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Kate Schellenbach on the return of Luscious Jackson, working on “The Ellen Show” and being out in the ’90s

If you’re a fan of music, there’s a good chance you’ll have a few bands whose music has kept you company throughout your formative years and helped shape your world consciousness without you even knowing. For me, The Beastie Boys and Luscious Jackson took turns being that band. At first glance, the two bands may not seem to have a whole lot in common, but for a young Jewish girl who put the “urban” in “suburban,” they symbolized endless possibilities and a life-long affinity for New York City.

One commonality that is a lesser-known fact, is the presence of drummer Kate Schellenbach in both bands. You see, before Adrock, Mike D and MCA were rhymin’ and stealin’, The Beastie Boys were a young hardcore punk band with Kate as the lone female at the helm of their drum kit. (There were a few other notable lineup differences at the time as well. Adrock didn’t come to the band until later.) Some years later, after Schellenbach was out of the Beasties and had helped form Luscious Jackson, she became the first out lesbian musician I had known of. As far as I was concerned, she was living my dream and the band’s eclectic fusion of rap, jazz, rock and hip-hop is what I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Years have gone by and a lot has changed since the band’s last proper album, Electric Honey, was released in 1999. The three remaining members – Kate, Jill Cunniff and Gabby Glaser – started families. Kate and her partner took their family across the country to L.A. where she started a new career as a segment producer for TV talk shows. But, with times changing and the emergence of new technology, 2012 has opened the doors for reuniting three of the musicians whose heavy bass lines and relaxed Bohemian grooves threw some much needed cold water on the fiery angst of my teenage years.

I got to speak to Kate Schellenbach about the band’s PledgeMusic project, recording on different coasts and what it was like working with our website’s namesake, Ellen DeGeneres.

AfterEllen.com: First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

Kate Schellenbach: Well thank you for writing about Luscious Jackson.

AE: Well, actually, I am not exaggerating when I say that you, in particular, are probably one of the first idols I can remember having.

KS: Really? Thank you!

AE: Yeah I mean, I go back to your Beastie Boys days, and Luscious Jackson’s first album, In Search of Manny – there are so many different instances in my life that I can point to and say that your music has been a part of it. Instead of taking notes in college – I’m not that proud of this – but instead of taking notes I would just sit and write the lyrics to “Naked Eye” over and over again. The only time that I ever ditched soccer practice was to go see your show in Chicago at the Metro my senior year of high school.

KS: Oh my God, that’s great. That’s really cool and it’s one of the things that’s been so nice about reconnecting with fans – like on Facebook and everything, because we hear a lot of stories like that from people who have grown up with us and are kind of, I don’t know, nostalgic for that time. So it’s been kind of a nice side effect of all this.

AE: Looking back on everything, when I think of Luscious Jackson, your music always made me feel like New York was the place to be. I can remember listening to “City Song” while picturing myself moving to SoHo one day. So much has changed though in your life and the band’s life and just New York in particular since your last non-child oriented album, and I’m not sure where Jill and Gabby live –

KS: Jill and Gabby both still live in New York fairly close to each other and I moved out to L.A. in, I think, 2003. I never thought I’d end up out here. I’m like a fifth generation New Yorker so I never thought I’d end up out here. It’s a trip. Jill and Gabby are still die-hard New Yorkers. My mom still lives there so I visit obviously and do some Luscious business. But yeah, it’s changed a lot. Every time I go back it’s just kind of weird. You’re used to what you grew up with: your restaurants and your favorite stores and now it’s just more and more generic chain stores and that kind of thing. We grew up in a really amazing time, the girls from Luscious and the guys from Beastie Boys, because we all met as teenagers, going out to clubs and there was a big mish-mosh of music that was really influential on us like rap and punk and the mixture of the two. And it has really informed our music in different ways. So we feel really blessed to have grown up in a time when we could sneak into clubs as 15 year-olds and dance around to The Slits.

AE: I’m curious – since so much has changed do feel like that has affected the sound of the new music you’re making?

