I was a little nervous to interview Le Butcherettes frontwoman Teri Gender Bender (real name Teresa Suarez) last October at her Rodriguez-Lopez Productions record label, which Omar Rodriguez-Lopez runs with Cathy Pellow out of a house in the hills of Echo Park. Her stage presence is intense, so I was expecting her to scream at me for asking stupid questions; or not answer them at all. Instead, we vibed off deep discussions on feminism, philosophy and the healing aspects of nature. We were stuck behind this cement truck that wouldn’t move,” Teri’s first words were to me before going in for a big bear hug. “I thought, ‘Oh my God. She’s gonna think I’m a diva.’”

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I’ve listened to Le Butcherettes practically every single day since I first discovered them last year. There are not many bands that have made my daily playlists, especially so quickly. I get the same feeling listening to Le Butcherettes’ Kiss & Kill and Sin Sin Sin records as I did when I first discovered Hole’s Pretty On The Inside and Live Through This as a 15-year-old. Le Butcherettes have become a really important, special band to me in the same way Hole (the real Hole with the Love/Erlandson combo) is. All the things that I love about Hole frontwoman Courtney Love – the intelligence, the love of literature and culture, the introspection and commentary of the female experience in the world, the strength, heartfelt soulful lyrics, musicianship, powerful live shows – I find again in Le Butcherettes’ frontwoman Teri Gender Bender. Le Butcherettes are a band that matter.

TERI GENDER BENDER: I’m nervous because my answers always suck!

No, they don’t! Every interview I’ve ever read with you is so incredibly thoughtful. You answer every question with such grace and no matter what is asked you always answer it really considerately.
TGB: That’s probably because the writer made it sound thoughtful.

No way. You’re selling yourself short lady.
TGB: Thank you, you are very kind [laughs].

I wanted to start by asking, what does music mean to you?
TGB: Honestly, it means [pauses] aw fuck, it just means so much to me. All these words want to come out but my throat stops them—the act of living and doing, that’s what music means to me. Being able to express oneself, even when you’re not playing it, the act of listening to it makes me feel so alive. It makes me feel like I can do anything, that I can conquer any man or any animal – that I could just go up to any bear and just hug him. Maybe that might not be the case but to me, music is just a big part of my life. Thanks to music, it prevented me from being depressed, or when I was depressed music helps lift my spirits up. I guess it has something to do with the vibes, the vibration, maybe some kind of molecules; I’ll go along with it. Its medicine, music is medicine.

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2. Le Butcherettes:

Sargent House’s spaz-blast rock outfit Le Butcherettes have had us by the musical throat for over a year, and we’re chomping at the bit to see them in the blazing desert. Led by fireball vocalist/guitarist/pianist Teri Gender Bender, Le Butcherettes’ songs & untethered energy evoke early-era Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with the seductive energy of The Kills in an explosive minimalist package. To see them live is to be equally inspired, adrenalized and disturbed. Find us in the pit.

Check out a video for “New York”:

SEE ALL TEN CHOICES HERE - by Johnny Firecloud for Crave Online

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Una fría noche de octubre del año 2009, el dueto conformado por el vocalista de los White Stripes, Jack White, y la vocalista de los Kills, Allison Mosshart, The Dead Weather presentó su primer disco Horehound en el José Cuervo Salón de la Ciudad de México. Aquella noche, una joven rokcera de 20 años: Teresa Suárez, con los nervios de punta salió a telonear para un público exigente. La escena parecía sacada de una película de terror japonesa: una muchacha muy delgada, de tez blanquísima y cabello negro se sacudía como loca sobre el escenario, como si eso no fuera poco ella vestía un delantal de carnicero manchado de pintura roja como si fuera sangre.

Llamó la atención hasta del más despitado. La gente la veía incrédula, no sabían con certeza si se trataba de una animadora o de qué. Pero lo que nadie podría negar es que era realmente interesante. Teresa dejó a más de uno con la boca abierta.

