Jan 30
It Ain't Easy Being a 'Bad-Assed' Woman Who Calls Herself That B-Word
Nicholas Dussault READ TIME: 11 MIN.
Watch the video for "Easy Target" from Bitch's album "Bitchcraft."
EDGE: Does your mother call you Bitch?
Bitch: (Laughs) No. She does though when we're at shows. She knows how to code switch. For years joked I was 10&1/2 pounds when I was born so I came by my name honestly. The irony is that my parents named me Karen. So there you go, I'm ahead of my time and now I've got to reclaim the Karen too. It's exhausting.
EDGE: It can't be easy being Bitch.
Bitch: No, not 24/7.
EDGE: So how did you end up being Bitch?
Bitch: I met Animal, my first band mate, in college. And while in a mushroom-induced feminist revelation we decided to take on these names. I was just coming into my own, feminist awakenings, total rage and rebellion as we all do in our young 20s. Bitch is like reclaiming this word that's generally used to insult powerful, badass women who take up space. I was all for wearing that like a costume. And it stuck.
EDGE: Do your friends call you Bitch?
Bitch: Animal and I moved to New York in '96 and all of my friends there call me Bitch. Some people call me B because they can't do the Bitch thing. But the only people who still call me Karen are people from high school, elementary school, that kind of thing. For a really long time I hid my secret identity from Wikipedia, Facebook and all of them. They didn't know my legal name, but eventually it got exposed through a Facebook kerfuffle.