KS: As far as the new music we’re making, it’s still very typical Luscious Jackson. We’re still mixing genres and Jill and Gabby have been doing a lot of writing and have kind of been like, “What do we write about now? We have kids and we’re older.” [Laughs] We’re still trying to keep it positive and stay away from the midlife crisis kind of thing. [Laughs] But sound-wise I still think it’s a mixture of stuff and be open to influences of things we hear these days and keep things fresh. What’s great about us working together though is that me, Jill and Gabby all buy a lot of the same records and we have a lot of the same common ground as far as the language of our music together. So if Jill goes to me, “Can you do some drums that are a little more like ESG?” I know what she’s talking about. And ESG is this all-girl funk band from the Bronx, so I get that and that’s really nice.

AE: Yeah it’s got to be good to have that short code.

KS: So that stuff kind of continues in our music. We’re all fanatical about our music and now it’s so easy with your iPhone or whatever to just pull stuff up. So Jill will be like, “Have you heard Stoosh?” And I’m like, “No,” but I pull it up on my iPhone and take a listen and am ready to go. It’s so much easier. I was actually thinking about how before we used to have to think about which CDs to bring with us and it was such a drag. Everyone would have to be like, “What can we all listen to? Ah, I guess let’s bring Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits.” It’s so much easier.

AE: In the new single you put out, “Are You Ready,” I can definitely hear similar sounds to I’d say, your Natural Ingredients album, which is really exciting for me. When Rolling Stone published the article about your return I just about peed my pants, I couldn’t believe it.

KS: [Laughs]

AE: You all have always used a lot of samples in your music. With the technology changing and the ease of getting your hands on different equipment to make music, having access to making music without even having to touch an instrument, how do you feel about that these days and the music that’s coming out?

KS: You know, we’ve always been really open to different ways of making music and it’s run the gamut of using samples to recording us live to doing both. So for us it’s not really all that different these days in a lot of ways. Like, we’re sending a lot of things back and forth. For “Are You Ready,” I actually programmed drums for that and did it on my iPad, actually. We just wanted to put something out pretty quickly and remind people who we were and see what the interest was. The goal was to record sort of a classic Luscious Jackson track, like really collaborative with Jill and Gabby. Like, Natural Ingredients. I think moving on, their writing has become a little more separate. So I agree, I think it does seem like Natural Ingredients. But we always were kind of doing whatever and we were so comfortable with the DIY approach. Jill is all hooked up with a studio in her home and she’s spent the last bunch of years kind of holed up and producing and recording and learning how to do all that and co-writing people and doing her own thing. So she’s really adept at that. So it’s really cool. I can just send her some drum tracks. It’s pretty awesome. [Laughs]

AE: It’s totally awesome! It makes reunions easier to do.

KS: We’re still at the very beginning stages and our songs and I’m still waiting for some things for some of the new tracks we’re working on. And I think it’s going to go back and forth kind of piecemeal. You know we all have jobs and are parents now so it’s just kind of fitting it in. But we’re all motivated and it’s been fun. It’s kind of trippy because I haven’t even seen those guys in years.

AE: You haven’t even seen them in person?

KS:Yeah! We’ve just kind of been texting or talking on the phone! [Laughs] It’s all very modern.

AE: I’ll say!

KS: Also because of the way we’re doing this, it all happens super quickly. Back in the day it was all about release time. We’d be like, “Oh we’ll release it in August. No, we’ll wait ’til November because of whatever.” The record company business is so much about timing. But these days you can just be like, “Alright let’s do this thing.” And within three days we were funded and had a single out and the press was on it. It’s just a lot easier.Of course, on the other side of things, now we’re realizing there’s a lot of new things we have to worry about that we just never had to think about before. Like, oh now we have to file this at the copyright office. But it’s fine. [Laughs] It is what it is.

AE: It’s a necessary evil I guess.

