The B-52s' Kate Pierson talks Rock Hall snub, influencing John Lennon, and fears a solo album would be a ‘betrayal' to her band
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Thirty-five years ago, Athens eccentrics the B-52s experienced one of the greatest, if most bittersweet, against-all-odds comebacks in pop music history. After the 1985 death of guitarist Ricky Wilson, they'd done little promotion for their fourth album, Bouncing Off the Satellites, which was recorded while Wilson was secretly battling AIDS and released just 11 months after he tragically succumbed to that disease at age 32. The future of the B-52s at that point seemed in doubt, but then surviving members Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, and Cindy Wilson (Ricky's sister) regrouped. The result was 1989's Cosmic Thing, a surprise mainstream smash that catapulted the band to MTV superstardom, thanks to effervescent partystarters like 'Love Shack' (the video for which starred a young, unknown Atlanta punk singer named RuPaul) and 'Roam.'
Only drummer and composer Strickland — who would later take over guitar duties for the band, teaching himself Ricky's distinctive, three-string, spy-movie-sonics style — was aware of Ricky's illness at the time, because Ricky 'was shy and very private, and he didn't want people to fuss over him,' Pierson, who recently released her second solo album, the many-years-in-the-making Radios and Rainbows, tells Gold Derby. 'It was during a very early part of the AIDS pandemic epidemic, and nobody really knew there about the 'gay virus,' and Rock Hudson had passed away, so there was stigma attached to it. It was just so weird, because nobody knew what was happening and it was so sudden. … We'd rehearsed just a few days before and then we were supposed to rehearse and he was getting thin, but we were in denial.'
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Kate Pierson today. (Photo: Josef Jasso; art direction: John Stapleton) - Credit: Photo: Josef Jasso; art direction: John Stapleton
Photo: Josef Jasso; art direction: John Stapleton
While Pierson jokes that she's 'the only person in the band that never said, 'I'm quitting,'' she does recall, 'It did seem like that might be the end' after Ricky was gone, and the band 'spent a year just grieving — just disorientation and grief.' But then Strickland played his bandmates some of the new music he'd been working on, 'and we got inspired. And we also realized what a precious thing we had with each other.
'The only thing we said, was, 'We're not doing this for commercial [success]. We're not trying to be a hit. We're just doing this for ourselves and for our fans and to heal.' And what happened was pretty amazing,' Pierson continues, smiling as she recalls the band's decision to carry on. 'A lot of the [Cosmic Thing] songs hearkened back to that time when we were in Athens and that time of innocence with Ricky, and I think that's one of the reasons it was a success, because he inspired it in a lot of ways. I feel like there were a lot of times when I think we felt like he was there in the room. I think he would've been very happy about our success.'
It was around the time of Cosmic Thing's breakthrough that Pierson became an in-demand duet partner, joining Iggy Pop on the only top 40 hit of his career, 'Candy' (which Pierson says 'everyone advised' her not to do), and fellow Athenian college-rock royalty R.E.M. on their top 10 single 'Shiny Happy People.' But despite those one-off successes, and the fact that Pierson had been writing songs on her own since she was a teenager, she refrained from doing a full solo album out of loyalty to her bandmates. Even after a 1999 stint in a multinational supergroup called NiNa (featuring members of Japanese punk band the Plastics and legendary art-rock bassist Mick Karn) 'opened up a new vista' for Pierson creatively, she still didn't release her first solo LP, Guitars and Microphones, until 2015.
'Somehow when I was with the B-52s, I felt like, 'Oh, I can't write anything without the band.' I guess that is one little regret I have. Why didn't I just at that point — sort of after Cosmic Thing, when we did [1992's] Good Stuff and Cindy left — why didn't I just go off?' muses Pierson. She's referring to a time when Cindy took a four-year hiatus from the group; Schneider 'caused some disruption' when he released his 1996 album, Just Fred; and Pierson had stockpiled enough songs for her own solo album, but the B-52s' manager 'put the kibosh' on her project.
'I guess it's because there's the pull of the mothership,' she explains. 'Our band is a very family dynamic. … It's such a collective experience. So, it did feel — and this was in my own head — that [going solo] was sort of a 'betrayal.' … But now I don't regret it, because I'm so grateful and it's been such a great experience and we still love each other. We're still like a family. We still hang out. And losing that would have been really tragic. I really valued my relationship with the band.
'And then I realized: I could do both!'
Pierson has a bit more time to focus on her solo career now that the B-52s have supposedly retired from touring (even though they still have a residency in Las Vegas and Pierson jokes that their farewell tour was more of a 'Cher-well' tour, since they actually have some 2025 dates on the books with fellow trailblazing new wave oddballs Devo). And so, 10 years after her solo debut, she has finally released Radios and Rainbows, which runs the gamut from the most personal songs she's ever written, 'Beauty of It All' and 'Higher Place (inspired by her wife of 10 years, artist Monica Coleman); to spooky tunes like the Sia collaboration 'Every Day Is Halloween' and the Bleu-cowritten revenge fantasy 'Evil Love'; to 'Take Me Back to the Party' and 'Wings,' both homages to vintage B-52s party jams like 'Planet Claire.'
And then there's the title track, an antiwar anthem that hearkens back to when Pierson, a self-described 'child of the '60s' and Rachel-Maddow-viewing 'political junkie,' was a teenage 'protest hippie chick' playing in her high school folk band, the Sun Donuts. 'Radios and Rainbows' was partially inspired by Patti Smith's 'People Have the Power,' but it also references John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who happened to be big B-52s fans. Lennon was famously inspired to make music again, after his five-year hiatus, by the B-52s' signature sci-fi/surf-rock classic. '
'We were always big fans of Yoko Ono… and 'Rock Lobster,' at the end… when we do some of the fish sounds, that's directly inspired by Yoko Ono,' says Pierson. 'And when John Lennon heard that … apparently he was in the club and heard 'Rock Lobster' and he thought, 'We're back, Yoko! Our sound is back!' He loved 'Rock Lobster.''
While Pierson never got to meet Lennon (who was murdered in 1980, just one month after the release of the partially 'Rock Lobster'-inspired Double Fantasy), she did form a longstanding bond with Ono. Ono sang with the B-52s at their 25th anniversary show and 'let it rip,' and Pierson and Schneider performed at Ono's 70th birthday celebration. Pierson even interviewed Ono once for Rolling Stone.
The B-52s will soon be the subject of a highly anticipated documentary executive-produced by super-fan Fred Armisen, who actually appeared on Pierson's Guitars and Microphones album. (Pierson reveals that they were also approached by The Skeleton Twins filmmaker Craig Johnson about the prospect of a B-52s biopic, which excited her — 'I was like, 'Sounds great! Who's gonna play me?' — but not everyone in the band was as enthusiastic.) Considering their far-reaching influence, it's not surprising that the B-52s' harrowing story is being adapted to the big screen in some way. It is surprising, however, that they have never even been nominated, let alone inducted, by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Another famous B-52s fan, Dave Grohl, has 'really been pushing to have us inducted,' Pierson reveals, but it hasn't happened yet.
'Most musicians say, 'I don't care.' Fred always says, 'I don't care!'… It would be nice to be recognized,' says Pierson regarding the Rock Hall snub. 'I'm against the whole idea of it in some ways. It's not a race. It's not a contest. … But yes, it would be nice. I wouldn't say no if they invited us into it. But it's not a big deal. We are who we are, anyway.'
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