We all have post-breakup rituals. Some people heal the heart with reinvention — a different hairstyle, an updated wardrobe or a new tattoo. Others pick up a hobby, something they couldn’t make time for when they had to accommodate another person. Then, there’s the old standby: hooking up with as many people as possible to purge the body of the muscle memories that come with having a longtime partner.
Since splitting with her influential dance-punk band Gossip — which formed in Olympia, Wash., in 1999 and disbanded in 2016 — dynamite frontwoman Beth Ditto has tried a little bit of everything. She and her Gossip bandmates Nathan Howdeshell and Hannah Blilie parted on good terms, but Ditto’s first solo record Fake Sugar, released in June 2017, proves she’s loving the freedom that comes with being on her own.
“I always compare it to being in a romantic relationship,” she tells the Scene via phone while making herself a cup of coffee at her home in Portland, Ore. “You’ve been with one person. Now you kiss the same way. You have sex the same way. You wake up — you do everything the same way in the morning. … Eventually, it’s just like you realize that you’re bored. Not bored, but you realize that there’s more out there, and that you could try it.”
Appropriately, Fake Sugar is a sonic exploration of what Ditto is capable of as a singer and songwriter when she’s able to go in whichever direction catches her attention. She’s had many creative outlets in addition to music. She has a plus-size clothing line she started in 2009, and she walked the runway during Paris Fashion Week in 2010. She published her memoir Coal to Diamonds in 2012, and that same year she collaborated on a makeup line with MAC Cosmetics. But Fake Sugar is the first time she’s been able to explore music outside the confines of a band.
“You have to remember that Gossip started when I was 18,” says Ditto. “That was the only band I was in. Nathan was in a ton of other bands, Hannah was in a ton of other bands — not that I couldn’t have been, but [Gossip] took up all of that time. I just never really had a moment to be like, ‘Oh, I can do this thing however I want.’ ”
On Fake Sugar’s midtempo Americana-tinged title track, Arkansas-born Ditto explores her Southern roots. She sings out a classic square-dance call — “Swing your partner, do-si-do” — over a smooth, repetitive guitar line that sounds like tires racing down a sun-drenched Southern highway. On “In and Out,” a slow and syrupy, harmony-heavy vintage rock song, Ditto channels some witchy Stevie Nicks vibes while singing: “I wasn’t born yesterday / No, I’ve been around a while / I know I good thing when I see it, baby / My whole world wrapped in your smile.”
Ditto’s familiar sass comes back on “Oo La La,” one of Fake Sugar’s most Gossip-y tracks, complete with a fuzzy dance beat, angular guitars and spacey synth that make you want to spin in circles. Her voice soars on “We Could Run,” a stunning anthemic pop number, while “Oh My God” blends Lady Gaga’s dark danceability with Robyn’s ability to craft a story line, and closer “Clouds (Song for John)” is airy and beautiful, free from the booming low-end that Gossip became known for.
“Being in a solo project, you can do whatever you want,” says Ditto. “People were like, ‘What do you want? Do you want horns?’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, maybe? I don’t know!’ This is a kid in a candy store. You can have whatever you want. I think what’s exciting about that is, now I know what I’m capable of. This record was such an experiment in that way. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. Now I realized that it’s just nice to have my legs feel a little more sturdy.”
Ditto already has plans for a new record, which she’ll begin writing later this year. Now that she’s free to write and play with whomever she’d like, will some cool collaborations come along?
“I’m really bad at putting myself out there,” she says. “I think that’s what I’m going to do next, is really reach out and just be like, ‘Why don’t we work together?’ My mom’s whole thing was always, ‘They can only say no. They can’t kill you and eat you.’ ”
She pauses to laugh.
“That was always my favorite thing — ‘They can always say no.’ If they do, they’re crazy. Come on, I am so fun. I am fun. I’m a good time.”
Email music@nashvillescene.com
