Daiana Feuer on April 5th, 2018

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As a teen, Alice Bag was into glam and its glitter-fueled debauchery. Then in 1977, she went to see the Germs play their first show at the Orpheum with the Zeros and the Weirdos, and everything changed. She replaced glitter with the confrontational blood and guts of punk rock, and with her friend Patricia Morrison formed the Bags, a seminal act in L.A. punk’s first wave. The band’s career was short, as many great punk careers tend to be. Although she played in other bands, including Castration Squad, Las Tres and ¡Cholita! The Female Menudo (with performance artist Vaginal Davis), music was put on the back burner for some time.

An activist, feminist and writer with two books under her belt, Bag hasn’t exactly been quiet before making an official return to music with her 2016 self-titled solo debut on Don Giovanni Records. The enthusiastic response to the album motivated her to churn out her March-released album “Blueprint,” bringing on friends like Kathleen Hanna, Allison Wolfe, and Teri Gender Bender to back her up on songs that call bullshit on society’s ill-conceived tendencies. Although she thinks the times call for artists to get loud about what’s going on in the world, Bag feels excited about the music being made right now, and says it feels like a return to punk’s early days.

||| Watch: The videos for “77” and “Se Cree Joven”
||| Live: Alice Bag and her band celebrate the album release with a show Saturday at the Echo. Tickets.

In the Buzz Bands LA interview, she talks about writing, feminism and ‘meaningful noise.’ Oh, and being rejected by Kim Fowley.

Buzz Bands LA: It’s been just two years since the release of your solo debut. What prompted you to put on another album relatively quickly?

Alice Bag: The reason that “Blueprint” came up so quickly is because we had been playing a lot so I had this really good energy from doing shows and meeting people and feeling super supported. A couple people in my band were grad students at UCLA and I was ready to keep touring but they all had finals and papers, so I was like, skid marks on the ground. I had another guitarist — I was playing with two guitarists — and my second guitarist was a professor at (the University of Illinois) Champaign-Urbana and her university wanted her to finish a book in order to keep her job. So everything came to a grinding halt. I had so much energy and just dedicated my energy to writing music. I have a space now with my keyboards and guitars out and everything I need to arrange a composition, so that’s what I did. It was similar to the way I worked the first time around, except this time I didn’t have years and years of material. I could have gone back and used songs from my old notebook, but I just decided to write new things. So that was different. I was challenging myself to write, and was a lot more focused on that. In the past I have just let inspiration hit me, but this time I was like, OK, I’m writing down notes and I’m going to write a song tonight. So it was more deliberate.

You play with some talented folks. How much structure do you give the band?

I write out parts so they have an idea of what I want it to feel like. My demos give enough information so the musicians know where I want them to go, but I want them to feel like they can bring themselves into the song. I write guitar parts, keyboard, cello and horn parts, and all the vocal harmonies. But when someone is in there and they want to try things, I do honor the musicians I have in the studio with me, so they all put their personal touches on it. It’s like I’m the pattern maker but they make it fit just right.

Do you play the cello, and all these instruments?

Well, I learned to play piano when I was a kid. I’m not a great piano player, but I don’t have to be to write the parts because I can multi-track them. I know how to play rhythm guitar, and there was one song that was too fast for me to play the changes I wanted, so I played three chords on one track and two chords that came in too fast for me on another track, so I totally cheated on my demo. I felt a sense of relief when the guitarist I showed the song to also struggled to play it. It wasn’t just me! I do my demos on a GarageBand app on my iPad, so I can play the cello on the keyboard. I don’t really play cello or violin, but I did play violin in school, so I know a little, but the best I can do is play it on my fake “smart” instruments. And then, for instance, if the guitarist has a pedal to suggest, I open up to trying it. On the first record, I wanted the drums to sound more metallic, I wanted it to feel like Mardi Gras, and my drummer went out to his car and brought back these license plates and played that. So there’s room for creativity in the studio, but there’s also structure so nobody is lost on what I want.

Everything about punk rock tells you that you don’t have to be a master of your instrument to make meaningful music, to make meaningful noise.