También conocida como Teri Gender, esta chica de colosal presencia es el alma de Le Butcherettes, agrupación originada en México que desde hace un año radica en los Estados Unidos y que, luego de la salida de la otra fundadora de la banda, la baterista Auryn Jolene, por problemas con Teri, se dedicó a sembrar su música en los bares fronterizos. Muy poco tiempo después, los resultados están a la vista: el próximo mes de abril será una de las representantes mexicanas en el Festival Coachella, lo que a ella la llena de orgullo:

“Quiero demostrarle a estos cabrones gringos que lo que se hace en México está bien chingón. Que vean que las bandas mexicanas estamos haciendo algo importante. Yo no sé qué idea tiene de nosotros pero a mi me ha tocado que gente se sorprende de que yo pueda hablar inglés muy fluido. Acá en EU me han tratado como una mexicanita que no sabe qué onda y qué bueno que se da esta oportunidad para demostrar lo contrario.”, cuenta la cantante vía telefónica desde Los Ángeles, California.

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Artist: Le Butcherettes
Video: ‘I’m Getting Sick of You’
Highlight: “Being able to to play with Lia and Omar on MTV Iggy has been nothing but a pleasurable experience, wanting nothing more or less to create an understanding of the self,” singer/guitarist Teri Gender Bender tells Spinner. “This video, ‘I’m Getting Sick of You,’ is so special to me because this is a song I wrote in my bedroom when I was 17, in my home country Mexico. I was surrounded by my family’s love, which helped me focus anger at the third-world bureaucracies that occurred against the working class man and woman. I was sick of it. It’s just so amazing to me how the song’s energy could be transformed with time and get so far as going to another country, such a great opportunity for a proud Mexican girl of 17 (now 22). You should see the e-mails I get from my fans in Mexico saying how proud they are of me.”

Le Butcherettes will be playing both weekends on Sunday of this years Coachella Festival. It will be a busy  for Omar Rodriguez Lopez who in addition to playing in Le Butcherettes will also be playing the first At The Drive In shows in 11 years! We are all so excited,  See you in Indio.

(Source: coachella.com)

Since their debut album Sin Sin Sin came out this year, L.A./Guadalajara garage rock band Le Butcherettes have been carving a niche for themselves on stages north and south of the border. Line-ups shift with this band but tempestuous frontwoman Teri Gender Bender (AKA Teresa Suaréz) is always front and center. In our exclusive live video with Le Butcherettes we captured her confrontational performance in New York City’s intimate Dominion NY.

The Mars Volta founder Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (who signed Le Butcherettes to his label) played bass, joined by Lia Braswell on drums, while Ms. Gender Bender channeled fearsome rock-eras from Patti Smith to Karen O. while peppering her lyrics with literary references. It was a Dia de Los Muertos to remember. - Above is an interview with Teri & Omar Rodriguez Lopez and below are three songs including : Sick Of You, Henry Don’t Got Love & All You See In Me Is Death.

Teri Gender Bender

You might know her from: Being the singer-songwriter-frontwoman from Le Butcherettes. Teri originally formed the band in Guadalajara, Mexico and now resides in Los Angeles, where in 2011 the band released their debut album Sin, Sin, Sin under the label (and tutelage) of  The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez Lopez. In 2011 alone, Le Butcherettes played Lollapalooza, opened for Iggy and the Stooges, The Deftones, Queens of the Stone Age, The Flaming Lips all over the US and Australia. Not a bad start. 

Why she’ll matter in 2012: Teri is out to prove she’s much more than a magnetic performer (aside from lead vocals, she plays the guitar and keyboard) with creative dress-up antics. She is already ditching her once-trademark bloody apron and is currently in the studio recording the band’s follow-up album, to be released in 2012.

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Mexican rocker Teri Gender Bender calls herself an ignorant punk, still her band Le Butcherettes released one of the best albums of 2011. As DIVA’s Bella Qvist looks back at the year gone by she remembers an interview with a nervous girl who touched her heart.

