In Conversation: Christina Michelle of Gouge Away
It won't work for everyone, but in the case of Gouge Away, sometimes breaking up is the best way of staying together.
We often demand that our stories be linear: The humble beginning, the building momentum, the unexpected setback, the watershed moment, the victory, and then, if we’re lucky, the victory lap. These certainly make for the majority of the stories we tell ourselves. But real life is recursive, not linear. And we never know when we’ll get to that victory—assuming there ever is one.
Gouge Away’s story is most certainly not a linear one, and speaking with singer Christina Michelle, I get the impression that this is a fact that they’ve not only learned to live with, but one they’ve learned to embrace. Eight years since the release of their first album—and five years since the release of their last, after which they spent some time broken up—Christina seems ready to accept a messier, but ultimately much more satisfying narrative. Gouge Away’s newest and best album, Deep Sage, certainly suggests it. It’s a collection of songs in which the band she’s in really grows into the band they’ve become, and a collection in which Christina has begun to realize she’s not always even the story she’s been writing for herself. “I am more confident and more secure with myself these days than I have ever been,” she tells me. “But that’s a very recent thing, and I am still dealing with that.”
I want to start in a place that will be familiar to most hardcore kids. We all discover this scene, and then after some time, we begin to ask ourselves: What can I do to contribute to this? So for me, in 1989, I decided to start a fanzine because at that point in time I thought I was a better writer than I was a guitar player. I was trying to play to my strengths. My understanding is that when you got to this point, your choice was to put on shows. How old were you?
CHRISTINA: I was sixteen when I started booking shows, and I don’t know how I did it [laughs]. I think once I started going to shows, being involved just became an obsession. But I was so painfully shy. I still can’t believe that I would contact venues and contact bands and try to put it all together. It doesn’t even make sense to me.
OK, let’s rewind the tape. Because I get the shy part. Doing a fanzine—even though it required doing interviews—was more or less a solo project; I didn’t really have to deal with that many people. But promoting shows, that’s a people project. Of all the things you could have chosen, how did you land on the most social option there could be?
CHRISTINA: It felt like the most obvious one. I had just started going to shows when I was thirteen, and the only thing I knew at that point was that you go to the shows, and you go to as many of them as possible. I don’t think I even knew about zines or anything else at that point. The show was [the thing].
I barely even remember it, but thank God for MySpace. Because I’d just message the local bands that I liked and the venues I went to and it just kind of started there. When it came to booking shows in South Florida specifically, so many tours would pass us that I was just happy to be involved at all. And then at a certain point, out-of-town bands started to learn who I was and they’d contact me for shows—and that would start to be a lot of pressure because I wanted to pack the room out for them. I wanted them to get paid. But a lot of the time, luckily, I was working with bands that were small enough that they were just happy to have a show at all. Or I’d bake them cupcakes or something to try to make it worth their time [laughs].
You do make a valid point about South Florida. From a band perspective, I always remember those tours where we’d drive past the Florida border knowing that if we wanted to play there, we were going to have to do like a week worth of shows in the state to make it worth it. We couldn’t always go there.
CHRISTINA: I actually feel like living there almost made me someone who is better at touring and going to shows in general. Because I feel like there’s no show that’s too far. When I was young, as soon as I could drive, I was driving three or four or five or six hours to go to a show. It was like, if a band isn’t going to make it to Fort Lauderdale, I’d go see them in Orlando or Gainesville. It wasn’t really an option for me to miss things. I would get four friends and split the gas money and just do it. It created a lot of memories that are still special to me, and it was exciting—or at least versus living in a place where you can pick and choose what shows you want to see, or where you can skip things and be like, “I’ll go see them next time.” It meant a lot to me to be able to travel and see bands.
I remember hearing a story about how you used to integrate these bake sales or awareness campaigns for different social justice issues at the shows you promoted, and that you’d receive some pushback—people would mock you for it. Would you have described the South Florida scene as apolitical at that point?
