The Bastard Fairies – Beyond Description

Every once in a while a band comes along that you can’t categorize at all but still attracts your ears. The Bastard Fairies is one of those bands. Comprised of Yellow Thunder Woman and Robin Davey, The Bastard Fairies have been developing quite the buzz over the past few months, including a bit of TV time thanks to a commercial they posted on YouTube that caught the eye, and ire, of one Bill O’Reilly. With their album, Memento Mori, hitting stores this week I sat down with Yellow Thunder Woman to discuss what The Bastard Fairies are all about, their very unique lyrical content, and the derogatory slang term for a woman’s private part she likes to use to refer to Bill O’Reilly.

Adam Bernard: Your name is very unique. How did you become Yellow Thunder Woman?
Yellow Thunder Woman: I was born in Yellow Thunder Camp, in Nevada. The camp is named after an Indian guy who got killed there and I was supposed to be the first child that was going to be born there but there were complications so I ended up being born in this hospital in Duck Valley, Nevada, I was the only kid ever born in that hospital, so they named me Yellow Thunder and for some reason the hospital wouldn’t allow them to put the Indian translation, Wakinyan Zi Win, on the birth certificate so they had to put the English one. Most people just call me Wakinyan.

Adam Bernard: And how were The Bastard Fairies born?
Yellow Thunder Woman: I really wanted to just make my favorite album. It started out just me having this idea to make this album in five days and not to spend any money on it or anything. It took me a month to convince Robin Davey to work with me because he was just like “oh my God, Wakinyan you’re insane, I don’t want to work with you.” When we started recording the album he realized how cool it actually was and we made our favorite album.

Adam Bernard: Lyrically the album is diverse and at times very funny… maybe I’m warped. Were there specific topics you were looking to cover?
Yellow Thunder Woman: Yeah, definitely, like OCD and different things like “The Boy Next Door” with the topic of a promiscuous girl, also “Guns and Dolls” which is also another OCD kinda song. I think it’s basically a social commentary. I grew up writing short stories and wanting to be a writer so my lyrics are very odd and they kind of tell stories which is something I really enjoy doing. I guess that’s why the lyrics are a bit fucked up.

Adam Bernard: You grew your fan base organically through your website and downloading. Talk to me about that process.
Yellow Thunder Woman: With the album, it didn’t cost anything, it cost like five bucks and that was to buy these toy keyboards we got from thrift stores, and I didn’t even want to make it a career. I didn’t care if anybody heard my music, all I knew was I wanted to make my favorite album, I made it, it’s fucking genius. I like listening to it, hopefully other people will. I just put it up and let people see. I think people really appreciate the fact that it’s honest and it’s not fucking Ashlee Simpson or Britney Spears, it’s not trying to trick you or anything, it’s just honest and I think that’s what people have been waiting for. Basically I didn’t really do much, I think everyone else kind of did it. Everyone else wanted this honesty and wanted to see more of The Bastard Fairies so it’s much more of a people’s kind of band rather than anything else.

Adam Bernard: You found some other ways to build buzz, as well, like YouTube.
Yellow Thunder Woman: With The Coolest Eight Year Old video, that blew up really big thanks to Bill O’Reilly, that cunt. This is what he did, he put it up on his show, The O’Reilly Factor, and he cut out any bits that were about him because it basically starts out “that idiot Bill O’Reilly,” he cut all of that out and just kind of promoted us in a great way because a lot of people who hate Bill O’Reilly still watch his show, so a lot people who really hated him were like “oh there’s something that Bill O’Reilly hates, I need to check this out,” and when they did they went “fuck that’s great.” He just basically got us a bunch of new fans because of silly promotion. That guy’s a fucking idiot and he basically just proved himself a fucking idiot because it was just an advert for a band, that’s all it was and he turned it into this big thing.

Adam Bernard: Has Stephen Colbert contacted you regarding this incident?
Yellow Thunder Woman: Oh no, actually he hasn’t.

Adam Bernard: Would his show be something you’d be interested in doing?
Yellow Thunder Woman: Yeah, it would be, I hadn’t thought about it, though, that’s a good point. It would be cool. It would be hilarious.

Adam Bernard: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention your looks, you are very attractive.
Yellow Thunder Woman: I know. It gets kind of annoying when I look in the mirror every day and I go God, why are you so good looking, it’s just boring now. (laughs)

Adam Bernard: Now, is Davey your b/f or BFF?
Yellow Thunder Woman: He’s kind of my BFF. I think he’d be crazy to date me, anybody would.

Adam Bernard: Why is this? What are the reasons people should not date you?
Yellow Thunder Woman: (laughs) Well just to name a few, I’m a narcissist and an arrogant asshole so that doesn’t help. I’m not really a faithful person.

Adam Bernard: So “The Boy Next Door” is autobiographical?
Yellow Thunder Woman: Of course, most of the songs are. Some of them are passive aggressive songs about people I know, but “The Boy Next Door” and “Habitual Inmate” and “Everyone Has A Secret,” all of those are really about me.

Adam Bernard: In addition to your music you and Davey created and directed The Canary Effect, a documentary about how US policies affect Native Americans. Tell me a little bit about this.
Yellow Thunder Woman: Since I was 15 I wanted to make a movie about Native Americans and Native American issues and then when I met Robin Davey I talked to him about it because he also wanted to be a director. We got together and we started talking about it and eventually we both started doing research and it just turned into this huge thing, we were just like fucking hell this issue is huge, it’s so big, we didn’t even put in most of the stuff we could have because we wanted it to be short and we wanted people to be able to digest all the information because other documentaries that were made about Native American issues are so fucking stupid and boring that they make you actually not want to care when you watch them. They’re so dull and I just didn’t want that at all, I wanted it to be cool, kind of real rock n roll and easy for ADHD victims to digest. That’s kind of what our goal was and I think we really achieved that.

Adam Bernard: Is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself, your music, the world.
Yellow Thunder Woman: The world is pretty boring at the moment, that’s probably it. I think we need more wars and shit. I just need something to write about for fuck’s sake. I’m a writer, I love chaos.

Adam Bernard: Well you live in Los Angeles, that should provide some.
Yellow Thunder Woman: Hollywood is pretty fucking clean, though. It’s a little bit too clean, I need more whores and prostitutes, pimps, in order to be satisfied.

Adam Bernard: I think I should roll with you for a week just to see what it’s like.
Yellow Thunder Woman: (laughs) You should. You’d get quite an experience.

For more of The Bastard Fairies check them out at thebastardfairies.com and myspace.com/thebastardfairies.