Howdeshell said: “I needed time to get healthy, be with my family, find a way to be grounded,” and reconnect with music outside of the industry cycle.
Ditto also had bumpy years, as her marriage to her long-term partner, Kristin Ogata, was dissolving. (The atmospheric album-ending song, “Peace and Quiet,” reflects that time, she said.) Politics and the stripping of rights for the gay community took their toll; during the pandemic, she battled depression, and was diagnosed with ADHD — which helped her understand her own needs, she said, around work and productivity. She started dating her fiancé, Teddy Kwo, a trans man who played bass on her solo project, and now tours with Gossip, around 2018.
Without gigs, Blilie, meanwhile, was working as a cashier at a grocery store and volunteering for Meals on Wheels. She didn’t know that Ditto and Howdeshell had returned to the studio (no planning!) until the demos were done and she was asked to lay down the percussion. “I was surprised to get the call,” she said. “It definitely reignited an energy.”
The first thing Ditto did when Gossip reformed, she said, was apologize to Blilie — a pragmatic, orderly, perfectionist artist — for all the churn she put her through.
“This band has taught me to let go of a lot of that stuff,” Blilie said.
After hanging at Blilie’s house, Ditto and I drove, with my newly cleared windshield, to her place with Kwo — a two-story in what she called a fancy neighborhood. He brought her a drink, and she gave a tour of their tastefully maximalist, vibrant space. Its heart, for her, is her carefully organized craft room, with pink pegboard hung with embroidery, and on an upper shelf, a collage the designer Alexander McQueen made for her, one of the few emblems of her high-fashion life.
This is Ditto’s radical, creative patchwork. “I think sometimes just existing is so hard for people — all kinds of people,” she said, herself included. “And so sometimes just writing a song about absolutely [expletive] nothing is such an act of freedom.”
The forces against that might be strong. And still, she said, “they’re not going to steal our joy.”
Audio produced by Tally Abecassis.
Melena Ryzik
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