Pansy Division reunites to celebrate 30th anniversary of debut album, “Undressed”

Pansy Division, known as one of the pioneering openly gay punk rock bands, has been making news since the 1990s and has never stopped. The band is composed of Jon Ginoli (vocals and guitar), Joel Reader (guitar), Chris Freeman (bass), and Luis Illades (drums). In the early 90’s the group originally fused queer sexuality and rock ‘n’ roll during a time where there was a strict line dividing the two. Upon moving to San Francisco, founding member Ginoli wanted to sing with other musicians openly about being gay and playing in the style of music he loved. They released their first album in 1991 titled, “Undressed,” and released several albums up until 2019. Now, the band is split in half with members residing on both sides of the country. Pansy Division has come together once again to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their first album, “Undressed”.

We sat down with Jon Ginoli, Chris Freeman and Luis Illades before their show at TV Eye in New York City on November 18th.

How did the idea first come about for the band?

J: As I left Champaign, one of the things that happened at the end of my first band, The Outnumbered, which lasted in Champaign, Illinois from 1982-1987, was that I really wanted to sing about things that were specifically gay. I didn't think it was fair to sing about it if I was in a democratic kind of band with straight people. Cause I thought if I'm singing about gay stuff, they may feel excluded or as a main singer-songwriter, but not the only one, it would be sort of me taking over. I decided that I couldn't see any future in having a gay rock band so I quit. It wasn't until I'd gotten to San Francisco, it was three years later, and I thought having a gay band here actually seems like the timing is really good. I kept waiting for people who I understood to be gay to start singing about it. Or to admit it. So, I thought no one who I think it gay is willing to admit it. And sometimes that was fair. But I wanted somebody to. It seemed like there was this line between rock and roll and gay people. I loved rock ‘n roll and I wanted to bridge the gap. So once I got to San Francisco and finally imagined an audience, that's when I formed the band.

What spoke to you about the audience in San Francisco?

J: I moved there so I could live in a big gay city. I moved to LA first. But I wanted to form a band, but I was new in town and didn't know anybody. I put out an ad looking for a gay rock band. He [motioning to Chris] answered. And he was the only person who did. And then I met him and realized he's perfect and he gets it. So I got to San Francisco and thought that it might happen there, and found Chris, and had difficulty locating a drummer. We took five years to find the right guy, Luis. But we went through a dozen guys either borrowing from other bands or people who’d join and it wouldn’t work out. When I did the Outnumbered in Champaign, those were really heart on my sleeve songs, and they weren't very happy. It's not that music has to be happy, but I thought while playing those songs, ‘we can really bum the audience out.’ So I wanted to have a band that will be uplifting and genuinely joyful. We also wanted to use humor because humor is a way of getting a point across that can be a different way to communicate an idea. I wanted it to be sort of optimistic and hopeful, especially because that was the height of the AIDS crisis and deaths in the gay community. So we were singing about safe sex and trying to be pro sex at a time when there was a lot of death around and right wing politicians trying to capitalize on that. That's really what got us to start.

Was there ever pushback to be able to play shows or issues with venues?

J: No, because we were just playing in San Francisco.

Chris: I will also say we were shocked because when I first heard the tape and working on these I was like, ‘oh shit, we're going to have to play these songs in front of people.’ It was the first time I'd heard anything like it. I can only imagine people in a club, and we were a little afraid playing our first few shows. We weren't sure what people would think. And it turned out great.

Can you talk about the inspiration for the first album and the creative process?

J: Having a concept of the band, I was writing all the songs. I thought, ‘alright, I have this idea that I can write about anything I want to.’ That’s what the first album is about, writing about stuff I've never heard in a song where it was an outrageous gay statement or a romantic gay statement or loneliness. Not all the album is funny, but it was outrageous in a way that made people smile and laugh. We were playing these songs live and they're going over great, and I thought, ‘yeah we're doing the right thing.’ I did a lot of the album before I met Chris. I'd gone back to Champaign and wanted to record a demo so I can show people I met, like Chris, what it's supposed to sound like. But the demo turned out so well, and I think nine out of thirteen songs on the first album are from that demo session, and then Chris is on the rest. That was how it transpired, and we thought no one else is doing what we're doing, and then we found out we were wrong. There were a couple dyke bands doing what we were. But we didn’t know of any other guys

C: This was pre-internet. There was no way of knowing anybody else as far as either one of us knew. We'd never heard anything like it.

J: If I had heard anything like Pansy Division around I wouldn't have started a band. I wasn’t looking to start a band. I did a band in Illinois. It made three albums, we did tour, we did ok. We didn't get famous. I'd sold all my guitars. I didn't think I would play guitar and be in a band again. When I had the idea for Pansy Division, I thought, ‘oh, I better get a guitar and amp again.’

C: We both had given up. I gave up because I thought I had already hit 28, and 30 was the magic number in the music business, at least it was during that time, where if you're over 30 they're not going to sign you at all.

J: The underground labels and indie labels changed that equation so we got signed after we were 30.

C: I was over 30 and openly gay, so I basically had two strikes in the mainstream.

J: We've always been an underground band and that's infiltrated in the mainstreams in certain times and places. When Green Day, who had been on our label in the beginning, got big and on their major label tour, they had us and other bands from Lookout Records open for them. We got to play almost 40 shows with them including arenas when they got really big at the end of that year. That was a life-changing experience and one of the reasons people still know about us. It lifted the number of people who were able to hear about us and pay attention to us way up there.

