Lydia Lunch knocks a backhand of defiance into the face of the status quo like a shot of tequila spat into a gaping wound. Without apology, comparison or compromise, she blazes a multimedia trail of eloquently slung insults, revelations and seductions into the waiting glass of anyone thirsty enough to swallow her harsh, ferocious and intoxicating truth.
What are you drinking?
To celebrate our conversation, I am drinking what I call a Tequila Teaser. It’s tequila, pomegranate molasses, a little bit of club soda, lime and a little bit of mint. Pomegranate molasses, I’m telling you, it has all the nutrients you need.
Remember your first drink?
I don’t remember my first drink. I did drugs before I drank. I do remember one time getting drunk before I went on stage. It was very early, maybe 1980. You know the term blind drunk? I was that. I was drinking Jack Daniels, I’m not sure how much, but the second I stepped off stage, the adrenaline wore off, and I was like, “Help me down the stairs.” Then I vomited for 24 hours. I think it is a very good lesson to get that fucked up early on.
What’s your favorite drink?
I am very fickle. For a while, I liked cognac, for the stage, that is. Two cognacs and that’s it. The thing about cognac is that it is very narcotic, so it tells you when to stop. It has its own limit; you don’t want to drink a lot of that. You want to savor it, and that’s enough.
One drink I like, and I don’t know why it is not more available, is Johnny Walker Double Black. I have only found it in the duty-free shops in the airport. I first tried it in Florida, but I recently found a place in Brooklyn that has it. It’s very oaky, it’s very delicious, I don’t know why it isn’t everywhere. It’s nice to get a bottle of that, you know, for a little sip and dip.
Have you ever taken a bottle of Johnny Walker Double Black on a flight?
No, my airport habit is always the same. This includes when I am traveling solo or with my band—you gotta have a Bloody Mary. I wouldn’t have one anywhere else, except for at the overpriced frickin’ airport. The best one I ever had was in Nashville. They gave you pickled okra in it, which was delicious. Actually, if it’s a Sunday and I’m driving, maybe for a brunch somewhere, I’ll have a Bloody Mary. I once had one in Chesapeake Bay, and they put oysters in it. It’s a meal in a glass.
How do you feel about craft beers and the hipster-driven craft cocktail movement?
I don’t care about beer. The only way I would have maybe two sips of a beer is if it’s the hottest day of the year and someone else is having one and I’ll have a sip of theirs. But craft cocktails, sure. Make more cocktails, make better cocktails, I don’t give a shit if you’re a hipster or not. What I’m fascinated with is the chemical cocktails—when they’re doing fancy nitrogen explosions. But really, a good Old Fashioned is a great cocktail. But hey, I’m drinking the Tequila Teaser, and I am suggesting it for the summer months. I also like a cold toddy. In the winter, I always make my own homebrew for hot toddies, I’m known for it. It keeps colds away, and it has cured people when they have been a little under the weather. I use fresh ginger, cinnamon, clove, lemon, honey—I brew that up, it’s a witch’s cauldron, and then you add whiskey, bourbon, cognac—whatever you’ve got lying around. That’s a good winter drink just like a cold toddy is a good summer drink. I wrote a cookbook, so I am very conscious of certain ingredients.
What are you up to when you’re not touring?
I have a podcast, the Lydian Spin; we already have 217 episodes. I just had your friend JT Habersaat on. I just finished doing a documentary called Artists: Depression, Anxiety and Rage. It’s going to start showing in October at some festivals in Italy.
What are your favorite bars and clubs, at home or on tour?
I love TVI in Brooklyn. There’s this place I just discovered in Seattle called the Rabbit Box, which I’ll be going back to soon. It has a Prohibition-era, very sexy style. I like the Make-Out Room in San Francisco, I like Zebulon in LA. I do a lot of my salon series there. I recently did the Badass Babes of Burlesque. I do these spoken word workshops and I do them mainly for women. We don’t have war or sports, so we gotta have something. I’m not a comedian; I do stand-up tragedy.
