It Ain't Easy Being a 'Bad-Assed' Woman Who Calls Herself That B-Word

EDGE: Were you alone in the cabin?

Bitch: No, I was with my partner. My God it would have been awful if I was alone at the time. I was living with this trans man that I was with for a decade. Eventually we moved to LA together, you know, the sunny borough. I was talking to my old manager about maybe doing a Bitch & Animal reunion and she asked me what I was working on. I played her one of the songs and she said, "You've got to put this out." We played it for (independent record label) Kill Rock Stars and it became this thing that people were excited about.

EDGE: I want to hear all about B*TCHCRAFT: A Musical Playt, but let's start with the album.

Bitch: The album came first. It might sound funny, but it's my 9th album and I had always approached everything from the point of the show, the live experience. This was the first time I really realized that this is the thing that lasts. I took my time and put everything into it. I was moving in a more pop direction and knew I wanted to go further that way. I started working with some trusted collaborators and made "Bitchcraft" in order to show myself the biggest side of myself that I could be. I feel very proud of it. I wanted to center my violin because my violin is my earliest voice. There's a lot of violin in it. It's an electric violin so it can sound like a guitar, but there's no guitar on the whole album.

The album cover has this queen's collar that my friend Dusty made out of a broom. When I started making videos I knew I had chosen the broom as my new symbol of power. In this way it's a witch reference, but it's also something about women's work. Women's work is generally free labor and I wanted to honor it because, generally, that kind of labor is the most important labor. Who can survive without somebody making soup or sweeping the floors, the basic necessities of life? I wanted to honor it so I had a friend make me a bedazzled broom and it's becoming this symbol for me. And I knew I wanted the broom in every video. I took my time and paid attention to the visuals, which in our modern day are so important. If I'm discovering a new artist I love to watch their videos because I get a sense of them and what their aesthetic is.

That's "Bitchcraft," the album. The label that I worked with when I first went solo, Kill Rock Stars, came back to me and said they're loving this new direction. They heard two songs and said, "Finish the album. We want to put it out." And oh my God, I feel like I haven't stopped running ever since!

EDGE: That's not a bad thing.

Bitch: No, it's been wonderful. I opened for the Indigo Girls a few times. They've been huge supporters of this record. Amy Ray said such nice things. She told me she was building a tree house and listened to it non-stop the entire time.

EDGE: Wow, that's pretty cool.

Bitch: I know. I love to say, "An Indigo Girl listened to my album while building her tree house!" They're so great.