The Collapse Board Interview: Lydia Lunch (2026)
When we spoke to Lydia Lunch ahead of her 2024 Australian tour, we came away informed, educated and enlightened. It was a scheduled standard 20 minute interview that went for an easy 35 minutes and could have gone for much longer. When we were offered an interview ahead of her 2026 Australian and New Zealand tour, we weren’t going to let it pass us by. With the majority of the tour dates billed as “Lydia Lunch Performs the Songs of Suicide and Alan Vega” with Black Cab‘s Andrew Coates, we spoke to Lydia about her friendship with the New York band’s Alan Vega and Martin Rev, the influence of their music, and the tackling their infamous and iconic songbook.
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Hi Lydia. How are you? It looks like you’re at home in New York? How is it, you’ve got a new Mayor?
Oh, I’m perfectly fine. Yes, I’m in Brooklyn but I’m hardly ever here. It’s just fantastic. I’m touring from, I guess, March until the end of July this year, so I’m hardly ever here. I know when I am, I hardly ever leave my house.
You moved to New York at 16. Did you ever regret that?
Hell no. I regret I didn’t leave and move to New York when I was 12. It would have been a little hard to get by, so I went when I should have.
What was your plan as a 16 year old in New York?
To just get the hell out of my home and go get the hell to New York and start doing shit. So I did it. That’s it. Just did it.
New York presumably isn’t the same as 1970s New York. Is there anything you miss about how it was?
No place is the same as 40 or 50 years ago. No, I don’t miss anything. I’m not nostalgic. It was fucking Beirut on the Hudson. Every other building was bombed out or destroyed. People getting shot in the streets. I don’t miss it, but I don’t miss the past. I live in the present. Not too far in the future because that would be too horrifying.
You seem busier than ever. As you just mentioned, you’re touring and you’ve just released an album with Marc Hurtado.
Well, that’s one of the live Suicide shows. I have two unreleased albums, one with a Palestinian musician and François Cambuzat I don’t know why anybody doesn’t step in about this right now, and one with Sylvia Black, which is like jazz noir. I just came from an exhibition in Zurich called The Kaleidoscope of Nothingness, which is like entering into a bookworm’s head. There’s words all over the walls and three floors in all fashion of text, like text on paper, on photographs, on clothing, on cloth, with a Swiss artist, Dion Girard, and an American artist who lives in Paris, Kit Brown. So it’s all different, what I’m doing. It’s interesting to just go with the availability at the moment.
Do you ever need to take time out to recharge?
I could be the laziest person you’ve ever seen. Of course I take time out. It’s just certain things have to be done when there’s a possibility to do it. But like I say, when I’m home, forget it. You’ll find me probably in bed reading a book and watching two different shows at once, a movie and a show. I’m not somebody that has to constantly work, but right now, as a juggler, a professional juggler, it’s just all different things. It keeps it interesting.
You’re coming over to Australia again this month…
You can’t keep me out. You can’t keep me out! I’m coming back to shake it up!
… and you’re doing a tour with Andrew Coates from Black Cab of the songs of Suicide and Alan Vega and then you’re doing some spoken word shows with Tex Perkins supporting. Your Wikipedia page mentions that you befriended Alan Vega and Martin Rev soon after you moved to New York.
I haven’t looked at that in a long time. But yes, they were some of the first friends I met in New York. It was one of the first concerts I went to. There was 10 people and Suicide.
Were they a band on your radar that you’d hear about and wanted to go and see?
No, I had no idea who they were. This is like ‘76 or ‘77, before they had released anything. I had just gotten to New York and I just happened to be living around the corner from Max’s Kansas City and just went there. And there it was. I mean, Suicide and the group Mars, who are on the No Wave New York album, were definitely defining moments, you know, that “OK, I’m in the right place now.” Mars is still one of my favorite bands from the No Wave New York album.
Alan and Martin’s public persona, at least to me, was that they were slightly terrifying people. The stories of Suicide often focus on how much the audiences hated them and the violence towards the band.
They’re very nice. That’s because they had a lot of passion and people are frightened of passion. They also had a lot of sensitivity. I mean, they’d go from doo-wop, ‘Cheree’ to ‘Frankie Teardrop’. This was the beauty of Suicide.
And you found them approachable when you first met them?
I just went up to them. Why not? Of course. People were afraid of me at that time, too, and I hadn’t even done anything yet. So that was easy.
I know when the first started out, they were very polarizing. Were they more liked by audiences and the press by the time you were seeing them?
Oh, no, they were not. There was ten people in the audience. They were not more liked.
Plus, they went on tours where they were hated even more, like with The Clash or with The Cars. They weren’t afraid of being hated. But then again, neither was I at the time or neither am I still to this day.
So that was a good lesson in how you just have to go through with what you have to do, especially if nobody else is doing it. The beauty of doing their music or reinvigorating it is there’s so much room for me to also put in whatever I feel like saying at the time. So I can bring politics into it, especially when there’s a song called ‘Vietnam Vet’, where I can bring in more than what their lyrics initially said. It gives me a lot of leeway, and, therefore, it’s never the same twice in a row. So it’s very interesting, while still maintaining the pathos that they had. I mean, I had been doing ‘Frankie Teardrop’ for 10 years before I started doing Suicide with Mark Hurtad, or carrying it on, and I also had done a duet with Alan on one of his albums.
