As she releases her second solo album Radios & Rainbows, the founding member of the B-52’s takes Orla Foster through the pivotal songs in her life.
Kate Pierson has always had a taste for dissonance.
One of the earliest pieces of music she fell in love with was Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", a composition so eerie and acoustically jarring that when it was first performed at the Champs-Élysées in 1913, it sent hundreds of diamond-clad theatregoers into a frenzy.
"I guess it was like when Dylan went electric. Or seeing Jim Morrison drop his pants on stage," she says. "It's amazing that music is so visceral sometimes, that it can cause people to react in such a joyous or destructive way."
The B-52's themselves are no strangers to plunging crowds into hysteria. Their music has always felt synonymous with good times; the surf licks, lung-bursting harmonies and hypnotic keyboard melodies driving listeners to tear up the dancefloor like there's no tomorrow.
""Rock Lobster" makes people get a little crazy," she agrees, "especially in Europe, that particular song makes everyone form moshpits and start slamming around. A lot of the times when people dance, it's fascinating to watch from the stage."
Originally from New Jersey, Pierson's early excursions into music were as a long-haired, politically conscious teenager composing folk songs about stories she heard in the news. As soon as she was old enough, she left the suburbs to explore the world, including a stint in Newcastle where she worked as a barmaid – which was "a trip".
But it was while living in Athens, Georgia that she first met Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, Ricky and Cindy Wilson. Together, they formed the band over a shared cocktail in 1976. "We used to get together and couldn't afford to buy food, that's how we began. We just got a Flaming Volcano and started jamming," she remembers. "We'd also go to this little coffee place in Athens where they had endless refills – they would bring a carafe, we would drink coffee and make plans for the future."
Although they were broke – ‘deadbeats’, in the words of their parents – together they were having the time of their lives. "There was a place we'd go called Ball Pump that was like an old plantation or something. We'd take mushrooms and skinny dip in a dirty cow pond. Because it's so hot in Athens in the summer, whenever it would rain we'd get a sheet or towel and go outside and dance, and it was such a great feeling when it rained and cooled off."
That sense of fun soaked through The B-52's every pore. Inspired by mod kitsch, Fellini films and thrift store finds, the band's appearance was as singular as their music. Vivid colours and ferociously teased bouffants became their staple look, while their songs were making waves at local house parties and further afield. Their first show in New York went down so well that they were soon zipping between the two cities, sleeping on floors or driving through the night still high on adrenaline.
After founding member Ricky Wilson died in 1985, the band's fate was put into question. With the label having given their album Bouncing Off the Satellites a lukewarm reception, the still grieving bandmates came together to work through the intensity of their loss.
The result was Cosmic Thing. "We made a statement when we were writing it, that we didn't care if it was played on the radio, fuck it, we were just doing it for ourselves," she reflects.
"After Ricky died, we'd felt like we just couldn't continue. But it proved that music can be so healing, because realising how much we meant to each other and how incredible it felt to write songs together really was magic”, she tells me. “It felt good, because we didn't do it to try and make a comeback. I think music comes from the heart, when you do it that way." As it turned out, the record contained "Love Shack" which was to be the band's biggest hit.
Seven albums down the line, the party's still going strong for The B-52's. Even when they tried to quit, they couldn't. A grand finale show was planned for Athens in January 2023 but putting The B-52's to bed proved impossible.
"The idea that the farewell tour would be the last show did not feel good. That would be devastating," she says. "So we're just going to keep going!"
She doesn't mean it lightly. The band's diary is packed out with upcoming shows in Oakland, Atlantic City, Chicago and DC, as well as a residency in Las Vegas. "Nobody loves staying in Las Vegas for extended periods of time, but you find your niche, you go to a canyon, a gym, find your groove. I'm the only one in the band who ever liked touring, because it wears on your body – trying to lie down in a van soon gets old."
Back in the early days, was Pierson the person keeping up her bandmate's spirits when the exhaustion of the road threatened to take its toll? "Oh yeah, Ricky Wilson used to say, 'Gosh, you always see the glass as half full, even when it's empty!'"
That optimism is very much in keeping with her latest solo album, Radios and Rainbows. It's an exuberant set of genre-hopping, feelgood pop songs, from the spectral glamour of "Evil Love" to the roof-raising disco of "Take Me Back to the Party".
The album took shape with a staunchly collaborative ethos, Pierson having encouraged each featured musician to also produce their own track. There are also hints of her lifelong activism sprinkled through the work, with slogans borrowed from Patti Smith and Edwin Starr. "I think the record radiates a lot of hope," she says. "I've tried to make it joyful."
