Gossip

Gossip is an American alt-rock group formed in Searcy, United States, in 1999. The band begins in Arkansas and later works from Portland, Oregon, and it is also known as The Gossip. Its line-up includes Beth Ditto, Brace Paine, Hannah Blilie, Kathy Mendonça and Nathan Howdeshell.

Style and sound

The group’s music sits within indie rock, garage punk, garage rock, pop rock and post-punk. It is described as a DIY, genre-crossing band with a direct, visceral sound built around bass lines, guitar riffs, keyboards and strong rhythmic drive. Beth Ditto’s vocals are central to the group’s style, while Brace Paine contributes guitar, keyboards and songwriting ideas and Hannah Blilie provides propulsive drumming.

Formation and early years

Brace Paine and Beth Ditto know each other from their teenage years in small farming towns near Searcy, and a punk mixtape passed between them through Kathy Mendonça helps lead to the band’s formation. Mendonça becomes the first drummer in the group. After Beth, Brace and Kathy move to Olympia, Washington, they live together in a punk house and start the band in a basement. The early sound is lo-fi, very loud and distorted, and the group does not use sound checks.

Hannah Blilie later joins and completes the line-up associated with the band’s breakthrough period.

Breakthrough and recordings

Gossip breaks through with Standing In The Way Of Control in 2006. The title track becomes closely associated with the UK television drama Skins. The album reaches number 1 on the UK indie chart and number 22 on the UK album chart.

The group’s first major-label studio album is Music For Men. Rick Rubin produces the record, which is cut at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu. Brace Paine says much of the album is written in the studio, including work done in Bob Dylan’s old tour bus, which is used as a temporary writing space with GarageBand and guitars. Beth Ditto writes the lyrics and vocal lines, and the album includes songs such as “Dimestore Diamond,” “Men In Love,” “Heavy Cross,” “8th Wonder,” “Love Long Distance,” “Pop Goes The World,” “Vertical Rhythm,” “For Keeps,” “2012,” “Love and Let Love,” “Four Letter Word” and “Spare Me From The Mold.”

Before that release, the band also issues Live In Liverpool, a live CD/DVD drawn from a performance on 9 July 2007.

Live reputation and touring

Gossip is known for its live performances and tours widely with acts including Le Tigre, Chromatics, Tracy and the Plastics, Sonic Youth, Pre, YYY, Sleetmute Nightmute, Glass Candy, the White Stripes, CSS, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Erase Errata, Stereo Total and The Kills. The group appears on the True Colors Tour, a benefit tour for the Human Rights Campaign, alongside Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry, Erasure, Rufus Wainwright, the Dresden Dolls, the MisShapes, the Cliks and Margaret Cho.

The band closes Glastonbury Festival in 2007 and is invited back the following year. It also appears at Radio 1’s Big Weekend and at UK festivals including Latitude, Leeds and Reading. A performance on the Late Show with David Letterman is noted as a major career moment.

Beth Ditto and public profile

Following the success of “Standing In The Way Of Control” and the band’s festival performances, Beth Ditto becomes a prominent figure in the UK. She is named NME’s Coolest Person In Rock, appears on four NME cover issues, wins Glamour Awards’ 2008 International Artist Of The Year, appears on the first cover of Love magazine and becomes a regular guest on UK television.

Later activity

The band continues in active use through the present day and is associated with a live setup that includes a fourth member on bass on stage, while Brace Paine plays keyboards as well as guitar. Off the road, the group rehearses regularly and remains tied to a local scene that includes shows and DJ sets at Portland club Dunes, as well as the underground “Suicide Club” events where post-punk records and Joy Division videos are played.