While country music isn't particularly known for its inclusivity or progressive views on the spectrum of sexual identity, it has been a source of inspiration for many LGBTQ artists over the years, from Lavender Country and Peter Groothen in the '70s to Orville Peck and Brandi Carlile today.
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With Blood In Her Dreams out May 31, it's time to let the wildflowers bloom for trailblazer Shauna Virago. In the early '90s, long before the fight for trans inclusivity and representation became part of mainstream discussion, she was one of the few openly transgender musicians in America.
After a period of solo and band work, Virago released his debut album, Objectified, in 2009. It's mostly acoustic. The vibe of Los Angeles punk pioneers X has always influenced Virago's (relatively quiet) music, but on Blood In Her Dreams, his lyrically dense, emotive Americana is joined by the adrenaline rush of cowpunk. Songs like “Ghosts Cross State Lines,” “Eternity Street” and “Climb to the Bottom” paint empathetic, vivid portraits of down-on-his-luck people who are battered by life but not defeated. Like Lucinda Williams, Virago finds dusty beauty in the rough-and-tumble troublemakers far from high society.
In an interview with Billboard, Virago spoke about everything from queer country to changing opportunities for transgender musicians to trying to “make sense of the rage that's been unleashed in this country” that has produced her best album to date.
How long did it take to put this album together?
I was in the studio about once a month writing songs. I wanted to work with my engineer, Grace Coleman, but they were busy, so over the course of about two years I worked with them when I could. One day we were in the studio and finished “This Girl Felt Hounded.” Once it was done, we looked at each other and said, “I think we're done. I think we have the album.” We didn't know when it would be done, but I think the songs all speak to each other.
“Ghosts Cross State Lines” has some very memorable lyrics. What was the writing process like?
Not always. The song was about the lyrics. I was thinking about this idea. [that] You can move geographically, but there may still be something inside of you that came from where you came from. They may always remain with you, whether they have the power they once did or not. I was thinking of someone fleeing domestic violence. That person was able to get out, but there was still some psychological residue that they had to deal with.
This is a mostly serious album. There's humor throughout the album. There's one song about the beginning of a relationship, so there's hope in that song. It's called “Bright Green Ideas.” There's some light in that song, but not much light on the album as a whole. I was looking back at my notebooks recently from when I was writing that song, and it was pretty dark. I think the songs I didn't write were a lot darker. We're all living through this readjustment. We went through this here in San Francisco. We went through a massive exodus when the tech industry came here. And then when it started to decline, a lot of those same people fled the city. But it's still too expensive for people to come back here.
Blood In Her Dreams began as me trying to understand the kind of anger that's been unleashed in this country. The anger that I'm talking about seems very one-sided, and many of us are the targets of it. I think the feelings of loneliness, the sadness that jobs have been shipped overseas, all of these things are at the root of the anger, but it's been displaced somewhere else.
You've mentioned that the landscape of San Francisco is changing, but as a longtime resident, do you think there's still an art scene there that has survived the tech boom and subsequent exodus?
There's definitely an art scene, or a budding art scene. There's also a really great drag scene. I think the Bay Area as a whole has had an alternative country scene brewing. Somehow, I don't know how it happened, but it just kind of embraced me. It still amazes me. And then there's this amazing performance art scene.
It's not like when I moved here in the early '90s. But back then it was mostly cisgender gay boys. There was what was called the Mission art scene, which was mostly cisgender d-kes like Michelle Tee. Twenty years ago there was still a window of critical mass where the transgender community had either lived here for a few years or had just arrived here, and there was a short-lived, very vibrant trans performance art scene that we didn't have before. I met up with some friends the other day who came out at the same time as me, in the early '90s, and there were only two or three bars that we could go to. It was really hard to get out of that. So things are finally changing. Yes, there's still good things happening here. People are, [to live with] I have 5 roommates. It's probably a similar situation in Brooklyn, New York.
That's true. Traditionally, country music has been conservative and intolerant of transgender people. As a trans person who is involved in that world a little bit and loves the music, is that difficult to embrace?
