Tag Results: Teri Gender Bender
VICE Magazine: We Interviewed Teri Gender Bender From Le Butcherettes
As many times as we’ve heard Morrissey exclaim through multiple songs and various PETA campaigns that meat is, in fact, a murderous act, it’s hard to ignore how cool of a stage prop it can actually be. I mean, who doesn’t like a severed, bloody pig’s head in conjunction with their favorite band? Since 17, Teresa Suarez, aka Teri Gender Bender, founder and guitarist of Mexican garage Punk band, Le Butcherettes, has been using blood and gore for her live performances for reasons that extend far beyond the grotesque, and into the ideals and ethics of the importance of the feminist movement.
With Sylvia Plath, Kathleen Hanna, and Chilean musician and artist, Violeta Parra as ongoing influences. Teri, now 23, has evolved from her days as a teen armed with a guitar and a bloody apron, into a woman who refuses to lose that fiery, teenage angst that continues to spread the word of feminism to whomever is willing to give a shit. Having already completed her sophomore album with fellow band members Lia Braswell (drums), and bassist/The Mars Volta , At The Drive-In guitarist, Omar Rodriguez Lopez, Le Butcherettes’ newest record will be less blood on stage mixed with literary references musically than their debut, SIN SIN SIN, but more references and possible inspiration from living life in a new country on Cry Is For The Flies. We interviewed Teri to find out what’s what.
VICE: You recently played Coachella. How was it?
Teri Gender Bender: It was crazy. We played around 1:55 pm, so it was really hot. I think that the set went by swell. Lia [Braswell, drummer], and Omar [Rodriguez Lopez , who’s on bass now, were fine, the heat didn’t affect them, but the heat got to me. I had a migraine the whole festival and I couldn’t even watch any bands, I had to go lay down in the van and ended up throwing up the whole time, and it happened both weekends.The heat was just terrible. But it was great. I’m not complaining.
Rolling Stone: Interviews Omar Rodriguez Lopez On Pulling Double Duty in Le Butcherettes & At The Drive In
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Teri Gender Bender & Lia Braswell of Le Butcherettes in their trailer at Coachella.
Inside a small trailer backstage at Coachella yesterday, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was trying to cool down after his first performance of the day, and the dressing room wasn’t much cooler than the triple-digit heat outside. Rodriguez-Lopez pulled double duty on both festival weekends in Indio, California, playing lead guitar with the reunited At the Drive-In on the main stage just hours after a full set on bass with Le Butcherettes, the fiery garage-punk band whose next album he is currently producing in Los Angeles.
Rodriguez-Lopez is a full permanent member of Le Butcherettes, and during the trio’s raging 45-minute set, he stood back with a smile as Guadalajaran singer-guitarist Teri Gender Bender roared through anxious pop hooks with sharp edges, at one point tossing a big Casio keyboard into the moshing crowd. New drummer Lia Braswell slammed a heavy beat from stage left and fans waved Mexican flags, as they would again later for At the Drive-In. Soon after, Rodriguez-Lopez sat with Le Butcherettes for several rounds of bottled water and talked with Rolling Stone about their busy Coachella week.
Is playing two sets a day a challenge?
Rodriguez-Lopez: No, it’s a blessing. Go play music all day? I should be so lucky. Last weekend we played, then we cooled off, we ate, and then just when you really feel like you’re winding down, “Oh, it’s time to play.” It’s perfect.
LA Times // Coachella 2012: The antics of Le Butcherettes make a mom worry
Teri Suaréz is trying to finish a record. Her phone, however, won’t stop interrupting. It’s her mother. “She’s freaking out,” Suaréz said.
This past Sunday, Suaréz sent her mother into a state of panic when, at the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, she walked away from her guitar and keyboard and climbed to the top of a lighting rig. Then she locked her legs around it and leaned over backward.
“That’s why my mom is calling me,” Suaréz said. “She said, ‘Please don’t ever do that again!’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Mom. I won’t do that ever again. I’ll be more careful. I swear.’ But she’s still really scared about it. She keeps calling to see if I’m OK.”
