the way they did Billie, I think the fucking, if there is any justice in the universe, I think when she got to the other side, they were like, Okay, your music will become THE classic [00:06:00] American music,
you know? I think so.
which would you rather?
The immortality or your flowers in this lifetime? Who knows? We won't know that decision until we get there, but I think about that shit all the time.
But
Janet's banishment, I think, is in a long history of kind of women like her.
Andy Gott: I can't help but think, as you talk about that, that in my view the world's biggest artist of the time that we're living in, is Beyonce. But someone who I don't think has ever experienced any kind of that blacklisting or tragedy or cancellation.
Brontez Purnell: okay, let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Beyonce is a whole different other script, and I'm not saying this to take anything away from her. First of all, all the women I told you about, dark skin and single. all of them come from lineages, except maybe Janet, but even Janet's family history is a lot more troubled, right? They all were like these [00:07:00] single women that kind of had to defend for themselves, or had shitty men that were managers around them. Beyonce was like, had a father and a mother, very much a pageant queen girl. I'm not trying to say that this is not to say that she didn't work hard or there wasn't struggle or tragedy in her life, but she does follow that fixed feminine trope of good girl and then, good husband's wife. Also, Beyoncé has never revealed a lot about
herself. We don't really know a lot about her, right? She's not like Rihanna. She's not like Azalea. She doesn't really follow the script of a lot of the Black women R& B singers where we almost know the personal tragedy of their lives more than we even know their music, right? So, she, she's, she's, a very peculiar case, but she doesn't quite follow that script.
Andy Gott: And I wonder if that was a conscious decision when her father was managing her, and she was [00:08:00] building her legacy as an artist, to not follow the script of so many people who had come before her.
Brontez Purnell: think that was part of it, but I also, I just don't think that she was that girl. Like, I really do think, I'm not saying she's not complicated, deep, weird, and all that, but I really think that, like, she came from just, like, a different, like, a different lineage, you
know? In America, it's kind of different when, like, you know, Black Americans, like, come from, like, that Creole lineage of, like, you know, family and stuff.
I
don't know. I represent, like, dark skinned, Protestant, Pagan, Northern Alabama Appalachian culture, you
know what I'm saying
Andy Gott: What was the music that, your mum was playing then? What was the music that she was choosing to listen to at home?
Brontez Purnell: My mom was not really the music person. My mom was very like, you know, just [00:09:00] whatever was really on the radio. Now my dad, my father was very much like music oriented. Like he was, that's probably where I actually got my, like, my bibliophonic love
of like, you can see all my records back here.
There's also like two more cases of them and, just, my actual love of just kind of all weird genres and stuff like that.
Andy Gott: Well, you come from a long line of musicians, correct?
Brontez Purnell: Yeah, totally. My grandmother's brother was a blues musician here in Oakland. He moved from Alabama to Oakland in the 60s. I have his first 7 inch from when he moved out here in the 60s and he played with Troyce Key. It was this song called Sail On, it's really good. But he played through the 70s and 80s.
His father, my great grandfather, was a blues musician. my [00:10:00] uncle's mother was the proper wife of the house. But my great grandmother was the servant girl in the house.
so him as the head of the house, he got the servant girl pregnant. And that's where my lineage comes from. so my uncle was, we were like, I don't know, there's not only, I learned in America, we only have the concept of half siblings in America, everywhere else it's just, you're just siblings. But so I was like kind of his grandnephew from his half sister, but out of all the kids, I was the only one that could play guitar.
And so I reminded him the most of his father. So him and his like white hippie girlfriend, she was this crazy redhead, be playing harmonica and shit. When I was like 13 or 14 they'd be like, you should move to Oakland, you should move to Oakland, you should move to Oakland. and yeah, that's what I did. I came out here. It was my friend Vice. Okay, he was There was this band called XBXRX. And they were on like 5 roof C. Which [00:11:00] was like a subsidiary of Kill Rock Stars. And we met through Book Your Own Fucking Life, which was like this maximum rock and roll kind of zine. We were like pen pals. And they called me up, Vice called me up one day, and was like, Hey, somebody that was supposed to move to California with us dropped out.
Can you come and move to California with us? I had like three days to make the decision and get down there.
Andy Gott: I was 19, about to be 20. Something like that. Especially, like, the farthest west I had been was Arkansas.
