Interview with Gen
Words: Shawn Kyle

Appearing:
October 26, 2007
Freebird Live, Jacksonville

October 27, 2007
Guavaween, Ybor City

October 30, 2007
Live In Sin DVD Release, Worldwide

October 31, 2007
Studio A, Miami

The Genitorturers are one of the most recognized and genre defying groups in the music underground. Their stage show, known for its piercingly explicit theatrical overtones and a pastiche of fetishes from all dispositions, has become a thing of fringe rock legend. What surprises many is how influential this group is: hardcore fans even tattoo the pin-up image of Gen, the band's singer and master of ceremonies, on their bodies. With a lineup featuring members of Morbid Angel and KMFDM, the group maintains a steady touring schedule in the US and abroad.

People are scared of this group. It is with this idea planted firmly in brain that I find myself sitting on a lovely Victorian couch in Gen’s living room, a space accented with heavy drapes and dark hardwood floors. The walls are tastefully covered in religious and occult iconography: some from the old world, and others from the Far East.

As I sip bourbon on ice with Gen, she smiles and asks if I am prepared to see their new DVD, Live In Sin. I pour a double, answer yes, and brace myself for a private screening. The DVD is more than what I expected; I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I have heard all the rumors about the live shows, but you have to see it to believe it. This film puts you in the middle of the show as it’s shot from so many different angles that you feel like you are inhabiting different bodies throughout the venue: in the audience, on stage, in the band, with the performers, the fire jugglers, the half-naked nuns, the grotesque men in judge costumes, the burlesque schoolgirls, even the poor bastard suspended from the ceiling of the theater by hooks and chains lodged in his back, all the while being thrown trapeze style out over an adoring mob of fans.  

Every song on Live In Sin is different, as is the accompanying act on stage, complete with new costumes, characters and themes. After it was over I needed another double in order to buy a few moments to think of new questions to ask. The film footage is frightening, rhythmic, sexy, dark, and theatric, and the music is there to match.  Gen and her band are a spectacle; one the Marquis de Sade himself would blush over.

REAX:  What made you feel that you had to start a musical group with such a shocking live show and image?
Gen:  I came from a really open artistic setting in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When I moved here, I was in shock about how conservative it was, but in an odd way based on these corporate things. Everything you touch in Orlando just falls away, it’s not real. I thought that it was such a bizarre environment that I decided that I was going to push that to the limit, see how much of that falseness I could rip down by doing something over the top mixing music, theatre, and sexuality in a really “fuck you” kind of way, and that’s how the Genitorturers began.

REAX:  In the early years of the group, one band that was a regular opener, Marilyn Manson, seemed to take heavy influences from the Genitorturers’ live shows. Manson, among other similar artists, went on to push the genre out of the underground.  How does it make you feel to see your art form become more accepted in the mainstream?
Gen:  I knew that it was my purpose to push the envelope, and when you are an artist that pushes the envelope you have to understand that eventually it is going to tear and open up and things are going to change. That’s the purpose of doing it. I was happy to see it change, and things did open up and evolve. Therefore you find new buttons to push, and new territory to open up, and that is what we are doing now. I feel that imitation is a form of flattery in certain regards and it’s cool to see some of these ideas that we forged a path with accepted in a mainstream kind of way.

REAX:  Your band seems perpetually on the cusp of mainstream recognition, while many of your peers have pursued more accessible, pop-oriented paths and suffered artistically. Do you feel that remaining underground has affected the group’s longevity?   
Gen:  It’s the basis for longevity, because it’s based on something that is real. What we do and how we relate to our fans and what we are trying to say has always been real. Yes there is a show, but there have always been deeper elements to what we do and people know that and that allows people to lock on to what we do; it’s not just a flash-in-the-pan style over substance thing. We are who we are. We have maintained and been true to our roots. Even though the show and music have evolved, we've always been loyal to our fans. I think it’s cool that we are always under the radar just enough that we can do what we want to do, how we want to do it. I think it’s really important today because what most people realize about the music business is that most artists have to compromise to become more popular. I think that we have always done things on our own terms, making the records that we want when we want to make them. I don’t shit out a record every year because I think that it takes more time to make something great. I may put out a record every 4 years, but when I put something out it isn’t a single with a bunch of b-sides; every fucking song is good. It may have been something that has hampered our “success” because I have never fixated attention to the industry and tried to follow the rules of the industry and how they do things. But, it has insured our longevity because the quality of what we deliver and when we deliver is second to none.

REAX:  What are the underlying themes of your music?
Gen:  A really strong element is this idea of an empowering form of femininity that is very strong. The fact is that you can be sexual and still be very strong. Being sexual is not necessarily a passive role. In our society the only way that people can accept sexuality and femininity is if it’s tied to some element of passiveness. This is one of the things that we started to break ground with, I was one of the first people, with the exception of Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics, who sang in an aggressive style, but it was still sexy. It is not an all or nothing thing. I think that everyone has a part of their sexuality that is very dominant or very submissive and what I try to do is present femininity in a certain light where you can respect both aspects.

REAX:  With the new record under a working title of “Revolution,” what direction is the group headed in now?  
Gen:  With the new record we have gone back to the things that caused us to all start playing music. I grew up listening to hardcore and punk, and that was my first passion with music. David Vincent (Evil D) grew up listening to Alice Cooper and Kiss and those sorts of bands. We sat down and took those elements and thought about why we gravitated to those things when we were kids, and tried to bring that into our passion for how we now understand music. It’s a very evolved state. It’s taking what you first loved, and then taking what you know now and… I don’t want to talk too much about the new record, because that is a whole other discussion, but it’s mixed, it’s finished, it’s coming. We are very excited. It’s the best thing we have ever done.

REAX:  There are shocking religious overtones to the live show and instead of becoming toned down during your career, they have become more well honed and direct. I unfortunately don’t think that REAX is the book to go into specific descriptions of these theatrics due to our all-ages readership.  These elements are erotic, surreal and make people question why they are shocked by it. Why such an assault on the senses, to the general and religious public?
Gen:  Well, once again, it's the direct subjugation of women over a certain period of time. The idea of Original Sin... I deal with that a lot, and the fact is that women really are blamed for everything fun and bad and wrong, and the downfall of everyone. Think about that. I take a little bit of an issue with that. The history of the church, the Catholic Church in particular... I’d never question anyone’s reasoning for being a religious person, however when it comes to dogma, and how they present women, and how they allow women to participate or to not participate... Yeah, I think I have something to say about that. I think that the music I do is very empowering to women, and if somebody indeed does feel something or is shocked, then they should question, "Why?" Because maybe they indeed have been indoctrinated, and they should question why that would be shocking, based on what they have been told all their lives about the roll of women. Kind of simple, right?  But... I respect everyone’s right to do what thou wilt.


The Genitorturers' new DVD, Live In Sin is available October 30th, 2007. The band is headlining Ybor City's annual Guavaween on October 27, 2007.

www.genitorturers.com

Vol. 2 Issue #6

Street Date: 10/15/2007