Kate Nash and the mutual appreciation society

The feisty flame-haired singer forgoes the sophomore slump with My Best Friend Is You

By Melissa Bobbitt
Published: November 5th, 2010 | 7:00am

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For a woman who pens scathing songs about loutish boyfriends and female foes, Kate Nash sure is personable. Over the phone, she sounds as cheerful as a cricket, perhaps because she’s as big a fan of Venus Zine as we are of her patented brand of intelligent pop.

“I love Venus Zine!” she exclaims. “I really like it. Every time I’m over there [in the United States], I make sure I get a copy.”

She expound on her admiration for all things feminist. Recently, she’s been brandishing during concerts a banner that reads “Cunt is a useful thing.”

“My friends are like, ‘Are you sure? It might offend people,’” Nash recollects. “I know that ‘cunt’ is quite a big word in America, isn’t it? Quite an offensive word. I just said, ‘No, we’re keeping it.’”

The result? “People loved it! Girls were getting their picture taken with it at the end of the show. It was fun.”

Nash discovered that empowering line in a Penny Arcade performance piece and the British artist’s love for radical women runs deep. She repeatedly mentions Kathleen Hanna as someone she respects and credits her mother for instilling strength and bravery in her: “I told my mum about it [the banner] and she was like, ‘Well, it’s true.’ My mom is ... no bullshit, feminist, political, into history. She’s a nurse as well.”

Though her work frequently tops the charts in the U.K. (her 2007 debut, Made of Bricks [Fiction], was an immediate No. 1 hit), Nash’s soul belongs to the underground. One hears it in her wonderfully audacious second album, April’s My Best Friend Is You, and sifting through the lyrics, sees a grrl on the verge, a creative mind vacillating between the teenage drama of her earlier material and the allure of experimentation. The slam poetry of “Mansion Song” sees her at her grittiest, rattling, “I wanna be fucked and then rolled over ‘cause I'm an independent woman of the 21st century.” She’s definitely not the same writer that based stanzas on mouthwash, flossing, and watching CSI reruns.

In further expanding her horizons, Nash referred to the girl-group craze and the Phil Spector sound for inspiration on Best Friend. The singles thus far (“Do-Wah-Doo,” “Kiss That Grrrl,” and “Later On”) capitalize on the bubbliness of the genre, but takes it to darker recesses. This is especially true of “Later On,” whose video is something straight out of a scary movie.

“That’s [based on] a film called Strange Behavior, aka Dead Kids, and it’s an Australian cult film,” Nash explains. “For money, they’d start having drugs tested on [them] and stuff ... and they start killing people. And so I wanted to do like a horror film.”

Nash has her spooky side, but she also has her serious side. One thing in which she takes great pride is ownership of her art. She is a member of the Featured Artists Coalition, which seeks fair compensation and rights for musicians and singers in an era when illegal downloading is the norm.

“It’s just a way to open communication between the artist and governments and labels and managers,” she says. “There’re deals being made on our behalf all the time … We should have a say in what happens to it.”

The 23-year-old is also a supporter of animal rights. More than a year ago, she became a vegetarian after suffering a series of sprains and other maladies, and adopting her beloved pet rabbit, Fluffy.

“I love animals. I have loads of them,” she gushes. “There is my bunny rabbit, whom I just love. I think about her, how much personality she has. Animals have loads of personality and because we [vegetarians] see them in a different way, for now, I’m still veggie.” Nash says she had thought about “eating fish because of health reasons, but it kind of freaked me out because I haven’t eaten animals in so long.”

She will be on a North American tour until late November 2010, a go-round she anticipates to be incredible. As she becomes a more seasoned performer, Nash says her gratefulness grows.

“I really love this last tour that I’ve just done. Playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire was really cool because I’ve played it before, but it was a whirlwind,” she says. “I didn’t really know how to feel. I didn’t feel nervous, and I didn’t feel like I really appreciated it or understood it. ... Then I thought about it, and this time out, it was amazing. It was one of the best things I’ve ever played. This time around, I’m actually appreciating why I do it.”

And we appreciate you doing it, Ms. Nash!

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