I’ve done plenty of these interviews, so I know the drill, but only a few days following the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the right to abortion that had been in place for decades, it doesn’t take much for me to stray a bit from the unspoken rules.
As I begin my conversation with Megan James of synth-pop powerhouse Purity Ring ahead of their July 16 show at the Factory in Deep Ellum, the singer says the band is " having a day off between shows in Washington, D.C.”
That’s all the nudging I need to forget my questions about Graves, the stellar new EP James and her bandmate Corin Roddick just released on their own record label, The Fellowship, or about the oddities and intricacies of touring in the age of COVID.
After excitedly asking, “So, what’s it like in D.C. right now? Can you tell how messed up everything is right now up there?” James says she hasn’t been out and about very much but would be seeing more of the city later in the day. I try to pull the interview back on a more straight-forward track.
“I’d like to apologize to you for basically just saying, ‘Hey, everything’s horrible, now tell me what you think about it,’” I offer. Thankfully, James understands.
“There’s no need to apologize,” she says. “This is all relevant. It’s bad, it’s really bad and really scary for a lot of people. I’ve been talking about this a lot, and I’ve been telling people to stockpile [progesterone blocker] Mifepristone and Misoprostol because they’re going to be harder and harder to get in the future. There’s censorship on the internet in regard to how and where to get them. People need to have them around for family and friends, and those people will need support, so donating to N.N.A.F. (National Network of Abortion Funds) are needed too.”
James has a unique perspective on this decision and the direction the U.S. seems to be going politically. She was born and raised in Canada, where she lived until moving to Los Angeles a few years ago. Canada has no criminal restrictions on abortion, and it is also covered under the nation’s single-payer healthcare. For James, the right to an abortion isn’t a legal matter, but a human one.
“I’m not a political specialist by any means, but I definitely have a uterus,” she says. “We’ve all known people who have needed an abortion or who have been in life-or-death situations. I definitely have lots of feelings about this, and I’ll keep talking about this, and this topic has really become a part of the tour for me.”
This is the first time James and Roddick have taken their act out on the road since 2017 thanks to the pandemic. The band has grown musically a great deal in the past half-decade, as evidenced not only on Graves, but on 2020’s full-length WOMB album. Two years before the Supeme Court's ruling was handed down, the way Pitchfork described WOMB in a glowing review makes it feel like the album was meant to prepare listeners for what is happening to American women now.
"What I bring to the band is this form of femininity in how I create metaphors and how I think about the world through my body. My body has never been safe in this world, and I feel that all the time." – Megan James
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“Over the course of these 10 glittering pieces of synth pop, Purity Ring experiment with a conceptual coming-of-age narrative," the review said. "In each song we meet a young woman, feel her nascent passion and holy shame, and cast our eyes to the horizon as clouds gather, spitting lightning. We fear for her. We wonder if she’ll quell the storm or find herself swept away in it.”
Such fluid timeline relevance isn’t only found on WOMB. James has found that some Purity Ring songs dating back to the band’s beginning a decade ago are as relevant today as when they were written. She even cites “Belispeak,” a haunting track from 2012’s Shrines that peeks into the oft-complex relationship between mother and child, as one that is more than topical still today.
“We’re playing songs from all three of our albums and the EP on this tour,” she says. “The night that Roe v. Wade was overturned, I felt like each of the songs we played all felt very on-topic. What I bring to the band is this form of femininity in how I create metaphors and how I think about the world through my body. My body has never been safe in this world, and I feel that all the time. My thoughts and feelings are the thread that runs through all of the songs I write.”
James says the Factory in Deep Ellum is one of the two stops she was most excited about when this tour was planned. During the 2015 Purity Ring show at the then-named Bomb Factory, James told the crowd that it might have been the biggest show they had ever played.
That memory lightens things up a bit, and the conversation shifts to the way songs can mean different things to different people at different times and just how helpful that is when going through tough times. But real life and real problems are waiting once we hang up the phone and James knows it.
“I mean,” she says. “Not all hope is lost, but … fuck.”