CHRISTINA: Definitely. It was always hard for me to fit in because I was very drawn to political punk and hardcore bands, and my scene did not reflect that at all.
Did that make you question your commitment to this community?
CHRISTINA: Big time. Man, I don’t even know where to start with this. When I was younger and going to shows in South Florida, it felt like people were almost proud to be ignorant and violent and things like that. I would look around the room and there would be maybe one or two other girls around. I remember seeing the way the men would act towards women; like, the sexual assault would be right in front of your face. And I don’t know what it is about me, but even though I’m shy and awkward and I don’t really want attention, I would just have this need to speak up and against that stuff. That did not make me popular where I lived for like… probably ever [laughs]. Maybe until I moved away, I think.
There was a point where I really did feel like I was just over it. Where I felt like, I don’t belong here. The scene doesn’t want me. I was booking shows and people were always trying to pit me against this other promoter, who was a man who was older than me and doing it for longer than me. So people took that as me stepping into his territory. But at the same time, he and I were on good terms, and we were friends, and we supported each other. When I wasn’t booking shows, I was making flyers for all the shows that were happening. I was making zines. I was really trying to be involved in every way I could, but it still felt like, This place doesn’t want me. I’m done, it’s fine. But then I had some friends who told me I would really like Paint It Black, and even then, I was like, “I don’t care. I’m over hardcore” [laughs]. But I wound up seeing them anyway, and that changed my life. That got me very excited all over again.
Their political engagement, or the way Dan [Yemin] speaks between songs, is what inspired you.
CHRISTINA: Yes.
I’ve been sort of talking about that a little bit in Anti-Matter lately, and how that was a thing that used to be expected. It felt like every band had something to say and they were going to tell you between every song [laughs]. It’s not really like that anymore.
CHRISTINA: And that’s definitely something that I struggle with sometimes. When Gouge Away started, I felt like I wanted to carry the torch because I was inspired by those bands. I thought I was going to go do that, too, and that I’d speak between songs—and I am not a public speaker. I am very bad at speaking to a room. But I still felt this importance to do it anyway when we were starting out. It’s just that sometimes now I feel like maybe people need an escape, and maybe some people just want to go enjoy a show and they don’t want to be reminded of the horrible things that they’re thinking about all day every day. I am constantly having that conversation in my own head about what’s the right thing to do.
That’s actually a really interesting point. Neeraj from The Hope Conspiracy was just saying how he remembers growing up and feeling like most of his political education, and the way he just generally received information, was from punk records and punk shows. But that’s not necessarily how young people get their messages anymore. It’s more the constant doomscrolling than anything else. So it’s kind of a modern question: What actually is the best function of that time between songs?
CHRISTINA: I’m still trying to figure it out, and I feel like it’s a day-to-day decision, or even a moment-to-moment decision. Sometimes I have all this stuff planned in my head that I want to say, but then we get to that break in the set and… I might get scared, or I might just feel like I’m not ready to talk about this right now. But sometimes my mouth just opens and I just go for it and I just speak my mind. I’m always questioning it though. Because we’re always getting this constant stream of information, and a lot of it is horrendous stuff. I don’t want to pander to people. I don’t want to posture. I don’t want to feel like I have to say “the right thing” because it’s expected. Whatever I say, I want it to come from a place of honesty.
I think we’ve also gone through a few years recently where something you can say can be taken the wrong way, or can be intentionally misconstrued or twisted, and that’s scary. There’s a fear of being misrepresented. I’d hope that even if I don’t say something 100 percent perfectly, that I am speaking to a room of people who can give me the benefit of the doubt and assume that I have the best intentions. But, you know, not everyone feels that way.
I wanted to go back for a second, because you mentioned being sixteen as a promoter, but I also know you were also in and out of the hospital with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome at that age. What does that mean on a practical level?
CHRISTINA: It means that my body was built in a way where I kept getting blood clots in my arm. I would get it treated, and then a few months later, it would come back again.
