By Niki Bombshell
Photos by P L A T E | 3 Photography and Kevin Monko Photography.
Red 40 and the Last Groovement is a feminist funk band from Philadelphia who brings forth the idea that sex, drag, and aggression are universal ideas. I sat down with Martha Stucky of Red 40 and the Last Groovement to find out how this band came to be. Below, Martha discusses her background, how the band came together, their process, and their forthcoming album.
Niki Bombshell: If you want to just go ahead and introduce yourself.
Martha Stucky: My name is Martha Stuckey and I am the lead singer and artistic director and… uhm… I dunno , whatever fill in the blank, usually manager in a tortured way of Red 40 and the Last Groovement
NB: What’s the origin of Red 40, Name? Planet? There was an other worldly theme going on.
MS: Red 40 actually started as my final project at Pig Iron theater company, for your final project you’re given a “dare” and everyone gets a phrase and mine was “the tail wags the dog” so based on that I was going to make a piece with backup singers and back up dancers but then I realized that I WANTED backup singers and back up dancers.
NB: Because who doesn’t?
MS: Because who doesn’t! It was actually easier to write a bunch of silly songs and send them out to people and learn your part, and then the rest is cabaret. And then we started getting gig after gig and then we got the residency here (FringeArts).
Red 40, by the way, is a food dye.
NB: Yes I did know that, I believe is also a hair dye, which is what I thought was the connection because the wig is red.
MS: It is a food dye that I am actually allergic to, or better known as sensitivity. When I was a kid, I would eat something with red 40 in it and then get super hyper and pass out, and then I would vomit
NB: Sounds fun.
MS: In adulthood, it just makes me super aggressive and not fun to have at a party, which is where it will usually happen because it will be in the cherry in the drink that I am having 3 of.
NB: 3, 4, 6… whichever!
MS: Right! It’s always people who are like whispering, “I think Martha should go home,” and I’m like, “I haven’t even drank that much!” But then I am chastising somebody for their weird voice or whatever.
Anyways, I didn’t even give that much process to what the band should be called because it was all a two-week process that was super crazy for everybody during finals. Somebody suggested red 40, because it’s kind of this mythological thing between my friends that when Martha has this substance she becomes something else, so that’s where the name came from.
NB: it’s a cool connect; you’re embracing something that does something bad to you. It turns the idea of aggression into something fierce and fabulous, I think that’s pretty clever. So did you guys know each other all from Pig Iron?
Photos by P L A T E | 3 Photography and Kevin Monko Photography.
MS: It was kind of funny, we couldn’t use anybody outside of our class. The people from pig iron that were in the original band…were … I mean our original drummer had never played drums before and (laughs) she wasn’t very good.
NB: That’s amazing, but its theater so it’s OK! That means it’s abstract.
MS: Right! But yeah, like within cabaret. I am really into cabaret as an art form because it really allows the performer to be on top of their shit in order to turn failures into opportunities. Cabaret as a performance style is super fascinating; everybody should have the ability to get up in front of people and riff and be on top of their shit. To be super live because when shit goes wrong, which it will, you have to be able to improvise. I actually only think it’s interesting to see performers in that state- where they are on the edge of failure. Somebody who puts themself in a position that is so ecstatic, that the only place they can go is forward, and be so tuned into the energy of the night. But I am digressing though…
Anyway yeah, the drummer wasn’t very good but it was fine because it was just that cabaret. After that a couple a people were like, “if we keep getting gigs, then I can’t necessarily be a part of it, because if have this that or the other going on.” And it was all good and fine, but meanwhile there was a drummer named Ben Diamond who was super interested in playing with us and who was super instrumental- no pun intended- in making Red 40.
NB: or all pun intended?
Photos by P L A T E | 3 Photography and Kevin Monko Photography.
MS: yes, here we are in campy land
NB: Well… campy land is my favorite place.
