When we last left The SoapGirls, sisters Mie and Mille DeBray, we’d looked at new music, touring, sexuality, gender fluidity, touring the USA, being naked on stage and more. But we’re not done yes as we continue in the back of the tour van in Camden we crack onto vegetarianism, horrifying amounts of food waste and how to gut a chicken.
AH: Yeah, I mean, if you’ve experienced what it takes to kill an animal, skin it, pluck it, whatever and you can deal with it.
Mille: Look, if someone can do it, fair play, then that’s your thing.
Mie: Do you know how it is to pluck a chicken?
Mille: How do you know?
Mie: Because I saw it on a farm
Mille: I thought you were going to say you did it on–
Mie: No.
AH: To do a chicken properly you have to take basically its back end off because there is a trail of semi-formed eggs like a pipe.
Mille: Jesus, that’s crazy.
AH: And that all has to come out as well and if you cut at the wrong point and you rupture the stomach, you potentially contaminate the chicken and that ones in the bin. It’s so difficult to get it right.
Mie: Even my pigs with– What’s it called? Gristle or bristle?
AH: Yeah, the gristle.
Mie: Yeah. That’s a whole process in its own.
Mille: And it’s sick and it’s sad and people just disassociate what it is, it’s a life and it’s easy to say “We’ve done this for generations.” But surely we’ve evolved, there are so many alternatives and I think people are getting more conscious of that, but at the same time I don’t get people who just don’t care, they don’t want to know.
AH: If we can get to the point where we can, as they’ve shown in some cases do synthetic meat, where you can actually create it chemically, fine.
Mille: That’s fine.
AH: And that’s the best way isn’t it?
Mille: Yeah.
Sam: [The band’s manager chips in for one second], “Tell him about what you were looking at about the food wastage.”
Mille: Oh my God, this is another big issue.
AH: You’re gonna get this when you get to the States.
Mille: No, this is where it’s in.
Mie: In America, they have like 71 billion pounds of food wasted every year.
AH: I can believe it.
Mie: Yeah, it’s insane, perfectly good food.
AH: Everything is served to be more than you need, and if you finish it you’re almost looked upon as greedy. Why did you finish the food? You’re supposed to leave some.
Mille: But at the same time it’s not left for someone else is less fortunate, they actually throw it.
AH: Just a throw it.
Mie: Even in the UK though, Marks and Spencers… they slash their food and put dye in it so the homeless can’t eat it.
Mille: I know you have a shop, and you want to sell most of your stuff but if something is not selling and you put it in the bin, for fuck sakes, relinquish your hold on it, it’s done. That could feed someone, for whatever reason someone’s digging in your bin that f**king night, you know what? That food was ridden off.
Mie: And they say, “It’s not fit for a consumption.” But that’s bullsh*t, it’s just because they don’t want to take that extra step.
AH: Exactly, yeah. What a world it would be if they would actually take that step, and how well they’d be lauded for doing it. The press for them would be fantastic if they just do something like that.
Mille: But it’s all money.
AH: Isn’t it?
Mille: I guess if someone’s not buying it, then they rather destroy it.
AH: Their fear I suppose is the fact that everybody will wait because nobody has the shame of digging in a bin, they’ll wait and dig in the bins when they throw it all out, rather than buying anything, but they’re missing the point aren’t they?
Mie: I don’t think people would do that.
Mille: I wouldn’t f**king do that. I think it’s terrible in this society that people are forced to have to do that, I think it’s shocking.
AH: It is, I agree with that.
Sam [Manager]: Another one that you need to tell him how you feel about this ‘he’ and ‘she’.
Mille: God, yeah. You made me laugh a few nights ago at the show.
Mie: You know people telling people with these new like pronouns, where you can’t use he and she any more. It’s like, what the f**k is going on in the world that people are gonna now tell you how you have to speak, even though people have been speaking English for God knows how many years, but people are arguing– But also we did slavery for so many years and then we found out that it was wrong. No, but this is language.
AH: This is actually science.
Mie: Freedom of speech.
AH: There are only the two.
Mie: Yes, like you can have a sex change and then you are suddenly a woman now, but at the end of the day your chromosomes are still– What are they? Male.
AH: Still male.
Mie: Yeah, still male. You could have a sex change and be a woman and then you want to fight me in a boxing match as a woman, you’ll still beat the f**k out of me because you’re still a man.
AH: Yeah.
Mie: Your body is still a man.
AH: Your body will still adapt and provide that strength that you need.
Mie: You’re still stronger than me. But men are physically stronger than women, it’s a proven fact, that’s just how it is, maybe we deal with pain–
Mille: People are crazy, they want to make everyone the same but they don’t understand this, on an intellectual level we should all be respected equally how we are, but strength wise certain people are better off doing certain things and that’s it, and you can’t argue that you’re not gonna run a race against the man, why? It’s f**king unfair.