The trans and queer community in country music is a relatively recent phenomenon. We now have bona fide commercial stars like Orville Peck and Brandi Carlile. I grew up in the South, and there were three radio stations that played country music: Charlie Rich, Charlie Pride, Loretta. [Lynn]Tammy [Wynette] Lynn Anderson and Jeannie C. Riley. Queer people love country music. We love a lot of the appeal of traditional country music that other people have outgrown and don't know or care about. Look at Porter Wagner, he did Ziggy Stardust. [laughs] What on earth happened to that guy? [in country] What fascinates us is breaking the mold and keeping the flame alive at the same time.
When you started playing live shows around San Francisco in the '90s, were there audiences outside of San Francisco that would listen to you guys? Have you ever played in more rural areas? What was that like?
That's a really great question. In San Francisco in the '90s, you're going to have people doing PhDs in the transgender community. Because there were a lot of firsts. Getting medical care in a San Francisco clinic was something new. The Department of Health was focusing on transgender people, surveying them about their source of income, possible drug use, HIV status, etc., which was something that had never been done before. There were also police accountability initiatives for the first time. So I didn't play in rural communities during that time. I played in Los Angeles and little clubs there. I played wherever I could play. That was good and bad. People just weren't ready to accept transgender performers in the music world. For about six months, I didn't play at all. Because it was so frustrating. Because when I played, people just wanted to talk about my gender. I was often the only transgender person in the clubs and the bars I played in. I was worried about getting home from the clubs.
There weren't many people doing what you were doing back then.
There was a performer who came out about 10 years before me, Bambi Lake. She was already active in the '80s, but I think her drug use had a negative impact on her stable housing, and she had some mental issues. She didn't perform much after the early '90s, but she was someone who broke a lot of ground, and she's pretty much forgotten. I call her “my frenemy.” She was a go-getter. She would make bomb threats every time Oasis came into town because she thought they were cute. And she wanted to meet them, so she would use pay phones to wait. She got arrested. I gave her money in prison so she could buy shampoo and stuff. I think over time she became very bitter, because the trans world changed a lot and she wasn't really a part of it. I hope to shed at least a little light on her. I don't know if she ever actually released a recording. Justin Vivian Bond covered one of her songs [“Golden Age of Hustlers”].
I've seen Justin Vivian Bond sing that song! I often go see them live at Joe's Pub. Their shows are very spiritually fulfilling.
I remember meeting a trans man in the early 2000s who had ambitions to be a so-called traditional musician, and I didn't think it was possible, and I still don't think it's really possible, but that's okay. [Most of us were] I was really just trying to survive and I thought having ambition was not an option. So that changed. My concept of ambition changed.
What are your plans after the release of Blood In Her Dreams?
I have modest goals. On the record I wanted to have a band sound, so I worked with engineer Grace Coleman, who is also my co-producer, but performance-wise, I'm continuing to do solo acoustic shows. My plan is to tour, say, a 100-mile radius of San Francisco. I've toured a few times in the last few years with my friends, Secret MC Society. And I've felt it's increasingly dangerous to get out of this particular bubble. I've seen militias on tour. And I'm starting to feel it even more because of a guy I call “the bad guy who wants to be president” talking about extending term limits.
Does it seem to you like it's worse now than it was 10 years ago? Does the rise of the bad guys make some people feel more empowered?
Yes. I think they have a lot of simmering resentment. There are people across large swaths of this country who have a lot of resentment. I also think a lot of Americans are ignorant in a lot of ways. This is not to judge potential intelligence, but they are not well educated, they have not traveled, and they find answers in the Bible, which they have never read. My mother and my family live in Arkansas, and the pastor at the church my mother goes to is extremely transphobic. It has been that way for a long time. I think same-sex marriage, Black Lives Matter, all of the things that seem like signs of progress only infuriate these people. I think they feel empowered now. And that is more frightening.
What's interesting is, as we're having this great conversation, you think I would have released an album like London Calling. [But this album is] It's more personal. It's not the polemic that we've been doing, but there's definitely a sense of fear and paranoia that comes through in the songs.