It was earlier last year that Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes spoke to me in an interview that got under the skin of the feisty punk rocker. Voicing strong opinions with heartbreaking honesty this 22-year old likes to cover herself in blood on stage whilst breathing new life into queer feminism.

“Hello, I’m so sorry I left my cell phone on silent and I didn’t hear anything and I was in the car but everything is good now and I apologise with all my heart.”

Teri Gender Bender answers the phone speaking in a speedy and regretful manner, standing on a car park pavement in Los Angeles. She has spent the day travelling and subsequently missed me calling her for the last twenty minutes. Once she gets talking though, she doesn’t really stop.

22 years ago Teresa Suaréz was born into a poor and corrupted Mexican society ruled by men, violence and the Catholic church. What she experienced as a child planted seeds in her mind and the life of this rebellious young woman was soon shaped. At the age of 17 Teresa, under pseudonym Teri Gender Bender, started Le Butcherettes with a female friend.

“No one really believed in us and a lot of people [thought] that because of our gender we weren’t going to amount to anything, that it was just something for the men to go and see and enjoy in a nasty perverted kind of way.”

Playing relentlessly in small bars across Mexico the music eventually spoke for itself and Teri’s message soon became clear. By playing angry punk music and wearing 1950s housewives’ style clothes and aprons covered in blood, she represented women enslaved to the kitchen and challenged the deeply rooted stereotyped ideas of what a woman should be.

“I used those elements [female attributes] on stage but it kind of contradicted with what I felt at the moment which was a bunch of rage. It was like therapy for me. That’s where Le Butcherettes came from.”

It wasn’t long until Mars Volta’s Omar Alfredo Rodríguez-López discovered the band and brought Teri and her new male band mates over to the States where their success blossomed. Playing alongside heavy metal bands like Dillinger Escape Plan and Queens Of The Stone Age she is now often the only girl on, and off, stage.

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Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes video interview with Australian Musicians Magazine.

(Source: vimeo.com)

On May 10, the No. 1 act on this list officially released its new album. Not a day has gone by since when I didn’t listen to at least one song from that CD.That made picking a favorite release in 2011 a rather easy task, but what follows are 14 other albums I still can’t wait to hear again. There will be no extended essay or grand cultural commentary here, just some artists I hope some may believe are worth exploring.

No. 1. Le Butcherettes, ”Sin Sin Sin” (Rodriguez Lopez / Sargent House): Everything about this album screams now. Based in Los Angeles and formed in Mexico, this band delivers current-events hard rock that defies genre borders, and it’s led with fearless bravado by Teri “Gender Bender” Suarez. Whether it’s dead authors, poverty or social injustice, Le Butcherettes vamp, rant and howl, a reminder that only rock ‘n’ roll can have this much fun tackling big ideas. - Todd Martens

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Greg Kot Music critic
Here are my favorite concerts from 2011:

1. Le Butcherettes at Lollapalooza, Aug. 5: Teri Gender Bender, aka Teresa Suarez, wears a red-stained butcher’s smock and flings her high-heels into the crowd, the better to stomp, twirl, somersault and stage-dive, while working her three-piece garage-punk band to exhaustion. She assumes a new personality every few lines, her voice toggling between sweet and sinister, joyous and angry. The set’s furious pace amid stifling humidity eventually overwhelms drummer Gabe Serbian, who takes a break from his duties mid-set to vomit several times, then returns to pound the kit with more ferocity than ever. An amused Suarez sings his praises: “I love him to death … to death!”

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Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes has undeniably become one of the most exciting performers in rock right now. Since winning both “Best New Artist” & “Best Punk Record” honors at Mexico’s Indie-O awards in 2009, Teri and Le Butcherettes have taken their butcher rock diatribe to new heights. Under the mentorship of Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Le Butcherettes have tightened their sound into a full-bodied, well layered, distorted sound while maintaining Teri’s unbridled delivery and live stage presence which has earned the band rave reviews and almost unanimous acclaim.

Remezcla caught up with this rising star before taking the stage at The Warfield opening for Iggy & The Stooges in support of their latest album Sin, Sin, Sin.

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