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Arts & Music

Gimme Five! Betsy Shane of Pink Flag

They fly under one Pink Flag, but this Durham trio is really three banners in one: Dork Flag, Lucky Flag and Sick Flag (Princess Ojiaku, Betsy Shane and Jessica Caesar, respectively).  These three ladies came together in 2007 and have been rockin’ out ever since, sharing their riot grrl pop with anyone who dare listen.

They’ll release a new EP, King of the Scene, this Saturday June 18th, but first see how their Lucky guitarist handles our five question assault.

1. If your band were a holiday, which would it be?
If Pink Flag were a holiday, we would be the fourth of July. I know what you’re thinking; you expected Flag day, right? Wrong. We like drinking and blowing stuff up, and Independence day is exactly that. Also, I think I have written like 3 or 4 songs about the shenanigans on the fourth.

2. What do you hope listeners discover through your music?
First and foremost, we hope they discover more of our music. Personally, I hope that girls everywhere will want to start their own bands. I think the majority of them discover that girls going balls to the wall on rock and roll is pretty sexy. And powerful. Because it is.

3. Describe your feelings toward performing live.
I love playing live, personally. I think, maybe, I might love it more than the other girls. I’m a ham and kind of an attention whore, though, so the whole live show is basically me, tap-dancing as fast as I can to outshine Jess’s firework drums and Princess’s geek-chic.

4. Who/what might be a few inspirations or influences that would really surprise people?
Surprising influences? Well, when we went on tour recently we rented this tricked out van with XM radio. One of the only stations we could all agree to listen to was “Lithium,” the sort of dark, brooding (not in the cool way) “classic grunge” station. When we finally branched out to find individual “fav” stations, Princess chose an 80s new wave station, Jess picked top 40 and I chose Broadway. I think most people would be surprised to learn that Jessica grew up playing drums at church; it’s how she got started. Princess is really into Better Than Ezra. I don’t know how into them she is, but she talks about them a lot. 🙂 I was, maybe surprisingly, influenced heavily by jazz guitarists in high school. I wanted to gig at coffee shops playing chord/melody versions of stuff like In a Sentimental Mood and Misty. I think that’s probably where my love of show tunes and my love of rock music converged. There and with good old Billy Joel, but I’m from Long Island, so everyone kinda already knew that.

5. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? (how ’d that turn out?)
As a kid? I wrote a parody song in fifth grade (to the tune of Supermodel, by Jill Sobule):
I don’t care what Ms. Malinow says
I’m gonna be a litigator
and everyone will wanna yell like me
wait and see when I’m a litigator
and my mercedes will shine like the sea-ee-ee, ee-ee-ee

Obviously, that didn’t quite work out, since I’m a waitress and music teacher.

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Wander over to Motorco this Saturday, June 18th to check out Pink Flag and grab their new EP. And by all means, give Betsy a high five when you see her!