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- The Guardian, Sunday 12 November 2006
The Gossip are the thinking person's antidote to every shiny pop band extant. The Arkansas trio have shaped the legacy of punk into a filthy groove with a cowbell pulse and lolloping great heart attack choruses. Front woman Beth Ditto is a natural siren with the voice of a veteran soul diva and a powerhouse delivery that reaches trouser-fluttering volumes. 'I remember being 14 and my sister would always put me in these talent shows,' she says. 'The people sitting behind my mum would be like, "Motherfuck!" so I thought maybe I have something special.'
Predictably, founder members Ditto and guitarist/ bassist Nathan Howdeshell (aka Brace Paine) felt at odds with the conservative, Bible Belt nature of their Deep South home. 'It was a very small town, we were all related and things like that,' reveals Ditto in a charming southern twang. 'I was born in a trailer park.'
At school, where Ditto fed her ears with the likes of Missy Elliott, Poison and, more obscurely, Glaswegian indie fops Yummy Fur, people 'just didn't get it', she says. The floppy-haired Howdeshell, who grew up on a farm, was her closest ally. 'It was really tough. There was no mould as to what was cool, you really had to shape everything yourself. We wanted it so much more, we appreciated everything because we were poor.'
This underlying sense of alienation is strongly felt on their latest album, Standing in the Way of Control. It compels Ditto, who is a lesbian, to speak-up for disfranchised kids. 'Now I'm in a position where I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me. I'm an opportunist that way! Especially as America is such a controlled, fascist nation right now.'
When they were 18 years old, Ditto and Howdeshell escaped to Olympia (the liberal arts hothouse in Washington State that spawned the likes of riot grrl act Sleater-Kinney), where they found their niche. But it was Standing in the Way of Control, their third album, that really blew things up.
Recorded with Fugazi's Guy Picciotto , it was tighter, funkier and more soulful than anything they had previously done and successfully traversed the canyon between lo-fi indie and muscular pop. New drummer Hannah Blilie (far right above) is partly responsible. 'We were ready to make a serious record. We had a drummer who was ready to tear her ass off. I mean, the old drummer - her heart wasn't in it; she wanted to be a midwife!' says Ditto.
A few hours after our interview in London's notorious Columbia Hotel, the band appear on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, alongside Russell Crowe and Jade Goody. Ditto, with her raven hair-helmet and girl-group shimmy, looks fantastically confident. With their soul-baring power, however, you can't help but think they stand out like some radical sore thumb. That, of course, is how it should be.
· 'Standing in the Way of Control' is out on Back Yard
