Photo by Brendan Tobin
Don’t be frightened by The Ruiner, Made Out of Babies’ Julie Christmas is your metal friend
By Keidra Chaney
Published: June 23rd, 2008 | 5:50pm
Made Out of Babies is a hard band to listen to. Not that they’re a shitty band; far from it. The Brooklyn-based quartet doles out noise-rock riffs and thunderous guitars that get blood pumping. But it’s frontwoman Julie Christmas who transforms the sound into an unsettling and captivating experience.
When the band (Christmas, guitarist Brendan Tobin, bassist Cooper, and drummer Matthew Egan) hit the metal scene in 2005 with its debut, Trophy, Christmas’ inimitable vocal style earned buzz, with the LA Times declaring her “a woman who takes the art of screaming to new levels.” Christmas is not afraid of the scarier side of vocal expression; one minute she sounds like a timid child, and the next she sounds like a yowling bobcat.
But talking to Christmas is a different story; she’s chill, friendly, and free of the performance-defining cathartic intensity. When I start out our phone interview by telling her “your voice is ridiculous!” she chuckles in response and replies, “I’ll take that as a compliment!”
Her low-key attitude and forceful performance style are a fascinating dichotomy, reminiscent of the band’s latest, The Ruiner (The End), which pairs their usual ferocity with a sentiment not normally found in heavy music: vulnerability.
Christmas says The Ruiner is “different on an emotional level” than the two previous albums, Trophy and Coward; it’s a change of tone and perspective that please her. “There’s a lot of anger, but as a band we wanted to explore other emotions, like love and passion,” she says. “There’s no reason to feel like that’s embarrassing or shameful [in heavy music] to be able to admit that strong feelings are also good feelings.”
Such emotion is recognizable territory for the band considering the unusual history and personal dynamics. “Brendan and I actually dated for five years,” Christmas says. “But we never played music when we were together.” A year after their breakup, Christmas briefly dated Egan. “With Matt and I, it was one of those situations where you go out a couple of times and you know you were definitely meant to be friends.”
But lest anyone mistake this for an aggro-Fleetwood Mac situation where romantic entanglements drive the band’s musical narrative, Christmas says her lyrical inspiration is “emotionally driven, but not necessarily personal.” She approaches her songs as characters whom she inhabits completely. “There is no way I could do any of this in a way that connects to other people if I didn’t fully wear the character,” she says. “Some people have remarked that our shows are pretty short, about 30 minutes long, but it’s because I completely run out of steam.”
Christmas is also working on a solo album coming out in 2009 (tentatively titled The Bad Wife). When asked if the album is a departure from MOOB, she hesitates. “I dunno, I wish I could play some of it for you and you could tell me,” she says. While Christmas seems satisfied, she’s unsure of the audience’s response. “I don’t know if people will like it,” she confides. “Not that it stops you from doing it; but you hope that people are receptive.”
Which brings us to the “women in metal” question; as a high-profile female vocalist in a genre that is — to be indelicate — a sausage-fest, the question of women’s involvement in the scene becomes the elephant in the room. “There may have been a time where it was very sexist and things were very difficult for women. And there are, of course, always stupid guys,” Christmas says. “But there are a lot of women who came before me, who have broken down that barrier.”
Christmas is happy
to shatter that barrier even more. “I always like it when there’s more women in
the audience. I’ve done tallies where I have counted the female-to-male ratio
[at concerts] here and in
There’s a personal reason Christmas wants to see more female fans at shows, too: camaraderie. “When I’m done with a set, I’m usually a wreck: my face is blue and purple. I’ve got scratches, strips of hair in my eyelashes, on my chin,” Christmas says. “When I run into the ladies’ bathroom to calm down, there’s always girls in there [saying] ‘can I get you a drink’ or ‘you did a great job’ or ‘can I get you some water?’ It’s always really, really supportive, and I love that.”
Made Out of Babies MySpace
Made Out of Babies Web site
Issue #33
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