Her Nine Songs have a similar soothing effect. It's a soundtrack for soul-crushing days, when you're depleted from reading about climate emergencies, war and kleptomaniac billionaires – when you just need to believe something better is possible.
Taking in '60s folk visionaries, rap innovators and veteran artists still at the top of their game, the musicians Pierson has chosen are connected by their desire to take a stand, to voice their beliefs and rally the people around them to join.
It's a timely reminder that collective action can still be a catalyst for change – just as long as you're prepared to raise your voice.
“Respect” by Aretha Franklin
KATE PIERSON: Nothing can top Aretha's voice or her authenticity of feeling. When this came out in 1967 the Civil Rights Movement was happening, there were protests against the Vietnam war and this song just epitomised it all.
It was a huge pop hit – but also a Civil Rights anthem. It cemented in me this idea that music could change the world, and I felt like it changed me. I could see that "Respect" was such a great song to groove to, but it still had this message.
It was written by Otis Redding, of course, but Aretha changed a few lyrics to make it from a woman's point of view. It's "When you get home" instead of "When I get home", "I want respect" and "I'm about to give you all of my money". So it's like, ‘Okay this woman's got some dough and she wants respect’, but it's also about black people wanting respect, working people, women – everyone needing respect. It's a song of unity.
BEST FIT: Didn't you also have your own protest band during high school?
I had a folk group in junior high called The Sun Donuts and we wrote our own protest songs. 1967 was a pivotal year for being able to bond with people over political causes. I joined the White Panthers, a group supporting the Black Panthers, and I was in a student democratic society. I really wanted to be politically active. I actually couldn't wait to get to college so I could protest.
Was it easy to find like-minded people at the time? Was there something in the air
Oh yes. It was so much in the air, because during the ‘60s, the folk protest movement was HUGE. I mean, those songs were hits! Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell – so many artists were merging politics with an incredible groove. It became acceptable for songs to have a meaning, and that motivated me.
At the time I also really wanted to get one of my songs in Broadside, a magazine you could pick up at this folk music store in the Village called Folkway. I submitted several songs but they never published any. I was very influenced by topical songwriters like Phil Ochs and Buffy Sainte-Marie, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Odetta.
But with "Respect", the message didn't obscure the fact that it was so joyous. As well as changing the words around a little bit, she added the "Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me" part, which made it so fun and danceable. It really was such an empowering feminist song.
“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” by Bob Dylan
KATE PIERSON: When I was in The Sun Donuts I remember playing "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" for my two bandmates and they were like, ‘Agh, I hate his voice!’ And I said, ‘No, it's genius, you've got to listen to it’. I played it over and over to them until they were screaming.
I love that song and "Masters of War", but I picked "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” because it's so moving and underscored a horrible injustice. I think of all his songs, this is the one that hit me most emotionally.
BEST FIT: It's amazingly understated in the way he gives you the information, yet it's lyrical at the same time. He tells you what he read in the paper, doesn't he?
Yes, the song is kind of like a news article. Some details are slightly different, but it's a true story and again, I think that songs can motivate you because your blood boils. You get that this is a horrible injustice, and now's the time not only for your tears, but to do something.
The American South at that time was extremely racist. Hattie Carroll was working at a ball and just trying to serve drinks when this guy started calling her horrible names. He had a cane which he'd already hit a couple of other people with, including his wife, and he hit Hattie Carroll several times in the neck.
She didn't die right away, but he hit her enough times to affect her arteries, and she died in the hospital hours later. So he caused her death, but because he didn't kill her right then and there, he got off with a light sentence. Of course, it was all stacked in his favour. The jury wasn't going to convict him. You know, there was no justice.
Unbelievably, there are still people like that, racism is still deeply embedded in American history. Racism against immigrants and racism against black people, Jews – I think when Trump became president it unlocked some kind of evil out of a box, because he was such a racist, and gave people license to express this hatred.
Maybe with these people it's better in a way to know what you're dealing with. Before it was just hidden.
Do you see the song as a call to action?
Yes, how would I ever know about William Zanzinger and Hattie Carroll except for this song? The verses build and build and build to the point where you're so incensed. And then the capper is that this guy gets off with a six-month sentence.
You can see the scene in your mind, this woman being beaten. It brings to mind all the people who are gentle and kind, and it even has a line in there, I can't remember exactly, but about beating down the people who are gentle.
