“Participating in the arts, as an observer or creating it, can be a way to touch and heal and recontextualize and bolster and imagine and be excited by and to be let loose which, for someone whose very self is at odds with the world around them, can be the literal difference between life and death. It is important for the well-being of all people but I think it may have a slightly more significant place for LGBTQIA+ people or for any group or individual who faces an excess of scrutiny, bigotry, violence, or ostracization for who they are. It is a place to turn negative experience and negative feeling into something other than oppression or pain.” – Jamie Stewart, Xiu Xiu

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JAMIE STEWART x LOGAN LYNN
for DotGay Blog (2021)

(Interview posted at OhHey.gay and LoganLynnMusic.com)

#XiuXiu

(Photo by Jeremy Lange)

“People think we made it all up. They think that we improvised. We took a lot of acid — I mean a LOT of acid — at the time, but not while we were working. Acid was Saturday night. You know, John (Waters) wrote every word. None of this was improvised. John was pack leader, gentle and respectful. He didn’t bark, he didn’t bite, but definitely pack leader. There was no fucking up on the set, because we couldn’t. The budgets were so tight. The scenes were shot in masters. Now, I’m not telling you to do this, but if you go back and look at Pink Flamingos, notice that there are no cutaways. If the scene was 4 and a half minutes long and somebody blew a line at 4 minutes 15 seconds, you had to all start over. None of us knew what the hell we were doing, but I think for people who were untrained, our level of commitment was astonishing. We all really wanted to do it right, and we had fun. We were glad to be there, but we knew that we couldn’t fuck up. It wasn’t pressure. It was responsibility, which is different.” – Mink Stole

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MINK STOLE x LOGAN LYNN
for HuffPost Entertainment (2013)

(Photo by John Edmonds)