What’s your favorite drinking city?
I lived in Barcelona for eight years, but I didn’t start drinking wine until I got a backache, which I’ve had for ten years. Wine was the only thing I could drink that would relax me but not get me all fucked up. I like a nice Malbec because I obviously can’t bring my own pomegranate molasses on tour. What’s interesting about Spain is that everybody drank copiously, but nobody was an alcoholic. Nobody was a drug addict; nobody was all fucked up. I tried to dissect why. What I decoded is that children there are treated like kings and queens. I would see gangs of teenagers and they would be hugging, laughing and kissing. In America, if you see a gang of teenagers, you better duck. Also, the grandmothers rule everything. That was a very interesting difference.
In America, so many of my friends, if they have to go to NA or AA they have to go, and it has saved some people’s lives. Personally, I don’t understand “all or nothing.” I’m for all and something more. All of this and more. One of them asked me, why don’t you have to go? I figured it out: because I don’t hate myself. I love myself; I am my biggest fan, and I don’t call that narcissism. I am self-ish. I think if more people loved themselves, they wouldn’t have to get blackout drunk.
I perform mostly in Europe, and every time I go back, I’m like, “Why the hell did I ever leave, I’m an idiot.’” But I did, and hey, I’m the liver of America. I gotta filter out all the bullshit and I don’t have cirrhosis—unbelievable. I’m extremely healthy. I didn’t get Covid. I haven’t had the flu or a cold for over a decade even though I’m on tour all the time breathing in the pus of other people. I haven’t had a hangover in 20 years. I’m a fembot. I’m sturdy.
What’s your secret to good health?
In spite of a really odd sleep schedule, I wouldn’t call myself an insomniac although I live in an insomniac’s theater. I sleep in shifts, I’m never tired, I’m on the road, I do whatever I want to do. In spite of whatever poisons I put inside my body, I have managed to expel all of the other poisons people have tried to put in me, whether they are parental, political, or relationships—the vomitorium of my existence. That helps me remain as healthy and pure as I am. As someone who vomits out the poison and pus of others, and doing so for a universal cause, I laugh at how horrible things are. I’m an apocalyptician. You think it’s bad now, how about the Middle Ages? How about before that? Do you think the 1700s were any good?
There is so much poison in our bloodlines, we don’t understand that could be part of the pollution that antagonizes us. Doing a lot of acid helped me see that. Once on a fabulous acid trip, this was my vision: I was like “Holy shit!” It was like a filmstrip ripped through a projector, and there went the history of the entire world in, like, one second. I was like, “What? Can we rewind?” No. Most people don’t even know what their parents or grandparents did. I’ll give you one example: war. Men didn’t ever speak about what happened to them until the Vietnam War. So, they all came back with this burden they didn’t want to tell their wives about. They had PTSD, they bore the burden of that, and it may have manifested in a number of ways. This is just one example of the burden people bear, and they may not even know it. That’s why we have to clean the blood, and that’s why I have the Tequila Teaser. It cleans the blood.
If you could go out drinking with three people, living or dead, who would they be and how would the night go?
This is awful—Ernest Hemingway so I could shoot him in the face myself. Ha ha. That’s a joke. Salvador Dali—I don’t know if he drank or did drugs, but I would spike his drink. But that might make him paint really boring. It might have a reverse effect. Also, Matthew McConaughey, because I’m a McConaugheathen. Actually, because of the TV show True Detective, it would have to be a double date with him and Woody Harrelson. I would get them both fucked up, tie them together, God knows what would happen after that. I have to say this, and I might misquote it from that show: “Eternity does not exist. Death created eternity so it would have a place to kill things.” I would bind both of those boys together and do a little bit of damage.
Closing thoughts?
Rebellion is the ultimate pleasure, that’s why I am so well sorted, and sordid as well.¸
—Interview by Luke Schmaltz
Check out the Lydian Spin podcast at: lydianspin.libsyn.com
