Cherry Glazerr have been out on tour supporting their 2017 album Apocalypstick, and band leader Clementine Creevy took to Facebook to write about one of the negative aspects of life on the road. “The amount of sexism that my band and sound engineer / tour manager face on the road is simply unreal sometimes,” she writes. “It’s outrageous. We walk into a venue and people look the other way. They treat us with open hostility. They ignore us, call us names…It makes me sick, fills me with a rage that I know can’t be healthy for me. I feel bad for them, living with such anger and stupidity. I don’t blame men, of course. I blame the patriarchy, of which we are all victims.” Read Clementine’s full essay below.
Cherry Glazerr will be in NYC for a few shows this week – they open both of Lord Huron’s sold out Brooklyn Steel shows, and they also join Against Me! for their free House of Vans show on Friday 8/3. After that show, they headline a show of their own at Rough Trade (tickets).
The amount of sexism that my band and sound engineer / tour manager face on the road is simply unreal sometimes. It’s outrageous. We walk into a venue and people look the other way. They treat us with open hostility. They ignore us, call us names. The amount of names our FOH has been called besides her own name, or at least, “your front of house” is unbelievable – Miss, Missy, “The Lady”, sweetie. It’s simply disgusting. We’re ignored, hated. It feels so awful when the stage manager looks at us and scoffs, looks the other way when we come in through the door. They ask us what we’re doing here, why are we here? Who are we? We’re the band that you hired… then they accuse us of being difficult, just for existing it seems. I walk into a venue with an open mind and an open heart, I do not assume that people will be disrespectful to us. Why would they be? What’s the point of that? I assume that people hired to do their job are capable of just doing their job – greeting the band and taking them to the green room, loading in the gear, giving them a 10 minute warning before stage time. These are things that people at venues should know how to do. Haha we would know. We’re a professional band, this isn’t our first rodeo. Instead they stand there with their arms crossed and sneer at us. And when we ask them for their help (their job), they roll their eyes and laugh at us, as if to say “of course you need help.” When in fact it’s their job to help us. Any band. It makes me sick, fills me with a rage that I know can’t be healthy for me. I feel bad for them, living with such anger and stupidity. I don’t blame men, of course. I blame the patriarchy, of which we are all victims. But god damn, some of them really do make it hard not to.