It just makes you want to cry. You can make up a song that's about injustice, but when it's based on real facts it's visceral, and then you can be moved to action.
“People Have the Power” by Patti Smith
KATE PIERSON: Well, it was Robert Waldrop, who wrote some of our lyrics, who first went to see Patti Smith in New York. When he came back, he told Keith he had seen this amazing poet – he didn't even know she was doing music.
There was an ad in Creem magazine for her first single "Hey Joe", with "Piss Factory" on the flipside, so they ordered it. But when we started going to New York and playing at Max's Kansas City and CBGB’s, I got to meet her and see her perform. There's no artist from that era who had more presence than Patti Smith: that shamanistic presence she has on stage.
BEST FIT: I've heard she likes to get lots of people involved for this song, to drive the point home. Have you seen her play it?
I saw her recently at Ulster Performing Arts Center in New York with her son and daughter and another musician. It was very sweet, no frills, she recited some poetry, played a little clarinet, a little guitar. It wasn't a big rockin' band, but she's really got the power herself!
When she came out with this song it was new and joyful and some of the lines in it were fantastic: "People have the power to rule, to wrestle the world from fools". It reminds me of "Love Shack": "Stay away from fools, 'cause love rules at the love shack". It's an idea that feels current: people do have power, but don't always use it.
I wrote a song, "Dream On", for my solo record Radios and Rainbows that just came out, and I used lines like "War, what is it good for?" and "People have the power". It's not that Patti Smith was the first person to say it, but I love the way she combines poetry with her lyrics.
The chorus is very simple. People have the power! She just repeats it. By the end she's got this anthem going. And her voice is unusual, it isn't typical, it's powerful and real. I don't know if you've ever seen her live, but it's just magical.
Was it equally intense seeing her perform her poetry?
Yes, she's so multi-faceted as a musician and writer. I think every rock musician that wants to write an autobiography uses Just Kids as the template. It's not really about the band or trying to name-drop, although plenty of notable people are mentioned, it's really about coming of age.
I took a lot of book recommendations from M Train, like Roberto Bolaño's 2666, which is on my Kindle. I feel I've bought enough books during my lifetime to justify getting a Kindle, because I have a huge library of shelves and shelves of books.
The Bolaño one's not very portable, so a Kindle makes sense – you can't be lugging round a book that size, can you?
I used to carry a big book around with me everywhere I went, and Fred Schneider always made fun of me when I had Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections on me, because it's quite a tome, certainly not something you can read in a day.
Anyway, when I saw Patti Smith, I told her I'd taken up her book recommendations, but then someone else came along and wanted to talk to her. Her stage persona is very intense, but she's actually kind of shy.
“Imagine” by John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band
BEST FIT: I didn't realise some of the lyrics came from prompts in Yoko's book Grapefruit. Were you a fan of her work too?
KATE PIERSON: I saw several of her exhibitions, and when you see her art in person, it just strikes you what a great visual and conceptual artist she really is. Which was so unfairly underplayed.
I was part of that whole Beatles hysteria, because I loved The Beatles, but I never felt like Yoko broke up the band and all that crap. It's sad she was so maligned – and when John really championed her music. The B-52’s were also directly influenced by her early records.
Which elements did you find most inspiring?
The primal scream definitely, that idea of unleashing your voice and making sounds as a psychological release, like the fish sounds we did in "Rock Lobster". It's about freeing your vocal powers and not being limited, like the concept of "duende" in flamenco singing, which kind of means soul.
What Yoko did is soul music in a way. Did you ever watch The Lord of the Rings, where the women sing to the rocks and their voices create power? I think that's like what Yoko does, she unleashes enough power to bring down a wall.
Do you remember people being derisory about the more experimental side of her and John's work at the time?
Oh, so many people HATED the Plastic Ono Band. But I love that he totally embraced her music and championed it, and she really influenced him to become a feminist.
Reading that last interview in Rolling Stone, he definitely sounds more enlightened and less embittered than in earlier interviews.
Yes, and I'm sure you've read about how he heard "Rock Lobster" and said "Get the axe out, we're going to start making music again!"
What was it like hearing that you had pulled him out of a creative rut?
Incredible. He was such a hero to me that it was just… ‘Whoa.’ I couldn't even believe that he knew about our band. I think that maybe since we were influenced by Yoko, and borrowing this vocalese, he thought, ‘Okay, the world's ready to accept this now!’
In this particular song, I love the line, "You may say that I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one / I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one." This idea of unity, it's a utopia, but various musicians have brought up the question of peace and whether the world can ever get over war?