MS: And then one of the guitarists came up to us and asked to be a part of the band and I didn’t think he was serious. I totally thought he was joking so I said, “OK fine, If you learn D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled (how does it feel)’ you can join the band.” And I never thought I’d hear from him again, and two days later on my Facebook wall there was a video of him playing the song and I was like “well I guess he’s in the band now.” His name is Mateo Scammell and he has been an amazing performer, he’s just a total bad ass. There are a few original members, but then a few other people who have kind of globbed on.
NB: So who are the original members that are still sticking around?
MS: Me obviously, Kaitlyn and Jess are the backup singers, Alice who is the backup dancer, and they all have funk names.
NB: Isn’t one named Squirrel? A friend of mine is obsessed with her, she loves her.
MS: Yes, because she is a squirrel. Her funk name is Candy Scrapple, everyone is obsessed with her. It’s been divisive; the older contingent is always like, “what’s going on here?” but people who are in the know are like, “I get that.”
NB: Well if you have every listened to Ska music, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones have a band member who is their “designated skanker:” all he does is dance the whole time, so I saw a similar connection. But he’s chubby, so my first thought is always, “how is he chubby? He moves so much and he gets so gross and sweaty and it looks like he’s going to die of exhaustion… Like seriously? How is he chubby?” But anyways, they have someone who’s sole purpose is to dance a lot. This is his job. I saw a similar concept in the two, obviously you’re version is much more aesthetically pleasing.
MS: well she (Candy Scrapple) is great and takes her job VERY seriously.
There is also a saxophonist named Ben Grinburg and that’s…it…
Our guitarist had never played rhythm guitar before and was like “I gotta get out of here” and we had another back dancer who is now on to bigger and better things. New bassist…
Mateo and Ben have been on for so long that it feels weird to say that, but there was an original more ratchet version.
NB: What’s the tech term? The beta version? Is that correct.
MS: Yeah sure, I’ll buy it.
NB: Take me through your song writing process.
MS: Well in terms of the songwriting for the originals, I come from a really musical background. My mom was an opera singer, she still teaches voice lessons and piano lessons and generations going back there were a bunch of singers. So I was going to do opera, but then I was between this opera program and pig iron and I decided I wanted to learn acting because it was less scary to me than singing. When I went to pig iron, there was not a lot of music in the program at all. For a while I was like “ well… maybe this is just over,” but what pig iron teaches you is to get out of your way so you can be this performer that we had mentioned before, who is just on their toes. So by learning to get out of my own way I went from someone singing someone else’s songs to someone who writes their own songs. Usually they come from the stupidest part of my brain, and I say that as a good term, because when you see someone doing something that they just fucking love to do, it’s really infectious. It’s like when people talk about their favorite movie, I don’t even have to see it, I just like watching you talk about it.
I will write these melodies that are really dumb and then I bring them to the band and we’ll feel it out. We’ll usually play beta versions of the songs and from there they just grow and grow and grow. That’s how the original songs happen.
And then in the musical I would have band members write these nuggets so it would just be four lines of a song. We would take things like the rhythm they were playing with their hands on the floor and create this whole instrumental thing. We wrote a bunch of songs for the musical and it was a really cool process and I am actually really interested in teaching it eventually to college students and high school students. I think it helped for me to learn how to get in touch with my own musical sensibilities. In terms of songwriting, with this residency it’s been a blessing and a curse because we have had a show every month for two years but we had to be really product oriented. If you’re forced into a corner of creating some shit then well… you’ll probably create some shit. That’s been helpful in helping us create material and helping us get stuff out there.
NB: I imagine it could be a struggle to have to put a deadline on the creative process.
MS: Also true. This is our 2nd to last show in this residency and people have been asking us about what we are going to do, but I am actually super excited to actually have some time to make material that isn’t product oriented.
I took a painting class and it was super interesting because in painting you cannot be focused on the end product at all. They’re super into the expression of the painter and about the way their hand moves and the way they put paint on the canvas.
NB: I’m a painter so I totally get it.
MS: Oh! You are!
NB: And you’re right. You’re exactly right. Medium oriented or not.
MS: The first day I got there I was using the rhythm of red 40. I got to the canvas and I was like “I am going to make the fucking best painting in the whole world!” I got to the class and I just go into this product oriented competitive place.