KS: Yeah, so we’re hoping to get tracks done within six months, which actually isn’t a lot of time with the way we’re working. And people can continue to pledge and we’ll see where it goes. We’d love to do some live shows, it’s just a matter of making that financially viable. It’s super expensive to play live.

AE: You all played Lollapalooza before. If you got asked to again, would you be up for it?

KS: Yeah, I mean we’re definitely open to big festivals. Those are attractive because there’s obviously a big audience and a lot of publicity and you just fly in and out. Something like that definitely appeals to us. It depends on schedules and that kind of thing. We’d love to do some shows that we can get a lot of people out to.

AE: So, you moved to L.A. and you were a producer for Ellen DeGeneres’ show before, I guess, moving on to Lopez Tonight. Did you ever break out into dance with Ellen in staff meetings or anything?

KS: [Laughs] You know, it’s funny because the whole band were big fans of Ellen in her sitcom days and when we opened for Live at The Greek back in the day, we heard Ellen DeGeneres was going to be in the audience and we were so excited. I remember, this was back when Vivian (the former keyboardist for Luscious Jackson) was in the band and she and I were trying to just find out where Ellen would be. We went looking for her and we were trying to get in to this after-party to try to see her and we were so excited like, “Where is she going to be? Ahh!” And then we turned around and she was right behind us and we were so embarrassed. But she was so nice and we were like, “We’re such big fans of yours,” and she said, “Well I’m a big fan of yours!” And then cut to a bunch of years later and I’m working for her and she actually remembered meeting me, which was really cool.

And then I got to do a monologue with her where I guess I we were having a “bongo-off,” like we were doing dueling bongos. And I think you can find it on YouTube, if you search, “Ellen DeGeneres Bongo Monologue.” So that was really cool – you know, just playing some bongos with Ellen on her show. [Laughs] (Writer’s note: I just watched the Bongo Monologue and not only is it hilarious but Ellen’s dancing has never been so amazing.) She’s a huge music fan so I made her a bunch of mix CDs. So I was a segment producer, like booking celebrities, but I was also able to contribute music for different pieces. So I was able to pick songs and stuff for her too. She’s super musical.

AE: Well, she’s got the moves for it.

KS: [Laughs[ Ha, yeah totally. I’m actually going to start a new job as a senior producer for a new Kathy Griffin talk show. So that’s another monkey wrench in the rock ‘n roll business. [Laughs] But it’s great. I like having a job. She’s got a great gay following so that’s really fun. It will be an hour-long show on Bravo.

AE: That should be must-see TV.

KS: Yeah, definitely. She’s so funny. I love working with comedians and women, especially.

AE: You’ve always been out and proud and that definitely was a big part for me of having you as someone to look up to. How do you think being out today compares to back when you were first starting to make music? Either with the boys or Luscious Jackson.

KS: By the time Luscious Jackson came around, I don’t think it was much news by then. No one really cared. Now, though, I don’t think anyone really cares. Back with the Boys, when I first met the guys, we were all like 15 or 16, and I don’t think I was really all that in touch with my sexuality at that point. But we grew up in a very liberal New York time and the guys were pro-women and pro-gay, and everyone was totally cool. It was never an issue. Then they kind of went through their MTV Spring Break kind of phase with like, inflatable penises and that kind of stuff. They were total knuckleheads. But deep down that was never who those guys were. And now it’s kind of come full-circle.

I think there was  kind of this time when people would say, “Oh Luscious Jackson -they’re a gay band,” and Jill and Gabby never seemed to care. [Laughs] I do feel like it’s less of an issue now than it was 10 years ago, though, and it wasn’t even a big deal for me 10 years ago.

AE: That’s great! You know, it’s so interesting for me to talk to different musicians with such different backgrounds and hearing about their experiences coming out.

KS: Well I was really lucky to grow up in such a liberal and super open environment. I was never kicked out of the house for being gay. That’s the thing when you tour around and meet people and talk to people – it’s a whole different picture. Even here in L.A., you can go 15 minutes into the suburbs and it’s a whole other world. It’s the same in the majority of the country where kids are being thrown out of their houses. It’s devastating what still goes on.

