Interview with the organizers of the Grrlz-night, Warszawa, spring 2005

Please introduce yourselves. Tell us something about the band. How long you have been playing together? About the song lyrics: are the song texts very political?

We are Daisy Chain from Berlin. We are four people - one guy and three women. Steffen plays the guitar, Jolle the drums, Moni the bass guitar and Eddy vocals. We have been playing together for four years. Our music is classic punk rock in the style of the early 80's. Our texts are mostly based on stories and experiences of our lives. They express our feelings, rage, sorrow, love, passions, destructions and addictions. But we also have funny songs that celebrate the bright side of a punk rocker's life. Our songs are not political in the classic sense, but we think our songs carry a clear message.
We stand against sexism, fascism, anti-Semitism and racism.

Do you have any connection to the feminist movement and anarcho-feminist scene in Berlin?

No, but we all live and work in alternative structures.

How is the situation for the women who play punk in Berlin?

There are a couple of girls who play in Punk rock bands. Modlicha with her band "Stopcox," Patti from "Cut My Ski," the all-girl Ska formation "Wondersk," Aneta from "Tromka Pompka," Kerstin with the "Lazy Slobs," Marina, plays the drums in the band "Bite The Bullet," Carola with "Shemale Trouble," the all girl band "Payback," Milena with "Allee Der Kosmonauten," Ajka from "Insuicity," Freddy, the singer of "Harnleita," Anne, Anja and Nathalie, members of "Trash Torten Combo."

In the beginning, Daisy Chain was all women. Is it very important for you that this is an all-female or almost-all-female band?

Yes. It is a good feeling to make music with girls. In the beginning of Daisy Chain, we had the idea of being an all girl band, which is unlike the classical girl bands. it was a kind of "fun project." We wanted to show, that girls can make punk rock without having a message based on politically-correct feminism. It was a kind of answer to the macho attitude many punk bands have. And it was a response carrying a big "fuck you!" instead of complaining. We had some of our own songs and we preferred to cover songs from bands like "Cock Sparrer," which are absolutely male dominated. After a little while and a few gigs we recognized that Daisy Chain became more than this fun project. We started to pick up other themes that showed more of our feelings and intentions. It was then that our guitar player, Milena, left the band. She needed to concentrate on her other band "Allee der Kosmonauten". We started to look for another girl who would work well with us. We wanted to stay a girl band. After nearly one year of searching we got lucky and found Steffen. He had played guitar in Moni and Jolle's other band "Security Psychosis", that split up a short time before. We had some sessions with him and he fits so perfect to the band, that we wanted to go on with him.

Do you identify yourselves with the anarcho-feminist scene, riot grrrl, etc.?

We think the riot grrrl movement has good intention and was very important for the punk scene. Musically we are definitely more part of the punk scene than the anarcho-feminist scene or the riot grrl-movement, but we don't identify ourselves completly.

How did you like playing your tour in Poland last year?

We met lots of friendly people and we loved how the Polish people enjoyed our concerts. They really know how to celebrate!

Do you experience any acts of sexism or aggression during gigs because you are a 3/4 girl band?

A few idiots sometimes shout stupid things but this is more often the exception. Punk rock is aggressive music and the people dance in an aggressive way. That doesn't matter to us as long as people don't fuck each other up and everybody has space to dance.