Is that a visible condition or is that more of a silent struggle?
CHRISTINA: It was definitely a silent struggle. I’ve heard it be called a “silent disability.” And it’s hard to explain to people, too. I still deal with it, but I don’t really talk about it that much because I feel like most people don’t get it.
What was your state of mind about it back then?
CHRISTINA: I was in high school, and high school is already so hard. Adding to that, I was also a competitive dancer, and I played drums. Everything in my life, I had to quit. That was really hard. Even going to shows, I wasn’t supposed to go to them because I was on so many blood thinners that any head trauma at all could potentially kill me. But I still went. I was like, “You’re not going to take drums and dance away from me and tell me I can’t go to shows. I’ll stand in the back, but I’m going.”
You’ve talked about growing up with grunge before, and while I’m sure you took something from that style of music, whenever I hear you speak about the music you loved as a kid, I feel like you really start to sparkle when you talk about pop music. And this is actually something I relate to, because like, even when I was a young hardcore kid in 1987—I was literally a skinhead—I was still also a closeted gay boy. And I loved pop music. I still think of Madonna, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper as being sort of guiding lights for me, where I just felt like I was getting something from them that I wasn’t getting from hardcore. And I kind of wanted to talk about this because it’s so easy for people in the hardcore scene to dismiss pop music as vapid or meaningless—and in some ways, it can be—but whenever I’ve heard you talk about seeing Destiny’s Child or discovering Spice Girls, it feels like you’re talking about receiving things that hardcore hadn’t given you.
CHRISTINA: Oh, no, you’re spot on. I think a big thing about pop, especially as a young girl, is seeing what appears to be empowered bad-ass women, with their unique identities and styles just taking up space. And I think that one thing that always spoke to me—even though I feel like I didn’t realize this until more recently—was seeing confident women. I think that’s so important to girls.
How would you describe your socialization as a young girl? Did you not feel empowered to take your space?
CHRISTINA: I definitely have people-pleaser tendencies just ingrained in me. And I feel like a big part of that is that I always feel like I either have to prove myself or step aside. I am always picking which one of those battles I want to have. It’s not like it’s based on fact, either. I don’t feel like this is the way of the world. But it’s just that my belief for myself since forever has been that if I want to do anything, I have to prove to people that I deserve a space—or I should just be shy and disappear into the background. Yes, I am more confident and more secure with myself these days than I have ever been. But that’s a very recent thing, and I am still dealing with that here and there.
It’s interesting because on one level there’s this part of you that you identify with as being “shy”—this part of you doesn’t feel like you should take up space. But then the first things you do are become a show promoter and a singer in a band.
CHRISTINA: Uh huh [laughs].
So there’s a desire you have to take up space. Whether or not you succumb to that desire is one thing, but the desire is there. How did it feel the first time you walked in front of people and sang in front of them?
CHRISTINA: It was so scary. And I feel like that fear has been there for every single Gouge Away show until the last year or so. But that first show, I think I was worrying a lot about what other people thought. I was definitely in my own head, looking at the floor or looking at the drums, not making any eye contact. I was there, and I was doing it, but I felt small.
We essentially broke up in 2020 and the last tour we did, in 2019, was with Thrice and Refused. Obviously, there’s a big difference between us and them; they have much bigger names than Gouge Away does. But we were treated so badly on this tour by every venue that we played—the staff, the security, the sound people, everyone. It was like their mission to make it known to us that we weren’t shit. We were nobody. And I finally got to my breaking point on that tour at one show where we pulled up to park and the security [guard] wouldn’t even let us do that because he was like, “I’ve never heard of your band before.” Then, we were dealing with sound engineers who literally said, “It doesn’t matter what you sound like. No one’s going to be here for you.”
