Beth Ditto, known as the dynamic frontwoman of the dance-punk band Gossip, has established herself as a singer with a hell of a voice who embraced being queer, feminist, and fat. Her journey is one of breaking free from oppressive ideals, embracing her queerness, and finding her people. Ditto's story is not just about music; it's a roadmap for those who are still stuck in shitty towns dreaming of getting out.
Early Life and Overcoming Adversity
Mary Beth Ditto's story begins in a small town in Arkansas, where she experienced a tumultuous working-class upbringing. Growing up in poverty and facing abuse and neglect, Ditto felt confined to a predetermined life of early pregnancy and no prospects. She writes frankly and astutely of overcrowded homes, the mess and dirt of being broke, and magical friendships.
Ditto left her Arkansas hometown and moved to Washington state in 1999; she says she wanted to escape the racism and homophobia that she says was "in the air all the time." She couldn't deal with blatant racism being in the Bible Belt and being reminded that God is watching you all the time. She drove down the street, and there were billboards that literally said, where will you spend your eternity, heaven or hell? And there was fire in the background. So she was like, I need to get out of here. There has to be more to life than this.
Musical Beginnings and the Rise of Gossip
Ditto's musical journey began with Gossip, a band that defied categorization. Their early work was labeled as punk or indie rock, but they were also influenced by soul, gospel, country, hip-hop, electropop, dance, funk, and disco music. The band earned widespread attention with their 2006 album Standing in the Way of Control, which they released shortly after drummer Hannah Blilie had taken the place of original band member Kathy Mendonca. The record's title track, an anthemic attack on the Bush administration's opposition to same-sex marriage, traveled exceptionally well, becoming popular enough in this country for Gossip to perform it on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and also feature on the soundtrack for teen drama Skins.
Gossip (in fact, "the Gossip" when they started out) were involved with punk from their inception - not unusually, since the music is both relatively simple and cheap to make, and also instantly confers on its practitioners a certain confrontational image and outsider status. For Ditto, who grew up as a lesbian in highly religious small-town America, it was liberating, even though she now says, "I think I took the liberation too far, to where it couldn't sound like Abba." What she means, I think, is that all the concentration on breaking down barriers became, in the end, a barrier of its own.
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She and fellow Gossip founder member Nathan Howdeshell (aka Brace Paine), who also grew up in Arkansas, frequently talk now "about how the reason why we are so connected to old music is because we weren't necessarily connected to pop music, even though we listened to it and we knew it and enjoyed it on a level. But we wanted more, so the only other option was old music because that was the kind of thing you could find … It was cheaper, too: it was $10 for a cassette tape and 99 cents for an old cassette tape. And you could have four, or like 10, and that was always really exciting."
Body Positivity and Self-Acceptance
Before Lizzo, there was Beth Ditto forging a path for body positivity and being unapologetically loud and proud of being a fat woman in the music industry, an industry that wasn’t quite ready to accept her size in a predominately thin domain where women are expected to look a certain way. Ditto's advocacy and staunch stance on feminism and her rejection of the industry’s warped ideas of what women should look like in music but also in art and life are admirable.
"For me, taking 'fat' was like taking the word to describe myself," Ditto tells NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro. "I am big. I take up a lot of space, I'm very loud. If someone can say that they are thin, I feel like I can say that I'm fat. … There's other words that people like to use, like curvy or thick - and I'm just like, I'm not a road. I'm not a steak. I'm just - I'm big. I'm big and I'm fat, and that's just what it is, and that's OK!"
Ditto never hides away or agonizes over whether something fits. Her watchwords are comfort and fun. She has 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You're constantly learning how to be confident, aren't you? You're constantly reprogramming yourself.
Solo Career and Return to Southern Roots
Last year, Ditto confirmed that Gossip had disbanded and that she'd be focusing more on her fashion line and her own music. Now, she's released her first solo album, Fake Sugar. On it, the Arkansas-born singer struts back to her Southern roots, mining them for songs about love, identity - and especially family, a subject she's often sung about.
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Ditto left her Arkansas hometown and moved to Washington state in 1999; she says she wanted to escape the racism and homophobia that she says was "in the air all the time." But she says Fake Sugar, which draws unapologetically from the sounds of the South, reflects the more positive light in which she's begun to view her upbringing since her father died in 2011.
After he and my mom split, he used to take us to honky-tonks all the time," she says. "My dad would do sound and my cousin would play the piano and my brother'd be playing the drums. And there'd be, like, old men drinking Old Milwaukee and buying you Black Jack gum and Cherry Cokes and I would dance on their feet."
It was just a really sweet, very Southern memory that I think is so specific to where I grew up," she continues. "I feel like it was time to be like, 'You know what, that's what made me who I am and those are the really beautiful parts.' "
Personal Life and Future Aspirations
Turning 30 last year, she says, was a huge milestone. By that time her career - both as part of Gossip and as one of the music industry's most recognisable and outspoken figures - was well established. Meanwhile, Ditto's personal - and non-musical - profile was soaring. In the same year as Standing in the Way of Control she topped the NME's annual cool list. Three years later she both covered up and stripped off, launching her own clothing collection for the plus-size high-street chain Evans and appearing naked - save for a shocking-pink fig-leaf and a beatific expression - on the cover of the first issue of Love magazine.
She's open and plainspoken, sure, but she's just as happy to sit chatting about her preparations to marry her girlfriend, Kristin Ogata, next April. "She's from Hawaii and I'm from Arkansas, and I'm like, this is going to be the most hilarious cultural matching," she laughs. "It's going to be hysterical." But while her head is full of plans for the day - including the logistics of transporting her large family, including her mother and seven siblings, all of whom have "at least one child" to Hawaii - her eyes are also steadfastly fixed on the longer-term.
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"I was born to be married. I just feel comfortable there. I love the idea of being partnered for ever. I love my girlfriend, we've been best friends since I was 18. There's not a thing we haven't been through except for marriage… We've had talks about what we would name our kids since we were in our 20s." Children, she says, are very much on the agenda.
So what would she do if it all stopped tomorrow? "I'm constantly thinking about what I'll do next," she replies. "I never count on music being a career of longevity. I mean, longevity is key, and I hope that it lasts, but you just don't know, because it's not in your hands, you don't make the decision." Sometimes, she says, she thinks she'll be a hairdresser; at others, she'll work for some kind of creative thinktank ("I don't know how you do it for a job"). And what she thinks would be really "hilarious" would be to write for a TV show.