It’s an amazing aspect of music technology, that you don’t have to be a violinist to play the violin and such.

That kind of goes back to my roots. Everything about punk rock tells you that you don’t have to be a master of your instrument to make meaningful music, to make meaningful noise. It doesn’t even have to be music. Just some kind of expression with an instrument or object that speaks to you or to the audience. It can be a rudimentary use of an instrument, or a very skilled musician. I played with Eva Gardner, who plays with Cher and Pink, and she took the bass parts I gave her and actually charted them out. It was so pro. And she was like, do you mind if I solo here? And I was like, please, do! It’s exciting the way these musicians elevate my music.

This idea of “meaningful noise,” where did this concept come from in the early days? The Bags were part of the first wave of punk, but nothing comes out of nowhere. Was there a DIY community or some precedent in music or art that laid the foundation for early punk here?

I think you’re totally right that nothing comes out of thin air. We all brought our influences with us. There wasn’t really an organized DIY scene. But I grew up with a mother that grew up in the Depression. My earliest memories are going to the garment district of DTLA and watching my parents dumpster dive. They would leave me in the car, because it was dangerous. I wanted to dumpster dive! But there was glass and such. They would pull out these fabric books, these remnants of samples and fabric books and my mother would sew them into quilts and my father would sell them at the swap meet. So I learned DIY skills from my parents. It’s a different kind of DIY, but that spirit translated into everything I did. For my whole life, I’ve always had that idea of, ‘Why waste something that you can turn into something else?’

Growing up poor really served me well. I could survive if I lost everything I have.

So it’s more philosophical.

It’s poverty! Making the best out of your situation and using what you’ve got to make something meaningful, whether it’s expensive fabric or equipment or skill, or if it’s trash and a busted guitar. Making the best out of your situation means being resourceful. Growing up poor really served me well. I could survive if I lost everything I have. It made me creative. I was just hanging out with Seth Bogart, he has a new show called “Feeling Fruity.” I was getting dressed and he pulled out a plastic bag from Forever 21, turned it inside out, cut a head and neck holes, and painted “BAG” on the front of it and made himself a shirt on the spot. And it looked so cool on him, he made it look great! And I was like, wait, how did you do that?! I really appreciate when people show their creativity, even if it’s not slick or tailored. I would prefer to see the creativity come through.

What excites you about the current generation of musicians who are doing things their own way and making a statement?

The thing that happened between when I was involved in punk in the late 1970s and what’s happening now is that I feel like it started off as this really inclusive scene that valued openness and creativity and then went through a period that was very rigid. It was all about, ‘You must wear a leather jacket, and [have] a certain look, and dance a certain way, and there’s a punk rock sound you must achieve.’ It wasn’t the case at the beginning. Everyone dressed in weird ways, all different. The bands all sounded different. Some had synthesizers, some had trumpets and saxophones. There was no ‘punk rock sound’ and I think it’s coming around again to being open. There’s more diversity which is a return to home as far as I’m concerned. Punk is coming back to its roots. And because it’s coming back to its roots, it feels relevant and fresh again. For a while it was getting stale. It was just, ‘Let’s turn up the volume and put cute boys with the right look playing guitar.’ Not that I don’t like looking at cute boys with guitars, but I want to see a balance. I want to see different things. I get bored. I don’t want to have the same thing every day.’

Punk rock showed me that we’re active agents in the world. We can make things happen. It’s not just dancing and getting drunk.

Why is it important to not sit on our laurels when it feels like progress is being made? To avoid a stalemate or homogeny — why is it important to keep challenging what you identify with?

Exactly for the reason you said. There’s always going to be someone who disagrees with you and will try to take back whatever progress you’ve made. It’s super evident right now. The current administration is really challenging the progress we’ve made in terms of women’s rights and how we treat people of color. If you have a long view of history you’ll see that this happens cyclically so we always have to be on top of it. People would like to think ‘Ugh, it doesn’t have to be political, punk is about fun.’ I disagree. It’s definitely important to have fun and not every song has to be political, but if you want to keep this nation and this world a place that functions and values all the contributions of everyone who inhabits it, then we have to make sure we are aware and working towards creating a society that we want to see. I don’t just mean politically. Socially, we have talk to our friends, our family, our co-workers. You don’t have to write a song about it. I personally write songs about things that bother me because it helps me express what I want to convey, but it also helps me connect to other people. Then the people in the audience connect to each other and we start building communities and communities achieve change. Punk rock showed me that we’re active agents in the world. We can make things happen. It’s not just dancing and getting drunk, although there was plenty of that when I was young. I don’t want to suck the fun out of punk rock, but there has to be a point at which you’re aware and figuring out what’s going on in your community and make sure that it’s going where you want it to go.

