A Conversation with Nona Hendryx – HuffPost 9.17.12

Mike Ragogna: Why it’s the lovely, the immortal Nona Hendryx. How are you, Nona?

Nona Hendryx: I’m good, and those are way too many accolades.

MR: No, we go way back. I have an accolade for every year we’ve known each other.

NH: Okay, I don’t want to start believing my own hype.

MR: Oh, it’s no hype at all! I forgot to add you’re awesome, and you have a new album with a wonderful title, Mutatis Mutandis? Let’s do the phonetic pronunciation.

NH: If you went to see The Lion King, you’d say “Moo-Tatis Moo-Tandis.”

MR: Now this is album has a topic or two. It’s not like you’re taking a stand on anything on this album at all, no not at all! (laughs)

NH: No, no, that would be not me to do this. But the title is a legal term, an agreement that lawyers would know, and it means changing those things that need to be changed in a contract so that if you want to change the name of someone, instead of doing a whole re-write, you can make those changes but things remain the same. And for me, I look at our social and political land and I see many names and faces changing, and some of them don’t. But a lot of things for a lot of people, especially the 99%, or the poor, or the middle class, remain the same. The only thing that doesn’t remain the same is that there’s less and less of the pie for them.

MR: Well, you’ve got the track “Tea Party” that’s pretty political. Can we get into what motivated you to write that?

NH: Well, the Tea Party’s rise as a result of Barack Obama’s running for president was just absolutely stunning to me. To see Americans who claimed to be patriots and patriotic and defend America come out carrying guns to political rallies and saying they’re going to take their country back, which, if we look at history, was not their country, was taken from violence from the American Indians. So the hypocrisy of the American democracy has really put a pain where my heart is and where my gut is, because I love my country and I love being an American. But I travel the world and I find it so disheartening, especially during that time, how people were seeing the behavior of the Tea Party around the world.

MR: I have very reasonable, very intelligent friends who got sucked into that, though not so much for taking our country back. But that’s the key phrase, isn’t it? Taking the country BACK, as in back to the good ol’ days, whatever they were. Moving forward is really scary to them. And I see greed and many people with wealth afraid of Democrats and President Obama, who they accuse of taking away their money for social programs. It seems that’s the old stereotype.

NH: That, to me, is the shortsightedness of individuals and of groups of people who want to think that way, because if you do not raise the people who have less with you and all those who rise with the tide, those people are going to come and take what you have anyway. So you’re going to have more crime, more prisons, need more money to control people that way rather than allowing them to share in the pie, taking less of a slice for yourself because you cannot use it all, you cannot spend it all, you will be dead before you spend it all, and maybe let your children work for their living.

MR: Another tactic is to dredge up the scary word “socialism.”

NH: Yes. Call me socialist. I do not want our country to become a country of haves and have-nots. And it is that way and has been that way, sort of to a lesser degree, since sort of the beginning. The people who drew up The Declaration of Independence did not include the American Indians in that declaration. So, “All men are created equal,” and all those things… It has never been an equal playing field. Somebody has to say, “Okay, if you call me a socialist, fine.” I’ve been called Negro, colored, black, African-American. I can live with “socialist.”

MR: Smartly said. Something else I wanted to point out is about women. The Declaration of Independence and all of the major historical documents we have don’t represent women properly.

NH: That is true. And for each thing that women have gained in this country, it’s been a fight. To try to reverse Roe V. Wade and to take away a woman’s right to choose, this whole thing in Mississippi becoming the first state to outlaw a woman’s right to have an abortion is male legislation of a woman’s body, and that’s insanity. I have to say, America, on the whole, is a shining light among some of the horrible political systems and systems in this world. But going around the world saying, “We are Democracy, look to us, look to what we’re doing, we have freedom, we give our people freedom and choice,” and then enacting these things in our congress by the people who are elected to represent all of us is really insanity.

MR: Do you believe it’s coming from belief systems by our elected officials and their constituents, or do you think politicians are just worried about getting reelected? Where’s the problem stemming from right now?

