Future Sounds

Drummer Rhonda Lowry says, “First came feminism and then came my life.”

by Mare Berger Photo by Ariele Max

Rhonda Lowry was a feminist first, and then later became a drummer. Feminism gives the queer musician structure to her work and life, and for that reason she always prioritized community, collaboration, and listening. Lowry is the drummer for Erica Eso, a Brooklyn-based experimental-pop band.She was a dancer for 10 years and is an avid meditator, which informs her awareness and relationship to time and the nature of impermanence. All of these values deeply inform her musicality and creativity. You can hear it in the wide, spacious strokes of her drumming, how she listens and responds with such spontaneity and presence. Her groove evolves and changes—she lets it become what it wants to be.

Tom Tom: Tell me a little bit about Erica Eso and your creative role in the band.

Rhonda Lowry: Erica Eso started as an individual songwriting persona for Weston Minissali, and has now evolved into a full, five-piece band. Weston is such a generous band leader, it feels like there’s always an open door for our ideas. From a songwriting standpoint, I feel like I’m good at thinking about song structure and hearing parts of songs in a bigger context, helping the details gel.

Didn’t a review recently say that you play subversive drum parts?

I definitely feel like there’s a rhythmic gridded-ness to some of Weston’s compositions, and I’m really interested in inserting arhythmic moments within a gridded structure, so I think that’s probably what that person was pointing to when they said that. We have a couple of songs that are really soupy, flowy, and arhythmic, where I play around the melody in a really free way, but we also have super structured, more mathy songs with time signature changes, tight choruses and more danceable rhythms. I really like having that diversity within one band’s sound. Maybe that’s the thing I’m most proud of about the band—that we have a really dynamic, eclectic set.

I’ve noticed that. There’s a range of feelings and style. And it all feels like something. Didn’t a recent reviewer call it “alien music”?

Yeah! Or like, “music from the future.”

How does feminism affect your relationship to music?

I came of age as a feminist before I came of age as a musician. By the time I started playing drums, feminism was something that was so deeply embedded in me that even if I was bumping up against some patriarchal bullshit in the music world, it was so much a part of who I was, how I saw myself, and my values, that I knew I could deal. First came feminism, and then came my life, is how I feel.

You came across it so soon because of college?

No, I’ll give credit to my older sister Leigh on that one! She turned me on to a lot of stuff: books, bands, major feminist thinkers. I took a sociology class in high school, and that was really huge for me. They didn’t explicitly address feminism in the class, but they addressed social inequality, and I kind of took it from there, and ran with it. This combination of influences helped me articulate for myself the reality I was experiencing of being socialized female under patriarchy, and most importantly, helped me realize I wasn’t alone in my anger, frustration, and desire for change. By my senior year, I was definitely outspoken about sexism and committed to applying feminist ideas and concepts to whatever my interests were.

And in a way, you’re still doing it, but you’re tearing down the walls with your sticks instead of with books.

Right! I just think there’s something to that—encountering feminist thought was the most empowering thing, and I took that with me wherever I went. And any young person can do the same, whatever their chosen field, whatever they end up doing with their lives.

Something that I think about all the time is how the world, men, and the patriarchy have designed art and music in such a way that we think we have to be alone to get better. That to excel, we have to be in isolation and work nonstop. It just ends up creating competition and a feeling of disconnection.

Yes! My number one priority always is being a good collaborator. I’m not a natural songwriter as an individual, but I think I have a lot to offer through collaboration. I enjoy shaping the songs, writing good beats, and supporting the song in becoming the best it can be. To me, drumming I like versus drumming I don’t like, is when it’s clear the drummer is only thinking about their own performance. They’re not listening to the other players when it’s improvised, or it’s just a wank-fest if it’s composed. So, being a good collaborator is important to me. I think there’s something gendered about this that deserves discussion: collaboration versus auteurism, or the American obsession with individualism and exceptionalism.

Yeah, that’s totally patriarchy and capitalism incarnate. Go in a room by yourself, and get really good, and that’s what makes a “genius.”

But the person who knows how to take what you just spat out onto a page and shape it into something better—they’re not important. They don’t deserve credit. I think this filters into a bigger conversation about what labor we recognize as legitimate and worthy of celebration. How emotional labor and “women's work” is unseen labor, absolutely essential for a healthy, functional society but is supposed to take place without acknowledgment or compensation.

What is the role music plays with current events and politics?

I would loop it back to community and coming together—holding space for feeling. For Erica Eso, I think the political underpinning of our music has more to do with tapping into an emotional spaciousness and vulnerability than with any overt “message.” Any real political momentum, I think, has to start with empathy, extending beyond your own experience to connect with others. This is how we recognize patterns of systemic oppression, or attempt to break free from the tunnel vision of privilege, or find the will to organize at all, by recognizing that your pain is my pain, that we’re connected. I would like to think our music can cultivate that.

What’s coming up soon?

Erica Eso is focused on the next record release in 2019 coming out on NNA tapes. I also DJ. You can check it out every last Friday of the month at Troost (1011 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn, New York) in Greenpoint.