By the time Lily Gist picks up a guitar, there is already a lifetime of music inside her. A lifelong cellist, she describes melodies learned from composers such as Bach, Elgar, Bloch, Bartók, Schumann and Grieg as something that freely rattles around in her mind before finding its way into her guitar playing. That classical sensitivity to tension, release, timbre and emotional weight has found an unexpected home in the raw, restless world of Brooklyn punk. Lily is a visual artist as well as a musician. Her work has explored the ways people measure and understand experience, including questions of social bias, self-perception and the blind spots that shape how we see one another. Her artistic life has moved between visual art, technology and music, with earlier work and professional experience connecting her to institutions and creative communities in New York. Then there is Frida Kill, the Brooklyn feminist punk quartet she shares with Maria Lina, Jeanette D. Moses and Gaby Canales. The band's music is deliberately unruly, drawing from post-punk, garage rock, noise and riot grrrl, but beneath the distortion is something deeply human: four women with different histories learning how to make space for one another. They trade instruments, share vocals and songwriting, and bring their individual experiences into a collective sound. Gist has described that process as complex, sometimes argumentative, but ultimately grounded in listening, learning and having each other's backs.
For Lily, punk is not simply an aesthetic. It can be a place where difficult experiences are allowed to become sound. On Frida Kill's 2022 EP, EP 1,, she takes the lead on "Get Over It", a song born from an encounter in which a friend misgendered a trans performer. What began as an uncomfortable question about whether she was "overreacting" eventually became a song about the impossibility of simply swallowing hurt and moving on. Another track, "Here's Hoping", confronts the cruelty she encountered while transitioning even more directly. Yet there is nothing one-dimensional about Frida Kill's anger. Their songs can move from immigration and the treatment of undocumented street vendors to gender, friendship, nightlife and the ordinary absurdities of surviving in New York. Their first recordings, the 2020 Demos and 2022's EP 1, captured a band still discovering itself, learning instruments, switching roles and finding its voice in the Brooklyn rock scene. There is a particularly striking contrast at the heart of Lily Gist's story: the precision of a cellist, the curiosity of a visual artist and the uncompromising volume of a punk guitarist. Her music does not try to smooth those worlds into something neat. Instead, it lets them collide, producing something noisy, vulnerable, thoughtful and alive. And somewhere between the classical melodies in her head and the amplified chaos of Brooklyn, Lily Gist has found a language of her own.
Monika: Hello Lily, and welcome! You and Frida Kill are a perfect example that punk rock is not dead!
Lily: Hi Monika! So are you, I just play loud music.
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| "We’re very different people from very different backgrounds." Photo by Edwina Hay. |
Monika: For me, punk has always stood for authenticity and equality. Is it hard to keep that alive when four strong-minded, charismatic women with different backgrounds and experiences share one band?
Lily: We’re very different people from very different backgrounds. The other three don’t know what it’s like to be trans and I don’t know what it’s like to be Black, Hispanic, Jewish, from an immigrant family, or to have a pastor for a father. We all lead and support, fill multiple roles, different songs have different singers and we swap instruments often. Navigating each other’s differences can be complex work sometimes, but we all have each other’s backs 100% and even when we argue or push each other’s buttons we listen and learn.
Monika: The story goes that the band grew out of a Halloween cover act you started with Maria Lina. So where did the name come from?
Lily: That’s right, Maria and I did a Roky Erickson Halloween band together and it was so fun! We went to see him play that Halloween too, sadly one of his last shows. It was over at Knockdown Center. Maria dressed up like Frida Kahlo and I was the devil. But that isn’t where we got the name from, actually, our friend Jordan Franklin came up with it. She’s one of the most powerful poets I know, and I really look up to her for her control over language and the feeling and rhythm of her words.
We were singing about immigration and violence, children in cages, people on fire, and we wanted our name to sound feminist and strong but we couldn’t come up with anything we could agree on. I ran into Jordan at a show at King Killer studios and asked her if she had any ideas. Looking back, it’s as if the words were hanging in the air invisible to us and she just plucked them down and put them together.
