Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We have a family dynamic - more like brothers and sisters than friends. So there can be a bit of competition, but there's also love and respect. But there's a thing to not push each other's buttons. You know what the buttons are, so don't push them.
In a band with humor, it's easy to be a caricature, especially when you've been around as long as we have. But we sing those songs as genuine as we can, always from the heart. When we do the fish sounds in 'Rock Lobster,' Cindy and I are pouring our hearts out.
In the late '90s, we kind of took a sabbatical, and I got an invitation to play with a Japanese band and formed a supergroup called NiNa. It was Yuki from Judy and Mary and Masahide Sakuma from The Plastics, a Japanese equivalent of the B-52s. It went to No. 1 in Japan.
I think more people feel like they're outside of the mainstream these days - there's more people who are doing their own thing, feeling that it's not bad to be a weirdo and respecting other people's differences. And all that kind of goes into the big ol' B-52 philosophy.
We've always been a band who wants to put our money where our mouths are. We have political songs, but we don't like to hit people over the heads with stuff. So it's better to do benefits and causes and talk about it later rather than always trying to put it in the song.
I think it really changes things when you're able to get married. I mean, the Marriage Equality Act was super important. I think you cannot believe it happened as fast as it did. For a lot of gay people, it's very surprising. You thought that this is going to be a struggle forever.
At some private events, we'll see the CEO of the company get up and do his 'Rock Lobster' dance. The band used to grumble that, 'All they talk about is hair and don't take us seriously,' but I've realized that what this band does the best is let loose and let people's freak flag fly.
I don't think we were shy so much as we were terrified. Especially when we did 'Saturday Night Live' on live TV. We looked really animatronic because we were scared, but it came off as being this alien sort of attitude, which served us well, because people were like, 'Whoa, this is so weird.'
I know, being a band that's mostly gay and has women in it, I just think that there are the male icon bands: they are always - and they deserve it - but they are always touted as, 'These guys are heavy-duty.' I think bands, because we have a sense of humor, we are not always taken as seriously.
Every time you read something about Rolling Stones it always mentions their age and how long can they go on? I think there are certain genres of music where people are allowed to go on, but there is something about rock and roll, I guess because it originally started out to be a teenage rebellion.
We all maintained our connections and our friendships, which we've maintained over all these years. We still like each other, love each other, and we realize that this was a way to heal and a way to really bring Ricky back into the mix. I think a lot of the songs recalled that time in Athens with Ricky.
I hope our legacy will be enduring and that people think of us as an important band. But I think Ricky's guitar playing, our style of writing, the fact that we had men and women in the band and gay and straight, I think it's an important band, and the way we wrote by jamming, we really had a different approach.
With 'Love Shack,' once we put that chorus in, it did have more of a song structure. Even though the verses are all kind of different, the chorus was there along with 'The Love Shack' - I think that really made it a hit. Once we heard it in the studio, we played it for R.E.M., and they were like, 'Yes this is a hit.'
I was named on the worst-dressed list at the Grammys a couple of years ago. I had on Tom Ford, and I thought it was the most amazing dress ever. But I got put on the worst-dressed list. Luckily, at least I was pictured alongside Adele, J-Lo, and whoever - all these superstars who were also called worst-dressed - so that was a good thing!