NH: It’s actually both things, but mainly people are worried that if you won’t take a stand, you’re worried about getting reelected. If you have a belief and you believe in what is considered the foundation of this country and the civil rights that have been enacted over time, correcting the inequities over time, then you should take a stand and give up your seat. And if it comes to the point where those who get in power are so adverse and so odious in their beliefs, what will happen is there will be a rising tide against them. That’s how it works. The pendulum swings. If you’re not willing to represent all of the people that you were elected by, then you’re a false representative.

MR: Absolutely true. Now let’s talk about another song from your new record. How about “The Ballad of Rush Limbaugh?” Do you think that somebody like that is doing what he’s doing as entertainment? Do you think that he’s yelling fire in a crowded theater? Why is he still so popular?

NH: Well, you know, to me, it’s so ridiculous because the people that he’s claiming to represent, he does not come from himself. He comes from a wealthy family — his father was a lawyer — and he comes from a family with that kind of background. So he’s claiming to represent, in a sense, the underclass and the middle class and he’s also an entertainer! This is for his ratings, this is to keep him in the lifestyle that he lives, and how he actually acts and lives in life is totally the opposite of what he is saying. Either he’s so addled from drugs or he’s so crazed in terms of celebrity and fame and holding onto that, or he’s crazy like a fox.

MR: I would say it’s the last.

NH: Yes. I mean, that is my feeling, that this is what it was. I felt the same way about Herman Cain. This man saw an opportunity to project himself onto the larger theater of the world, advertise his chicken restaurant and there he was, pretending to take the throne of the presidency of America. I think either they drink their own Kool-Aid and start believing that this is possible, or they’re really insane or they’re crazy like a fox. For a person who grew up believing in the system of our country and learned in school in Social Studies about the politics of our country and what this country was built on… I saw the flaws. It’s not that I didn’t see those, going back to the Vietnamese wars, Kent State, the Black Panther movement, all of those movements that I lived through — The Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, traveling in the South, not being able to go into restaurants, not being able to stay in hotels, and having those same people come to our shows to see us perform — I’ve lived through this and I understand it. But I still believed in the main premise of our country. Our country is hijacked by these Philistines, really, and it is just so annoying. So I had to write a song called “The Ballad of Rush Limbaugh.”

MR: So you’re also on a tour titled The Women’s Bill of Rights Tour. You’ve just kicked it off. Is it basically what we’ve been talking about, an educational tour as much as it’s a musical tour?

NH: It’s a conversational tour. The conversations need to be had musically. During the Vietnam War and the issues that were going on in the late sixties and early seventies, musicians and artists were addressing those political ills. They were accepted in the musical setting that they were performed in and there was dialog, and young people were taking those things and learning from them and sharing with others. And that’s what this is again, to reinvigorate that kind of conversation in music so that it’s not just “This boy band, this girl band, this booty shake.” I’m not opposed to shaking the booty, I do that, but I also want to shake your mind, shake your spirit and make you think.

MR: Now, you’re also making people think with your PledgeMusic site where you’re putting up all sorts of things like videos, et cetera.

NH: Yes. You know, it’s a new day in the music industry. We imploded as an industry by overcharging, overdoing, over-everything and overmaking the people above. The 1% in the music industry made the money that they, in a way, forced the public to pay, and now it’s gone back to kind of where we first started, where artists pretty much were traveling on the road, selling their CDs, engaging with their audience. This is what PledgeMusic is all about. As an artist, I spent my own money and made the record, I’m marketing it and promoting it. It’s on Righteous Babe Records, the Ani DiFranco label, and, basically, I’m putting my money where my mouth is. PledgeMusic is a way for people to help me put my money where my mouth is, put their money where their mouth is, and I can come and continue this conversation with them around the country.

MR: Nona, let’s talk about a couple topics on the album that we haven’t touched on yet.

NH: “Oil On The Water,” that really has to do with the large corporations like BP and how people responded to that. That ties into the Katrina hurricane for me, and New Orleans and how the gulf was impacted by the response by our government at the time. I think our government did a little bit better responding and holding BP responsible by taking that 20 million dollars and saying, “Okay, this going to go towards restoring the gulf,” but I don’t think it was enough. I think there should be more, and I think BP is trying to do a really good PR job to say, “Oh, we’re there, we’re helping, you can eat the fish.” That spill will affect us forever. That affects everyone. It’s not like it’s just BP or the gulf or the government or England, it affects all of us. It is the air we breathe. These is our lives now, it is our children’s lives, it is their children’s lives. That needs to be taken as seriously as Kim Kardashian’s butt.