AE: I saw some ridiculous statistic lately that something like 26% of gay kids are being thrown out of their houses after coming out and 41% of all homeless kids identify as being LGBT. Something gigantic like that.

KS: Yeah it’s pretty awful. It’s a crazy time, too, I mean with the Republicans push-button issues are gay marriage and contraceptives – and it’s like, really? Come on!

AE: Well that’s the only way they can get the poor, religious people to vote for them. If any of those people really paid attention to the money issues, they would realize the Republicans aren’t looking out for their best interests. But they get the religious fanatics on those issues, I’m convinced that that’s the only reason they actually even care about those issues.

KS: It’s frightening. Yeah it’s like, contraceptives are being debated now? What?

AE: It’s a sad, sad world. Well, what else can you tell me about what the band’s working on now?

KS: Basically we’re doing this album through PledgeMusic and we’ve met our goal but we’re still taking pledges. So people can give $10 for a download of the album, or they can pledge to buy original art work, or drum sticks. High-rollers can get like a house concert. The more money we have the more we can do things with the album. We were blown away by how quickly people responded and how enthusiastic people have been. I think the timing has been interesting for people like yourself who grew up with our music and want to turn the next generation on.

So yeah we’re writing and trying to figure out how to record everything and we’ve got our regular jobs and have to figure out time off. Then we have to make sure we get everything out to everyone who has pledged already. We have to do it all. [Laughs]

AE: So, you’re going to be pretty busy is what you’re saying.

KS: Yeah, it’s cool for us, though. Our first round [with a major label] we were with Capitol and saw the end of the glory days of the major labels. And by the time the band kind of split up in 2000, things were really going south for how that system worked. Pirating started being really big and the money was falling out of major labels so it’s been kind of cool to participate in this new model. We’re hoping to get some radio play – we don’t really have anyone promoting it for radio but we’ve had some people playing it and hope it continues. Maybe we’ll get it to a soundtrack – or it could be the Kathy Griffin theme song, who knows? [Laughs]

We love interacting with our fans and encourage people going to our Facebook page. It’s really us communicating with them on there and  also Instagram and Twitter. And on Pledge Music we’re posting lots of rare tracks and videos of behind the scenes footage so they can see the process of us making the album. Jill I think just posted a video of a song she’s been working on with Gabby and I haven’t even heard it yet, so if you’re a fan that’s pretty cool to be a part of the process.

AE: Well and how cool for your kids to have this, too. They get to have this picture of you making these songs. I think that’s something really cool to give to your kids.

KS: Yeah it’s fun to play stuff like that. You know, I’ve got this six-year-old boy, Liam, and I played him “Are You Ready” and I heard him singing along to it and he said, “Yeah, this is a good song!” [Laughs] Or we’ll be listening to something and he’ll ask, “Is that you playing drums?” So that’s really cool. He’s a huge Beastie Boys fan. His favorite song is “Intergalactic” and he’ll be like, “Have you heard ‘Intergalactic Planetarium’ song?” And then he’ll break out into some little breakdance routine.

I’m sure, same for you, music for me, discovering bands at 12 or 13 just changed my life and made me realize this is what I want to do. It’s exciting to see your kids respond to what you’re doing. I’m sure he’ll be rolling his eyes soon.

AE: Well he’ll revisit it later and understand. Actually Licensed to Ill was the first album front to back that I memorized as a kid. My dad used to videotape me doing all the different raps around the house. So it’s kind of like, no surprise that I was gay.

KS: That’s hysterical.

You can follow the making of the new Luscious Jackson album via the band’s Facebook page, put up some money for their album and/or some very cool extras at their Pledge Music page or follow them on Twitter but since the correct spelling of the band’s name was taken, be sure to follow @LusciousJckson. Also important to note: the Pledge campaign will donate a portion of the money made to the Child Welfare League of America, an organization that serves to help improve the lives of children in need all across America.

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