Brontez Purnell: I'd never even been to California. But I was just like, fuck it. I jumped in the van and came out. And I ended up living with, I lived with Jenny from Eraserada. From that band Eraserada. They were on Kill Rock Stars and the Double Zeros. but then also too, I joined Panty Raid. You know Hunk's and his punks,
Andy Gott: Yep.
Yep.
Brontez Purnell: Yeah, so me and Seth had been pen pals since I was a teenager. He was living in Arizona, and I was living in Alabama. And we would [00:12:00] write to each other. Vice, me, and Seth all knew each other from like zines and from the Kill Rockstars message board. And so what was crazy too was like, I remember like, there's so many like, gay indie boys now, but I remember in the 90s when there was literally like probably six or seven of us and we were all on like the Kill Rockstar's message board. Like, I think it was like Rudy Blue, Zachary Ching, Cody from The Shun, Seth, me. Vice was like, bye.
Andy Gott: I know that you were in a band with Seth, but did you ever perform with Hunks and his punks as well?
Brontez Purnell: Never. In fact, what was crazy too is that Younger Lovers had happened before. Like, I started, like, demoing, like, Younger Lovers. Fucking back in like 2003,
you know, but it was like a weird slow burn because I would always, you know, people always wanted to put me in the bands with them white folks and I'd be like, I [00:13:00] just, I'm like, nah, I'm like making my own band. They'd always just be like, you know, like, oh, Brontez Purnell, you know, and fucking former member of Shannon and the Clams or a former member of Hunks and His Punks. I'm like, the fuck is y'all talking about? Like, I was, I've been rocking before them.
Brontez Purnell:
Andy Gott: Now, whether you care for it or not, where you are in your life currently, you are a punk, you are known as a punk. How did a young Brontez Purnell find punk in Alabama?
Brontez Purnell: You know what? It was way easier than people think.
you know, it's funny. It's like, so many kids, I think, these days have so much access to, like, DJ equipment
and, you know, the world is way more isolationist. If I had had access to that, I probably would have done that. I do think there's something so archaic about playing in a band. Having to lift [00:14:00] amps and bring them, having to be able to maintain relationships with people in order to play. You know, I play shows and sometimes my bandmates get paid before I do
because it's like, well, no, well, sometimes because it's just like, I, you're the head of it or
you're the father of a project, it's like, you really do have to like, I think sometimes it is about being a good leader.
You have to make sure the people around you are taken care of
first. It's like any mother, it's like you gotta make sure your baby eats first.
It's just the rules, and I'm not resentful of it either. Cause it's like, when I think about it, What these people sacrificed for me is really amazing and I'm really fucking grateful for that How I got into punk there were several points of genesis I had a cousin that was going to school up north I think at Cornell and I think she was hanging out with Weird leftist.
And I came back, she came back and she was babysitting me. I was probably about 11 or 12. And I remember she was listening to like The Breeders and she was listening to [00:15:00] Nirvana. And I was like, you like white people music? That's so crazy. But I mean, also, you know, my father was really into like, you know, my father's favorite band was like The Police.
I remember I was probably like 8 or 9 and he would play that message in a bottle
song like 12 times in a row, like in Roxanne,
and he was really into like Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, like kind of all this like weird music and it never occurred to me that I could do that. But also, like, my life was so weird and so troubled, I think. If I think about it, I would have never been a rapper. Because being a rapper, I think, is about sitting in a room and, like, rapping about how you're, like, the greatest person to ever walk the face of the earth. My kind of drama and tragedy was I wanted to, like, play a loud guitar and scream my fucking head off.
That was the type of rage I wanted to put into the void.
I was reading Seventeen Magazine, and they had an article on Sleater Kinney,
who I was getting really into. And I remember there was a buzz around the Dig Me Out [00:16:00] record. And I fucking mailed off to Kill Rock Stars. And then I got a Kill Rockstar's catalog, and then I remember being like, seeing Bikini Kill in there. And I'd been watching the news, right, and I'd heard the name Bikini Kill, but only as The lady that got into a fight was Courtney Love and I was like
wait And then I was like who's not Madonna and I was like, I gotta check this out And I remember ordering like everything in the Kill Rock Stars catalog, but then I met Through an act of God. I met The other black riot girl at my high school in Alabama in the 90s, her name was Tameka, She had lived, her mom was a military woman and so Tameka had grown up in Japan, weirdly. But had come back to the States for a couple of years and was just like, and we did [00:17:00] not like each other at first, because of course it was too much of the same energy, but then we ended up being in a band together, towards the end of high school.