During our set, the feedback in my monitor was so crazy that I couldn’t think. I just snapped. I was like, “OK, if I have to hear this, then everyone has to hear this.” I started screaming into the mic and into the monitor—just making crazy noises. And then I suddenly made it a mission that I wanted to break everything on the stage. I just thought, These people didn’t know our name when we got here. They’re going to know our name when we leave. The other guys saw me and they were like, “OK, I guess this is the kind of show that this is going to be” [laughs]. So they joined in. We definitely didn’t win anyone over that night. We did not win over one fan that night! But I felt like this was the first show that I’ve ever played for myself and it felt amazing. And then sadly, we broke up shortly after that. Now I feel like the page has been turned. I am so comfortable playing shows and just having fun. You’re supposed to have fun. When you have a good time and you’re not in your own head so much, people enjoy that.
Sometimes the things that truly make us grow are situations that are thrust upon us. You don’t have a choice.
CHRISTINA: That moment really made me feel like I’d always been playing in my little box. And it was the first time where I was like, “Fuck the box!” [laughs]. There is no more box.
OK, I just want to say here for a second that it’s actually astounding to me how many hardcore kids that I’ve interviewed in the last year who are or have been teachers—including myself!
CHRISTINA: Yeah!
But one way in which you differ is that, when Gouge Away first started, you were teaching kindergarten. Almost everyone else I’ve spoken with were teaching at a high school or college level. Why primary school?
CHRISTINA: They were my favorite school years, personally. I had a few teachers from kindergarten through to fifth grade who impacted my life a lot. They encouraged me to be creative, and I was able to see my more artistic side, which meant a lot to me as a kid. So I always wanted to be that person for very young kids. Honestly, at first I wanted to teach fifth grade, but then when I started going to schools to do the student-teaching, I realized a lot of fifth graders are bigger than me [laughs]. I was getting mistaken for a fifth grader a lot.
One of the things that freaked me out about the idea of teaching primary school was that it felt like one thing to teach reading or basic math—things like that. But in kindergarten especially, you are essentially teaching children how to be human. How to respect each other. How to treat each other. I would think there’s a more direct sense of failure-feelings associated with that kind of teaching.
CHRISTINA: The behavior thing is the most intimidating part of that age group, but what I learned from spending time doing it was that I loved the kids that were classified as “bad.” I loved and gravitated towards those kids because I learned that when a kid walks into a room and is already judged in one way, they have no reason to not play that role. A lot of the time they just need extra love. So they might throw things in class or start food fights in the cafeteria, but once they’d see me, their heads would go down and they would be upset with themselves. Because we had that relationship where they knew I loved them and I didn’t see them as a bad kid and they didn’t want to be that way around me. It was very special.
There’s an interesting ratio that has kind of flipped with your lyrics for Gouge Away, where the early records were more explicitly political in nature, while the newer stuff has really turned inward in a lot of ways. You once described mental health as something that had begun “consuming” you, and I’m curious about what specific life change drove you to that place.
CHRISTINA: I was deep into politics during that [first] era. I was in multiple human rights and animal rights groups. I would work my full-time teaching job, go to shows, and then also go to protests and cook food for the homeless. I was very, very involved. But then my mom got sick. She was having heart issues and had to go through heart surgery, and that was something that lasted for almost a year. That whole time, I didn’t really have a choice but to be in my true feelings, to be worried about my mom, and to have that flip where my mom doesn’t take care of me, but I take care of her. So I got consumed with my mental health instead. And it also kind of made me realize that I’d always had these problems, but that I was distracting myself with other interests and projects.
Right. It’s easier to obsess over the world’s problems!
CHRISTINA: Yes, exactly.
When Gouge Away first broke up, you referred to it as a period of time where you hated music—and the story you just told about your last tour maybe informs me a little bit more about that. But I’m also taken by the lyrics to “Stuck In A Dream,” which are really relatable to anyone who tours: “Redundancy / A boring thing / No in-betweens / Of the extremes.” It’s like, I’m either happy or I can’t be around anyone. I’m either starving or there are six boxes of pizza sitting in front of me. This is the stuff that can make a person feel at their wit’s end. How do you beat that feeling personally?
