No, your eyes are not deceiving you. That really is a naked plus-sized women on the cover of the New Musical Express (NME). Her name is Beth Ditto and she says she is really proud because she is the perfect size 22.
It’s been an intense and crazy 18 months for Ditto’s Arkansas punk band The Gossip since they released their third album Standing in the way of control on the Kill Rock Stars label.
The past 18 months have seen them rocket into the UK charts on the back of their gay-marriage protest song, which shares its name with the album, and lead singer Ditto has become the new outspoken poster-girl for women and gay rights.
Ditto’s latest exploits include a much hyped performance at the South by South West music festival, the aforementioned NME cover and advice for women on how to deal with catcalls in the street via The Guardian newspaper.
But how exactly has all of this attention affected her band and how does she feel about being the latest gay icon to hit the pages of the mainstream press? The Mail & Guardian caught up with Ditto to find out.
“I do get worried that I get separated from The Gossip too much, I miss them,” says Ditto. “When we fly to England they get to sleep in and I have to go and do something crazy,” she says, poking fun at herself before adding that, ultimately, there is an understanding that whatever “crazy” thing she is off doing is for the good of the band.
Ditto says the reaction to her protest song Standing in the way of control has surprised her because it was written to console her friends, who she says were feeling desperate as gay citizens of a country that did not want to recognise their rights.
“I wrote it to reach out to people around me,” says Ditto. “I just thought I am going to make this song for my friends so they don’t feel so desperate and shut out.”
“I never really expected it to reach a lot of people like it did,” says Ditto. “I never wanted it to be a dance floor anthem.”
Ditto says, as the US seemed to be going to war over gay marriage, she was approached by numerous political groups to get involved and speak out. “All these people in my radical community were like, ‘will you get involved’ and I couldn’t because I couldn’t see it affecting the way things were and I just couldn’t commit to it, because it didn’t feel okay,” says Ditto. “Then I stepped back and I felt really bad about it for a while, but when we made this record what I did was to take those issues and make art about it.”
The success of Standing in the way of control has raised the stakes for The Gossip and they are getting recognition for their heady mix of punk, funk, dance, blues and gospel.
Their first two albums saw them branded as a garage rock or blues-punk trio and lumped with emerging rock outfits like The White Stripes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
But the new album, the release of which coincided with the introduction of new drummer Hannah Blilie, sees The Gossip departing from their old sound and venturing into uncharted territory.
“We just wanted to mix things up,” says Ditto. “We wanted to get away from the garage rock tags, we really were a garage rock band by default because we didn’t know how to play our instruments.
“Really, it’s been amazing the way things have worked out,” she says. “It’s been really amazing to have people think about things that they’ve never thought about before.
“I think the next step for me is really getting into talking about the war in Iraq,” says Ditto. “Talking about how America avoids every single part of the world’s problems.
Ditto says America is a “crazy place” at the moment, with large segments of the population taking an apathetic or apolitical stance, not engaging with what’s going on around them. “They are like, ‘Actually I can afford to pay a lot for gas when I’m trying to take my child to the babysitter and then go to work in the morning’. Well, you’re one of the lucky few,” says Ditto.
She says the radical politics of “Riot Grrrl” bands that inspired her — like Hole and Bikini Kill — seems to be missing in American music today, that instead we have Green Day, a band that doesn’t go any further than saying, “I don’t want to be an American idiot”.
“Fantastic, but what does that mean?” says Ditto. “To some people you are being an American idiot.”
Ditto is excited about the fact that her newfound fame has given her a platform to talk about important things — something she plans to embrace. So watch this space!