Gina Birch on truth, insight and how to live a life devoid of convention

This interview with Gina Birch was perhaps the most significant I have conducted. You see, Gina means a lot of things to many different people. 

A musician, a painter, a mother, a feminist icon.

As someone who holds a deep appreciation for post-punk, specifically from the late 70s to the early 80s, Gina Birch and her contribution with The Raincoats were a vehicle in establishing the female voice within that movement. Alongside contemporaries such as X-Ray Spex, The Slits and Essential Logic, Birch really helped cement what it meant to be a woman in a male-dominated industry. Choosing rawness and grit over polished and manufactured product, Gina was, and still continues to be, a symbol of going against the status quo and how utilising authenticity and imperfection can be best served as a tool. 

My conversation with Gina was filled with personal anecdotes and wise words of the lived female experience. I was struck by her warmth, her grounded nature and most of all, her humility. She perhaps doesn't recognise just how pivotal she has been in providing a physical voice for young women and girls, and so, this interview serves as a direct appreciation and love-letter from those who have found solace, representation and an identity within her art and music...

Gina: It was a funny thing because it was very unplanned, you know, I think a lot of the boys had got their eye on it. Most of us didn't have our eye on the opportunity to play, so we just skipped in when we saw a little opening and it was most unexpected. You know how like sometimes the parties you're not expecting are the best ones? That was it! We were not expecting to be able to have a band. Even the idea of having a band just didn't occur to us, until punk and post-punk really just opened the door. 

Ria: What was that like? Talk me through me through the whole thing...

Gina: As a young woman, you were kind of used to being the add-on, the girlfriend – in heterosexual relationships obviously (laughs). The boys had their friends, and you often hung out with the boys and their friends, and you kind of lost a bit of touch with your own friends, and it was very male centric. You go and see bands and there might occasionally be a woman in a band, but you probably didn't even look at them. There was a kind of invisibility. It's so bizarre now when you think about it. I've been to a few concerts. I liked music. I was always singing along to things, be it from the Sound of Music or from performance, you know, Mick Jagger. I loved singing, but I couldn't sing very well. 

When I chanced upon the Sex Pistols, it was like something really strange was going on, and it had this energy that me and my friend Alex kind of really tuned into. We thought, "Wow, this is something quite different, quite special!” And they only played about five songs and they were gone, and then I moved into a squat of Westbourne Grove. There were artists and artisans and musicians, and I was kind of immersed in a little scene. Going to gigs, going to shows - it wasn't until I saw The Slits play!

I was friends with Palmolive, their drummer. I went to their first gig and I couldn't believe it! They were four young women, just being themselves, being very anarchic, having a bit of a fight on-stage. Singing these songs that were them, songs about their adventures. They were the protagonists, not the object of love or disappointment or whatever. It was very straightforward. It wasn't ever so poetic or anything. You could just get it. It just spoke directly to you. It wasn't couched in all this kind of Blakean language, which beautiful as it is, but sometimes you need to unpack a little. It was just straightforward. I just thought I wanted to be in that band. I couldn't be in that band obviously, but it did plant the seed that I should have a band. It was obvious that that they weren't players, do you know what I mean? 

Ria: It was just pure feeling? That aggression and that angst  - that's really kind of at the heart of punk. 

Gina: Yeah, it was straightforward. As Palmolive always said, she was bashing her bass drum, and each time it was moving forward and then she'd have to pull it back and bang it. They were all just learning, and that's what The Raincoats did, really. We learned as we went along. It let people in. Some people go, “Oh, no, no, no”, because we know what we're doing and they don't. But the people who are who are more sensitive or more interested in learning, they gravitate to it and it inspires them too. You know when someone's a brilliant painter, you would never think, "Oh, I'm going to become a painter because that painter's brilliant” - but if you see something that is a heartfelt drawing, that’s kind of almost childlike, like Picasso or something, you think, “Oh, that is beautiful!” and there's a kind of energy there, and it's a simplicity. It lets you in, you know? I mean, some people go, “Oh, I could do that,” but they don't. Do you know what I mean?  They’re the naysayers, and we can just brush them to one side. 

Ria: In the late 70s post-punk movement with voices like The Raincoats and Poly Styrene and Lora Logic at the helm, there was a sense that the ‘wrong voice’ could suddenly be right. Did this vocal ‘incorrectness’ feel like an experiment or simply a refusal to the status quo? 

Gina: I think it was kind of, instinctive. In retrospect, you can kind of hang things on it. I think Poly Styrene  was more tuned into that because she'd been trying to be a musician and a singer before that,so she'd given it a lot of thought. With me, I didn't really give it much thought. I just tried, you know, and being shy…(laughs).

The other thing is, when you stand in front of a microphone, you're really heard, and sometimes you don't want to be. You want to be whispering it, and you don't want anybody to hear, but you know that in the control room, they've probably soloed your vocals and it's such a learning curve. 