AH: Agreed.
Mie: I don’t like people also like Hillary Clinton or a lot of these like feminazis, and they’ll say, “Men and women are exactly the same, they’re equal.” But then she’ll go and say, “But we need a female president.” But then if they’re the same then why do you need a female president if they’re the same?
AH: Other than being a figurehead and something different that people might go for this is no different.
Mille: Just because you’ve got a vagina that’s not gonna make you some brilliant f**king president.
Mie: No.
Mille: It’s bullsh*t.
AH: No, the person that becomes a good president or a good Prime Minister is the one with the iron will that will actually get things done.
Mie: And who cares for the people, yeah.
Mille: It’s crazy though, the world is messed up. And then yet people will still be fighting something dumb like an outfit, they’ll see someone wearing something different and that gets them more offended than anything else.
AH: Yeah.
Mille: It’s crazy, and you would think– It’s happened every single generation, it happened with the guy, you know, with the white shirt and the jeans..
Mie: James Dean.
Mille: James Dean.
Mie: He was a rebel.
Mille: He was a rebel because he wore jeans and a white t-shirt.
Mie: And then jeans and white t-shirt became the every day normal.
Mille: Then someone like Marilyn Manson was a big no and all scary and sh*t because of his outfit, but he was a very intellectual person like a pretty decent great artist but because of how he looked he got given so much sh*t.
Mie: Corsets and things like that we’re seen as sexist garments, torture devices but then nowadays people wear them again.
AH: Yeah that’s become part of the music scene these days, you see that all the time now.
Mille: Yet if you show your breasts or you are– How could I deem sexy without it being sexualized?
Mie: Then you are you being used, you’re being objectified or–
Mille: Suddenly you’re immoral.
AH: You’re being exploited by the industry.
Mie: Yes.
Mille: Meanwhile no one’s making money off it and that’s why, that’s the problem, I mean, if we were on stripper poles, if we were like very sexual in our show and performance, we would be lauded like “Wow, great, amazing show.” Same if we were overweight and we had hairy armpits, feminists would love it, people would be like “This is amazing, this is the next step for women.” Why?
AH: It’s crazy.
Mille: It’s bullsh*t.
AH: You would have hoped that feminist could have latched onto what you would do.
Mille: The real feminists do, the true ones, we’ve met some amazing people.
Mie: You get feminist then you get feminazis. The feminazis are angry women who don’t exactly know what it is they’re really angry about, they’re just angry at everything, and they think–
Mille: I think they’re jilted lovers, sorry.
Mie: They think that a woman who’s feminine or I don’t know she’s comfortable in her own skin, she’s being exploited by someone or she doesn’t know what she really wants.
Mille: My favourite feminists are women who come up to us after shows and say, they didn’t even realize they were feminists but right now they are so f**king proud to be a female, and I’m like “F**k that’s cool.” And they say they feel so much more comfortable in their own skin after watching our show. That for me is like a really cool compliment.
AH: That’s the right result, isn’t it? That’s got to be the way you put things out.
Mille: Guys have said it as well but I mean, I think society puts so much shame on women for dressing how they want, guys can dress how they want unless you dress like a woman in which case society also gives you sh*t.
AH: Yeah.
Mie: But also the problem is a lot of people they confuse the word feminism and they think that it’s a badge and because you have it on same like with veganism, then suddenly you’re higher than everybody else.
Mille: Your moral high ground is like way above everybody and you’ve got a stick to beat everyone else. And you can beat other woman down with that stick because you’re a feminist. That’s not feminist for you performing with your boobs out. But that is feminism, feminism is like the right for me to do it if I want to.
AH: Exactly.
Mille: The fact that we have the choice nowadays to be exactly as we want, that’s feminism, and that’s the thing I also hate, I mean, you’ve got so many rights now as a woman, what more do you want?
Sam: Millie, talk about what happened in Germany.
Mie: Oh God. In Germany there was a venue and the women, she came up to us and she said, in her venue– She’s a feminist. Men and women they’re not allowed to have their tops off.
Mille: And she said I was surprised that this festival had no guys and people made a big uproar and I said to her, “It’s funny, out of all the thousands of people you’re the only one who’s mentioned the fact that I’m topless.” I said, “Isn’t that funny?” Even not one guy ever been like sexual or rude after showing up, I’ve spoken to them but I will get a woman and all she can focus on is that I’m topless. Not one guy, it’s crazy and I’m like “What the f**k?”
AH: It’s also sad.
Mille: It is sad, it’s pathetic.
AH: Exactly, ’cause her views are twisted.
Mille: Exactly. And I say to people, the fact is I’ve just done a show and I’ve made you think but all you are stuck on is my appearance.