NB: And they’re like “why is that woman screaming at her canvas?” Which actually happens in art school. Screaming at your canvas is not uncommon.
MS: There were definitely some weirdos in my class; especially going from theater school to art school it was so different. Like “oh I’m not supposed to say hi”.
I learned so much about myself from painting, and I think there is a balance to be struck; I just really appreciated that maybe being so competitive gets in the way of actually finding what is deep inside and wants to bubble up in the name of self-expression, and carrying a thought out from beginning to end with exquisite focus. I learned so much from taking a step back from being outward oriented and having to be more inward oriented.
NB: I mean I get it but I am also crazy, so take that as you will.
MS: There is something good about getting to try something out on stage, a performance is not the same as a painting where it’s going to be ephemeral- it’s going to go away and you can try and repeat that performance but it’s going to be different every time. A painting you maybe add or subtract to but it’s an item that’s always there. So there is some virtue about trying things out in stage and not being afraid to experiment, and it will change as soon as I have the opportunity to go in and fine tune it. And there are some Red 40 songs that are like. There is a song called “You fucked up” that is really heart breaking and came from a break up that was awful and made me so so sad, and people really connect to that.
It’s funny because I feel Red 40 does vibrate at this place where sincerity and stupidity meet. I think that if I have more time the music might be more sincere, I am excited for that and the songs that I write may not be Red 40 songs.
I am doing this jazz series every other Wednesday at Fringearts for a few more Wednesdays. That is very different.
This gets to whole other thing I could geek out about, which is Identity. When I am wearing the red 40 wig I am not that different from myself, I am just lubricating certain parts of my personality a little bit more. If I am wearing the wig and I am still performing and then there is a dude who gets up in my face and is super inappropriate, whether or not I am wearing the wig I am probably going to be mean to him no matter what.
What’s harder though is when a dude is being really rude to me without my wig on, and then I take it really personally. That’s a whole different thing that I have been working with in this jazz series. Last week I wore this stupid…terrible blonde wig, this awful wig from a children’s Cinderella costume. I was like I need some distance from this because it gets a little bit too real. It’s always vulnerable to be up on stage but the wig gives you a little bit of distance.
I am nowhere near as famous as Britney spears but I totally understand why she shaved her head. It’s really complicated to be yourself and then make something in front of other people and then have it further fragmented. And to hear a song and having it sung by someone who is not you but who is kind of you and then it’s shared and it feels like “what universe is this?”
NB: I feel like when it comes to female emotional aggression, it’s often based around our hair. I think about angry break ups where I hack off all my hair afterwards or dye it pink or purple or red. It all ends up focused on our hair and I think maybe it’s because it’s a change that will correct itself? If we fuck it up it’ll grow back. Or you can shave your head and start over.
MS: We see ourselves in the mirror. We see our shoulders up more often than any other part of our body so if we change that thing…
NB: What does Red 40 and the last Groovement stand for? What’s the overall message?
MS: To dive in, Red 40 is sort of a drag queen. As you can see I am contouring and I have the big hair… we say that Red 40 is 110% woman. We say that her menstrual flow is 110% stronger; her leg hair grows back 5.3x faster.
I think on the surface Red 40 looks like this sexualized goddess. This sex goddess. But it’s actually like “oh you want that? I will give you so much of that, you’re gonna wanna vomit!” “You want sexy? I am going to be so sexy, it’s gonna be gross!”
It’s leaning into the objectification of women. Oh you like when my waist is really cinched? I am going to cinch my waist so much and then I am going to show how many layers of spanx I am wearing because I am so proud of how cinched my waist is. So there is a little bit of anger in there too.
I always take my shoes off part of the way through because I have lower back pain from being Red 40 and wearing heels so much, and my leg hair right now is very thick and powerful. I am really into this idea of being super made up but so hairy. But it follows logic, you know? A lot of makeup, a lot of hair! Being a woman is such a specific experience that when you turn everything up, all things being equal, there are things that no one wants to talk about.