And now when there's still so many wars, it's particularly meaningful as a concept. People have forgotten that we should try to strive for peace. That's what our goal should be.
It's almost like he anticipated people's cynicism with that line. He said himself that because the song is "sugarcoated", it's accepted.
[laughs] He didn't lose his edge, that's for sure! Yes, to say "the world will be as one", sounds like such a pie-in-the-sky ideal. And I also think coming off their Maharishi thing, he became disillusioned.
But Yoko brought him back to a naïveté, no, innocence; a feeling that you can do something, that there can be power in words and music, which brought him back to that less cynical place.
I still love the part of him that was cynical and sarcastic, it's what first drew me to The Beatles when I heard them interviewed before they even came to America. I loved the edginess they exhibited in their career, especially John Lennon. But then I think with Yoko, she brought out this tenderness and humanity in him, a hopefulness.
“Bring Your Arms” by Kate Pierson and Sia
Towards the end of the nineties, the band took a little break. I knew this Japanese producer who was in Plastics, a kind of Japanese counterpoint to The B-52's; they were really colourful and had funny, snappy lyrics. We stayed in touch and he asked me to join a project called NiNa, so we did a collaboration which worked beautifully and went to number one in Japan.
It unlocked the feeling that if I can collaborate with someone who doesn't speak the same language, I can collaborate with anyone. After that, I wrote a bunch of solo stuff, but our manager kind of blocked it.
Fast-forward to around 2013 and I'm at a birthday party with my wife, Monica. Everybody had to get up and sing, including Sia, and I was like ‘Who is this girl?!’ What a voice, incredible. Monica asked her if she could help me with my solo record, and she said sure.
We started going to writing sessions together, including one in Mexico where we saw sea turtles laying their eggs. We were told, ‘If you ever want to come down and see turtles and guide them back to the sea, don't shine any lights.’ She was inspired and wrote "Bring Your Arms" about the sea turtles.
She co-wrote almost all the songs on my first album and really taught me a lot. She's a genius – if I just had a title or some lyrics she could place them into the melody. She's been very important to me, and this song meant a lot because it was the beginning of my solo career.
Then she started blowing up big, so I started going to writing sessions on my own, but it worked every time! It was so much fun, and pretty much always clicked.
“Love Shack” by The B-52's
This is the song that changed everything for The B-52-s. Our first record was a huge hit and people loved it, but we were definitely still an indie band until "Love Shack". It was a different kind of groove for us.
"Love Shack" almost didn't make the album (Cosmic Thing). Keith said the song wasn't ready and we couldn't put it on. He did all the instrumentation after Ricky passed away and would basically bring the track to us so we could jam on it, until we had a collage of all these different parts. So a lot of B-52-s songs, especially the early ones, are just parts pieced together and might not even have a chorus until the end.
In "Love Shack" the chorus only happened once. I knew something was missing so we went to the Dreamland studio. We had Nile Rodgers and Don Was but neither of them had time to do the whole record so they each got half, and Don Was chose "Love Shack". Don said, ‘Okay, let's make that part happen more in the song’ and boom! It all just fitted together. It was that missing part of the puzzle.
When we first put it out, thank God for college radio, because it's still a weird song. But college radio played it and it caught on fire. We started touring, we played some clubs and theatres, and pretty soon it became a big hit, we were touring bigger places in Australia, New Zealand and all over Europe. It was so gratifying just to be recognised and have your music heard.
It was also great because Ricky worked so hard on the previous album and saw it through to completion. But he died before it came out, and the record company just dropped it like a stone.
So it felt good that when we made Cosmic Thing it conjured a lot of Ricky – so many lyrics were referencing that early time together in Athens.
“U.N.I.T.Y.” by Queen Latifah
I included this on the list because I've always loved hip-hop. At the same sort of time punk was happening, there was this whole hip-hop revolution, which to me was the biggest change in music, something really new. Okay, punk was new, new wave was new, but hip- hop was really different. It changed the whole face of music.
Around that time, I was with artist and activist Tim Rollins. He had a group called K.O.S. that he worked with as a teacher, and they were doing graffiti early on. He wound up doing this project with them at the MoMA. He passed away years ago, but the kids have grown up and some of them are successful artists. So we were there at the birth of it, and it was inspiring.
Even though I loved the early rap, so many of the lyrics were misogynist. "U.N.I.T.Y." came out in 1993, and it's a song calling out that sexism: "I ain't a bitch or a ho, you gotta let 'em know". I find Queen Latifah such a positive and empowering force. To stand up as a feminist, when feminism had been so maligned?