And so my first band was like this all black riot girl band in Alabama. I'm telling you, man, like, As sad as I get sometimes, when I really think about it, it's like, shit's been too magical to hate.
Like, I was really, I was really fucking fortunate, you know? So, there was like, there was about nine different points of genesis about how I came into punk rock.
Andy Gott (2): We're going to come back to Tamika and the band that you were in with her later. but I love that. Thank you for sharing. one of the many aspects of the way that we pass on culture to each other as queer people is this idea that I have of you know, like kind of older queers who Gift art whether that's introducing someone to a musician or physically giving them an album or something like that Do you have?
Looking back over your life, older queers, who shifted your [00:18:00] perspective on anything in music by giving you something
Brontez Purnell: There wasn't a bunch of queers at first. The older queers in my life, there was one that snuck me into my first gay club when I was 17. But it wasn't even, that malicious. it was actually pretty kind of, maybe even kind of boring in a way, you know? but still I was glad that I had it.
And then, the older punks I remember, there was my friend, his name's Harry Gunner. It was in Alabama, and I was playing in punk bands and he gave me the 1992 queer issue of maximum rock and roll that had like vaginal cream Davis in it. It had Bruce La Bruce.
I still
have it somewhere. And I think this would, that, that zine was probably the 1992 issue, the 1992 queer issue. I had to have gotten that. It was probably about like 97 or 98,
but that it was like it was It was centripetal for me to get that.
Andy Gott: Were they, was it like mail order?
Brontez Purnell: it was mail order.[00:19:00]
It was mail order? And then I think eventually you could get maximum rock and roll at Barnes Noble, which by the 90s was a huge step. because it was so much more instantaneous. it's just a weird, different type of magic. To get something in the fucking mail, or to
like wait around for something,
or to not know what something sounds like. It's almost the reason why sometimes it's like now when I cruise, I prefer to do it online and sometimes I won't take pictures. Like guys will be like, should I send a bunch of pictures?
I'm like, oh it's fine, let's just see what happens. Because like being in bathhouse culture is
guys just come up to you and like grab your dick and then it's a yes or no. But there's something about, like, the mystery of some guy coming over and him undressing in front of you. And there, it changes the perspective of, like, there's only been, like, maybe There was a good eight months I did this, and out of the eight months I did that, there was only about once or twice where I was, like, severely disappointed.
Everything else was, like, totally magical.
[00:20:00] Like
Andy Gott:
Brontez Purnell: Right! Totally.
Andy Gott: and the sensuality comes from you can't have exactly what you want exactly when you want it and it's better to not it's
sexier
Brontez Purnell: there's some things, there are some things that your mind cannot paint.
Like, there are things that you never knew you wanted until it was right in front of you, and you were like, oh.
Desire is a really funny, funny thing.
Now, Brontes, I, I'm not going to blow too much smoke up your arse, but, um,
no, please do!
Andy Gott: okay, I love, I love your writing. I'm a huge fan of your writing. I've read so many of your books and I love reading your journalism when it crops up online. And I've wanted to interview you specifically for this podcast since I read an article that you wrote for the New York Times about a breakup song that you've listened to a million times.
And the song is Peace of Me by Lady Ray [00:21:00] and it's a beautiful song but you wrote so eloquently about the complexity of feelings that a song can generate and I say this all the time on this podcast and I recognize that music is almost universally loved by humans but the writing that you put into that article about the song articulated that kind of Queer love for music.
You didn't talk about queerness in the article, but I knew I was reading the writing of a queer person in the way that you spoke about The way that song made you feel. I felt like I was reading, this is a Stan's piece of journalism, and they understand it so deeply, and you were talking specifically about loss, it was such a moving piece of writing about a song that I hadn't even heard up until that point.
do you think there is anything in the queer relationship with music, or do you think it's just a human thing?
