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Ms. Led Combines Pop, Punk and Politics

According to out musician Lesli Wood, who heads up the ingeniously named rock quartet Ms. Led, the band’s moniker, much like her songwriting, is rooted in the politics of feminism. “It’s a play on the word ‘mislead,’ giving it more of a feminist stance with a statement on how so many people give the word a negative connotation,” Wood said. “Some women are misled into an archaic notion of what women are supposed to be.”

The Seattle-based Ms. Led, which has been together since 2000, recently released its second album, Shake Yourself Awake, on Wood’s own Fish the Cat Records. The band’s name is taken from a song she recorded on a previous solo record.

Ms. Led’s sound has a Seattle rock edge to its poppy post-punk, and Wood is not shy on the mic. Both a practicing attorney and outspoken song lyricist, she would have fit right in with the radical ways of early 1990s Seattle, when the city was rapidly becoming a musical Mecca.

Back then, the riot grrrl movement was emerging in nearby Olympia, Wash., care of bands such as Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, and grunge music was shoved from the underground to the main stage with the success of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It was the perfect time to relocate from the barren Midwest to the happening Northwest, and Lesli Wood couldn’t wait.

“I had just graduated college, and I think, honestly, being queer was part of it, too,” she said. “I really wanted to hang out with a bunch of lesbians [and] there’s a great music community where it seemed easy to get your foot in the door.”

A decade later, some things have changed. In Seattle, riot grrrl “is definitely seen as passé,” Wood said. “It’s became so diluted. We’re more well-rounded as far as our general political statements than when we first came out singing with the whole feminism thing. Now I have a broader political perspective, and I don’t make it the only platform.”

Wood is as much an activist as she is a singer. Tracks such as “New Agenda” highlight the social issues that Ms. Led aims to publicize through its music. The band has mastered the art of pop politics with a creative combination of rhythmic guitar riffs and Wood’s call-to-action crooning. In “New Agenda” she declares: “We’ve got to educate, communicate, organize, criticize/demand to know why, unify, rectify.”

However, Wood isn’t all work and no play; she is also a master at crafting tunes about love and loss. “Up to the Old Tricks” is about a relationship that’s too little to late: “I always want to stick around for one more round/but you don’t and you’re worried that you’re letting me down.” She can switch from pleasant and pretty to pissed and punk in a matter of three minutes, and that’s something to be admired.

Shake Yourself Awake was recorded in London Bridge Studios in Seattle, where Pearl Jam and Brandi Carlile have also recorded.

“The fact that we finished writing all the songs before we went into the recording studio [is different this time around],” Wood said. “I am good at jumping the gun with deadlines, planning studio time before the album is even written, and then I’m cramming and freaking out. This time we really spent time considering who we wanted to record it and mix it and master it. We also researched the studio and were really picky about the room.”

Despite being a member of a band that’s 75 percent queer (bassist Matt Menovcik is the sole straight member), Wood says she doesn’t consider Ms. Led a “gay” band, nor does she think there is such a thing.

“I think because we put being musicians first, we try not to have our music defined by our gender or our sexual orientation,” Wood said. “We’re outspoken and have played every Pride festival, but even at the Pride festivals we’ve played, we’re the only band in our genre – that’s a rock band.”

These days, LGBT consumers are increasingly targeted by companies with dollar signs in mind, and the gay music arena is no different. But it can be a double-edged sword for musicians to be marketed strictly to gay audiences.

“I feel like what happened with [the] riot grrrl movement — people are profiting off of a marginalized community and ignoring the real issues,” Wood said about the possibility of signing to a “gay” record label such as Sony’s Music With a Twist. “I think we end up becoming a caricature of ourselves, stereotypes rather than palatable.”

She continued: “I’m not against it; I’m just watching it happen really carefully. If they would be willing to put money towards issues that are big in the queer community, including gay bashing and issues that are important to us, then I’ll be all for them and believe they are behind our music.”

On the other side of the spectrum, Wood said that being in the closet as an artist was never an issue for her, and she finds it “unfortunate” that some choose to stay inside in order to cater to record execs and homophobes.

Luckily in a community like Seattle, it’s as easy to be queer as it is to promote your band. “It never ceases to amaze me how tight the lesbian community is here,” Wood said. “And [there is] a great music community. Once we started the band playing festivals, we were opening for major label bands.”

With the new album release and nonstop touring through the fall, Wood will return to play in Pontiac, Mich., for the first time in 10 years.

“I am vegetarian and Michigan is homophobic and they hunt deer, so Seattle to me was paradise!” she said of her relocation. “I definitely remember getting a gig [in Detroit] was like pulling teeth. You would play with other bands, and they would walk out during your set. You could see how little people care, which is probably why I’ve heard it’s gotten worse with clubs shut down constantly.”

Ms. Led is prepared for the inevitable comparisons to lots of other girl bands in the press. Wood runs the band’s MySpace page, and under the category of “Sounds Like” she wrote: “Decide for yourself. Lazy journalists like to just think of every ‘girl’ band they’ve heard of.”

“Any time there’s some new girl band and we have an album out, we get comparisons,” Wood said. “I recently got Gwen Stefani. The only thing we have in common with her is vaginas, and so it is really ridiculous.”

It’s also an issue for Ms. Led at music festivals and concerts. “Any time there’s a chick fest, people are always asking if we’re going to play,” Wood said.

“If it’s a folk festival, no. If it’s with bands of our genre, sure. Some of the bands we have been paired with that have girls in their band sound nothing like us. Their crowd hates us, our crowd hates them, and I have no idea what the booker had in mind putting a bill like that together. Like, I wouldn’t just put a bunch of guy bands together — all metal bands together just because there’s guys in this band.”

Reviews are pouring in for Ms. Led’s Shake Yourself Awake, and the general consensus is that it’s perfect pop-punk rock and avoids being too preachy. Of course, there are the inevitable comparisons, this time to Sleater-Kinney — and if comparisons are to be made, surely there could be worse ones.

For more on Ms. Led, visit their MySpace page or Lesli Wood’s website.

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