MR: Oh, but it’s such a fine butt!

NH: Yes, a fine butt.

MR: Nona, we talked about the music business imploding, but what advice do you have for new artists?

NH: My advice is really very small, but very important. Be yourself. Someone gave me that advice a long time ago, midway through my career, but it’s one of the things that is most important to me. It allows me to always be able to put my head down on the pillow at night and sleep.

MR: Nice. With American Idol and all of these shows that are fabricated versions of “how to make it,” do you think that shows like that are — I don’t want to say damaging, but do you feel that they’re sort of giving people the false idea of how to approach this?

NH: You know, I guess I’ve been around long enough to have seen lots of that kind of thing, and it has always been, and it will always be, because there’s always going to be an audience for it and there’s always going to be an artist or artists who want it and who will take that avenue. As long as there are young girls who will scream — preteens and tweens — that’s going to happen. But the thing about it is you have artists who rise from that. The true artists are going to take the way that they get in front of an audience seriously, because what matters to them is getting in front of an audience who’s there, who looks them in the eye, whether it’s one person or one million people, getting across and connecting with someone, rather than getting the cash and prizes or taking the shortest avenue.

MR: Nona, let’s close this out, but there’s this song on the album titled “Mad As Hell” that I think we still need to talk about.

NH: Most people know the rest of the line, “…I’m not going to take it anymore,” from the movie Network, and it’s prescient in terms of some of the other things that are happening in television at the moment. I don’t know if I can do a shameless plug for New Night — I think it’s called that, maybe not. But it chronicles slices of lives in America that I’m seeing on the streets of New York, who are dropping out of life. They’re dropping out because they can’t afford to live here. New York is very expensive to live in, and when you reach a certain age and you can’t get a job, there are a lot of people on the street, and people who I look at… I’m not sure at first whether they’re on the street, because they still have some of the remnants of their lives from before. But then you take a closer look, and you see that they’re carrying bags that you know is their life they’re carrying on their back.

MR: Yeah, it’s very heartbreaking. I remember when Giuliani was shipping the homeless to New Jersey. Do you remember those days?

NH: I do remember those days.

MR: I looked at that as the peak of arrogance. “Let’s not deal with the issue, let’s ship them away.”

NH: Yeah, and it’s not that people could not earn a living, could not pay their own way, but we’re a country of great wealth, and we’re willing to give millions and millions of dollars to other countries — not that we shouldn’t help other people around the world. But really, if you’re not healthy, you cannot help other people to be healthy. This is the problem, this is what is at issue here in America. Education, health, those are two primary issues because if you don’t have educated people, we are going to become less and less helpful in the world. And if we’re not healthy, which it looks like we are very unhealthy as a nation, those patriots who want to defend our country, the people who are going to be helping to defend it, won’t be able to run to catch anybody and won’t be able to help you defend it if we’re not healthy. So healthcare is really paramount to the care of our country. I don’t understand why people can’t simply sit and grasp those very clear and, to me, evident issues.

MR: Yeah, we’re polarized now in ways I don’t even understand.

NH: If we’re willing to spend millions and billions of tax dollars on building bombs or F-1s or whatever they’re called now — because it’s probably obsolete, and drones and all the things that we build — but if we don’t have a people who are healthy and educated to defend, what are you doing? Take that money and have some smart people. Maybe we’ll have less trouble in the world.

MR: Nona, thank you very much. I have appreciated knowing you and Vicki Wickham through the years. You are a couple of my favorite people and I wish you all the best. All the best with this new album, too.

NH: Thank you, very much. You can tell that I’m passionate about it, and that I’m passionate about democracy and about America. I just want it to heal itself.

MR: The only other thing I wanted to throw out there is that I’m at a solar-powered radio station.

NH: I love it! It’s like electricity is in the air and solar-power comes from the most powerful thing in our solar system, the sun. There’s also hydrogen from water, and wind power. Hey, oil companies — THAT’S the answer!

MR: Right, it is kind of nutty, isn’t it? I really appreciate it, though. Thank you for your time, Nona, and we need to talk again someday in the future.

NH: Thank you very much, and we’ll speak again.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne