Bonnie and the Mere Mortals Talk New Live Album and Aurora Pride

“Southern gothic” is a term that can be used to describe storytelling that revolves around dark themes and the American South, such as the plays of Tennessee Williams or novels like To Kill a Mockingbird. When the term is applied to music, it often means southern, country music with darker themes, bringing up the murkier side of southern culture with artists like The Dead South or Slim Cessna’s Auto Club.

For Bonnie and the Mere Mortals, the term “Southern gothic” is very literal, as they find themselves with one foot in country and the other in goth and shoegaze, all with queer lyrical themes. It’s a creative blending of genres that seems to attract listeners of both the country and gothic persuasions and finds odd connections between the two cultures. Bonnie and the Mere Mortals will be playing a few shows in the Denver area in the coming months, including at Aurora Pride on August 5. OFM sat down with frontwoman Bonnie Ramone to discuss the contradictions of being a queer person from Appalachia and how that translates into the band’s unique brand of gothic country. 

The first thing I want to ask is, how did you end up starting this project?

I started Bonnie and the Mere Mortals as a personal exploration project. Growing up in Appalachia , I moved schools and went to an art school, and then I went to college; I got out of my sort of small town, and then realized that it wasn’t so cool that I was from a rural area. And even growing up there, you hate your hometown and hate everything to do with it, whatever.

And I got to a point in my 20s where I was wrestling with my own identity and where I was from and what I liked and had this weird dichotomy of going to goth nights but also falling back in love with people like Gillian Welch and old country music. And I wanted to make something that expressed all of that. And I felt like, if I felt like that, then I’m sure other folks did, too. 

So your new live album comes on August 4. What was the most exciting part about making this album? 

I think the collaboration aspect of it, and just being excited to curate something so specific and so special in Pittsburgh after the pandemic. I’m not an incredibly social person, but I did miss performing anything. That was really difficult for me. And I wanted something that really captured that spirit that made you feel like you were there and captured those intimate moments. And I also really wanted to collaborate with other people. So I think at one point, we have eight or nine people up on stage and getting to hear your own art in that way expanded with so many people around in the room was just a completely otherworldly experience for me. 

OK, so you have released two singles off this live album, and you have a third one that will probably be out by the time this sees publication. So I just want to ask about them. First one was “Sarah,” which really shows off your talent for storytelling. Tell us a little bit about how that song came about. 

That song was probably the one that I’ve had the most trouble (with) and took me the longest to write. It’s something that I started writing probably three, four years ago, just trying to get my own feelings out about the town that I grew up in and a mélange of mixed feelings there. Because it’s really beautiful; there’s all of these hills and hollows and mountains and wildlife, and it’s so untouched in some ways. And then in other ways, it’s suffocating, and there’s junk coal everywhere, and people don’t have jobs. And I had friends that grew up in hand-me-down modulars from the 50s. And there’s just so much trouble and judgment and problems there, and it’s moving to the city and then feeling homesick for that.

It’s sort of a mixed bag; you don’t know how to feel. So I think I started writing that song out of out of the feeling of that. But also from a personal perspective, it was based off of a friend that I had, when I was younger, and her story. So it brings in a lot of things: it’s about the town itself; it’s about my feelings about my home, and about this friend that I had. And I wanted to create a really clear picture of it without sugarcoating anything, but also creating hope in there. Musically, I tried really hard to have this feminine-versus-masculine and heavy-versus-light energy, and both of them weaving in and out of one another. Balancing all of that took me a really long time; I’m really proud of how it came out. 

And then the latest single has been “Tennessee,” that was originally the on the EP. And you released this one, specifically, for pride month? 

Yeah, that was actually the first song that I wrote for the project at all. So me in the middle of my own identity crisis, I wrote that song in the Nashville Airport and Suites Motel, like in the most stereotypical way possible in Nashville. And it was because I had this yearning to go to a bigger city, to go to Nashville. And when I went there, it really helped me find my own queer identity and my own identity, and I really found the community there that was welcoming to me. And I yearn to be a part of that.

So I wrote that song from that perspective in 2016. And in the past year, it’s taken on a completely wholly other meaning. And I wanted to rerelease it for that purpose. I’ve seen a lot of people with everything going on, all the drag bans, and all of the things happening in Tennessee right now, that people just want to give up on that state. I’ve seen people getting their Tennessee flag tattoos covered and writing it off. And that happens so often with anything to do with Appalachia. One bad thing happens, and everyone’s like, “Well, fuck, they all suck anyways.” And there’s so many amazing BIPOC and queer people and drag performers and trans people in Tennessee that are fighting really hard to reverse this and create progress. And they have a beautiful community.

So regardless of the fact that this is what they’re going through right now, this is what they’re struggling with. I still love that community and want to fight for them and want to uplift them and not write them off. So it was important to me to rerelease the song with the lyrics read in a completely different perspective now for me. And it just felt important to me like to put that out now. 

I believe by the time this comes out, you’ll have the third single out to which is “Evaline.” Is that a true story? 

No, “Evaline” is just a story. A lot of queer songs are anthems or about something like really major, really big, really dramatic. And I really wanted to write a queer relationship song that was—I guess for lack of a better term—mundane, like about like the normal things, the anxieties that we experience as people because, queerness isn’t all just giant moments. There’s normal relationship problems, too. So “Evaline” is about (how) sometimes you don’t feel great about yourself, and you might think that you don’t deserve your partner.

And you have that anxiety that they’re too good for (you). So “Evaline” is the story of that, that someone else is coming up trying to hit on your partner, and you’re like, “OK, well, I don’t deserve my partner, but you certainly don’t. Get out of here!” And just that simple moment that it’s a normal relationship for you. It’s not something huge. I don’t know who has high self esteem, (but) anyone with low self-esteem can clutch onto (that), which is me. 

What are you excited about in terms of playing Aurora pride in August? 

Oh my goodness, what am I not excited for? I just came home from Denver Pride. And I’ve, again, felt so welcomed by the community in an overwhelming way that I’m not even great at digesting. It’s on a whole other level for me of community and togetherness and people lifting one another up. And it seems, at least for me living in Pittsburgh, it’s such a huge community. And it’s so cool to be able to feel like myself that much. I’ve never been to Aurora Pride, but it’s such an amazing opportunity for us and such an amazing community for us to be able to be a little part of. 

And you were also at the Y’allternative Pride—What was that like? 

Oh, that was great. I have this amazing video of DJSlave1, who’s a goth DJ in Denver, spinning (Dolly Parton’s) “9 to 5” and just a room full of goths dancing to “9 to 5.” There’s no better joy than that. It was incredible. The one thing that I’ve been worried about with how we present ourselves in the band (as) a Southern gothic band is that the country folks aren’t gonna like how dark it is and that the goth folks are gonna think I’m a poser or something. And it never turns out that way. I always play shows, and then the most black-clad folks on the planet will come up and tell me about how their dad was a coal miner or what their favorite murder ballad is or how much they loved Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings. So having a bunch of people like that in a room together was just magical.  

And tell us a little bit about the Whiskey on the Front Porch event you have coming up in September. 

We are closing out the Brandi Carlile Red Rocks weekend with this event. And (it) sort of brings in the idea of, like, old, queer tea dances. And I have a song called Whiskey on the Porch. And (my publicist) Cody’s House of Corazon has been producing and putting that together. So I don’t have all the details about it, but the number of drag acts and fun stuff that they have planned looks amazing. I have never gotten to do such specialized events before, and it sounds like it’s going to be incredible. 

Often when I’m doing these interviews, I ask musicians what it’s like being like a queer person in their genre, but I’m usually interviewing punk rock or heavy metal or pop acts. What is it like being a queer person and making your kind of music that’s got that Southern element to it as well? 

I played metal before this for like 10 years. And country and R&B are the only genres that I can think of where it’s not “female led.” Like, if you’re in country and you’re a woman, then you just get to be, like, a country musician. You don’t have to be a “female led metal band.” Both country and gothic genres tend to have a lot more feminine-led things in them so, when it comes to that, it’s much more comfortable.

But then with the queerness added on top of that, I think when I’m in like country spaces, they just see me like I’m sort of a cartoon character, and I haven’t really had to deal with anyone being awful. I’ve been really lucky, thus far, to not really experience too much hate. And in the goth genre, goth is super gay, always. But honestly, it’s been the most enjoyable, community-building, wonderful experience in music that I’ve that I’ve had so far.

I’ve had plenty of other bands, and I’m typically dealing with guys being really skeevy, or thinking that I don’t know anything about my instruments, or they find out that I’m queer, and guys get gross, and I’ve experienced plenty of that in other genres. But maybe it’s just because it’s 2023 now, or maybe it’s the the music genre, but it’s just been so much more welcoming. And the path has been so much more clear within that. It’s been great. 

That’s really interesting. Do you have any other new projects or anything else coming up that you want to plug? 

Oh, goodness. So the album actually drops on August 4. So Aurora Pride, I think will technically be our album release party. But beyond that, the the single coming out and the album. We’re coming to Denver three more times this year. We’ll also be coming back in October and doing some spooky tour and things. So I’m pretty excited about that. And we also tour frequently down to the Nashville area. But between all of these trips and the album coming out, I don’t think there’s room for anything else.

Photo courtesy of Bonnie and the Mere Mortals