Mie: Projecting your sh*t on to other people, your own insecurities.
Mille: I mean, go to a nudist resort if you’ve got problems and nudity, the best thing you can ever do, go to a nudist resort, act like a weirdo there and you will learn very fast to get the f**k out. There’s nothing funny or weird or disgusting about nudity, people–
Mie: We’ve been taught, society has taught us to be ashamed of ourselves and that nudity is something that you should be ashamed of–
Mille: It’s immoral. But it’s ridiculous, I mean, that’s like an old way of thinking, we’ve progressed in so many ways but look at this, this is very weird for me. Nudity is a bad thing, but pornography is suddenly like mainstream.
Mie: And violence is fine.
Mille: Great.
Mie: People having a fight out in public or whatever people will come around and film that’s great, police will take a while to come, but if somebody’s walking around topless and Jesus Christ you see the uproar.
Mille: It’s the same, people can have a lot to say about strip clubs but at the same time they’ll all watch Victoria Secret.
Mie: It’s the exact same thing.
Mille: I don’t mean to be insulting-
Mie: They’re both selling sex.
Mille: -but they both selling sex. And it’s just funny that the one is lauded than the others like look down upon or frowned upon but society.
AH: Because is the amount of money that’s being pushed against it
Mille: It’s an image as well, I mean, they’re just selling lingerie, yeah of course, sure.
AH: That’s crazy.
Mille: It’s weird, I don’t know, I just find society hilarious, the double standards, but whatever’s in fashion at the moment it goes and whatever is against their conditioning ooh no, no, no, we can’t like that.
Mie: Same like with girls, I don’t know maybe in like a lower-class income area and they have those like nails with all the gems and stuff on if other people see that then, oh no, that’s ghetto. But then suddenly if they do that on the fashion catwalk.
Mille: That’s great.
AH: That’s style. She must be French, can’t be ghetto, it must be French. [laughs]
Mille: Of course. But it’s the same with appearance, so if you look a certain way then you’re not allowed to say certain things, so because we don’t have tattoos or Mohawks then–
Mie: We’re not punk or we’re not actually rarely edgy.
Mille: How dare we have these gears.
Mie: We’re not hardcore you need to get tattoos and you need to shave your head.
Mille: I’ve been told that many times.
Mie: Yeah, people like put on some Doc Martens and shave your head and there we go.
Mille: Your music great but you should look like that and I’m like “Oh thank you.”
Mie: Grow your hair under your armpits too, it makes you play better.
AH: Put on 50 pounds each because you can’t look good.
Mie: It distracts from the music you know?
AH: Last question. Do you think it will change?
Mie: Definitely, we’re gonna f**king make it change.
Mille: I don’t give a f**k if it’s gonna change, easily I know I’m gonna make a change, I won’t adapt to the world and it’s fucked up views, I’m who I am, I won’t change, same with my system, if people want to accept that that’s great, if they don’t well good luck because that’s your problem, not mine.
AH: Yeah, that’s fair.
Mille: We’ll fight for the things that we believe in.
Mie: I think it’s also very important maybe like I don’t know the people in their late 30s or whatever, that generation may be a lot of them it’s lost on them because they’ve been taught a certain way and society has groomed them to think in a certain way but hopefully for the youth for them to see that a woman that’s free or maybe she’s not wearing much is not something sexual, I think it’s good for especially young boys and girls both alike to be able to respect each other in that way.
Mille: I think you’re wrong about the age because I often think is it a certain age group or demographic and you know what I found? I found that I’ve met people in their 90s, 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s, black, white, Asian, any kind of–
Mie: What I’m saying the youth will change it.
Mille: I heard but at the same time I’ve met some youth that are more narrow-minded than someone in their 60s.
AH: I can believe that.
Mille: And I’m like “What the f**k?” It does matter about gender, doesn’t matter about race, and anything like that, I find you get people that are open-minded and they’ve always been open-minded, they were the society’s rejects of their time, and they have the same mentality of freedom but they were rejected.
Mie: I think also all the people they realize that you don’t really have that much time when you think about it on this earth and all that we should be doing is try to make it a nice place for everybody.
AH: I like that. Instead of having a lot of bunch of people that are trying to feel offended or sympathetic on your behalf.
Mie: Exactly.
AH: When you have no issue with anyone.
Mie: Enjoy life, get your tits out.
Mille: You don’t have to but I mean, do whatever makes you happy.
AH: Whatever you’re comfortable with.
Mille: Exactly.
AH: Absolutely, that’s wonderful. Thank you very much for that.
Mille and Mie: Thank you.
So there you have it – enjoy life, do whatever makes you happy, whatever you’re comfortable with. Some will say the only thing about The SoapGirls is their lack of clothing onstage. Read these interviews and you see two strong opinionated young women just hoping to make a difference.
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