Pride Month Barbie is the irreverent alter ego for a pair of self-proclaimed “low-energy girls,” and it sounds nothing like what either artist might produce alone. Josephine Shetty and Tyler Holmes, both solo musicians in their own right, connected over a gig they both played at the long-standing queer bar El Rio in San Francisco. Seeking a change from the experimental and downtempo nature of their personal projects, Holmes says they “just needed to do something really gay and faggoty," which prompted them to produce some high-energy beats. “They were very bitchy, very fun and candy-coated,” Shetty recalls.
Soon, Shetty was writing her own vocal melodies over Holmes’ electro-clash inspired instrumentals and Pride Month Barbie was born. Their first single, the moody cold-wave “Withheld,” came quickly from their initial co-writing session. “I left her alone for an hour and I came back and there was a whole song,” Holmes tells me. That fateful hour proved to be the spark for an entire album. The duo’s debut LP All The Girls In The Room Say ‘Sorry’ comes out June 14 via Get Better Records, serving as both a seamless expression of their friendship and a tribute to their kismet creative bond.
Shetty and Holmes’ affinity for each other shines as we chat in the small dining area of India Sweets and Spices, a small Southern California grocery chain, with the pair gleefully reminiscing about Y2K celebutantes, their favorite Britney Spears songs, and their myriad musical influences. Holmes in particular is inspired by Gregg Araki’s films, the queer experimental band Xiu Xiu and, most emphatically, SOPHIE. The late producer’s style of manipulating unusual and disparate sounds informed Pride Month Barbie’s acerbic tunes. “I want clangs and car crashes, but also bubblegum and sugar,” Holmes tells me between sips of a vegan mango lassi.
Perhaps most surprising is a reference to the 1996 children’s film Matilda. In fact, a snippet of the Roald Dahl adaptation is sampled on the album: a scene in which the tyrannical Miss Trunchbull yanks a girl and tosses her by the braid. “I really relate to that little girl because when I was little, I had two long braids and my hair was a total sight at my very strict Catholic school,” Shetty explains. “They said it was ’too messy and it’s distracting everyone.’” Shetty, who has both Indian and Irish ancestry, observes that it was a “colonial” mindset at the school that led to this scrutiny. All The Girls In The Room Say ’Sorry’ is informed by those feelings of ostracization, playing with negative emotions amid an often exuberant sonic backdrop.
Indeed, despite grappling with heavy themes, the band maintains a refreshing sense of levity, even while being interviewed. The inseparable pair invite me to do some shopping, leading me down aisles with stacks of incense sticks and Indian snacks, giggling all the way. Shetty’s father used to work in the market so she strolls through the store like it’s a second home. I comment that it must be a riot being in a band together, to which Holmes says. “Yeah. That’s kind of the point,” Shetty cuts in: “That’s our tagline: ‘We just have fun.’”
Below, Pride Month Barbie talks with Them about The Cranberries, problematic pop, and their new single “Effulgent.”
As fun and high-energy as you are, your music is actually quite dark. Can you speak to that?
Tyler Holmes: It’s funny that you say high energy because we are both low-energy girls. The theme of the whole record is we are fun girls trying to experience freedom in a world that does not want that for us. It’s like a Hansel and Gretel thing: two kids playing in this sugary playland that is trying to cannibalize them.
There’s definitely a jagged roughness to your music.
Josephine Shetty: On “Obsession,” the beat is pop girl, but the lyrics are evil. It’s about this person who is obsessed that someone hates them. I’m actually binge-listening to the Britney Spears biography today. I grew up loving her. I think about how all of these pop princesses got so much negative attention, and that had such a severe impact on who they were. I feel like there’s some connection to be made between [that and] this narrative about girls and femmess having to receive all of this hate, whereas men don’t get that criticism.
Other than Britney, which Y2K celebs are representative of Pride Month Barbie?
T.H.: Tara Reid. Lindsy Lohan.
J.S.: Brittany Murphy. Courtney Love.
Why do you feel such a strong connection with them?
T.H.: I’ve always said that Paris Hilton was like Marie Antionette. She’s given all this power and attention and she’s like, “I just want to be cute and have fun.” I think it’s an interesting spotlight put on all these young women who are entertainers. And I guess we’re entertainers. We’ve been performing for 10 years each. As two mixed-race girls on the scene, we have experienced a lot of scrutiny and we’ve been expected to have the same output as our peers who have come from money.
Just like “Obsession,” the track “Over It” seems to relish in the joy of self-destruction.
J.S.: I feel like that song is really influenced by Lindsay Lohan’s Rumors album. It has this bitchiness that’s almost corny. In the lyrics, I wanted to be so toxic that it was problematic. There’s so many pop songs that are not healthy to listen to. There’s so many horrible pop narratives.
T.H.: I call “Over it” our Toyotathon song. It sounds like it could be in a Toyota commercial.
Other than LiLo, you cite director Gregg Araki as an influence as well. In what ways do his films inspire you?
T.H.: I respond to the colors and surrealism. My favorite Gregg Araki movie is Nowhere. I’ve shown that to a lot of people and I always forget that it’s so graphically violent because I’m obsessed with the parts that aren’t. I feel like Pride Month Barbie reflects that totality of the queer experience, which for me, sadly, has been very traumatic, brutal, violent, devastating. But I’m a fun girl and I want to be cute and experience fun stuff and be sweet.
J.S.: Everyone in Doom Generation is kind of one-dimensional. I feel like that type of thing inspires some of my songwriting for PMB: really looking so extremely into this one feeling to hyperbolize and magnify it.
You cover “Dreams” by the Cranberries. Why’d you choose that song?
J.S.: Dolores O’Riordan is my mom. I have loved her my whole life. After she passed away, I was looking at a bunch of pictures of her and I realized that we have the same tattoos on the same arm. We both have a Sacred Heart on one arm and she has a little Irish band on the other. I have an Indian band. I’m half-Irish and half-Indian. She told us to cover this song.
T.H.: What I hear in the original song is there’s this duet of self where it’s this love song and one of the voices — the higher register voice — believes it and the other one is sarcastic.
J.S.: I feel like that’s a dichotomy that we explore a lot in our music. The fake versus real.
Finally, let’s talk about “Effulgent,” which is out today. It’s perhaps one of the most wild on the record.
T.H.: It’s the fastest one, it’s 160 beats per minute. I was thinking about Berlin. I wanted it to really have these abusive moments.
J.S.: In the song, a girl sells her soul to the Devil to be with her lover, and then she goes into the underworld and the Devil’s like, “Your lover’s not here. Now you’re stuck,” and she’s like, “Maybe I can get through this.” But there’s no winning down there. I wanted it to feel like a devastating myth where some sweet girl just is like, “Well, now I live in hell.”
All the Girls in the Room Say ‘Sorry’ is available June 14 via Get Better Records.
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