The 7 Year Bitch Page!/Articles And Interviews/Article 32

7 Year Bitch Interview
By Gary Savelson

7 Year Bitch guitarist Roisin Dunne fields questions about the band and the new album, "Gato Negro."

So you live in Seattle?

We all live in Seattle. I live in a really yuppie neighborhood and my neighbors always get mad at me because I never mow my lawn. One morning this guy was weed whacking outside my window at like noon. I was like "Dude, I don't wake up until two, what are you doing?"

Why don't you mow your lawn?

Why should I mow my lawn. It's my lawn, I can do whatever I want with it. I just let it die.

Do you spend a lot of time with the band?

I'm from Seattle and I ran around and went to shows and stuff. I didn't play in a band up there or anything. I moved to L.A. and worked in the film business for a couple of years as a camera assistant and then I joined the band and moved back. It was so cool because I joined this band which is something I really wanted to do for a long time but I got three best friends out of it. I didn't expect that. We're each other's best friends, we tell each other everything, we go out together, we talk on the phone everyday.

What kind of stuff do you guys do together?

Liz [bassist] and I have gone skiing. We're gonna go snowboarding, all four of us, tomorrow. We're gonna play a board-aid benefit for Lifebeat. They're gonna have a half-pipe for snowboarders, Bad Religion's gonna play, Sublime's gonna play. It all raises money for Lifebeat which is an organization that raises money for musicians, other various artists, and teens with aids. It totally targets youth. Instead of making the issue super scary, they kind of come at you from the hip and say, "Hey this is something you probably want to know about, it's important, it affects you, let's all be smart, let's all be open-minded, and let's help each other out." It's a really fun event, taking something really tragic and horrible and turning it around.

You're all the same age?

We're all 30, Valerie is 27. If we play all ages shows, girls will come up to us. We'll tell them how old we are and they're just floored. They can't believe it. I meet people that are my age and I realize that [pause] I'm not like them [laugh].

What are we talking about in songs like "Crying Shame," "24,900 Miles Per Hour," and "Sore Subject?"

24,900 miles per hour is how fast it would take you to run off the face of the earth.

Why are you running?

You have to listen a little more carefully. I have no liberty to discuss Selene's [vocalist] lyrics.

It's hard to understand what she's saying.

Really? I can understand what she's saying.

That's because you're in the band [both of us break out in laughter].

All of these articles were written up a long time ago, when you were on C/Z, about the riot grrrl scene. What does that have to do with you now?

When that was in the past, it wasn't even the present for us. We were never involved with riot grrrl. We all have four independent views on feminism. I come from the attitude of just go and do what you want. I think by people witnessing that and not carrying some big flag and being really vocal about it makes a point subtly. I've always worked in male dominated industries and I didn't know that until people told me. It never occurred to me that I'm swimming some up hill battle or that I'm elbowing my way in against the big boys. I don't think that way. I don't hang out with people that think that way, male or female. I just do what I do and if people pick up on that and they go check it out, she's a girl and she's playing guitar. If they're shocked, if it makes an impression, then to me I have made some kind of statement for feminism without really trying.

[Roisin further comments on riot grrrl and the media]

If Selene makes a comment in one of her lyrics about a man maybe its someone she went out with. She's a woman singing about a relationship that went good or bad, it's most likely gonna be about a man because she's heterosexual. That doesn't make her some big man-basher, that just makes her heterosexual. If a man was singing about a relationship gone bad it doesn't make him a woman-hater, so it's constantly being twisted around by the media.

I put the record on and it nails you, it's loud and it's very aggressive. Is that your personal image?

Is that how I am when I'm just hanging out?

It's not, is it?

Yeah, I'm not gonna go into the symphony, I'm gonna go see a rock show. I love loud music. When I go home and I'm gardening, I listen to Neurosis.

Do they {Atlantic Records] treat you good?

Yeah, things have been really cool. When we were recording, we had complete artistic control over what we were doing. We're shooting our video ["24,900 Miles Per Hour"], it's all our ideas.

Are they [Atlantic] shooting for alternative radio or hard rock?

I don't know. Both. Whoever will take us [laughs]. Where do you think we should go? Should we be played next to Oasis or Alice in Chains?

Well, to me personally, I don't care. It could be either way because I like eclectic radio. For the purposes of marketing you'll probably end up on alternative radio and hard rock. You're more of a punk band to me.

Good.

You sound like Led Zeppelin at times too.

That's great [laugh].

There are some Led Zeppelin riffs in there and you're the guitarist so you should know-do you like Led Zeppelin?

I'm not the riff-meister behind the band, our bass player is.

Did you listen to Led Zeppelin growing up?

Elizabeth listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin growing up.

What about you?

I fell in love with the whole British early 80's and late 70's fast punk-rock stuff, like the Buzzcocks. I haven't really got into the revival of that. I'm a Buzzcocks fan, I'm not an Offspring fan.

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