ALEX PÄIVÄT REPORTS: Beatrix Kiddo are calling it quits
// januari 13th, 2017 // ALEX PÄIVÄT REPORTS
Photo: Alex Päivät
The members of Umeå’s rawest band are putting down their instruments, at least for now. During their short career, that lasted roughly a year, Beatrix Kiddo have shown the punkscene in Umeå exactly how much mangel a punkband really can play.
– We play very fast and our songs are really short. Our first gig was just over five minutes. Once when we had a gig one of my friends came to watch us play, but he went to the bathroom right before we started playing, so he missed the whole gig, says Vicky.
In the autumn of 2015 the band Missfallet split up, a band that was more of a rumor than a real band. In one year’s time Ellen and Lisette had built up the myth around the band with stickers and word to mouth hype, but they had never rehearsed or made any songs. Around the same time that they got a rehearsal space they decided to split up. Immediately Ellen and Lisette concluded that they wanted to continue play, or start to play depending how one looks at it, and was thus forced to recruit new troops. They contacted Bo (bassguitar in transcore heroes Utan Tvekan) and Vicky. Three weeks later, Beatrix Kiddo played their first show at Verket in Umeå.
– When you first start to play in a band, and if you are like me who don’t have any experience from playing in a band, you are so afraid of making mistakes. One is afraid that one will do the most basic things wrong. Being unable to correctly plug in the guitar and stuff like that. But it is so liberating and it gives you so much confidence when you dare to stand on stage. We have gained a reputation as the fastest and rawest band in the whole punkscene in Umeå, that has also given us a lot of confidence, says Vicky who is the band’s guitar player.
– This band is just as hard, fast and brutal as possible, continues Vicky.
– It’s just honk and drive, says Bo.
– Yes, other bands from Umeå have so much experience. All the bands have members who have been playing music for a long time and we never did that, says Lisette who plays the drums.
What is the motivation?
– We just want it to go as fast as possible, as long as it goes fast we don’t need it to be synchronized or in tune. It’s liberating. I also play in a band called Blodrus with three dudes. They are very good at their instruments and more like “musicians”. While Beatrix Kiddo is more freedom and we are all so new at this and non-male. It is quite another thing, says Ellen who also plays guitar.
– For guys it’s so damn easy being on stage. To then be in a context like this, with no guys, it feels safer. And it’s an environment that is more welcoming for making mistakes, says Lisette.
– If you haven’t been doing something before, it is not strange if you make a mistake from time to time, it obviously is going to happen, says Vicky.
Why do you think Beatrix Kiddo is so popular?
– Are we popular? Do people like us?, Bo says wondering.
– We have become a bit of a crossover band between the pop- and punkscene in Umeå witch is quite fun. There are many from each scene that come to our shows because Vicky also plays guitar in Lesley witch is a pop band, says Lisette.
Beatrix Kiddo is hoping to make a recording at the end of August before they put the band to sleep. Two members are now moving from Umeå to the south and will not come back to the city in the near future. But nobody in the band denies the possibility for more shows in the future.
What are some of your best memories of the band?
– Before our gigs when we always fix our make-up and get amped up too go on stage has always been nice, says Vicky.
– When we did our first gig. It was the first time I stood on stage. To be part of the band coming to the venue, get food, sound check and all that was great for me, says Ellen.
How do you describe the band?
– We play punk as Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill kills, but without the advanced technology. Only raw and ruthless, says Ellen.
What are your songs about?
– Often we have only one really great line in the lyrics, and then we take it from there. For example, Fitt-fist min starkaste näve (TRANSLATION: Pussy-fist my power fist). Where we only have that sentence, but it is so nice so we just repeat it over and over again, says Ellen.
The band is getting ready to play their last show when we are conducting the interview. The band is going to do their last show on what happens to be the International UFO Day. An important date, but there is no connection.
– I want to believe, says Lisette when I bring up the date.
– UFOs are cool. I think that aliens should come here and take away all the animals from the earth and save them from humankind, says Ellen.
Alex Päivät
July 2016