Brontez Purnell: I think it could just be like both, you know? And maybe, I think the thing about that song [00:22:00] is I definitely come from like, this kind of like, blues lineage or whatever. there's so much sorrow in like the gospel even that I grew up with. The kind of country music I grew up in. And it's something that you can't really fake, you know? And I do think sometimes, We live in a culture where like music is so synthetic and sometimes I think it almost promotes this false grandiosity in people of like, I'm the bitch, I'm number one, my pussy's the greatest, pay all my bills. but what I think it masks is a lot of insecurity
and so it was just great to hear someone Even the way it's recorded, you can tell it's recorded analog on this heavy, even the machinery that it was corded on, everything about it is fucking heavy.
[00:23:00] It's almost like this black hole, you know? Like, I mean that in the best way possible, like, and, you know, it's, but she's not faking it.
There's something about the timbre of her voice. There's something about the character she's invoking that kind of just like pulls you in like there's no way We haven't all just kind of felt that and the fact that it feels good to cry To a song about loss, you know, like it's like something that's almost like like you walk away from it refreshed
Andy Gott: It's
therapy.
Brontez Purnell: just feeling happy that you felt something that day. And so, I can't, I almost can't even articulate, I listen to that song almost too damn much,
Andy Gott: you wrote in the article that you were tearing up as you were typing.would you say that you cry easily when it comes to music? Yes.
Brontez Purnell: I'm like, And sometimes it'll literally be nothing. It'll be like, some old [00:24:00] woman will be needing to come and step in front of me in the grocery store cause she'll have one can of corn. And I'm just like, I'm so sorry! You
can totally go! And she'll just be like, Honey, you seem upset.
No, you go first.
Andy Gott: yeah. I'm just buying a can of corn. I'm fine.
Brontez Purnell: Look, what the fuck is wrong with But it's like, oh god, I'm so annoying. I'm like, A, I'm a cancer, and B, like, I don't know. It's hard not to feel everything all at
Andy Gott (2): Yes, yes. sometimes, when I was a lot younger, I would just get really emotional looking at solo diners in restaurants. I'd just think, oh, how, how sad that they don't have anyone with them. And one day, my mum was like, I think they're choosing to be alone. I think they're completely fine.
And now, as an adult, I understand how lovely it is to go to a restaurant on my own.
Brontez Purnell: Probably have fought their whole life to do it alone. Think about it. She's probably been a mother of three
children, a wife, all this shit. She's like, damn, I finally just get to go to the grocery [00:25:00] store and just like, meditate.
Andy Gott: let's dive in to your selections because you picked some brilliant selections today. And I'm gonna start with your tracks. So, which track did you pick, Brontes, and why?
Brontez Purnell: Wait, I forgot which
Andy Gott: You picked, Do Your Best by Carole Hahn.
Brontez Purnell: Okay, so, now see, when you talk about older queers Right? The thing I remember is moving to San Francisco Like, we're in the Bay Area, and like, the first club that I went to was called Toobster Connection, and I remember I was 21. I went there for like 18 years in a row, but it's before Spotify and all this.
They played these old school disco tracks. Like, And it was like the first time I'd never really heard a lot of disco. I heard punk because I had, I'd make, there were always these older white men that [00:26:00] like could give you punk records. But all the disco I knew was like that really blase, top 40 disco. I never knew the deep disco hits because the men that would have taught me that had all died.
So this was the
club where you learned what all All the fucking fags were like the underground disco hits that people were listening to. What I found that was really crazy was when I found out that Carole Hahn was a white Australian woman. I thought that this was a issue because all the other music was like black people singing and then one day bus station john the dj was like you know that's like a white woman from australia singing i was like wait What? That's so crazy! But it also was like at a time where, I had just become like a dance student. I was in California, like, by myself. And I was just, you know, it's hard being [00:27:00] young. And there is something about being in the middle of the dance floor and just hearing somebody say, Do your best, do your best, don't you worry about the rest, do your best. I still sing that song to myself. Yeah.
what is it about us queer boys looking for affirmation, validation from older women?
They had to survive men also.
Andy Gott: we read so much about the glory days of San Francisco being in the past and I haven't really spent too much time there in the last 10 years so I can't speak to it at all, but I want to hear from you. you still live in Oakland, you still live in the Bay Area, for decades the city has been this global mecca for queer people.
What was so special about it in the early 2000s?
