Ringing in the New Year with Plasma Canvas

On New Year’s Eve, 2019, well before any of this coronavirus craziness went down, TGEFM contributor Julie River met with Adrienne Rae Ash of Plasma Canvas before they opened for Against Me! in Denver, CO. They discussed the bands that inspire them, trying to avoid being pigeon-holed as a queer band, and exactly how cool it is to be playing with one of your biggest influences.

This interview has been lightly edited.

JR: How are you doing tonight?

ARA: I am so excited. (laughs)

You’re about to open for Against Me!

You’re right. That’s true.

And you’re local here in Denver, right?

So we live in Fort Collins and I am from St. Louis and Jude’s from Dubuque, Iowa. So we’re both Midwest kids but we live up about an hour north.

So I was listening to some of your music and I really like it but I’m curious how you describe yourself.

Sparkly Andro Thunder Punk.

That’s not what I was expecting.

(laughs) I don’t know. I came up with that one a long time ago and I thought it was just beautifully obnoxious. And that’s kind of what we’re about.

One of the things I really think there should be more of in punk is eclecticism. Like this almost Clash-esque kinda thing where you’re like kinda hardcore but let’s throw pop in for a song. Some blues and things like that.

I just really, really, really love music. And I’m a guitar player before I’m a punk. I grew up on thrash metal and then found post-rock after that and then through a series of going to shows got into hardcore. I try not to say no to a sound. If the song comes it comes. I try to finish the song and then worry about whether or not it sucks later and then we can change it. I don’t ever like to say “Well we can’t do that because that’s not us.” The whole point of our project is just to play whatever we feel like playing.

How long have you been playing?

As a band, or—

As a band, yeah.

So, I moved to Colorado in December 2015 and started Plasma Canvas in the following March/April and this guy Dave Sites agreed to help me record a record and so he recorded the record and he was just going to play the drums on it, but he decided he liked being a band so we started playing some shows. And we were together for a little over a year. And then he had to quit, and then Jude, the current drummer, joined. So the band has been a thing for about three and a half years, but Jude and I have been playing together since June of 2017.

On your Facebook profile it calls you “the gayest punk band in the world.” Can you expand on that?

We’re the loudest, gayest band in the world, fuck you. (laughs).

So Pansy Division is just nothing by comparison?

No. Basically I say that kind of stuff because it pisses people off. I think it’s important to piss off the right people. And so when we say we’re the gayest band in the world some right wing asshole is going to be like “Well fuck that, I don’t want to listen to that.” And I’m like, good, because I don’t want you at my show. It’s just to throw off shitty assholes, but also I think it’s fun to just claim that sort of thing and then have people show up to your shows and be like “Okay, prove it.” And we do.

Are you going to prove it tonight then?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

What does proving it look like, then?

Leaving it all on the stage and if I don’t feel like I’m about to throw up I did it wrong. Which isn’t hard because I’m overweight. Physical activity is not my strong suit, but it is what it is.

So I was looking online, you guys have one LP and one EP at the moment?

Yeah, we actually just recorded an album. Or, not an album, we did five songs with Bill Stevenson of Descendents and Black Flag.

Wow.

At The Blasting Room. And Andrew Berlin is mixing it and Jason Livermore is mastering it. It’s a realy cool thing and I was excited to do it. But we just got done doing that. That’ll be our second EP. But, yeah, at the moment we have one full-length and one EP.

So that was my next question was going to be: about what your next release was going to be. You kind of beat me to it. And that’s okay. How did the show with Against Me! end up coming about?

It got offered to us. We’ve just been grinding and grinding and grinding. And we’ve played a lot of shows and we’ve just been doing this for a couple of years. And I think it was about playing the right shows. But I have a friend that works for Live Nation that wanted to have us on and then the talent buyer here liked our music, too. They submitted it to Against Me! and Against Me! liked it enough to throw us on the bill.

And for New Year’s Eve no less.

Yeah, right, like a huge fucking party. That’s so cool.

Would you call Against Me! an influence, then?