Are they a difficult band to cover? Their sound is so unique is it hard to balance a respect to them while putting your own stamp on their songs?
Well, but the thing is this, it’s a lot easier now with technology and all of that. It’s far more aggressive than what Suicide ever was. What I’m bringing now is a more sinister and sexy version with Andrew of Black Cab, but with the same intensity.
You’re still friends with Martin, has he commented on your take of his songs?
Yes, and also Alan Vega’s widow. We’re very good friends. She’s played some shows with myself and Mark Hurtado in Europe before. She’s happy that, you know, the energy carries on. A lot of people, of course, never got to see Suicide.
Someone told me a promoter was trying to bring them out to Australia but Alan wouldn’t do the flight because it was too long without a cigarette. Does that sound like the Alan you knew?
I have no idea if that’s a true story. It’s a brutal flight, let’s face it. I stop in LA before I hit Wellington and then on to the rest. It’s brutal. You have to be a road dog to do it. You can’t just decide, “Coming to Australia!” you have to be dedicated to the cause.
When you first saw them, what was it about them that inspired you?
Just the intense emotion. I mean, and the subject matter, which was unlike most other songs at the time, but also the doo-wop influence, which was very interesting to me. Like some songs, they just sounded like a dark, greasy, rainy alley in the back of some rat-infested hell hole on the Lower East Side, and then the pathos of ‘Harlem’ or ‘Frankie Teardrop’, or even ‘Ghost Rider’.
You mentioned ‘Frankie Teardrop’, which you covered it for series of EPs that were released for Alan’s 70th birthday. Was there anything particular about that song that talked to you and made you want to record it?
Well, it’s just a very American tragedy of domestic violence and just the failure of society to help you provide, and therefore, the only solution seems like murder and suicide. And although I’m sitting here man-spreading and mansplaining, I think doing it from a female point of view, was very interesting to me.
There’s a lot of bands that Suicide obviously influenced across the ‘80 and beyond. Does it surprise you that they have the legacy they have?
Well, I mean, a lot of groups were influenced, probably, but where did they take it? Who really took it to the next level? You know what I mean? So what were they influenced by? Using synthesizers and shitty equipment? I mean, I can’t really think that’d be the same way. I can’t think of who my, you know, progeny is. I can’t really think of who Suicide’s progeny is, even though there might’ve been some inspiration taken from them.
I read that Alan was quite ambivalent about those bands because of that reason. He had a similar mindset to you about the bands he was inspiring.
I always say, don’t blame me for other people’s art crimes.
Does it surprise you that Bruce Springsteen was such a fan?
Ah, that’s great. I wish Bon Jovi would cover one of my songs. I mean, that probably cemented their retirement fund. I mean, you know, he was such a fan that he did a whole album, Nebraska, that’s almost Alan Vega-ish.
How Martin and Alan feel about that? Did they felt ripped off?
Oh no, I’m sure they felt honored to get the fucking money that came through. Plus, I mean, Bruce Springsteen, early Bruce Springsteen, whatever he’s become, which is just whatever he’s become, we’re still talking about the working class, the dilemma, romance, hardworking people, the American dream as a nightmare. So there was some compatibility there.
As you mentioned before, you’re doing the songs of Suicide and Alan Vega shows in Australia with Andrew from Black Cab. How did that collaboration come about?
Well, it was Sean Simmons who books me. He suggested it when I was there last time that we do a show, I guess we had a date to fill, and it just worked out very well. I can’t bring Mark Hurtado, it’s too long for him to fly from, from Montpelier, where he lives. He’s got too much physical pain. It would take forever and he just can’t do it, it’s just too much. And again, it’s just bringing another sensibility to the material, which is interesting to me because I’ve been doing it with Hurtado for quite a while now, so it will bring a different sensibility to it, like I said, more sinister, more sexy, more devious. The thing is it’s very freestyle for the lyrics, for my participation. The music remains in the structure it was for the most part, but I’m allowed to go wherever I want because it allows it. There’s a little landscape of the music, which makes it very liberating.
The first Suicide album is well known, but I don’t think the rest of their albums, or Alan’s or Martin’s solo stuff is as well known. What would you recommend someone should listen to after that first album?
Well, I mean, right now, especially the last few years, there’s been a lot of Alan’s solo records coming out. So I think you just go to YouTube and you scroll through them. You know, Alan did quite a few different styles of music after Suicide. They’re just not that well known, the records. There’s a lot of them out there right now. We’re doing some songs from some of his solo albums to let people get a taste of that as well. Not just, you know, the obvious, obvious Suicide songs.
And you’re also doing some shows with Tex Perkins.
Can’t wait for those. That’s going to be fun. I don’t know what he’s pulling out. I think he might be using a laptop and maybe a guitar. We’re going to sing a song or two together as well. But I’m just doing spoken word.