There wasn't this idea of, “Oh, I must run off to a singing teacher!” It was like, “I'm just gonna do it.” And “Yes, I feel so embarrassed, but feel the fear and do it anyway!” When we rehearsed, we rehearsed altogether, we very rarely noodled in our room learning on our own. We did a bit, obviously, but a lot of the time it was like we were weaving a tapestry together, you know, like learning together. And we’d say, “Oh, I'll play this bit and maybe you drop out there or I'll drop out here." With voices, we didn't really know how to sing because I never tried to emulate anybody. I did later! I probably could have sung better had I really thought about it, but at the time it was on pure adrenaline and energy and humiliation and shyness and all those things!

Ria: You did a good job, though! You became a symbol to so many people, and that sort of segues into what I was going to ask next. Within the 90s, there was the Riot Grrrl movement - did you ever feel you were kind of at the forefront of having helped trailblaze that? 

Gina: Yeah, definitely, We were absolutely thrilled when we heard about Riot Grrrl. When I read Kathleen Hanna's book more recently, I found out, she was practising her voice from a tiny age and doing dance classes and stuff. And me? I've never done a dance class or singing class in my life! It was very different! It came as inspired by us, but a lot of them were younger and had more skills at their fingertips. They were more genned-up with feminism, they were more genned-up with singing, maybe not playing so much, but they seemed more sophisticated in a funny kind of way. But I do think sometimes that our music was more weird and experimental than some of the Riot Grrrl stuff. The Riot Grrrl stuff was wonderful and very communicative and very in-your-face and brave. I mean, the bravery was astonishing. But I do think what the Raincoats did and The Slits, to some extent, was more strange, more experimental. We were the weird ones who weren't trying to play the right chords in the right song structure and all that. 

Ria: Kim Gordon once described The Raincoats as “ordinary people playing extraordinary music.” I wanted to ask if that description felt accurate with the intentions you set out with your music? 

Gina: Yes, I do think so. I'm not sure how ordinary we were, though, because had we been ordinary, we probably would have been secretaries or art teachers! (laughs).

Ria: Extraordinary, then: “Extraordinary people playing extraordinary music.”

Gina: Well, I think we were a bit of outsiders, you know? We were outside the mainstream, and we weren't trying to fit in, in that way. When I went to art school, at that time, I had no idea you could have a job in art. Damien Hirst hadn't raised his head yet (laughs), and so the art market was very closed. “Oh you’re going to do fine art,” but then what? People would do graphics and then they might design for a magazine, or they do a  sculpture or make things and work in the theatre. There was no direct line to what you were going to do with your conceptual art piece or your ‘3 Minute Scream,’ as it happened, not  realising it might go in The Tate (laughs). Forming a band was an amazing way to move forward in a kind of mini gang, you know? Alot of the outsiders ended up at art school, but some of them would be painting horses or doing beautiful landscapes and things - and we were just a bit more peculiar, I suppose. 

Ria: You once recalled Robert Wyatt describing old 78s as capturing the artist breathing, which you then adapted as the core of your present work. Listening back to early Raincoats recordings, especially Odyshape, you can really hear that breath. 

Gina: The breath thing, it was funny because I suppose in what he was talking about, it might have been just one person with their guitar – it’s like being in the room with them, and maybe our first album was a bit like that, Odyshape, but we still layered it to some degree. I talk about that now, you know? I say I often record in my kitchen because I can with this set up. I can do logic, and I say, “I like the cat miaowing”, or “the sound of the washing machine”… I like those sounds, they kind of add a humanity to it…Or a cat-omity? (laughs). When you said that, you know how sometimes somebody says something, and it just kind of catches you? And you go, “Oh, my God, yes!” You know, just an old, scratchy '78? It's like you're suddenly there in the '20s or something. Like, with Billy Holiday or something, you're there. You could say that with Duran Duran, but it doesn't quite feel the same, does it? It feels quite manufactured. And I think the idea is, that on those records, there was a real presence of the human being and their breath and their very being. You're almost like in the room with them. Once you start overdubbing or putting effects and reverb and delay, what you're doing is you’re adding artifice to it, and it's a whole different ballgame. 

Ria: Was that liberating or did you feel quite exposed doing that? 

Gina: Yeah, I believe that those people who made those records were very good at what they did.  They might have sat playing their guitar since they were ‘knee high to a grasshopper’ or whatever, whereas me, I had just begun. I was much higher than the grasshopper, and I was just beginning. It was at that time in history when you didn't have to know anything in order to be appreciated. I mean, not saying everybody got that opportunity, but we, as The Raincoats, were lucky to get that opportunity. Somehow, we caught someone's ear, and they said, "We'd like you to make a record.” And yes, we were very vulnerable. 

Ria: Were you consciously rejecting that polish or simply following what it felt to be alive?