Brontez Purnell: think it was the fact that com had just fallen. [00:28:00] And it was just that portal of time where a bunch of kids could roll in again. And it hap I see I think it's happened three or four times since then. It becomes There's always these little portals of time where people can jump in. and, I don't know. It's, I think the whole structure of the world has changed a lot. You know, I remember when I first moved here, it's like, you'd see the best of, the best of Europe
move here, the best of the East Coast, the best of the Midwest, you know? But then, like, lately, I don't know. I just feel like, I don't know, it's a bunch of kids from, like, the Central Valley, and their only reference is Drag Race.
You know, I don't think any city is giving global mecca anymore.
There's a little too much. There's the false illusion of connectivity
that the internet both accelerated and destroyed
and I say it as someone who's way too addicted to it. It's really become like, you know, this horrible pacifier
And like this stand in and now it just, it makes these places that we fought so hard of, in America [00:29:00] sometimes everybody, I think worries about like the Midwest becoming too like coastalized or coastal influence moving there. I feel like the Midwest has spread out to the coast and like everything is like this, like kind of Chipotle, Starbucks reality.
The bars that I used to, like, these, like, kind of radical, crazy sex bars are now just like I don't know, these kind of, these weird boys who like buy a harness and think they've done the work
Andy Gott: Yeah. Guilty. Yeah.
Brontez Purnell: But not, it's not like, I don't know they're, but also maybe it's being older because I do remember in our 20s that remember thinking that it was like there was a sense that anything could happen and also the fucking queers that had moved there 20 years before me Probably saw me in my generation and thought
who the fuck are these posers,
Andy Gott: Possibly.
Brontez Purnell: The last thing I wanted to say about Carol Han is I went on a Carol Han deep dive. There is barely any information [00:30:00] about her on the internet. There is barely anything. We know she's still out there because she's still doing like random 80s dance covers. But Carol, if you're listening, there's a good chance you are listening.
Andy Gott: We want to hear from you. Send us an email. The album you picked. Do you need a reminder on the album, or do you know the album you
picked? Yeah. Desperate Scare But Social by Emily Sassy Lime.
Brontez Purnell: Oh my God.
Andy Gott:
Brontez Purnell: Okay, that record I got when I was like, it was probably the second or third thing I ordered from Kill Rock Stars. And I think, you know, there's a lot of talk about the Linda Lindas being the younger Asian punk group of the time, but it was like, we had Emily Sassy Lime. And you know, Emily Sassy Lime is a palindrome.
You can spell it the same way forwards and backwards, which I
thought
was, like,
so cool. But [00:31:00] also, this was their, second LP. Their first LP was,
really, crazy pop music. But, first of all, Desperate, Scared, But Social, when I read that as a teenager, I was, like, Oh my god, exactly.
And it's like, you go back and listen to it, and it's so dirty, it's so grungy, it's so heavy, it's so goth. It's probably, one of the most undersung, underground LPs of the 90s. And I think they were 14, 15, and 16
when they recorded that they were genius. It was just so genius. I listen to it sometimes now and it's still just kind of like, how cool was it that I found that record?
Or that it found me at the right time?
Andy Gott: So cool, and I've been reading about it, and it's almost a miracle that the album even happened. So the girls didn't live geographically close to each other, so they had to write their songs over the phone, they'd like, [00:32:00] leave ideas for each other over answering machines, like pre voice note era, and They couldn't afford their own instruments, so they had to swap instruments, which is like the punkery of it all, and it produced this incredible album.
I also love all of the sampling it has, and these girls like, surely they can't have been very old when they made this, like it's giving
like late
teens or something.
Brontez Purnell: It's almost like this prayer for the future. they really took analog technology to its most like, beck and point. Like, probably the shit that they could probably do on a phone in a day, took them like, weeks of coordination using this what seems archaic technology now.
Like, it's genius.
Andy Gott: you have any standout tracks from the album that you recall?
Brontez Purnell: Cadillac Stinger. No way. Hey Mr. [00:33:00] Moneybags. Hey You with the crummy face.
Andy Gott: Love it. Thank you. and if someone's discovered that through listening to this podcast, great, our work here is done. now when I asked you a while ago, when I pitched this interview to you, and I asked you to share with me an artist who's influenced you as a queer person, the person you said straight away is Tamika, your former bandmate, who you've mentioned before.
So Tell me about meeting Tamika and tell me about the band that you formed together. Yeah.