Yeah, actually. Something that’s really cool is, aside from the songwriting, I have been influenced by Against Me! They’re one of my favorite bands. In a personal sense, they’ve also had an impact on my life because I came out to my mom by—I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say so I just threw on Transgender Dysphoria Blues and handed her the liner notes. And about two and a half/three songs in she got what I was trying to say and gave me a big hug. And so to, five years later, be sharing the stage with one of my favorite bands who helped me figure out who I am, it’s a pretty big deal for me. So I’m excited.

Does your LGBT identity inform the music in any way, would you say? I think I know the answer to this, but—

It’s sort of complicated because I didn’t set out for it to be that way. I’ve been playing guitar since I was 12 or 13. It’s just always been a constant in my life. But, coming out, realizing who I am, and writing better lyrics had a lot to do with it because for a long time I was searching for a way to tell the truth but I didn’t know who I was yet. So it was hard to write good songs. And then coming out and figuring out my identity, who I am and everything. It inevitably comes through and the themes show up, but I get a little bit annoyed when people just throw us in a “trans band” category. Nobody wants to be categorized like that. But in the beginning we would get booked with other queer people and that was cool because the shows were community and there were a lot of basements and living rooms just full of queer people and everything felt really nice. But also it would be a weird ass bill because there would be some acoustic folk punk act and then another acoustic folk punk act, basically we played with all acoustic folk punk acts in the early days because they’re all queer kids—

I didn’t know that was a big queer community.

Oh yeah! Folk punk kids are gay as hell. And it’s awesome, but it just got a little tiresome after a while because we would get booked on these shows with people that sounded nothing like us and it was cool because it was nice to have a room full of people who were safe to be around. But it was also kind of shitty to know we were on the same bill just because we were queer people. It took a long time to break into playing with other types of bands.

Boring question: Other major influences?

Oh man. So my favorite band of all time is Jimmy Eat World.

Really?!

Yeah, I was about to jump into a river when I was 18 and this song of theirs came on called “23” and I just couldn’t stop listening to it and by the time it was over I didn’t want to go kill myself anymore. So I just retroactively fell in love with the rest of their music and they’ve become such an incredibly important band and they just made such wonderful music. Jim was an inspiration on my guitar tone because he plays giant strings through a vox and that’s what I play, I play baritone medium strings. But also Zakk Wylde plays a lot of really beefy strings and I like a guitar that fights me a little bit. So I listen to a lot of Ozzy and 80’s—not Poison and Ratt and stuff like that, I didn’t like a lot of hair metal—but I was a metal kid growing up. I have a Slipknot tattoo, I have a Metallica tattoo, but I also have a My Chemical Romance tattoo. I have a lot of influences and I try to dig for the honesty in anything that I listen to. If it has something to say then I want to hear it. But I try not to be limited by “Oh, I don’t listen to that because it’s not my style of music.” I just kind of work in whatever comes and find a way to appreciate it. That was a long walk for a short drink of water, I’m sorry.

That does my job for me, that’s fine. Any comments on future plans?

So 2020 is looking really, really cool for us. We’re working with a label that we’ve respected for a long time. I had a sticker of this label on my guitar amp when I was 19 and now we’re working with them. But I can’t talk about who it is yet because nothing’s been official or announced or signed or anything, it’s just we’ve recorded the record. (ed- note that has now been revealed that the KILLERMAJESTIC EP will be released via SideOneDummy. You can see our recent story regarding that HERE)

I’m so curious. Can I ask you when this is turned off and not publish it?

Absolutely! But we’re doing a record with a really cool label and they know a lot of people and they’ve been around a long time. So they’re talking about throwing us on some festivals and opening for some really cool bands on tour. We don’t have anything booked in 2020 because we don’t have any idea where we’re going to be. We just know that we’re about to drop a really cool EP and a really cool label is involved in it and we’re just going to come out swinging. So we don’t have anything planned yet, but it’s definitely going to be a packed year.

Oh, cool. Well, very nice talking to you.

You too.

I’m really excited to see you guys tonight and that’s a great stage. I’m really excited.

For sure.