“We all consider ourselves artists who happen to make music too,” says Samson, an Ohio native who grew up in Pepper Pike, via phone from an airport hotel in New York, where the band was prepping for a flight to Spain for a Le Tigre gig. Le Tigre performs on Monday, July 17, at the Agora Theatre. “We are a multi-media band, and we take a lot of cues from performance art and visual art, so that was part of the reason why I joined the band. I was in school for film, and I was the projectionist for the band’s first tour. Our connections were more in the film world and in the visual art world. We explored how those could intersect with the music part.”
As a result of that unique artistic perspective, the band developed a distinctive sound on its 1999 self-titled debut that was one part post-punk and one part electro-pop.
“I think the first Le Tigre record came out of Kathleen [Hanna] spending some time making music by herself and making these demos that were electronic-focused and made with drum machines and coming to Johanna [Fateman] and [former member] Sadie [Benning] and asking them to flesh them out,” says Samson. “It turned into a whole new project. There was this instinct to go towards music that was extreme DIY. You could learn how to use the gear yourself and make it in your bedroom. It was pre-bedroom pop. We were trying to make sure the anger was focused on happiness and joy and being in the room together and that was a difference.”
Samson says that working on the band’s EP that followed its self-titled debut as well as the its second album, Feminist Sweepstakes, found the band making records in a manner very similar to making movies.
“There is this narrative and editing and finding a connection point,” says Samson. “To me, it felt like adaptions of a different medium. To an extent, we all felt that way. We were all political artists. We were bringing out thoughts and ideas together, and we were having fun while doing it. A really important part was having fun. I realized that after we played our first club show [on the current reunion tour] just the other night. Somebody posted something other night and said it was so rare to be seeing someone having as much fun onstage as the fans in the audience. I thought, ‘Oh yeah. That’s a huge part of it. It’s about our humor and ability to laugh at ourselves and enjoy each other’s company.’”
On hiatus since 2007 after constant touring reportedly did the group in, the band originally intended to regroup for a performance that would’ve taken place in 2020. The pandemic wiped out that date as well as the rescheduled date. But, it turns out, there might’ve been a silver lining in the cancellations.
“We got asked to play a show in L.A. in 2020 just prior to the election,” says Samson. “It was postponed and then postponed again. The relevance was interesting. It just kept getting more relevant. It would have been nice for us to create this energy around the election and voting. But we also needed that now, so it was fine that it happened as late as it did. We remembered how great it felt to be on stage with each other and we started booking another tour.”
Recreating tracks that include a myriad of electronic instrumentation and samples has not been easy. That some master tapes no longer exist has only made things more difficult. But those roadblocks have only inspired the group to find creative ways of playing some of the older tunes.
“For a lot of the old songs, we don’t have the parts,” says Samson. “In the process of trying to rebuild this show, we realized all the files were corrupted. We don’t have the stereo backing tracks. It some cases, the stereo backing tracks slipped from the grid. It’s hard to add anything. We kind of like that because it adds this human quality to it. The layers that are off a little bit make it kind of cool.”
Adding that the band is what could be considered a “reunion tour,” Samson says the current political climate certainly inspires the group.
“We have this song called ‘FYR,’ which stands for ‘Fifty Years of Ridicule,’” Samson says. “There is this one part that is one step forward, five steps back. As we were going through the music and lyrics, we realized that every single word was true, or if not true, that things have become worse than they were. That’s a pattern we see as feminists. There is this backlash that comes up against us. We’re fighting for our own bodies and our own love and our rights in a way that’s really dangerous and scary. Kathleen [Hanna] said this on stage that we are winning because [conservatives] are scared. We have to remember that in this moment. They are fighting for their lives. We need to keep doing what we’re doing and for us, that’s getting on stage and sweating with the people at the show and each other.”
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
This article appears in May 17-30, 2023.