Dan Shea:
Have you been making music during covid times? Have you been able to see or even play with!? your band at all?
I have been making music throughout the pandemic, but it’s been hard. I’ve been doing a lot of moving around, at the start of the pandemic I moved in with my partner until their lease in Boston ran out and I’ve been bouncing back and forth between home (Western Mass) and my partner’s home (Virginia) ever since. So it’s been hard with the lack of consistency and the inability to play shows, which is something I relied heavily on to maintain our persona as a band. I think I underestimated my reliance on live shows until it was no longer an option. I have seen Fox and Bowyn a few times–Fox helped me move recently and I saw Bowyn and Fox both at some protests when I was still in Allston. We haven’t been able to play together since March. We don’t live together, so we just don’t think it would be safe to play music together indoors right now. I miss Fox, Bowyn and Tyler a lot, more than I have words.
DS:
What do you hope can change for the better here in Boston, and in our society-at-large post-pandemic?
Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve seen a lot of mutual aid resources and efforts popping up in Boston and I hope that that’s something that continues post-pandemic–although I don’t love that term. I think because our country adapted to the Coronavirus as opposed to shutting down and conquering it, it’s likely we’re going to be in this in-between phase for a long time. I also think it’s important to recognize that the way that everyone is living right now is something disabled and neurodivergent people have been dealing with forever and it sucks that we only made those adaptations when it was no longer just disabled and neurodivergent people who needed them.
Can you tell us a little about who you are raising money for with this stream?
I’m raising money for my friend Levi’s top surgery fund. It’s something they’ve been trying for for a while now and they really deserve it. I want to help them however I can. Their venmo is @/yeahlikethejeans, and I’d still like the stream to be accessible to people who don’t have funds but it’d mean a lot to me if we were able to raise some money for them.
DS:
Is this your first live stream show? Any tantalizing teasers you can provide of what is to come?
ST:
This is my first live stream show, yeah. Like I said I haven’t had a ton of consistency lately so my focus these past few months has unfortunately been finding somewhere to live. Fortunately, this weird in-between chapter of my life should be coming to a close soon, and I actually haven’t talked about this much on any social media or anything but I’m moving to Portland Maine in November. I’m really excited about it, I think it’ll be a good chance for me to start some things over. I’ll still be coming back to Boston, whenever it’s safe to rehearse and play again, for rehearsals and gigs. My bandmates will still be in Boston so I’ll be back and forth a lot, but it’s something I’m really looking forward to. That being said, once I move, Fox and I do have plans to record. I’d like to put out an album. We have the songs. I’m looking for ways for us to record in the same room, perhaps outside, but haven’t thought of anything super concrete yet.
DS:
I’m sorry, but with the election right around the corner anything you want to say about voting or who to vote for, or how how sick it all makes you or anything like that???
ST:
Lastly, I don’t want to go on, I think the last thing anyone reading this needs is a lecture about politics. I hope I’ve made it clear enough over the past few years that Butch Baby is not a right-wing safe space, we do not want you here. What I will say is, something really needs to change in this country. I’m going to vote in this election and I’m going to vote for Joe Biden but I don’t think he is going to bring the change we need. I know he’s going to bring the same kind of war, and he’s going to bring the same violent policing of Black communities, even if he doesn’t have the same dangerous fascist cult following that Donald Trump has. I hope that if Joe Biden wins the incredible movements and protests going on in our country right now do not lose momentum.
