The project of California-born, Paris-based musician Betsy Roszko, formerly of punk band Gomme, melds together the confluence of her many passions. After a seven-year hiatus from releasing music, Betsy re-emerges, with a renewed sense of self and self-purpose. Drawing from various points across her creative spectrum including punk, fashion, ballet, choreography and DIY, the eclectic artist fuses together a conduit between the irrevocable past and unpredictable present.
Bonjour Betsy, and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology.
This record sees you really embrace electronica, a genre that has previously been on the other side of your musical fence. Harnessing the genre and its sonics, how did the aesthetic of electronica set the course for your approach, given that there are so many aspects of it that require a different methodology?
A lot changed, and a lot stayed the same. I’ve always begun songs the same way, which is by picking one stepping stone to start with that then triggers the rest to unfold step by step. A stepping stone could be a bass line using a real bass, a sequenced beat with a specific vibe, a software synth or sound that I had saved to use one day, and so on. That part of the process for me is still exactly the same.
Writing songs with only live instruments for me is a bit like film photography, ultimately beautiful, but requires much more time and patience and letting go of control, which makes you settle more than maybe you would. It’s also a lot harder when you’re alone to switch back and forth between instruments, which for me can result in compositions that are a little more simple.
Electronic music can be so closely fine-tuned, to a degree that can make you feel insane. However, it does allow me to make way more complex compositions that honestly would be impossible with real instruments on my own. That being said, I still love live instruments; I’m just glad I have other options now, depending on what mood I’m in and how much patience I have.
Given some of your earlier artistic styles, such as ballet and modern, how is the notion of movement, which is so fundamental to those styles, carried forward in your new work and the synergy between digitalism and physicality?
So, I grew up dancing, and then disconnected from it for many years. I rediscovered my love for dance during confinement, ended up taking some classes, started going to performances again, discovering new choreographers, hanging out in the CND dance library across the street from my apartment and watching archive footage. I’m older now and don’t move the way that I did when I was a teenager, so I started approaching it from the other side, wanting to make music that could inspire dancers and choreographers. With some of my songs, I was inspired by the idea of making something that would act as a base that dancers could play with and create something on top of it. Not sure if this will ever actually happen, but sometimes having a hypothetical prompt or assignment is what helps me create my best work.
Emerging out of the San Francisco garage, post-punk scene, and beginning with little formal musical training, what DIY practises did you learn from this time that have filtered through to your current work and bear the same signature?
That’s a cool question! Probably the one thing that is the through line is that I stay as naive as possible about how to play music. It’s not something that’s intentional or that I’m necessarily proud of, but it’s just the way my brain works, and I don’t have a lot of patience for doing things any other way.
I’ve been playing music for 16 years, and everything I’ve learned was through having a single impatient desire to achieve one specific thing. It’s a lot easier for me to learn something through context than for pure hypothetical reasons. Years ago it was “I want to play that Mika Miko song on guitar NOW and I don’t care that it’s above my skill level” more recently it was “I want this Ableton synth in my song to sound different so now I gotta figure out what all these attack and decay and sustain knobs are all about and watch some YouTube videos”.
After a while, you just naturally start to build up skills and feel more literate in everything you’re doing.
The only thing I’ve ever had the patience to really sit and get good at without any songwriting goal is live drums. Drumming is the gift that keeps on giving, and I love just doing drills and rudiments and learning other people’s songs.
Having spent time in polarising places and sounds, what attributes from your time in America influenced how you worked with music in Europe after moving to Paris and the gothic sounds you began to explore with Gomme?
The American culture that originally attracted me to goth was probably Buffy, Beetlejuice, Daria, the movie The Craft, Madonna’s Frozen video, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman(!!), all this dark and mystical feminine culture that helped me find my power as a young girl in the 90’s.
Goth bands weren’t a huge thing in San Francisco or Paris during the years before I started Gomme. There was one amazing SF goth band, The Royal Baths, that was somehow neatly folded in between a pile of garage rock bands, and then later on, the incredible band Mane. I wanted to hear more music like that. I moved to Paris in 2014, and at the time a lot of Parisian bands were trying to emulate the San Francisco garage rock sound, so culturally the transition was almost too smooth. I wanted to be shocked into some vastly different, weird French music scene, but instead was met with more of the same.
Creatively though it was a good place to be. Paris, particularly winter in Paris, was always a great backdrop to write music for a goth band. Obviously, everything in Europe is older, more delicate, more ornate; everything has a faraway past. There’s a depth in my surrounding environment that is great for creativity. Living somewhere with such a rich history and legacy in electronic music has also given me the permission to join in on the fun, to feel that I was finally in the right place to start that journey. Just the simple fact of knowing that I’m coexisting in the same city as some of my biggest influences is super inspiring. Paris can feel like a small town in that way. I was at Buttes Chaumont the other day, a big park not far from my apartment, and JB Dunckel from Air walked by me and my friend while we were sitting on a bench. Just a bunch of us regular Parisians enjoying a Spring day together, no big deal!
