We owe a lot to RuPaul and the queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Whether it be delivering series after series of drag, drama and deathdrops or appearing in the pages of the very first issue of Loverboy – shout out to Willam! Now it seems we have one more reason to be grateful and that is for bringing Girls of the Internet to our attention – well, in a roundabout kind of way!
Behind the dance collective is Tom Kerridge who, alongside dropping some stellar Girls’ releases, has also started creating multi-textural tributes to drag race royalty and other queens from the scene. The first to catch our eye was Detox which in turn got us hooked us Girls of the Internet’s new single, ‘I Don’t Wanna Lose You’ and the subsequent album Girls FM which is out now. We caught up with Tom to talk Kim Chi, Covid and Phil Collins.
Hi Tom, so just to get this clear, Girls of the Internet is a group project, right?
We’re a band, but I’m the boss. We work with a ton of different people – there are different musicians who work more on the recording side of things, others who are becoming more of the live side. We also collaborate with lots of singers, who we normally meet chatting online. It’s constantly evolving.
And how did you come up with the name?
There are a few different reasons behind the name – firstly I like how it exposes people. There is nothing remotely offensive in Girls of the Internet as a phrase, but some people seem to think there is. It’s their own mind that has given it some kind of dirty subtext.
The name, Girls of the Internet, is actually lifted from Eighties Ladies’ album Ladies Of The 80’s. Eighties Ladies a supergroup produced by Roy Ayers, consisting of Denie Corbett, Marva Hicks, Susan Beaubian, Sylvia Striplin and Vivian Prince, who are all incredible singers who had various disco tracks out in the 70’s and 80’s, but none ever really made it big. The project always held this little bit of magic for me, because it’s this homage to these incredible singers who never quite got there, but in a parallel universe somewhere, were all big stars. ‘I Knew That Love’ was most famously sampled on Mousse T’s ‘Ooh Song’. Sylvia Striplin is the most well-known of the group – her ‘Give Me your Love’ album is one of my favourite albums of all time.
Congratulations on Girls FM. Why did you decide the time was right for a second album?
I wanted to do it! I had a few rough demo beats together by late 2019, then at the beginning of the year we finished ‘I Don’t Wanna Lose You’ – which I decided to announce as the first single from the (as then non-existent) album, to be released in November. The plan was to make the album throughout the year with a deadline, just to give ourselves a bit of a different challenge. We obviously had no idea Covid-19 would be happening, but making the album over quarantine was actually a huge blessing. I didn’t want to rest on my laurels too long after ‘SYRUP’ – I love making music, so I pushed us to get more music together. I have more releases planned after the album – I have a lot of time to make up for.
Who would we be least and most surprised to know influenced the making of this record?
Influences are difficult to talk about too much for me, because I think so much of it is subconscious, and all kinds of things can inspire me to do things. There is a lot of Disco that is a constant inspiration, and also bits of Chicago Techno, Detroit House – which will be no surprise to anybody.
I’m inspired by people like Francis Bacon, Leigh Bowery, Rammellzee, and I spend ages scrolling through Drag artists’ Instagram pages, which I think has a much bigger influence on me than the obvious musical reference points. I also love stuff that shouldn’t be good – I have bits on constant rotation from people like Wings and Phil Collins.
What elements of making music did you decide to keep and ditch from recording the first album?
A lot more is done remotely now – a lot of the instruments and vocals of ‘SYRUP’ were recorded in studios. I wanted to do much more from home moving forward, and Covid actually made that a necessity. I’ve tried to be a bit more hands-on with the songwriting this time, and also tried to keep a theme running musically over the release.
Yes, I love how cohesive the album is. That cohesion sounds like it was a goal from the start…
I definitely had this idea for a more cohesive band sound, but always over a house beat. There are a lot of the same instruments playing over different tracks, and everything was recorded to tape to give it more of a fuzzy sound. I listen to a lot of stuff like Stereolab and Roy Ayers and Talking Heads, but also Fingers Inc and Basic Channel – I want us to sound somewhere in the middle of all of those things, but always pinned together with a drum machine.
‘Time’ is gorgeous, and I really love ‘By Your Side’ too. What’s the story behind those two?
‘Time’ is about watching people you love get older, and coming to terms with loss, and moving on with your life. ‘By My Side’ is just a straightforward breakup song.
I know you focus on recording live instrumentals. What’s your view on sampling vs creating something totally new?
I love sampled music. I have walls and walls of records of sample based music. I know that will never go away, and there will always be a place for that now and then (especially in the clubs) – but for me it’s a 90’s thing. We need to be making our own progressions and grooves again, we can’t just sample other people’s music forever. It’s boring. You can sample in other ways – I’ve pinched chord progressions and things from different places.
I think after what’s happened this year, with White artists reevaluating the way they relate their music back to Black culture; should exclusively White producers be profiting from sampling Black music? Disco is where everything started, and it came from the marriage of Black RNB music with Latin rhythms, which was then re-edited and re-imagined by Queer DJs – which started this Dance Music movement that we’re still in the middle of. It’s not coincidence that all of our DJ forefathers are Gay – Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, David Mancuso, Nicky Siano. Why are major labels exclusively signing Straight White artists to sample Disco records? Where are the LGBT+ artists? Where are the Black artists? Where are the Latinx artists? Even Women are still hugely under represented in major label signings, despite there being so many more female DJ’s visible now. Why aren’t major labels pushing to sign more diverse artists to sample their disco catalogues? House and Disco Music is Queer music, and that needs to be reclaimed. Major labels need to stop with the constant rolling out of the straight White boys hiding behind Disco samples.
I know you recorded a lot of the album remotely during quarantine. Was there anything unexpectedly beneficial from recording during this time? Anything that wouldn’t have been possible in ordinary circumstances?
It’s cheaper! That’s a great thing! Some of our collaborators were not set up to record from home, but we’ve helped as many people as we can to get a little home set up.
You’ve done a collection of paintings of drag queens to accompany the album. I can clock, Detox, Alaska, Kim Chi, another is giving me ‘Night of a Thousand Madonnas’ Thorgy Thor…am I right?
I have not painted Thorgy – but she’s one of my favourites! I’m still not over her being kicked off All Stars 3 on the second episode. A lot of the time I am just inspired by a look, or how somebody did their eye, or even just a colour palette or shape they use – so one painting can be inspired by a few different queens, and not just Drag Race girls – you definitely got Alaska, Detox and Kim though.
Once paint is on the canvas it can go anywhere – but I give myself visual cues to follow. I have some I’ll be posting soon which are a bit more abstract, but still inspired by Drag. I’m completely fascinated by the whole process – the blocking out brows, concealer, powder, contour – It’s such a specific process that has developed in dingy bars and clubs for years and years, which has only recently started being documented on a larger scale recently with YouTube and Drag Race and things. I find it endlessly inspiring.
Lastly, we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001 so we always ask everyone, what is your favourite Mariah single?
Wow that’s hard – I’m not good at picking favourites! ‘Loverboy’ is definitely a bop – I love that era of sample based RNB, Mary J was queen of it, and I love ‘All For You’ by Janet so much. ‘Fantasy’ is my favourite Mariah track from then. I think my current favourite is ‘GTFO’ – to come out of nowhere with Get The Fuck Out is so Mariah, and that whole album is so good. I play the ‘GTFO’ acapella in a lot of my DJ sets. If you asked me tomorrow it would be a different track, I’m sure.
Girls of the Internet’s second album Girls FM is out now
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