When Gina Birch joins the call she’s sporting a fetching moustache – her quick foray into video filters a light-hearted illustration of how the co-founder of The Raincoats is never idle.
She’s kept going since the post-punk bunch started out in 1977, but reflects: “With The Raincoats it was always pootling along; undulating hills rather than a steep ramp.”
You’re just as likely to find her editing music videos in her North London kitchen as recording fresh demos in Logic. On sophomore solo album Trouble – the follow-up to 2023’s I Play My Bass Loud, which coincided with her poster-girl moment in Tate Britain’s Women In Revolt! collection – she’s broadening her vision for Trouble.
“This time, I wanted to make the music videos,” Birch states. “I knew what I wanted to achieve.” She’s also easing performer duties by bringing in Jenny Green and Marie Merle as The Unreasonables for live shows.
When you began writing songs with The Raincoats at Hornsey College of Art, what gear did you start with?
"I was at the pub during an arts and politics conference and I thought, ‘I’m going to go and buy a bass guitar.’ I walked into Macari’s and said, ‘What’s your cheapest bass?’ They showed me this brown thing that was £30.”
Did you stick with it?
“When I was working with Mayo Thompson I fell in love with this Gibson Recording bass, but it got stolen from the rehearsal place. I was heartbroken, but I got insurance and found a 1970s Fender Precision.
“It’s quite heavy, though, so when we’re playing a lot, I have a short-scale Seafoam Green Fender Mustang. I should get a custom bass because I play on the G string quite a lot higher up. I don't need those big, heavy tones down the other end.”
You also customized a Yamaha.
“In those days I was a dab-hand with a screwdriver. I could change a plug socket; I could put a light up! It didn’t occur to me that you had to set the bass up. I took the strings off, sprayed the body sparkly blue and put everything back on. I don’t know what happened to that bass.”
You’ve said bass felt like “the back door into a band.” How did you transition from bass to the red Fender Jaguar you’ve been using at recent shows?
“Playing guitar when singing is, dare I say it, easier than playing the bass. With the bass you’re supposed to be holding things down. As Marie would say, ‘Let’s try and play in the pocket, Gina.’ After 40 years in the music business, I’m not an in-the-pocket type of player. I'm loose. I like space between the notes.”
“With this project I’m not playing lead guitar parts. I might have some repeat echo on with classic chords like C, D, G, Em. But you can do a billion songs with those types of chords and then smash, slam, and slide a bit. It’s marvelous!”
Kurt Cobain wrote about being obsessed with the Raincoats in the liner notes for 1992 Nirvana album Incesticide. What did that mean to you?
“I’m speechless! We all feel moved by it. He felt things about bands that had a certain honesty, that weren’t trying too hard to fit in. Things are popular because they fit in, and we didn’t fit in.
John Cale said, ‘I’ve got two weeks. I’ll do it in New York. I may get called away.’ We were like, ‘You’re not into this!’
“In a way he embodied it, too. He had this incredible ability to communicate in a pop way. It’s so sad – the world overwhelmed him. But his stamp of approval has stood us in good stead. He drew attention to us when people had overlooked us.”
Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon was equally encouraging, contributing to the liner notes of your record, Odyshape. You’ve both been non-aggressive bassists within influential bands – how do your experiences compare?
“Kim had trained to be a dancer, so she's in the middle of the stage in a beautiful dress with bare legs. There’s no way any of us Raincoats could have ever done that! None of us had studied dance or performance.
“It’s the same with Kathleen Hanna [Bikini Kill, Le Tigre]. She studied singing and dance, so they had skills that none of us had. To feel comfortable on the stage in front of a lot of people is very different when it’s not like anything you’ve ever done.”
1996’s Looking In The Shadows was almost a collaboration with The elvet Underground’s John Cale as producer. Why didn’t it happen?
“Ana [Da Silva, Raincoats co-founder] and I went to Paris to meet John Cale. We thought we were going to have lunch with him, but after he finished his coffee, he said, ‘I'd better be off now.’ We were like, ‘What?’
I'm no good at keeping house. I climb over a pile of stuff to get that other thing – that’s how I function
“He said, ‘I’ve got two weeks. I have to do it in New York. I may get called away within those two weeks.’ We were like, ‘You’re not into this!’ The label said, ‘We’ve got this other guy, Ed Buller,’ but he directed us more to pop. It’s a lovely album, but it’s not where The Raincoats needed to be at the time.”
You’re a filmmaker and artist, but you always wanted to make a solo album. Why did 2023 feel like the right time?
“Dave Buick of Third Man Records was looking for bands who could put out a yellow 7-inch to welcome Third Man to London. Ana wasn’t that interested, so I said, ‘I’ve got Feminist Song.
“Meanwhile, Youth had seen me perform solo, and he was so taken with it, so I asked him to mix the song. Then Dave said, ‘How about an album?’ I went to Youth’s studio in Wandsworth, and that turned into I Play My Bass Loud.”
Trouble leans into a lot of dub sounds. The genre’s influences charts right back to your first song, No One’s Little Girl. What is it about dub that appeals to you?
“I can’t describe it! It speaks to me – it’s the basis of where I am. With bass, instead of a loud rock guitar, there’s this melodic spine. Some people say that everyone writes the same song over and over again, and that’s mine. It’s my baseline in the turbulence.
“It’s about constantly putting one foot in front of the other. If you give up, nothing happens. So I can’t give up; when I get up in the morning, I have to do something, whether it’s working on a painting or a song. I'm not very good at keeping house. I can climb over a pile of stuff to get that other thing – that’s how I function.”
- Trouble is out now via Third Man Records. Gina Birch and The Unreasonables perform at 100 Club, London, on September 24.
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