Within the various scenes, be it, punk, goth, dance, or ballet, there are quintessential aesthetics and stylistic points of difference. Obviously, sonically, visually and the fashionista aspects that surround each style. Did this have an effect on the music you make because of the holistic nature of understanding a scene and what it means to be a part of one?
This is interesting because it brings up a lot of complicated feelings I have about scenes in general and fashion. Punk was born out of being the other, feeling excluded, feeling unheard and underrepresented, and there came to be an aesthetic associated with that. Aesthetics after time get chewed up and spit out and regurgitated and exploited and commercialized, and then it’s hard to distinguish what it really means anymore, until suddenly it becomes the opposite of what it intended to be in the first place. Progressive music scenes lately have started to feel more and more exclusive and make me uncomfortable at times. Is my outfit cool enough? Will people think I’m too old? Do I look too much like a lame millennial? I’ve actually started to feel more free in environments and friend groups that are far away from any of these scenes.
Maybe it’s just in Paris, where social events can easily and often turn into an urban fashion show. Aesthetics are important to me, and I’m passionate about my own style and getting dressed, but I draw the line at alienating people over it.
This project has been built from the ground up. Both in terms of the musical outfit, and the learning, use of equipment, and reconnection to music after a lengthy hiatus. Was the slowly-slowly approach the key to its success in terms of it not having pressure heaped on it from the outset, and that it is driven entirely by yourself?
1000%! It feels crazy to think about how far I’ve come and how many stages of learning I had to go through over the past 4 years making this project. My band Gomme ended right when Covid started, and after the world opened up again a few years later, no one was really associating me with actively playing music anymore. Then I was like a groundhog that got to quietly come out of my hole without anyone noticing, to quietly start over and start tinkering on this and that, learning new things, so much trial and error, a lot of being humbled, a lot of vulnerability, all done in the safety of my own home. I hardly showed anyone my new music other than my partner for several years. This insular way of working forced me to hone in on my relationship with myself, strengthening my confidence in my taste and abilities, and realizing that all that really matters is that I like the work. The project, as a result, is stronger because it’s self-sustaining, it doesn’t need outside gratification or validation to survive.
Success for me now equals me creating music that I like, and that feels powerful.
Themes of anti-capitalism, the female experience, spirituality, connection to the earth, and the joy of learning run throughout the record. Can you elaborate on these aspects and detail specifically what you were referencing when creating your music?
The meaning behind these songs has fluctuated a lot between micro (myself) and macro (the world). Some days I want to express frustrations about the world we live in and the ways in which I’ve felt mistreated, some days none of that matters, and I just feel gratitude and oneness with the earth, ideas I’ve come to emanate through meditation and Buddhist philosophy. Songs are like diary entries in that way. I think Tomorrow Woman represents a new maturity I feel, how now I see all days, moods, and mental states as worthy when it comes to creativity. I don’t try to make them all make sense together. I don’t try to force myself to write music that’s exclusively political either, something that I subconsciously used to think as a woman I needed to do in order to validate taking up space and having a voice. I’m enough, by myself, in all my complexity. Each Tomorrow Woman song is a puzzle piece of who I am and what matters to me from one day to the next, without judgment and without pressure to make sense in someone else’s eyes.
Lyrically, was there a certain approach you took to canvas your ideas, given that this is a relatively new format for you, and the way lyricism works in electronica can be very different to that of punk music for example, or even ballet, where there is a complete absence of lyrics?
Yes!
This project has been really interesting for me lyrically. Lyrics are something so many musicians, myself included, are intimidated by. Good lyrics and melody can change the world; bad ones can make you cringe like you’ve never cringed before. When it comes to lyrics, I find it’s no pain, no gain. The more vulnerable you get, whether it’s with your words or how you sing, the more people are gonna connect with your song. Play it safe, and you risk your song to have less of an impact.
Early on with Tomorrow Woman, I was feeling unimpressed with my lyrical depth, so I actually found myself Googling “How to write poetry”, and learned a lot more than I thought I would. I went out and bought a little lyric journal, made a magazine cutout collage on the front cover with a glue stick, like I did as a teenager with my diaries, and really made a dedicated place to honor and work on my lyric writing.
With your acute awareness of art and the expressionism that all art forms offer, how do you view ‘your art’ and the messages you convey?
I see my art as one human’s attempt to contribute to the greater creative conversation of our time, like a record to be found 50 years from now in a bin that will remind someone of what it was like to live in this era. I also aim to inspire, in whatever way I can, the way that other artists inspire me. If my work can boost someone to continue their own art, or make someone feel more like themselves for a few minutes, or touch someone in any way, I feel I’ve contributed to something greater, and that gives me purpose.
