O3: Some of your lyrics relate to angry women, or women who have been abused in some form or another. "A Torch," for instance, deals with a rape victim. In this way you're dealing with some issues that Riot Girl bands do. The emotions are still there, but you don't express them in a loud Kathleen Hanna screech. Musical and stylistic preferences aside, do you think there's a difference in this method of raising similar important topics? If yes, how?

Elizabeth: Most women I know do have a lot of things to be angry at but I really resent how "angry women in rock" has been turned into this cliched genre of music. It doesn't allow for the subtleties of different women's situations. It's condescending and marginalizing. Rachel and I get pretty frustrated with the whole Riot Girl association because it seems like any woman with a strong point of view gets categorized by that. Not that Riot Girl was a bad thing but it's just not influential to the band, politically or musically. Rachel and I both grew up in very feminist households so we were already well-versed in much of the dialogue that was being discussed. I like some Riot Girl music (especially Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear) but it's not very interesting for me to write. The Riot Girl movement was/is great; it's just not very relevant to Sarge. Also, Rachel and I work really really hard at being competent musicians and this wasn't always an important factor in a lot of that music.

I think the main difference in the way I might raise issues is maybe a tendency to overly-personalize the songs. I am very much a feminist but music, to me, is supposed to convey personal experiences, not shout slogans. I think sometimes the Riot Girl movement politicized their message at the expense of the women behind it. Kind of like they were preaching to the choir. It was really empowering for girls and that was awesome but my target is a little different. Most people I know can already regurgitate PC phrases about women's issues. But they don't give a lot of thought to how they contribute to, or accept, sexism within the scene. For better or worse, these songs are about my life. I'm not presuming to speak for all women. I have a song about domestic abuse, but it's about my best friend. The same with "A Torch". I wrote it after I found out during a month's time that three of my good friends had been raped.

Actually, thinking about it, all that stuff I just wrote may be bullshit. At most it's something I think about after the song is finished when I'm trying to understand in retrospect what I was getting at. When I write, I'm just trying to get something off my chest or out of my mind that's really bothering me. It's pretty selfish.

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