Luxury and Necessity: The Unabashed Musings of PWR BTTM’s Ben Hopkins

SLUG: Can you tell me a little about your gender-neutral bathroom rider clause?
Hopkins: It’s something that we came up with after experiencing a venue that had a very sexist bathroom sign. Many of our fans, including us, PWR BTTM, don’t exist on a gender binary. So it made [the venue] very non-conducive to our crowd. We decided that it was important for us to create a space for our fans, where if they come to the show, they can use the bathroom safely. It’s not a luxury—it’s a need to be able to use the bathroom. No one dies when there is a gender-neutral bathroom. All that happens is people have a better time. It’s a very easy thing that we do for the people who want to come see us play.

SLUG: As a band and individually, you seem keenly aware of fashion. What individuals have had the most influence on your style? What role does fashion play in your work?
Hopkins: A lot of drag artists, like Christeene, who is an incredible drag queen from Austin, Texas. I am also obsessed with this ideal of vanity in music, the idea that people spend so much time trying to look effortlessly cool. I have thought of it as an awesomely bratty gesture to wear dresses with the tags still on them, inside out. [Maybe] the thing that influences me most is what I don’t want to look like. I don’t want to look like someone who is too cool for school; I want to look like too weird for summer school. I want to look as weird as I’ve felt in my life.

At first, performing in drag was the only way I could perform. It just made me less scared, because it was costume, and I’m from a theatre background. For me, it is another way to be unmistakably queer: by using the image of a drag queen, using crazy glitter and symbols and the queer aesthetic. I want people to never ever question the fact that I’m queer and that I’m in public and that I’m taking up the space that I am. Fashion is a way of making the space I take up more dramatic.

SLUG: Why is it important to have an openly queer band visible in music today?
Hopkins: Because there are queer people in the world. It is important because there have been queer bands for a million-billion years, and there will be queer bands for the rest of time—because queer [musicians] are just people who play music. I’m super queer, and I’m just one of billions. It’s important because we’re important, because we’re real.

SLUG: In listening to your recent RuPaul’s Best Friend Race podcast, it seems that humor is an essential part to your day to day lives. What are some things you do to keep spirits high?
Hopkins: We listen to Mariah Carey because she is amazing and totally ridiculous. We talk about RuPaul’s Drag Race a lot, because it’s so ridiculous; it’s like the best show on television. We play with cats, because they are funny—I’m looking at a really bitchy cat right now. She is a brindle-y, old-ass cat, and she’s staring at me like I murdered her whole family. She’s a shady old bitch and I love her. Cats are so funny because they are completely self-aware to the fact that they don’t care about manners.

SLUG: In your 2014 song “Carbs,” you say, “all I want to eat is carbs!” What is your favorite carb source?
Hopkins: I really like cheese Danishes. I am obsessed.

SLUG: What does the future hold for PWR BTTM?
Hopkins: We are gonna record another record in September. Making records, being on tour forever and continuing to do this band until one of us strangles the other.

To catch up on PWR BTTM’s music, tour, glitter and grunge visit pwrbttm.bandcamp.com or facebook.com/PWRBTTM666/ and follow them on Instagram @PWRBTTMBand.

PWR BTTM played at Urban Lounge Sunday, April 3.