| Michigan
Article: Sept.-Oct. 1995
by Jill Hamilton |
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Throwing Muses singer Kristin Hersh was on the phone about an hour after O.J.'s verdict came down. "We're in L.A., it's all over the place," said Hersh, whose band plays at the Blind Pig Tuesday (Air Miami opens). "All the buildings are empty because everyone stayed home to watch it. We were trying to eat in a restaurant. They were blasting the radio and all the waitresses were just standing around crying and stuff." She took it all in stride because through her years in the music business, Hersh has become used to such turbulence. She formed Throwing Muses with her half-sister Tanya Donelly in the mid-'80's Boston scene that also spawned the Pixies. She started writing creative lyrics. The lyrics became a little too creative. She went on lithium. Went off lithium. Throwing Muses broke up, and Donelly left to form the successful band Belly- the same Belly whose tour arrives Oct. 17 for a date at the Michigan Theater. Now things are a bit calmer. Hersh has finished a successful solo tour. Throwing Muses put out "University" (Sire/Reprise), the band's most accessible record to date. While "University" loses some of the rough edges of the Muses' earlier works, it keeps the layered, complex sound and Hersh's typically abstract lyrics. Even though she is now a working mother with two kids, Dylan and Ryder, and one husband, manager, Billy O'Connell, Hersh is always up for some controversy. In a photo shoot for Rolling Stone this year, she appeared in a studded leather bikini. "The fans thought that the big, bad, white men at Rolling Stone made arty Kristin Hersh dress up like a slut or something," she said. Besides, the outfit was her idea. "You can't really do photo shoots and let them bring their stylists in to try and make you look cool because they just dress you like pre-teens. "And if you do that thing where you act like you're just hanging around and there isn't a photographer, you get those really pretentious shots that look like you're hanging around pretending like there's not a photographer there." Hersh, you can see, is someone who has put some thought into defining her persona. That includes redefining what it is to be a mother. Last time the Muses were in town, about four or five years ago, Hersh was pretty darn pregnant - as in rushing to lie down in the bus after the show - with her son Ryder. The result? "He still falls asleeep to loud guitar music," Hersh said. "Ryder doesn't really know anything else, he's 4. Dylan is 9 and he went from not knowing anything else to being really embarrassed, like trying to ask other kids in day care what their moms' albums sounded like and realizing it was kooky, to shyly asking me for copies of my records." Through the personnel changes, motherhood, marriage and the mental vagaries, the one constant has been the music. What has kept Hersh committed to her music for so long? "I can't really do anything else, for one," she said. "But my goofiest and most truthful answer is that music moved me really hard a long time ago. You continue to want to push for that high again and again. And it hasn't yet let us down." "It's as close as we get to religion because it's a kind of filter we see everything through, it explains everything. And it's so physical that it's spiritual." "It's a good job too," she laughed. "You don't have to wear a suit, you don't have to wear a hair net." Thank you, John Greene, for giving me this article! |