When you make music, who are you speaking to? And has it changed as you’ve gotten older?

C: Oh yeah, it's certainly changed. After the first album we were getting mail back from people, so we knew exactly who was listening.

J: A lot of teenagers. Not who we were expecting to be listening to us.

C: So then we dialed it in a little more, how can we add more snow to this snowball? The blueprint was created with the first album - how can we pack it in and add more to it? I think we did that for a lot of records, especially the first batch of songs. When I met him (Jon), he'd already said the first album was done for the most part. But there was already a second and into a third record being written. It was a matter of, ‘what do you got?’ We had a bunch of songs. We worked on songs that ended up on the third record and the fourth record and sort of figured out where they should go strategically. We didn’t know we were going to make more than one.

J: We thought one record, if we're going to get one chance this is what is going to be on it.

C: After that it was like, what are we going to say? And now that we know it’s teenagers, we were like ‘maybe we should put this kind of information on the record since it's going to get to them.’ So that sort of opened that up.

J: Back in the age of no cure for AIDS, no prevention for AIDS, we had drawings of how to use a condom and information about helplines that you could call on the inside of our record sleeves. By the time we were making the second record, we realized, oh we've got a career. I don’t know how long it will last, but we'll be going for a while. So we tried to be as prolific as we could. Back then we all lived in SF and we could operate very quickly. Now we all live in different parts of the county and it's hard to make records.

You have song titles such as “That’s So Gay,” “Fuck Buddy,” and “I’m Gonna Be a Slut,” and many more. What has been the influence or strategy behind the song names being blunt? How does that add to who Pansy Division is?

J: Well, I am. We always wanted to be brash. But we are romantic too. So we have songs about love and loneliness and songs about fucking and experiences that we’ve had. And then some are just pure silly.

C: A lot of the song titles were vernacular. Things we would hear people say.

L: You are raised with certain catchphrases. You learn the vocabulary, but nobody grew up in the gay community. You leave your family unit and then adopt certain vocabulary or certain moralities or certain ways of surviving and supporting each other. One of the things that's funny is that a lot of the expressions or codes you learn from your friends or peers. There were so many people pre-internet that would tell me later that they learned phrases from our songs. I know it sounds a little bit silly because they are comical songs, but it’s the language of the people of the time. It was kind of the language of the street. That sounds kind of silly, but it was.

What has been the moment you’ve been the proudest?

C: At this point, every night there is somebody that comes up and says, I'm so glad I found you. I needed you at the time I discovered you,’ and that to me is the reason why we're still doing it. Those make me super proud that we've done all of this. But we worked our way to them, and that message and getting the idea out there that it’s ok to be gay and other people feel the way you do. I think that's really important. On another note, I think playing Madison Square Garden. That was a dream.

L: It's true when you're sitting around with other musicians and telling stories about all these fabulous things that have happened, those things are kind of fun, but they're really just a social currency so to speak. There's some fabulous things we could tell, but you're right, it's the connection to individual people you meet along the way that's the most satisfying.

C: I've heard some pretty intense stories from people that have made me sit there and cry. If only I had something like that at their age.

J: The thing about our band is that we had modest goals to start with and by doing just what we were doing the way we wanted to do it, it exploded. We were never a huge band, but doing it our way and not compromising. I think that's why people still care today. Because they see something honest and true about what we did that is still valid today. It's interesting today because we are singing a lot about sexuality, and now a lot of the conversation in the queer community is about gender. It's interesting to see so many trans people come to our shows and say things like, ‘I've been listening to you since I was a kid.’ There's an openness of sexuality in our music that transcends a certain narrow demographic that you might think it would appeal to.

C: I think we create safety and people feel safe coming to see us and listening to us.

What was the reason for releasing music again in 2016 after a long hiatus?

J: Well what happened was we all used to live in the same city. The album that came out in 2009 was put together while we were in one place, and by the time it was down, there were two guys on the East coast. The reason since then is partly down to me because if we do another record, I want to do it the old fashioned way which takes more time. For me, we've done enough records, we've done 9 albums. If we do another one I want it to have a chance to be as good as anything we've ever done. The problem is we don't have time.

L: I’m on the record disagreeing with that. I think that we're better musicians than we've ever been before. On those records, although we don't have as much time to be road dogs, I think we knew each other to be more effortless. I think on those records I would disagree and say we sounded better than we ever have. If you play the first album and the last album, back-to-back, there's a difference.

Some of your songs have been used to express the hardships politically and socially of life for decades, such as “Blame The Bible” more recently. How have you used music as an outlet and have you found it has spoken to people?

C: Yeah, I think it has spoken to others. I have been tearing up a Bible at every show since 1997. It always gets a response. So I think putting that in a song, that gives people their own voice to say, ‘wow that's exactly how I feel too.’ Politically, Jon used to say we were political with a small p, and I didn't get that originally, but after a while it sunk in. We are political just because we are being who we are.

J: There were other gay musicians before us, not necessarily rock bands, but we sang about it. We are all musician fanatics. That is something that spoke to all of us. For us, that is the way to communicate.

What does it mean to be touring together again and out playing shows for the first time in years?

J: We have these lives where we have regular jobs and responsibilities and then we get to have these little adventures. We get to live in this adventure of being in a rock band, and people still like to see us so we keep doing it. For us, it’s extremely gratifying.

Follow Pansy Division on Spotify and their website.