It’s Mother’s Day so what is the best way to celebrate moms out there? A nice brunch? Flowers and treats? A present? Presents are always nice, especially if it’s a copy of the brand new book Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions (HMM) by Joan Jocson-Singh and Julie Turley.
In HMM, Jocson-Singh and Turley dive into the world of mothers who listen to/create heavy music by citing memoirs and conducting their own interviews with musicking mothers. The book is the first of its kind to focus on mothers and their stories in a scenes historically seen as misogynistic. In anticipation of HMM’s immanent release, Jocson-Singh and Turley have been gracious to be interviewed about their work.
What got you into extreme music?
Jocson-Singh: My soon to be ex-husband, who I met when I was 17, introduced me to Carcass and Death. At the time, my ears weren’t attuned to death vocals and I fondly recall telling him that “it wasn’t music.” I was coming from a New Wave and classical music background so it was hard for me to comprehend. But then when I was 23, my mother passed away and my ex played Carcass, Death, and Crisis again, and all of sudden those growls, tremolo picking, double bass drumming, and downtuned guitars made sense. Especially hearing Karyn of Crisis belt vocals that alternated from clean to death, I was in awe. Her proto-feminist metal made even more sense to me and I found that extreme metal could be both cathartic and empowering. It was like coming home.
What was the catalyst of Heavy Music Mothers? How did this book come about?
Jocson-Singh: The catalyst for Heavy Music Mothers was meeting Julie at a library conference. A mutual colleague said Julie was the “Rock n’ Roll Librarian” and should therefore meet me, the “Metal Music Librarian!” We ended up chatting and talking about my previous graduate research which was all about interviewing women in NY and their participation in the Extreme Metal Music subculture. From there, we realized how much we had in common as unconventional mothers, librarians, and music fans. We knew right away that we couldn’t be the only ones with these kinds of stories.
For HMM, how did yall go about defining heavy music? Is it centered on punk and metal? Or do other extreme genres fall under this umbrella, such as power electronics and noise?
Jocson-Singh: I think for the most part, we defined “heavy” broadly. At times it was structural music that didn’t adhere to typical musical structures, compositions, and convention. We looked at “heavy” music with a subcultural lens – one where women weren’t welcomed due to typically male-coded elements of performance, aggression, hardness – where hard music “might be a place where every trace of the feminine has been expunged” (Reynolds and Press, 247). As far as genres, for me extreme metal became an umbrella term used to encompass music that’s often considered tonally aggressive, often incorporating harsh, unrecognizable vocals, down-tuned guitars, extremely fast percussion, rapid “wall of sound” drumming through use of double-bass drumming and “blast beat” techniques, frequent tempo and time signature changes and inhuman vocal style. Lyrical content is frequently described as misogynistic and nihilistic in theme, often relaying stories of murder, rape, death, suicide, Satanism, the occult, and madness (Jocson-Singh, 2016).
Turley: In general, our book focuses on women in punk, rock, and metal, but many of the women we included don’t fit neatly within these genres. For instance, Amy Rigby, whose memoir is discussed in chapter three, makes music in the tradition of Americana singer/songwriter tradition. Her great 90s-era all-female band The Shams were unplugged, after all. Heaviness is largely associated with amplification. Rigby’s memoir is among my favorites of what I’ve termed the “rock mom memoir,” and her songwriting is heavy in that it deconstructs love and relationships in complex ways. Likewise, Dafna Naphtali and her work have been included in the book. A music professor, she’s an experimental musician, who messes with a variety of musical traditions, from classical to heavy metal. Would her work be neatly classified as rock, punk, or metal? Conventionally speaking, no. Is her work and position as a musicking mother worthy of attention in our book? One-hundred percent yes.
Can you provide a preview of some of the musician mothers you interviewed for HMM?
Jocson-Singh: I’m going to let Julie answer this when she gets a chance. She had far more interviewees than me and I think her perspective sheds some different and important insights.
Turley: The heavy music mothers who make up the heart of our book range from music lovers, to performing musicians–with a heavy metal deejay, and a writer/rock journalist who directed the 2022 docu-series Women Who Rock on Epix thrown into the mix.
How did you go about contacting folks for interviews? Were some acquaintances in your music circles or perhaps folks you had not met before and you reached out?
Jocson-Singh: For me, most of my interviewees came from the women I had interviewed during my graduate thesis work. I had kept in touch with the women who became mothers like myself, and others who were already mothers who had mentioned the challenges of being in the metal “scene.” We also conducted an online survey which asked participants if they wanted to be part of one-on-one interviews for us to gather further qualitative data.
Turley: Many of the musicking mothers were already within our respective circle of friends. Or extended circles. I had been a fan of Jessica Hopper’s book The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic for years and followed her on Instagram. And then I noticed she was a mom and reached out.
