Ben Hopkins

If you listen to PWR BTTM, or to Gloss, If you look at me on stage, it can make you feel less alone. It makes you feel like you're a queer person and you have this singular power, but it's not like we're a brand. We're just real. ”

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

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.' ”

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. ”

PWR BTTM isn't the only queer rock band. We've been lucky to receive a platform. If you go on Bandcamp and search for 'queer rock,' you can find 150,000 bands that you could love more than PWR BTTM. ”

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

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

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. ”

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