TAYLOR YANCEY
- The LGBTQ History Project
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
MARY SHELLEY, PERFORMER
The LGBTQ History Project wants Mary Shelley to be famous. They create sharp, smart music with a switchblade smile. They blend Brooklyn art visions with midnight confessions. They are perfect candidates for our Cutting Edge Catalyst series.
I saw them perform at a Punk Island music festival, and my jaw hit the floor. They were wearing scrubs—no explanation offered. Were they there to perform a lobotomy? After seeing them live several times over the past couple years, I wrote to them on Instagram asking if any of them were LGBTQ.
I interviewed Taylor Yancey, the group’s primary guitarist. The reason I say “primary” is that the band constantly switches instruments and front persons. Taylor started in theater, where she discovered a strong sense of queer affinity and an unremitting passion for performance.
One thing that sticks out is how Taylor, who is very articulate and knows how to say what she needs to, kept calling Mary Shelley “punk.” This is interesting to me because nothing about their sound is rudimentary. They are all very highly skilled and precise, and have three minutes and thirty seconds of hooks down. Where does the punk come from? Taylor says it comes from their DIY mentality. DIY isn’t branding here—it’s the operating principle, locally rooted but outward-facing. Alongside her music, she works as a community helper for an autistic teenager. She shows the same patience, care, and attention that flows through her artistic life.
— August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project
“I was born in Norman, Oklahoma, which is—I call it a suburb. Norman was really quiet. It was a college town. The main trade in Norman is football. Oh, football is huge. I didn't know what being gay was until I was probably nine. I didn't grow up in a particularly religious environment. We didn't go to any kind of church that preached about Hell to gay people. So it wasn't really a part of my ecosystem at all until I got into theater, and then I started meeting gay people, and that was kind of my main circle. Even as a young kid—I got into theater when I was nine. That's when I started meeting and hanging out with gay people. The boys in the theater were effeminate. Then, when I was 14, I came out to some of my friends, and then came out to like the larger school social system that year, as well, because I started dating a girl at high school, and we were kind of the only ones, at that time, doing that, the only ones being queer. There were signs, though. When I was six years old, I had my first love. It was with a teacher. I was definitely in love with her.
While I didn’t grow up with homophobia, there was a really intense fear of judgment. I mean, there was a legit fear of a hate crime. I don't know if I built it up in my head to be so paranoid about that, but I was really adamant about not doing PDA in Oklahoma, and I would just get kind of geeked out. People in Oklahoma are very nosy, and they'll just sort of look at you and stare. It's not like New York, where it's more appropriate to avert your eyes from somebody. In Oklahoma, it's very common just to observe people.
Growing up was a process. I started learning how to think critically and how to listen to the news, and I think about all of that, combined with being on Tumblr and seeing social activism online—what does that even mean? The social justice warrior culture of Tumblr. I learned about a lot of news, I learned about a lot of discrimination, and I also learned a lot of amazing things about gay culture, too, but I think all of it was just so much information for me. I had access to the internet, and I had access to all the information that I could possibly need about being gay or being a lesbian. The internet gave me so much information.
I was always into music, but I got into theater, and it was like I found my Island of Misfit Toys. We did A Christmas Carol and a crazy version of Robin Hood. I remained active in regional theater through high school and into college. We did Fun Home, Alison Bechdel’s play about a young woman’s relationship with her closeted gay father and her own coming-out journey. That was a really crazy experience to do in Oklahoma.
I had a girlfriend, and we were in love and everything. My parents took my phone and read our messages. There were all kinds of messages, emojis, and stuff. Oh yeah, emojis out the wazoo, but they didn't really—I think they were also worried about me being judged. They didn’t have very strong prejudices against being gay, but they're very much like government people, like a very straight-laced kind of vibe.
As long as I can remember, I always just wanted to play guitar. I don't know if I ever actually saw anybody play guitar. I did a little bit of—I was just kind of fiddling around at first, and then my parents got me lessons. Then, in middle school and high school, they had a classical guitar program as well.
If I had gotten recognition earlier, I imagine I would have been stunted, like many child actors. Also, the public has a hard time seeing them as somebody other than their childhood selves. So it's like a double whammy: you get praise and so much attention for being this version of yourself, and you feel pressure to keep performing at the same level—not having any freedom to grow into a new self. The greater audience has trouble with that as well, like we've seen with the careers of countless pop stars and child actors like Britney. Britney is trying to break out of her shell and just getting constantly shat on, and look where she ended up. She ended up basically enslaved to her dad. It’s trippy. That's the most extreme version of it.
Nowadays, Mary Shelley is using the terminology ‘Avant-Hard,’ but previously we would describe it as post punk, dancy. Basically post punk. We put together songs in many different ways. Sometimes it'll be one person bringing in an entire structure, and then we kind of expand on it as a band—add our own nuances, give it our own personality—especially if someone has multiple parts already written. What is really fun to do is when one of us just comes in with a riff, and then we jam on it, and we just jam on it and jam on it, week after week, and then it really takes shape into a song, like within the moment. That’s what makes it really feel like magic. It almost doesn't even feel like we’re creating it and doing it.
We approach new material differently. We vary in genres so differently. So when we premiere a song to an audience, it's always a jarring experience for both of us because it's something they're not used to hearing from us, and it's going to be something that we are not used to playing, or an energy that we're not used to expressing. So our audiences, like in New York, are great, patient, and willing to work with us. Still, sometimes we want to take it down and get a little bit more serious, and we really appreciate when they kind of give us grace and are like, ‘I loved that song.’ The feedback loop is really great, honestly.
There are about 30 of us bands trying to make a name for ourselves. I don't know how many are actually gigging. There might be fewer, but I bet there are a lot of people trying to make projects like Pop Music Fever Dream. There is this sector that's kind of queer punk, trans punk, but also kind of noisy, in a formerly male-centered way.
We never pay ourselves. We put it all back into the band: all the money that we make from gigs, we spend it on the record or spend it on merch, and then the merch money just pays for gas. We are just trying to get to the gig, fix our instruments, and keep up. So it's like a net zero. We'll still have to have day jobs for a really long time until the band itself is making an exponential amount of money.
When we were on tour in Europe, we got paid for gas and plane tickets. We just kind of had to trust the booking company and that the venues would have built-in audiences, and they did. There, they still have a punk spirit. They still have that CBGBs-type vibe, and they idolize it so much, like they worship that culture, and they're so legit about being anti-fascist and so legit about being anarchist, like it's just the real deal in Europe. That culture is now lost in New York, but over there, they're still really trying to uphold it, especially in Berlin, Germany, and in France.
You asked us why we still call ourselves punk. It's because we're still very much in the DIY spirit, as far as it goes behind the scenes. We still direct all our own music videos and have no budget to do so, so we make them with our buddies who are willing to work for like $200 because they're just amazing humans and share a similar creative vision to us.”
Related Stories
• Pop Music Fever Dream: Carmen Castillo Interview
• A Crazy Cockette: Rumi Missabu Interview
About The LGBTQ History Project
The LGBTQ History Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit preserving the lives and legacies of LGBTQ+ activists from the first wave of gay liberation through oral histories, archives, and the QueerCore Podcast.
Comments