CHRISTINA: [Laughs] Oh my God. How do I beat the feeling? I think it’s something that I’m having to figure out all over again. I’ll be honest: This tour we just got home from was our first full U.S. tour in years, and in some ways, some of those shows were my favorite shows of all time. But in other ways, it’s so easy to make yourself sad and discouraged. It is so incredibly easy. I am constantly having conversations with myself, and with the other guys, where we’ll just start beating ourselves up sometimes because we’re comparing ourselves to other people and their growth. But you have to remember that social media is everyone’s highlight reel. It’s everyone’s best photos, best videos, best shows. Everyone is putting their best stuff forward. All of their shows do not look like that. So when we hit those days on tour, sometimes it hurts. It’s like, “What’s wrong with us? Why is everyone else doing so well?” But what actually helps is talking about it. Because then I’ll talk to someone in a band and I’ll tell them about how we played a show in this city, and that it was rough, and they’ll be like, “Oh, yeah. It was rough for us as well.” And then I’ll talk to another band and it was rough for them as well.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
CHRISTINA: It really is. I feel like this tour back was a big learning experience and now I know more going into the next one. I do need to make room for things like physical fitness; I need to commit. That is a huge mood changer for me. It’s just more rewarding for yourself and it makes your body feel better—and those are good things. I want to eat healthier going forward. I kind of slacked on that big time on this one. But also I need to listen to myself a lot more, and when I do need personal space, I need to put the headphones in and create my own little bubble in the van. I was touring [as a bass player] with Nothing, and whenever I needed my own space from them, I would journal. I would just write what I was feeling, and it really helps to get it out there. I also bring tarot cards with me, which is a grounding thing I enjoy [laughs]. Just listening to yourself is important.
How did moving to Portland affect your day-to-day life?
CHRISTINA: I love it here. I honestly hated living in Florida. But Portland is just a beautiful place. I can go out in nature whenever I want to. I try to take as many walks in the park a week as I can fit in. It’s just been a total reset on my life. I moved out here when we were broken up, and I got a lot of the space that I needed. I have so much baggage and resentment that lives in Florida, so this was a breath of fresh air. I made time for therapy and for myself. And without that, I don’t think I would have ever been ready to start up Gouge Away again. My problem is that I get obsessed. And I care so much that I completely lose my sense of self outside of the band. I need to work on those boundaries, even still. It’s a work in progress.
It seems possibly related to the “people-pleaser” tendency you spoke of earlier. Are you able to identify when that impulse comes up and catch yourself in the middle of it?
CHRISTINA: I definitely do.
Can you stop yourself?
CHRISTINA: I know I’ve stopped myself before. I usually try to put a name to it, and be like, “We’re people-pleasing now,” or “We’re trying to appease others,” so let’s take a step back and ask ourselves what do I need here? Or what does Gouge Away need here? I’m just trying to remind myself that creating boundaries is good for everyone. Asking for more space is good for everyone. I feel like one of my biggest problems was that I wanted to be everyone’s favorite. The label’s favorite. The booking agent’s favorite. The manager’s favorite. I just wanted to be easy for everyone, and I wasn’t putting our needs on the table at all. But we’re doing that a lot more now. We’re asking for what we need a lot more now.
I actually feel like you don’t give yourself enough credit. Because all of these things we’re talking about—having confidence and taking up space—it’s like, I’m getting mixed messages. On one hand, there’s what you’re saying. But on the other hand, there’s what you’re doing. And I’m not sure these two things align! [laughs] Even when I was reading about the recording process for Deep Sage, and how you recorded your vocals live with the band… I’ve been making music for over 30 years and I would never do that. That takes nerve.
CHRISTINA: I had an out-of-body experience while I was doing that. I was like, “Who are you? What are you doing? This isn’t me!” [laughs]
That’s what I’m saying. Maybe you’re labeling yourself wrong. Maybe that actually is you. Maybe stepping into the things that scare you actually thrills you.
