Beth Ditto spoke to NME at Glastonbury 2024 to tell us about the return of Gossip for their first new album in 12 years. Watch the interview in full above and check out the full chat below.
The singer caught up with us backstage at the Worthy Farm festival, shortly before Gossip headlined the Woodsies stage. The slot came 16 years after they first performed at Worthy Farm, and followed on from the release of their latest studio album ‘Real Power’.
Arriving back in March, the project marked the band’s sixth LP and their first in 12 years, following on from 2015’s ‘A Joyful Noise’.
“It’s been really cool and really interesting to see, because it’s like riding a bicycle,” Ditto told NME. “When we did the record, it felt exactly the same as ever. So people ask us what the response has been like and I’m like ‘I don’t know, it’s the same!’
“It’s all been really fun and we’re still in this moment of being like ‘Oh, we’re playing festivals again?’”
Ditto also recalled how the album was initially intended to be a solo release, and explained what inspired the shift to share it as part of the band: “I was with [producer] Rick Rubin, we were working together and we got Nathan [Howdeshell, bandmate] to come out.
“As he was playing, I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be a [solo] record or a Gossip record. He was playing these beautiful things and working really hard, so it didn’t feel right to not give him his credit where it was due and make it into a group project,” she added. “It was then that we decided it would be a Gossip record, just like that. Things like that are always so much more boring than you want them to be. It’s always like, ‘Oh I don’t know’ – it’s that simple.”
Following our interview, the indie icons took to the stage for what proved to be an explosive set in the Woodsies area – breakin out fan favourites including ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’, ‘Heavy Cross’ and ‘Move In The Right Direction’, as well as newer tracks.
They also got fans talking online during the set as Ditto used the platform to call out the US government and encourage them to push back against oppression. “We had that shit show going on the other day, I don’t know what’s going on with that,” she said, referring to the recent Presidential debate.
She also said that seeing Trump win the 2016 campaign made her “want to bite my own tongue off”, before encouraging the crowd to help her chant “There are more of us than there are of them” before launching into ‘Move In The Right Direction’.
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