For now, yes, Suaréz is fine. If anything, the 22 year old is a little nervous herself. While Le Butcherettes concerts are known for their unpredictability, Suaréz has no intention of putting her life — or at least a few of her bones — in danger at Coachella on Sunday. On stage, as Teri “Gender Bender” Suaréz, the artist is reckless, abusing her guitar and her voice with delight. Off stage, Suaréz constantly laughs at herself, apologizes after nearly every sentence and admits to being paralyzed with shyness.
“It hasn’t been a hard time,” Suaréz said of harmonizing the two extremes of her personality, and then adds, “but, existentially speaking, it has been.”
Suaréz and her band, which currently includes drummer Lia Braswell and At the Drive-In principal Omar Rodriguez Lopez on bass, is rooted in the anything-goes ethos of punk rock. From Guadalajara, Mexico, and based in L.A., Le Butcherettes are a collision of genres and cultures, as Suaréz quotes from the novels most of us never read, serenades in Spanish, occasionally pretends to be Russian and lashes out at what she sees as political and societal constraints.
When Le Butcherettes opened for Iggy & the Stooges last winter, it was easy to label Suaréz as something of a spiritual heir to Iggy Pop. She’s aware of that, and she hasn’t stopped thinking about it. “I feel like everyone is expecting me to be crazy,” she said of her band’s live performances, and she said Iggy told her the “same story.”
Le Butcherettes Take Chicago June 1st & 2nd
Le Butcherettes, O’Death & Murder by Death are first bands to be announced to play this years Do Division Street Festival which is set to take place from June 1-3 in Wicker Park. Le Butcherettes will be playing on June 2nd and will also play their own show at Subterranean on June 1.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more lineup additions.
(Source: artistdata.com)
Verbicide Magazine Interview w/ Teri of Le Butcherettes
It’s safe to assume there are myriad performers in the world that are products of a neighborhood where feeling safe was never an option. For most of them, though, music (or any form of art) was seen by the community as a gift. However, in the case of Teri Gender Bender (real name Teresa Suaréz), who grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, the notion of a female speaking her mind through music were not met with much praise and acceptance.
Admittedly shy and timid when not on stage, Teri has been recording with her avant-garde garage punk outfit Le Butcherettes under the Sargent House/RLP umbrella, garnering praise from all directions — something that, at one time, may have seemed unattainable.
Noted by many as a must-see act, Teri is looking at all the avenues that are opening up for her while keeping herself grounded in the reality her rising fame is creating. Calling from a sunny day in Los Angeles, Teri spoke with us to reflect on how all her new options for the future are affecting her art and her world as a whole.
I was thinking about the last time I saw you perform live; it was back at the Highline Ballroom, opening for the ORLG band. I find it amazing how much power you create from such a minimalist setup. Is that something you specifically strive for?
It’s funny that you mention that. For the few people that we have [onstage], we try to push it as much as we can, and it has always been like that since the old days when I was 17 in Mexico. All I could have at my grasp was a guitar and a bass drum, and I guess the fact that I didn’t have much with me made me push myself even further.
Voto Latino: Le Butcherettes’ Teri Gender Bender Puts a Spell On You
I was a little nervous to interview Le Butcherettes frontwoman Teri Gender Bender (real name Teresa Suarez) last October at her Rodriguez-Lopez Productions record label, which Omar Rodriguez-Lopez runs with Cathy Pellow out of a house in the hills of Echo Park. Her stage presence is intense, so I was expecting her to scream at me for asking stupid questions; or not answer them at all. Instead, we vibed off deep discussions on feminism, philosophy and the healing aspects of nature. We were stuck behind this cement truck that wouldn’t move,” Teri’s first words were to me before going in for a big bear hug. “I thought, ‘Oh my God. She’s gonna think I’m a diva.’”
“I like to lay in the grass and just breathe. It’s so humbling. I feel like I’m becoming a hermit. I’ve just been staying away from people. I’ve become so anti-social. I’m dealing with myself for once,” Teri, who doesn’t drink or smoke, said. “I feel like you’re my therapist.”