CHRISTINA: I mean, it got me excited. The guys had so much fun recording live on our last record that I thought I wanted to give it a try. I thought I’d do it for maybe two songs and then we’d go back to how we’d always done it, but then it just kept happening. I wanted to do another and another and another—and it just ended up being really fun. I think I realized this while I was doing it, thinking, “Whoa, this isn’t like you.” But it just got me more excited. It was like I was witnessing my own growth right now.
It reminds me of when I was teaching university writing courses. A lot of times a student would come up to me and say something like, “Well, I’m not a writer.” And I was always like, “What the hell does that even mean?” I really tried to interrogate them about it because I feel like we try to cement these aspects of our identity that feel more fixed than they really are. We start to believe that we are “a type of person,” and then we only act according to that belief. So if I believe I am “a shy person,” then I will not go to the party because “I’m too shy.” But that doesn’t allow for you to treat each opportunity as an individual experience, and to say, “Fuck it. I am whoever I am at this second.” That experience sounds like an amazing “fuck-it” experience for you, where you started to realize that maybe you’re not always one kind of person.
CHRISTINA: Yeah. Like, I’m not the story that I’ve been writing for myself.
Right. So how tightly are you holding onto that story is what I’m trying to say, Christina. Because I don’t believe you anymore [laughs].
CHRISTINA: I appreciate that! And this has been a really nice reminder of how far I’ve come. I think that sometimes the story that you tell yourself—even if you see it as a flaw—it can be more comfortable to just hold on to it, to be like, “I’m just shy. That’s the version of me I’ve always known and that’s just who I am and where I’m at.” But it takes a lot more work to unlearn those things and to try different things out.
OK, I’m a little worried because I feel like you may have already answered this question with a story you told before, but I’m going to ask it anyway to see if anything else gets jarred loose. Can you think of a turning-point moment for you in hardcore that made you feel at least as empowered as Geri Halliwell ever made you feel?
CHRISTINA: [Laughs] I actually do have another answer for that. My original answer might have been recording my vocals live; if this tour didn’t happen, that might have been it. But on this tour, we played Neumos in Seattle, and it was just such an important night for me.
The first time we ever got asked to play on the west coast was Rain Fest at Neumos [in 2016]. Just being able to go to the west coast for the first time in my life, but then also going because of music was crazy to me. Because I was this little girl from Florida, who just wanted to play some shows and record a little EP. I didn’t know I would be doing all the things that I’m doing now. So when we played Rain Fest, we felt like this baby band on this huge festival of hardcore giants. The room felt massive. The stage felt massive. Hate5Six filmed it. And I hated it [laughs]. It’s not my favorite set ever.
But we just played there again on this tour. And we were so locked in. We were so at our peak. And we were playing songs that I one-hundred percent believe in, and that I’m in love with. And I love this band. I love these guys. It was maybe my favorite set ever, and just getting to do it on stage at Neumos, it just felt like we’d come full circle. It was like, finally. We’re here.
Anti-Matter is reader-supported. If you’ve valued reading this, please consider becoming a paid subscriber and backing independent, ad-free hardcore media. Your support is CRUCIAL to Anti-Matter’s continuation and growth. Thank you, friends. ✨
"...maybe people need an escape, and maybe some people just want to go enjoy a show and they don’t want to be reminded of the horrible things that they’re thinking about all day every day. I am constantly having that conversation in my own head about what’s the right thing to do."
Here! Here! So true, I feel as if art—visual and audio—does just that. Great interview, many heavy topics covered and sorted.
" I think a big thing about pop, especially as a young girl, is seeing what appears to be empowered bad-ass women, with their unique identities and styles just taking up space."
More and more, there are a lot of women (and gender-nonconforming) singers fronting hardcore bands, so I'm really curious to see what we get from that - what happens when you could look up to Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish OR Kat Moss and Bryanna Bennett?