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" Rather than writing about my experiences with other people, 'Ugly Cherries' is the first song I've ever written about myself. It's a confrontation: an attempt to unpack my own queerness with humor and self care. "

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" When I started playing music, I was more of a character. Now I'm just me with a cool outfit on. I'm more comfortable being myself. "

Ben Hopkins

Music

Myself

Now

" People who pigeonhole us for our queerness are not people I'm interested in knowing. They're so boring. How dare you be so boring? Grow up. Get some Ray-Bans. "

" Creating a safe space at our shows isn't encouraging anything. It's just saying thank you. "

" What we do is provide a suggestion. We say, 'We're queer. We're going to do this; we're going to open up the space to queer thought.' People don't have to show up, but they do. "

" For queer people, the personal is very political, just to talk about it in a public space. It's very political just to come out and take up that space and be like, 'This is my narrative. It's not an outsider narrative, and it's not a fetish narrative; it's just my story, and it's worth being told and listened to.' "

" Queer is invincible because people have tried everything - haven't they? What haven't they tried to do to queer people? And horrible things happened. But you never stop, because it's the truth of who you are. "

" Is punk dressing up in leather jackets? No. It's having a counter-cultural perspective. "

Ben Hopkins

Punk

Dressing

" I'm in a car so much on tour that I often just ask my friends to DJ and ask them what they like. That's the best way I discover music. "

" When you're a queer person put in the spotlight, you're supposed to have all the answers. "

" When fringe groups gather, there is power in that. "

" We're not writing songs to solve a cultural problem. The goal for us is to express what we're going through, and it's great if people find commonality in that. "

" I'm a freewheeling flower-child falling down the stairs constantly. "

" It's our responsibility to cater to the needs of people who come and enjoy our work who have the same values we do. We're not trying to change the world. We're just sort of trying to deal with our specific lens of performance. "

" For me, choosing to perform in drag, because of all the things I enjoy about it, is a political act. "

Ben Hopkins

Political

Things

" There is power in organization. There is power in a community. People have always wanted to destroy communities. "

" I think that our work and our music stands on its own without this knowledge about our identity around it. But I also think that we very consciously decided not to hold back that part of ourselves, but to be very vocal about who we are, kind of what experiences we've had in life, and how we identify. "

" You can't deny who you are, so you might as well be yourself in the most authentic way. "

" PWR BTTM fans dress up better than we do. "

Ben Hopkins

Better

Dress

" I'd say, at the end of the day, you know, from a songwriting practice standpoint, you write songs to make yourself feel something true and validating, and cathartic, maybe, and then whoever responds to it is, like, out of your control. "

" The most radical thing about our lives is getting to be in a visibly filled-out queer crowd every night. "

" Ben Hopkins is a very nervous, neurotic kind of person who is afraid of not being liked by people all the time. But, Monster-Me doesn't know who those people even are. "

" Drag has always made me feel less scared. "

Ben Hopkins

Less

Scared

" I think the earnestness of what we're saying and what other bands like us are totally saying - or other queer bands - is 'We exist.' "

Ben Hopkins

Think

Other

" I want to say that our shows are safer-spaces shows. Don't push anyone or affect anyone's space. "