Monika: What a great story! Listening to the Ramones or the Sex Pistols, I have always been fascinated by how much they conveyed with such minimal arrangements. Do you side with that approach, or does your music aspire to be more complex?
Lily: I think I’m the most minimalist in the band. I like to remove notes to let others through, especially the snare drum. I like to get out of its way so it pops out in the mix. I try to say things in as few words as I can and I want the structure of a song to be only as complex as it needs to be to express the idea behind it. I don’t mind repetition if it gives the listener a chance to linger on a mood or idea, but I hate it when it’s just for the sake of symmetry.
When I play a chord I like to hit as few notes as possible. Sophisticated people tend to turn their noses up at power chords but they offer so much freedom. They aren’t inherently major or minor in key, they’re just the root, fifth, and octave, so power chord motifs can coherently weave through all kinds of ideas, keys, and modes as the song develops.
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| "I’ve been a cellist for my entire life, and melodies I’ve learned freely rattle around in my brain." Photo by Mike Borchardt. |
Monika: Jimmy Page used to say that every guitar player has something unique about their playing, and that the task is to identify what makes you different and develop it. Have you managed to do that yourself?
Lily: I’ve been a cellist for my entire life, and melodies I’ve learned freely rattle around in my brain and find their way out when I’m sitting around with a guitar in my hands. When I’m alone my natural habit is to play dark, meandering minor key melodies borrowing from the likes of Elgar, Bach, Bloch, Bartók, Schumann, and Grieg.
Cellos have an incredible power to build and release tension one note at a time, especially when playing solo. Subtle changes in timbre, volume, and speed add so much emotional resonance. Jacqueline du Pré guts me, her sound washes through me from head to toe. I’m still developing as a guitar player and songwriter but if there’s something unique about how I play, it’s probably buried in all the ways I find myself chasing that sound without losing the beat.
Monika: Frida Kill has two releases so far, “Demos” (2020) and “EP 1” (2022). What does 2023 have in store for the band?
Lily: I think of both of those as just demo tapes to help us book shows. We started right before the pandemic began and we had a lot to learn. We cut our teeth in the Brooklyn rock scene. I didn’t know guitar at all and barely played bass. Maria’s voice was killer already, but she hardly played any instruments, Jeanette was a successful photographer who had followed bands around the country but never played herself, and Gaby had never drummed in a band before and had been mostly focused on her career as a veterinarian. Now we’re finally ready, and 2023 is our year. We have our first full-length record coming out soon and will be going on multiple tours around the US. I also hope to get a second record out this year.
Monika: Transition changes so much about a person. Did it change you as an artist, too?
Lily: I started puberty blockers right at the beginning of high school, estrogen after my sophomore year, publicly transitioned and legally changed my name after my junior year, and had GRS right after my 19th birthday. I then moved to New York City for college where I lived stealth for almost a decade.
My school, my friends, my jobs, even my romantic partners were completely in the dark, and I had to learn to find peace with the unclosable gap between myself and others. I was terrified of the spotlight, afraid that some ghost from my past would recognize and out me, which I thought would ruin what little chance I had of success or happiness. Opening up publicly changed all of that. When I finally allowed myself to step up into the spotlight I could feel the absence of all that fear. It gave me a serene sort of confidence, one that I don’t feel anywhere else but on stage.
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| "Maria dressed up like Frida Kahlo and I was the devil." |
Monika: Some people speak of trans rock as a genre. Does the term make sense to you?
Lily: I’d argue that “trans rock” isn’t a genre, it’s a global community, and one wonderful example within that community is Brooklyn TransCore. It’s brimming with powerful, brilliant, talented trans artists playing many styles of music, with bands like The Dilators boasting all trans femmes and Tits Dick Ass fronted by Julia Pierce alongside country rock star Mya Byrne and avant-garde rocker Pinc Louds.
And it isn’t just music, that group includes all kinds of artists, organizers, and community activists. I’m sometimes shy around all that energy. It’s something I want so much to be a part of, but I spent so long looking through the window as a lonely stealth girl that it’s kind of overwhelming to me.
Monika: I interviewed Mya six years ago, and it is great to see how successful she has become over the years! We all pay the highest price for fulfilling our dreams to be ourselves, often losing our families, friends, jobs, and social positions. Did you pay such a high price as well, and what was the hardest thing about your coming out?