Gina: I think the second. I mean, maybe Anna had it more, because she was seven or eight years older. I wasn't consciously rejecting anything, I don't think. But, I'd have to go under hypnosis to know! (laughs). There was a kind of ideology in the air, that was “just do it, give it your best shot, but be yourself and not worry about how someone else would do it.” Just do it the best way you can. Or even the worst way you can! With In Love I knew about repeat echo, and I wanted it to go “in-in-in-in” but because I didn't know about that, I did it myself: “in-in-in-in, love-love-love-love”… and so, those kind of things happened because of ignorance really, and they became funny and fun.

Ria: You said many people believe in the punk ethos, but “don't actually practise it.” What did it actually mean to live it in the more mundane moments, say, an ordinary Monday? 

Gina: (sighs) How to live as a punk in a mundane day? I think it depends if you're an artist or you're a creative. I think the thing is not censoring yourself too much. Not going, “Oh, I've had this idea, but I can't do that,” and “Oh, I thought about this, but oh, no, I won't bother.” It's actually saying, “I've had this idea and ...”  At least writing it down and having it there to look at again. So any ideas you have, don't think they're no good, because they might be. Just try them and see where they lead you. I mean, I don't know if you can be a punk washer-upper (laughs).

You have to live a life that makes sense but not to mindlessly follow rules that seem crazy, you know. To be thoughtful experimental, uncensorious. 

Ria: You were quoted saying that The Raincoats did “the whole bloody thing ourselves.” What did that autonomy really look like? And when did that independence feel powerful and when did it maybe feel lonely? 

Gina: Well it was actually when Vicky joined, really. She came and she said, “Look, you may not call yourself  feminist, but what you do is a kind of feminist act. You got together yourselves, you found all the players yourselves, you do your own artwork.” Well, we co-produced actually, with Mayo (Thompson). We just did everything ourselves. We didn't get stylists or singing teachers or anything. We were just ourselves. We were very raw. I think there was a rawness to it. There was no veneer, no nail polish (laughs). We got an invitation via a telegram to go and play in Poland, and then we bought train tickets and set off to Poland, just us, you know? We didn't have a tour manager, we just did it. 

Ria: Your project, Dorothy, was inspired by Cindy Sherman’s film stills of staged female archetypes. When you began writing from those figures, were you stepping into them or pulling them apart? 

Gina: Both! From a girl who was brought up on Jackie Magazines, you know, who met the handsome boy in the launderette, and always looked cool and had a kind of flick hairstyle. There's a little bit of you that kind of likes that - there's a bit of love for that glorious fake romance, but there's still a little bit of you that believes in it! 

My friend Fiona Shearer said, “Oh, my mum said, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs until you find your prince!” And so, I thought I'd get all these kind of quotes from dark romantic “ahhh” (mockingly sighs) you know? The woman sighing and the guy giving fake assurance... I might have thought that was funny... it was a playful thing. I think I'm a bit of a comedian in the middle of it all. I find life quite funny. If something makes me laugh, I think, “Oh, there's a bit of an idea there!” There's an energy there. 

Ria: Across both music and painting, your work often holds an unfinished edge. How do you know when something is finished? 

Gina: I mean, some people say when it’s taken away... When you’ve done the mix and you can’t remix it anymore. I mean sometimes a painting does seem finished and I know if I did any more to it, it would spoil it - because I don't want to make it too smart! I like smudges and blurring and splatters. I feel the same with music and painting. Those words could almost apply to both, you know?

I don't really know when something's finished. If it sits in your studio for a while, you can look at it and go, “Oh yeah, I like that," or "Oh, my God," and then you paint something over it and you go, “Oh it was better before!” you know? Life is complicated. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer for any of that, it just is.

At first with the albums, when I got Jenny and Marie to come and play with me, I was trying to put together the live sound, to sound like the record. Now I've done that a while, I'm actually quite interested in it not sounding like the record - to take it somewhere else, you know? Take the cello out of Cello Song, for example, or play Stilettos completely live. Just trying to play more and more of them without any backing tracks and then interpret them in a new way, and that's exciting. So when are they finished? They’re never finished!

Ria: You've sustained a practice across decades, raising two daughters, touring, painting and recording. What has age given you that youth couldn't? 

Gina: I suppose a bit of a belief in myself. I never called myself an artist. I thought it was up to other people to call you an artist. You know, “How can I declare myself an artist?” I'd probably put the idea of an artist on a pedestal myself, and I didn't think I could call myself an artist - it was up to other people. But I realised, having done it now for 50 years, I qualify (laughs). Now, I think of myself as an artist, and I think how lucky I am to be that. So, I think it's given me confidence in myself as a person and more confidence not to be as self-critical.

Although, you need an element of self-criticism, and I don't take myself too seriously. I never have! What's age given me? Yeah, it's very difficult because it creeps up on you. You learn stuff all the time. You learn a lot by being a parent. You learn a lot about yourself.

Gina Birch performs at Metronome (supporting The Au Pairs) on 27th February. Also look out for the International Women's Day 'Women in Punk' event at Rough Trade on 6th March (tickets are available here).

@gina.birch