Brontez Purnell: it was like this one white girl in our high school who was just like, kind of like this, like, normie girl, but very tough Alabama girl, just old school, you know? And the fact that they had had a band was like, just seemed miraculous, and they asked me to play bass. And I was playing bass in it. But then me and Tamika [00:34:00] just formed a two piece where I played guitar and she played drums. Um, just the fact that it was like, you know, I was so lonely. Like, I was so lonely. And she was just like, she was just this old fashioned cool girl. Like, she had this cool zine, she had this zine called Liquid.
And Liquid was probably one of the most amazing zines of the 90s. The way she fucking Knew how to Xerox. Knew how to be a cool punk girl. like, she was a huge inspiration as an artist.
Just to watch her and be around her. You know, that young. Even though, you know, we were family. We were teenagers. We fought. But, to this day there just feels something super miraculous about it.
Andy Gott: And in its purest form, was it through seeing her doing all of those things that you maybe consciously or unconsciously were like, well, I can do all of those things too.
Brontez Purnell: Well, yeah, I mean, I was also, like, I was also doing those things. She had seen my zine
before I had saw hers. [00:35:00] I was doing a zine called Spandex Press. my zine, she was, like, kind of, like, more of, like, the pop boy. Like, I was probably, like, a little, likeShe was more into, like, hardcore music, like, the white boys screaming their head off music, and I was more, like, indie rock Sleater Kinney, so there was always, like, kind of that tension, she always thought I was a little, like, maybe sillier and tweer, even though my themes are very heavy, but, it was like seeing,
there definitely was, like, there was, like, you know, and there's Very few times in life where you get those relationships where you're you are both equally fucking inspired by each other and the ball just rolls off of one another.
and to have had it so young, I think probably, shaped the scope of how I see most of my relationships.
And how, if you're someone who I can't witness be creative, or we're not in some kind of creative incubator together, it's probably not gonna last long. But, you know, I think I need to, like, you know, open my parameters more.
[00:36:00] if I have a husband that just wants to, go home and bake all the time, I should support him in that. There's just no way to explain the alchemy of how that happened. I think if it had not happened, I would not be here. I was very lucky to witness that.
Andy Gott: It sounds like divine intervention
Brontez Purnell: Oh, it was definitely
Andy Gott: it's such a powerful incredible thing, especially for queer people and you know, you were too young to Black punks loving, existing, thriving in, very, white genres, And did you find other, black musicians within those genres?
Or was it kind of a feeling of like, we're in
Brontez Purnell: No,
Andy Gott: got each other?
Brontez Purnell: no, we clung to each other for dear life. For, I think, a long time. But then also, too, it was like, I just, [00:37:00] she stayed in Alabama and I just couldn't. I just, I think the complication of me also being gay and also this, My home life was very chaotic.
I had to get away. And she, for whatever reasons, had to stay. And that was really hard. I think when we were young, that was, that was really hard.
Andy Gott: Did, did you lose contact for a point? Or did you always stay in touch? Hehehehe
Brontez Purnell: at a time, but then every once in a while she'll send me an email being like, Happy birthday. Like, it's good to see you. Love you. Hope you're doing well.
So, it's the same way me and my blood sister don't talk on the phone every day. But, you know, that's my blood
Andy Gott: absolutely, of course, of
course. Well, thank you for sharing. This has been wonderful, thank you very much for your time again. Now, before I say goodbye, 10 bridges I've burnt. Where we're speaking now has been released for about a month, it feels like, more or
less.
you mentioned before off the mic that you are halfway through a science [00:38:00] fiction novel.
Is there anything further you can say about that or not at this time?
Brontez Purnell: it is, set in rural 70s Alabama. And it's about a family of black psychics at war with each other.
Andy Gott: Sign me up for the pre order.
Brontez Purnell: there you go.
Andy Gott: Brontez Purnell, you are queer and thank you very much for your tracks.
Brontez Purnell: Anytime. Love you so much.
Andy Gott: Thank you.
You can find links to Brontez online. And this episode show notes, including the music he made with his best friend to Mika on their band camp, his books, and that incredible article in the New York times that I referenced in the conversation. You can also find a link to the selection.
Some trucks have our quiz playlist. This show is presented and produced by me, Andy Gott, entirely on unseated, Gadigal and Ngarigo Aboriginal land.
You can email me your thoughts, recommendations or gay ramblings to tracksofourqueers@gmail.com. See you next time.