Lily: I lost most of my friends, was sent anonymous death threats, was doxxed, beat up, bullied, ostracized, laughed at, and worse. I found myself running into the arms of damaged men more than double my age and later found that it didn’t even matter that I was trans, some of the deepest cruelties were inflicted by people who thought I was a cis girl. I feel lucky to be alive and when I think about those years I prefer to focus instead on what got me through them.
Monika: There is talk of a passing or non-passing syndrome that keeps us prisoners. Cosmetic surgeries help to overcome it, yet we will always be judged accordingly. How can we cope with this?
Lily: I don’t know what passing syndrome would be but I can say that these last few years I’ve been trying to be more visible to trans people. I want to be a part of the community I spent so long trying to hide away from. I feel so isolated sometimes, most of the people I hang out with are cis het musicians.
Monika: Think back to the first time you saw a transgender woman on TV or met one in person. Was there a moment like that which opened your eyes and helped you realize who you are?
Lily: No, but I remember reading the word “transsexual” in the glossary of a middle school health textbook and being stunned that it was real, that there was a word for me.
Monika: Turning to your country, how do you see the present situation of transgender women there? When I look at our younger sisters, I am quite jealous of two things: support from parents and puberty blockers...
Lily: I had both of those things. I had to fight for them, it took years, but I had them, and then I fought for job protections and other legal rights in Massachusetts and New York. I worry that the level of care that I was able to receive will be made illegal and I want to do everything I can to keep that from happening. I talk about it nearly every time I go on stage.
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| The Portrait of Lily Gist by Alexarts. |
Monika: The rise of the transgender movement coincides with a growing number of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) who reject the assertion that trans women are women and deny us a place in women’s spaces and in transgender rights legislation. Yet I have felt like a woman as long as I can remember, I look like a woman (though I am sometimes clocked), I have my vagina (made in Thailand), I cannot menstruate (true), and I cannot give birth (yes indeed). Which element disqualifies me from being a woman?
Lily: I remember fantasizing about crashing the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival when I was a spiteful teenager. Nowadays I just feel an aching sadness knowing their views are informed largely by trauma and fearmongering. It’s easier to feel outrage than love. It’s easier to act defensively than to open up and accept your own faults. They aren’t our enemies even though they go out of their way to hurt us. They’re desperate for a sense of safety and are taking the path of least resistance.
I know how susceptible I was to unhealthy choices when I was in that mindset. We’ve been made into a wedge that divides the working class, the women, the people of color, and every other marginalized group, keeping us from uniting under the same flag against the ruling class and the patriarchy. I practice radical acceptance and try to extend grace wherever I can.
Monika: Memoirs are a popular choice among transgender women. Has writing one ever crossed your mind?
Lily: Ask me again in 20 years.
Monika: Deal, I promise to do it! What place does love hold in your life?
Lily: I’ve had many great loves in my life and I’ve broken up with all of them. I crave love as much as anyone but I don’t think I’m very good at giving it. Trust doesn’t come easily to me and I struggle with creating and maintaining healthy boundaries. I hope over the next few years that I can grow into the person I want to be and find the person I want to be with.
Monika: Some transgender women hold back from transitioning out of fear. What would you say to them?
Lily: Life may be short but it’s the longest thing you’ll ever experience. Some things will hurt, and sometimes that hurt can take decades to heal and there’s no way to speed that up. Let things take as long as they need, try to be patient with people, extend as much grace as you can, and little by little carve out your path and find your community. We’re all in this together and we all want the best for you.
Monika: My pen-friend Gina Grahame wrote to me once that we should not limit our potential because of how we were born or by what we see other transgender people doing. Our dreams should not end on an operating table, that is where they begin. Do you agree?
Lily: I’ve lived at least three lives since I was on that operating table. Of course, I agree.
Monika: Lily, thank you for this conversation, it was a pleasure!
Lily: The pleasure’s mine, thank you for everything you do.
All the photos: courtesy of Lily Gist.
The main photo is by Kelsey Wagner.
© 2023 - Monika Kowalska
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