Not to get to political but there was this great article, I think it was in the Times or New York magazine, when people were making these videos about planned parenthood and talking about the fetuses. This article was saying “you think you’re gonna shake us because this is gross? You have no idea what comes out of my body every day!” During my period I wipe my ass and there is blood and poop on the toilet paper! I’m not grossed out by that because I am a woman! Shit comes out my nipples; she tears down here when I have babies! My breath is gonna smell a certain way after I’m 40 and this is all just because I’m a woman. You’re not shocking me!
Red 40 is every part of femininity because there is also a darker side to being a woman. Like walking down the street and being whistled at, or being made to feel like the environment is not equally ours, or people making comments about my weight all the time as if that’s any of their fucking business, or my boss commenting on my shirt and being like “oh, I wasn’t looking at your boobs” And don’t say boobs to me either, by the way! There was this guy yesterday, I was eating a sandwich and he was like,” that’s a mighty big sandwich for such a little girl!” and I wanted to like peel my belly out of my pants and be like “I am not a little girl!”
NB: Let me cut off these 8 pairs of spanx.
MS: Recently, but In a Red 40 context, I was being very authoritative and this guy was like “whoa Hillary!” I was like “you better shut that mother fuckin mouth right now!” I wasn’t even wearing the wig but I am not sure if I am more offended for myself or for Hillary Clinton or for every woman ever! He was being paid by the band at that point and I was like “if you have a problem with my authority or my intelligence or that fact that I am really efficient and good at my job right now then you don’t have to get paid because all of the money you are about to earn is a consequence of that.” There are so many indignities about being a woman and we put all of that on stage in this grotesque way and it’s also cool that it’s lead by these women and these dudes behind us have to get in fucking line! Martha Graham Cracker, Johnny Showcase is a great cabaret performer; El Dutes is great but like… all dudes. Even if they are wearing dresses and they’re singing songs written by dudes, a lot of times it’s show tunes or whatever, but you don’t see a lot of female singer-songwriters in this genre. It’s one thing to be the hairiest drag queen in the world, but what if I am an actual woman and I’m hairy? What then?
Photos by P L A T E | 3 Photography and Kevin Monko Photography.
I should say too that it’s about this identity thing, so if Red 40 is the most extreme then how does that end up better than feeding what you wear and how you decorate yourself? Ultimately there is an addendum; I love Rupaul, I don’t know if you watch drag race but Rupaul has such amazing stuff to say about drag. He says “we’re all born naked and the rest is drag”. If you take Red 40 away I don’t think that is a layer that I put on top. I don’t think Red 40 covers anything up. It’s a worm hole to let some stuff out. There is another visual metaphor there.
In the musical Red 40 played this villain Proxis, but she also played Matahari, and Matahari was this woman from the Netherlands who took on this persona to be this exotic dancer, but then she was also a spy. Then she was killed… I mean, I’m sorry but… cause women!
NB: Bitches, whatcha gonna do?
MS: So if Red 40 is playing all of those levels of identity and you take all of those identities away and then you take Red 40 away. I don’t think Martha is there. Even if Martha is the most basic identity and you strip this away, even then what’s left? It’s the most essential part of ourselves and this is when Rupaul is like “We are all some version star stuff and we just so happen to have to put pants on every day”.
When you see everything in Red 40 on stage doing something that makes them so happy and gives them so much pleasure, it’s a version of that. That’s really all that we should be doing, be super pleasured all the time.
NB: So in simplified terms, what’s your overall message?
MS: It’s a celebration of femininity in all of its disgusting, sexy, troubling and mystical forms and identity. There’s some identity politics in there.
NB: What would you like to say to all the little Red 40’s out there that may not have broken out of their funky little shells yet?
MS: That’s a good question, buy a good weave! People should go out in wigs, it’s so fun! You’ll feel like you’re stepping into the stream of that character and its super fun. So I would say, buy a weave and identify the thing that makes you most scared and then do it and don’t apologize for it!
NB: Shameless self-promotion time! What’s coming up for Red 40 and the last groovement?
MS: There is the first Friday in June at Fringearts and then we are doing a pig iron birthday party that people can come to on May 21st. and then the album is coming out in the fall and there will be a release party otherwise check out our Facebook page!