And that’s still your true love?
Well, absolutely. I mean, it’s just mandatory. It’s necessary now more than ever, I think.
We spoke a couple years ago just before your last Australian tour and you’d just finished up with Retrovirus, but you’re back doing music again?
Well, I never stopped doing music. I never stopped doing music and I never stopped doing spoken word. And sometimes they’re combined. I have a project, Murderous Again, with Tim Dahl on bass and Matt Nelson on sax, and we’re going to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City next week and we just came off a 10 day American tour. It’s like symphonies with provocative spoken word. It’s very much more Ornette Coleman than it has anything to do with rock. And now it’s up on Bandcamp, Murderous Again. It’s a very interesting format.
No plans to bring that to Australia at the moment?
Well, sure. I mean, but I can only do so much at one time. I’d love to bring it. In the meantime, it’s up on Bandcamp. That’s all I can say.
You’ve also been working with a new band, Genre Is Death?
Yes, they’re great. Their new album is just out on In the Red Records and it’s fantastic. And they were on tour with Murderous Again. Two piece out of Georgia, now in New York. They were on my podcast last week, The Lydian Spin. And I definitely say people should investigate because they’ve taken their influences from No Wave to alt, you know, Sonic Youth type stuff, but taken it somewhere else. It’s very interesting. The lyrics are great. The music is fantastic. So I’m highly promoting them.
There’s another group too, also on Bandcamp, called Bog Creeper. They’re from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Another two piece. And a band called New City Slang, that’s from Tennessee, which is more like New York Dolls, and Stooges rock. But, you know, one of the reasons I have my podcast is to help promote what else is going on there now and what has come before.
Do you find it easy to find new bands that you love or is it difficult to find something new that excites you?
You know, I don’t even know how I got all the people. I mean, I think my podcast is at 450 episodes. I didn’t know everybody, people are recommended. Tim brings some, I bring some, some are suggested. With Genre Is Death, I was doing a show with Kevin Shea, drums and vocals, at a club and I saw Taylor, who’s the bass player, singer, and I just walked up to her and said, “Who are you? Come talk to me.” And that’s how I met them. And so then we became fast friends and then we go on tour together. That’s how it works. Trust the witch.
You do this mentoring role with new bands and you do empowerment workshops. Did you ever think about going into formal teaching?
No, I just, I’m continuing to do workshops. I mean, that’s teaching enough. Teaching doesn’t pay enough, plus it’s too heartbreaking. What do you think I do when I’m out on stage? It’s public psychotherapy. It’s like a college education. It’s like a comedy show. That’s why I also have the podcast. It’s like an education and a present-day horror. That’s what we do. That’s what I do, ability and spin. Every introduction on my podcast is a wealth of trivial information. So go get yourself to college, go get yourself an education at the School of Hard Knocks.
When we talked a couple of years ago, you also said you were really wanting to do a Big Sexy Noise revival.
We did it in Europe this spring. We did it. It was great. And actually the, we will have copies of Big Sexy Noise live in Australia for sale at their merch stand. Yeah, it was fantastic. One of my favorite bands.
You mentioned about being on tour in the U.S. Is there any sort of insulation from the current administration when you live in New York?
I’m a news junkie. I know everything that’s going on, all the numbers, the statistics and the horror never stops. But at night, night rolls around, art is the salve to the universal wound. There’s no isolation from the idiocy that’s happening, but we’ve been here before, hundreds of times. Every news story is absurd. Hence, why I must continue to do what I do. Just in the face of somebody who’s lied 67,000 times, I must tell the truth, or at least according to the way I see it. It’s mandatory.
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LYDIA LUNCH PERFORMS THE SONGS OF SUICIDE AND ALAN VEGA
featuring Andrew Coates (Black Cab)
Sun 14 June – Meow, Wellington, NZ (as part of Lōemis) – Tickets
Wed 17 June – The Tote, Melbourne (with Black Cab) with guests Belle Phoenix & Jeffrey Wegener – Tickets – SELLING FAST
Thu 18 June – The Tote, Melbourne (with Black Cab) with guests Tongue Dissolver – Tickets – NEW SHOW
Sat 20 June – Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane – Tickets
Sun 21 June – Factory Floor, Sydney with guests Rebel Yell – Tickets
Wed 24 June – Ed Castle, Adelaide with guests Messianic Gloss – Tickets
Thurs 25 June – The Milk Bar, Perth with guests Streets of Separation – Tickets
SO REAL IT HURTS – LYDIA LUNCH & TEX PERKINS
Fri June 19th (two shows) – Kew Courthouse, Melbourne – SOLD OUT
Sat June 20th – Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane – Tickets
Sat June 27th – Riverside Live at Phive, Sydney – Tickets
Additionally, a special one-off screening of the film LYDIA LUNCH: The War is Never Over has been announced for Melbourne, with Lydia introducing the film herself:
LYDIA LUNCH: THE WAR IS NEVER OVER (A FILM BY BETH B.)
Tue June 16 – Brunswick Picture House, Melbourne
(Personally introduced by Lydia) – Tickets