Conversations with Bianca Interview: Le Butcherettes’ Teri Gender Bender
I’ve listened to Le Butcherettes practically every single day since I first discovered them last year. There are not many bands that have made my daily playlists, especially so quickly. I get the same feeling listening to Le Butcherettes’ Kiss & Kill and Sin Sin Sin records as I did when I first discovered Hole’s Pretty On The Inside and Live Through This as a 15-year-old. Le Butcherettes have become a really important, special band to me in the same way Hole (the real Hole with the Love/Erlandson combo) is. All the things that I love about Hole frontwoman Courtney Love – the intelligence, the love of literature and culture, the introspection and commentary of the female experience in the world, the strength, heartfelt soulful lyrics, musicianship, powerful live shows – I find again in Le Butcherettes’ frontwoman Teri Gender Bender. Le Butcherettes are a band that matter.
TERI GENDER BENDER: I’m nervous because my answers always suck!
No, they don’t! Every interview I’ve ever read with you is so incredibly thoughtful. You answer every question with such grace and no matter what is asked you always answer it really considerately.
TGB: That’s probably because the writer made it sound thoughtful.
No way. You’re selling yourself short lady.
TGB: Thank you, you are very kind [laughs].
I wanted to start by asking, what does music mean to you?
TGB: Honestly, it means [pauses] aw fuck, it just means so much to me. All these words want to come out but my throat stops them—the act of living and doing, that’s what music means to me. Being able to express oneself, even when you’re not playing it, the act of listening to it makes me feel so alive. It makes me feel like I can do anything, that I can conquer any man or any animal – that I could just go up to any bear and just hug him. Maybe that might not be the case but to me, music is just a big part of my life. Thanks to music, it prevented me from being depressed, or when I was depressed music helps lift my spirits up. I guess it has something to do with the vibes, the vibration, maybe some kind of molecules; I’ll go along with it. Its medicine, music is medicine.
Spinner: Le Butcherettes, ‘I’m Getting Sick of You’ - Video of the Day
Artist: Le Butcherettes
Video: ‘I’m Getting Sick of You’
Highlight: “Being able to to play with Lia and Omar on MTV Iggy has been nothing but a pleasurable experience, wanting nothing more or less to create an understanding of the self,” singer/guitarist Teri Gender Bender tells Spinner. “This video, ‘I’m Getting Sick of You,’ is so special to me because this is a song I wrote in my bedroom when I was 17, in my home country Mexico. I was surrounded by my family’s love, which helped me focus anger at the third-world bureaucracies that occurred against the working class man and woman. I was sick of it. It’s just so amazing to me how the song’s energy could be transformed with time and get so far as going to another country, such a great opportunity for a proud Mexican girl of 17 (now 22). You should see the e-mails I get from my fans in Mexico saying how proud they are of me.”
MTV Iggy: 3 Live Song Session & Interview With Le Butcherettes’s Teri Gender Bender & Omar Rodriguez Lopez
Since their debut album Sin Sin Sin came out this year, L.A./Guadalajara garage rock band Le Butcherettes have been carving a niche for themselves on stages north and south of the border. Line-ups shift with this band but tempestuous frontwoman Teri Gender Bender (AKA Teresa Suaréz) is always front and center. In our exclusive live video with Le Butcherettes we captured her confrontational performance in New York City’s intimate Dominion NY.
The Mars Volta founder Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (who signed Le Butcherettes to his label) played bass, joined by Lia Braswell on drums, while Ms. Gender Bender channeled fearsome rock-eras from Patti Smith to Karen O. while peppering her lyrics with literary references. It was a Dia de Los Muertos to remember. - Above is an interview with Teri & Omar Rodriguez Lopez and below are three songs including : Sick Of You, Henry Don’t Got Love & All You See In Me Is Death.
COS Premiere: Zechs Marquise’s Everlasting Beacon Of Light Video
With Omar Rodriguez-Lopez suddenly reforming At The Drive-In, his Mars Volta bandmate/brother Marcel has time to spend with his other project, Zechs Marquise. Based in El Paso, the latter Rodriguez-Lopez plays drums in the instrumental progressive rock band with his other brothers Marfred and Rikardo on bass and keyboards, respectively. Their sophomore album, Getting Paid, dropped late last year from Rodriguez-Lopez Productions (it’s a family thing), and they’ve just delivered a new video for one of the tracks.