It's like when the Suffragettes in America were trying to get the vote and were ridiculed and jailed and made fun of. And when the feminist movement happened later, it still was made into something laughable, not taken seriously. The first women rappers weren't taken seriously at all either, even though they were really good.
Of course, the whole feminist movement was never about "we hate men". It was about having equal rights, and it's been twisted – and Queen Latifah really puts it all together in this song. I think any voice that can come out and take feminism seriously is important, at the same time as being danceable and fun, and not hitting you over the head with it.
This song reinforces that whatever era you're in, you can still make music to empower people and change attitudes.
“Genius of Love” by Tom Tom Club
KATE PIERSON: "Genius of Love" raises your spirits, and it's one of those songs that feels timeless. It's like "Love Shack" or "Groove Is in the Heart".
We were always close to Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, because The B-52-s used to open for Talking Heads. We were friends with them when we first came to New York and were playing Max's Kansas City.
Tina and Chris really took us under their wing, and so did Debbie Harry and Chris Stein from Blondie; we'd go to their house and have cocktails – everyone was just so kind to us. Also, Tina and Chris introduced us to their manager, Gary Kurfirst, who we signed with, so that was very pivotal in our career.
BEST FIT: Did New York feel vastly different back then?
I mean, you don't really realise until later what a great little scene it was. People weren't competitive or mean-spirited, it was just, ‘Oh let's go see this band, let's go see that band.’ David Bowie came to see us, Frank Zappa came to see us. What was there to do but go see other bands?
When Talking Heads broke up there was a lot of disappointment, because Tina and Chris always wanted to keep touring. But then they did Tom Tom Club and it was great to see them have their own solo thing. Even though everyone in Talking Heads was revered for what they did individually, I think instrumentalists can almost get shunted away by the power of the singer.
Is that what resonates, the memory of seeing them create again?
Yes, and also getting to hear the songs before they put them out and feeling like part of the process in a way. I remember they sent us "Wordy Rappinghood" and we were like, ‘What? They're rapping?’ We listened to the demos, and then when they actually recorded them, I was so joyful to see them to have this success independently of Talking Heads.
Did those early versions evolve much from when you first heard them, or were they quite tight to begin with?
Of course, when you hear a demo sometimes it's almost like the kernel of an idea. But they had their sound, and this song is pretty true to what they initially wrote. Once it's recorded, it's like boom! I especially love when they name the list of musicians they admire in the song, like George Clinton and Bob Marley, Sly & Robbie and “Bohannon, Bohannon, Bohannon!” They repeat that, and “James Brown, James Brown, James Brown.”
They're acknowledging this thread that keeps music moving forward; there are always influences and people that you build on, it's never just out of the blue.
“Worthy” by Mavis Staples
KATE PIERSON: Mavis Staples is such an icon.
I picked this because I just saw her at a really beautiful theatre in Cape Cod, where I am right now. I'd gotten tickets way late and was on the outer limits of the stage, but I had a great sightline to her and a bunch of us in the area were all dancing. When you're near the stage, you can't really dance, so I had the best seat in the house! She's in her mid-80s and she came out and just socked it to us.
Mark Ronson wrote this song, but she really just pumped it up. It was so joyful to see her perform as an older artist, and for her still to be such a powerhouse. Seeing her made me realise, ‘Wow, you can just keep on making music’ – there's never a time where you have to stop, until you croak.
BEST FIT: Like other songs you've chosen, there are themes of positivity and self-realisation, exactly what you'd want to hear from someone at this point of their career. Was that deliberate?
I think a lot of people I've picked for this have either shone the light on something important, or they have light shining from them. I did meet Mavis Staples once and I remember how nice she was, such a feeling of light came from her. She's done so much; she was part of The Staple Singers and was around during the Civil Rights movement and all these important historical times in America.
She sings gospel songs too, and I think she has a lot of faith, but also faith in humanity. Which is important right now, because you just wonder what is happening in politics. Anyway, don't get me started, but music like this gives you hope and you're like, ‘Okay, things can get back on track.’
Yes, the last few years have been quite doom-laden!
Very doom-laden; you're watching shows like The Handmaid's Tale and it feels real. But even at her age Mavis Staples hasn't lost hope and become cynical, she's become even more focused on joy and unity and love and hope and peace.
I mean, it says it all to have a song called "Worthy". You are worthy, we are all worthy, and it's a great anthem for now.
Radios & Rainbows is out now via Songvest
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