Without revealing too much from HMM, were there any major commonalities that were shared in the responses received?
Jocson-Singh: I felt the “return to autonomy” was a common pattern. I think the mothers we interviewed felt that when they became mothers they had to learn to be all the things that society embeds in us to be “good”mothers, thus personal interests and self-care activities went out the window until they were able to once again take up that mantel. Few were able to create new identities that incorporated being a successful mother and musician, though it was possible.
Turley: In almost all cases, including the data gleaned from published rock star memoirs, maintaining a “heavy music” identity in whatever iteration was crucial for a sense of overall mental health and well being. If one of our subjects felt compelled to “give up” a music identity, they at some point felt a strong pull for reconnection.
What was the biggest challenge encountered while composing and researching the book?
Jocson-Singh: For me, I would say timing. We started interviewing back in 2016/2017? A time when I was attending the DC Women’s March because Trump became president so you can imagine the social climate. I was on tenure track and pregnant with my second daughter and just trying to manage my career and life/work balance. Julie and I decided to formally start our study with women in the tri-state area somewhere in 2018/2019. We had been interviewing women for some time anyways. We got approached to convert our findings into a book from our publisher who attended one of our conference presentations.
But the biggest timing challenge was when I decided to take on a new position as the Library Dean at CalArts in Valencia CA. I had to move my family of four cross-country from New York to California at the height of the Covid pandemic (summer of 2020). The world was just a mess. On top of this, my twenty year relationship and marriage started falling apart. To be honest, this was happening while we were still in NY but I buried myself in work and research. In any case, these challenges served to be a multitude of lessons for me. I came to understood what it is to be a single mother; I became and heavily relied on my friendship with Julie and the moms we interviewed. And I came back to my first love – metal – to find myself again.
And conversely what was the biggest surprise that you learned?
Jocson-Singh: The biggest surprise I learned was that I wasn’t alone with my personal struggles, that other women were empowered by extreme metal music and its transgressive nature. I learned to be kinder to myself and navigate love in different ways. I know too many people think love and metal seem antithetical to each other, but for me, it’s their elements of being unconventional and unique that bridged a way for me to approach life more openly.
Your publisher’s book description says this is the first book of its kind. Are there more concepts you’d like to explore in successor material that you didn’t get a chance to in HMM?
Jocson-Singh: I agree with our publisher whole-heartedly! While there have always been women and mother-musicians talking about challenges within their musical subculture, I didn’t see enough ethnographic titles that reflected “lived” experiences, especially in heavier musical subcultures. As for successor material, I really want to explore more vigilante feminist practice, both with lyrical compositions in extreme metal music as well as performativity (how are women, mothers, trans, and non-binary folks performing in typically masculine spaces?).
Turley: Our bold assertion could be said to be based on a relatively cursory perusal of what we’ve seen online and in bookstores and libraries. As librarians, both Joan and I have been engaged in building library collections for years. So, to the best of our knowledge, ours is the first book to focus solely on the experiences of mothers who participate in what we’ve termed heavy music subcultures. The term “heavy” can have a variety of meanings and iterations. To answer your question, I wish we could have been a bit more exhaustive in our coverage. There were many rock moms we missed discussing, for example. Likewise, the book is frank about its limitations: our conclusion discusses contemporary and necessary challenges to the historically constructed binary and the nuanced iterations of mothers and bodies that give birth. I would love the chance to do an expanded edition.
Since some of HMM has been presented at academic conferences, how has the material been received so far? Did you have any attendees that identified with your work?
Jocson-Singh: Overall I think our research has been and continues to be well received. Most of the women I encounter tend to be artists and musicians and oftentimes they find our work very relatable.
Turley: The presentations Joan and I did together early on consisted of data from the still open online survey and resonant quotes pulled from the qualitative interviews. From the Museum of Motherhood Conference to the Modern Heavy Metal Conference in Helsinki, audiences were very receptive and excited about the topic. In Helsinki, an amazing rocker in a touring Helsinki-based band let us know that our presentation gave her hope that she could integrate motherhood into extreme, high-participation musicking.
With HMM concluded, what are your next projects or news you’d like to share?
Jocson-Singh: I continue to be interested in gender and musical subcultural practices all the time. The latest news I get to share is that for the next two years I will be busy helping to start up the library at the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art which will be opening here in LA in 2025. So for now, I’m learning all about the special collections at Lucas and thinking of ways in which the library can be both a welcoming and innovative place for all patrons interested in narrative art.
Turley: Right now, I’m hoping the book does well enough to warrant a second edition! I have some things in the works. Still trying to make every subject rock ‘n’ roll.
Sincere appreciation to Jocson-Singh and Turley for their time for this interview. For more information about Heavy Music Mothers and the other endeavors of these authors check out the links below. The book is slated to be published May 2023 by Rowan & Littlefield.