We first brought you their single “Everlasting Beacon Of Light” back in August. The track leans towards trip-hop before erupting into typical Rodriguez Brothers insanity, but the video pretty much starts and ends in the insane. In the clip, the name of the song appears to be the name of a smokeable drug. Inhalation of said drug leads to animal-headed people, dusty graveyards, latino gangs, and secret Zechs Marquise shows. Talk about gateway drugs. Check out the exclusive video, directed by The 90s, below.
Nice cameos from Teri of Le Butcherettes and Matthew Embree of RX Bandits
NPR Music’s: Tiny Desk Concert with Teri of Le Butcherettes
UNIVISION: Names to know in 2012: Who will matter in entertainment?
Teri Gender Bender
You might know her from: Being the singer-songwriter-frontwoman from Le Butcherettes. Teri originally formed the band in Guadalajara, Mexico and now resides in Los Angeles, where in 2011 the band released their debut album Sin, Sin, Sin under the label (and tutelage) of The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez Lopez. In 2011 alone, Le Butcherettes played Lollapalooza, opened for Iggy and the Stooges, The Deftones, Queens of the Stone Age, The Flaming Lips all over the US and Australia. Not a bad start.
Why she’ll matter in 2012: Teri is out to prove she’s much more than a magnetic performer (aside from lead vocals, she plays the guitar and keyboard) with creative dress-up antics. She is already ditching her once-trademark bloody apron and is currently in the studio recording the band’s follow-up album, to be released in 2012.
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Diva Magazine Interview: Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes
Mexican rocker Teri Gender Bender calls herself an ignorant punk, still her band Le Butcherettes released one of the best albums of 2011. As DIVA’s Bella Qvist looks back at the year gone by she remembers an interview with a nervous girl who touched her heart.
It was earlier last year that Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes spoke to me in an interview that got under the skin of the feisty punk rocker. Voicing strong opinions with heartbreaking honesty this 22-year old likes to cover herself in blood on stage whilst breathing new life into queer feminism.
“Hello, I’m so sorry I left my cell phone on silent and I didn’t hear anything and I was in the car but everything is good now and I apologise with all my heart.”
Teri Gender Bender answers the phone speaking in a speedy and regretful manner, standing on a car park pavement in Los Angeles. She has spent the day travelling and subsequently missed me calling her for the last twenty minutes. Once she gets talking though, she doesn’t really stop.
22 years ago Teresa Suaréz was born into a poor and corrupted Mexican society ruled by men, violence and the Catholic church. What she experienced as a child planted seeds in her mind and the life of this rebellious young woman was soon shaped. At the age of 17 Teresa, under pseudonym Teri Gender Bender, started Le Butcherettes with a female friend.
“No one really believed in us and a lot of people [thought] that because of our gender we weren’t going to amount to anything, that it was just something for the men to go and see and enjoy in a nasty perverted kind of way.”
Playing relentlessly in small bars across Mexico the music eventually spoke for itself and Teri’s message soon became clear. By playing angry punk music and wearing 1950s housewives’ style clothes and aprons covered in blood, she represented women enslaved to the kitchen and challenged the deeply rooted stereotyped ideas of what a woman should be.
“I used those elements [female attributes] on stage but it kind of contradicted with what I felt at the moment which was a bunch of rage. It was like therapy for me. That’s where Le Butcherettes came from.”
It wasn’t long until Mars Volta’s Omar Alfredo Rodríguez-López discovered the band and brought Teri and her new male band mates over to the States where their success blossomed. Playing alongside heavy metal bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Queens Of The Stone Age she is now often the only girl on, and off, stage.
Australian Musician Magazine Video Interview with Omar Rodriguez Lopez & Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes
Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes video interview with Australian Musicians Magazine.
(Source: vimeo.com)
Remezcla: Q&A: Make no mistake, Le Butcherettes are no side show
Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes has undeniably become one of the most exciting performers in rock right now. Since winning both “Best New Artist” & “Best Punk Record” honors at Mexico’s Indie-O awards in 2009, Teri and Le Butcherettes have taken their butcher rock diatribe to new heights. Under the mentorship of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Le Butcherettes have tightened their sound into a full-bodied, well layered, distorted sound while maintaining Teri’s unbridled delivery and live stage presence which has earned the band rave reviews and almost unanimous acclaim.
Remezcla caught up with this rising star before taking the stage at The Warfield opening for Iggy & The Stooges in support of their latest album Sin, Sin, Sin.
