The B-52s never meant to start a revolution. They were just hungry, broke, and in possession of one shared tropical drink at a Chinese restaurant in Athens, Georgia. “We couldn’t afford food, so we got a drink and we shared it,” Kate Pierson remembers of the night their weird little spaceship took off. Six people, one drink, and a jam session in a psychologist’s basement later, and the B-52s were born by what she calls “spontaneous combustion.”
Forty years later, the band that once confused New Yorkers into thinking they were drag queens from England is still an anomaly—and still standing.
There was no punk scene in Athens in the late ‘70s. There was a feed and seed store, a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a university that “was very disconnected from the town,” says Pierson. But there was also a crash pad called the 40 Watt and just enough Patti Smith singles to go around. “Someone ordered Piss Factory from a magazine,” she laughs, still amused at how DIY their musical education was. “We just related to that immediately. And Blondie, Talking Heads, Devo…”
Once they took their chaos to Max’s Kansas City, it was game on. “There was this disbelief,” Pierson says. “‘You’re from Georgia? Or maybe… England?’” The New York buzz was loud. Bleecker Bob plastered their debut single all over his store window—though “he said he never got them and never paid us,” she notes with only slightly concealed shade. The single was “Rock Lobster,” a track so simultaneously stupid and brilliant it could’ve derailed the whole thing.
“We didn’t think about it. We were not ambitious,” Pierson insists. “We were just happy to play. We did it for fun. We wanted to dance.” But, she adds, “of course we thought, this is a weird song, are people going to like it?” Apparently yes, because indie radio picked it up, and the world got a band that wrote songs like chaotic seafood menus with call-and-response vocals and more sly queer references than most people caught in 1979.
“People said it was just a list,” she says of “Rock Lobster.” “But it’s more than a list—it’s a list of incredible sea creatures and crustaceans!” There were boys in bikinis, girls with surfboards, baked potatoes, and maybe the first dance hit to sneak in a lifeguard-related gay reference. “I love it,” Pierson shrugs.
Still, there was the issue of being taken seriously. “I think because there were men and women fronting the band—and Fred, you know, is obviously gay—I think that really did work against us,” she says. Not so much with fans, but “maybe in terms of radio play.” Plus, they had that fatal flaw in the eyes of rock critics: they had a sense of humor. “There aren’t many bands that are musically serious but have a sense of humor lyrically.”
Eventually they did get a greatest hits set—Time Capsule—and even snuck in a new song about Debbie Harry. “She’s the coolest person ever,” says Pierson. “They invited us over to their apartment and had gold records just stacked against the walls like they were cereal boxes.” The song “Debbie” has “a little twist at the end,” she teases, “and I’d love to play that one live again.”
Fast forward to Funplex in 2008—only their second album in 18 years and the last full-length we’re likely to get. “We weren’t really thinking about commercial success. We did it for the fans,” she says, before recounting a record release campaign so cursed it could’ve been a Spinal Tap subplot. “People from the label would show up like, ‘I think I’m your radio rep? I might still have a job?’” she deadpans.
Pierson doesn’t see another B-52s album in the cards, though maybe a single or two. “It’s hard to come together. We live in different places,” and their jam-first, collage-it-later writing style is “very time-consuming.” Keith Strickland has to be in, too, and he’s been their secret weapon since Ricky Wilson died. “Keith really composed the soundtrack and then Cindy, Fred, and I would jam on the melodies and lyrics,” she says. “That’s what makes it unique.”
In the meantime, everyone’s doing their own thing. Cindy Wilson has a solo album, Fred Schneider has another, and Pierson has one in the can. She’s written songs with Sia, Chris Braide, and Mexican superstar Aleks Syntek, including one about the wall (“the wall,” she clarifies with a raised eyebrow).
So yes, forty years in, and the B-52s are still weird, still wild, and still impossible to categorize. “No one said, ‘Let’s form a band,’” Pierson laughs. “It just happened. And we kept going.” If only more revolutions started with a single drink at a Chinese restaurant.
And here's an earlier interview between Kyle and Cindy Wilson!