Feminism: long history, long slow progress. Do you think a feminist movement will always be necessary?

It seems like lasting change is very slow. But I am hopeful that there will be a time where we treat each other with respect and treat each other as equals without someone having to call themselves a feminist. It’s funny, you know, I don’t tell every person in the street that I’m a feminist. I don’t go to family gatherings and say, I’m a feminist. When I’m around people that get me, I don’t tell them I’m a feminist. I always am a feminist but I don’t have to wave a flag about it all the time. But then at times I do have to be upfront about it and shout it out. I will always have the feeling that I want people to be treated equally. I have a strong sense of fairness and I stick up for myself and others if I feel they aren’t being treated fairly. I don’t know if there will always be a need for a movement, but if everyone would just be fair towards each other, that would be a great thing, but it might be a wider change in consciousness.

How did auditioning for Kim Fowley lead to the creation of The Bags?

Patricia Morrison and another friend of ours and I were trying to form a band. We were at different schools but we liked glam and went to the same concerts. We started taking guitar lessons but we couldn’t find a drummer. We decided to go with it anyway. I was going to sing, Patricia was going to play bass and our other friend was going to play guitar. We named our band Femme Fatale and went out to the Starwood and saw Rodney Bingenheimer, who was already the mayor of the Sunset Strip. So me and my fake band are there and they wanted me to go up to him. So I talk to him and tell him we are looking for a drummer and for gigs and he’s like, OK, I’ll help you. So I gave him my phone number and I was just excited to have met Rodney Bingenheimer.

Not long after that, maybe a week or two, I got a call at home and my mother comes into my room and says, “There’s a man on the phone,” and she made this face like she didn’t like him. It was Kim Fowley, and you know Kim had this gruff tone and comes on a little bit strong. He was like, “Do you know who I am and what I’ve done?” And I said, “Yes I do,” and he was like, “Well, let me tell you.” So he told me anyway, how he created the Runaways and was going to replace them with another all-girl band that he was going to make just as popular. “Rodney says you have a band, why don’t you come and audition for my band?” I talked to my bandmates and we decided to go. It was a pretty weird thing at this big warehouse type building and there were a bunch of girls there, maybe 40 or 50 girls, and he would call us up in different configurations, rotating instruments, and I got up and sang half a song before he decided I was not going to make it in the band. So he threw us out one at a time. So the cool thing that happened was that all the rejects collected on this loading dock and were talking to each other, and everyone started forming bands out of the rejects. We completed our first band Femme Fatale, which ultimately evolved into the Bags, by being rejected by Kim Fowley.

I feel like I have teacher damage. … I have to speak up and say things that I think people need to learn.

Did you imagine that when you were almost 60 years old you would be entering a new phase of music?

No, I didn’t. I was a teacher for over 20 years and for a while I figured that’s what I would be doing the rest of my life. I lived in Arizona for a long time and I was very isolated, so I started crafting, painting and sewing, and thought maybe that would be my creative outlet. But I was still writing music, even if it was just for me in my bedroom. It was something I had to do. It’s a very pleasant surprise to find myself in this situation.

You are sort of still teaching.

I think you’re right. I feel like I have teacher damage. I can’t help myself sometimes. I have to speak up and say things that I think people need to learn. And when I do book tours or visit classrooms because of my two books, I still get to teach. The only thing that is suffering is my painting. I don’t have time and I miss it. It’s hard to do everything I want. It’s like I have to rotate the pots on the stove and keep a few pots on the back burner on low temperature.

||| Stream: “Blueprint” in its entirety