Bonnie & The Mere Mortals – Bechdel Test
Bonnie & the Mere Mortals have announced a new album Take Me to the Moon to be released August 29th on First City Artists.
Today, the Pittsburgh-based band shares “Bechdel Test” in celebration of Pride.
The standout single is a spirited collaboration between queer-identifying frontwoman Bonnie Ramone and her friends and performance peers Sophie Gault, Dear Marsha,, Amy Martin, and Woodland Creatures. Named for the feminist, cinema criterion requiring that a film feature a conversation between two named female characters about something other than a man, the song began with a question from Ramone to Gault: “Is there a female duet that passes?” The result is a cathartic, bar singalong saturated in pop culture touchstones from Shania Twain to Tomato-gate, and aimed at dismantling the “little lady singer” trope.
Bonnie Ramone shares: From ‘Tomato-gate’ to ‘A League of their Own,’ we wanted to jam pack this song with history, stories, generational wisdom, and community. We talked about the struggles of being a woman musician, sharing all the stories we have of being written off or made to compete. From ‘Are you sure you can carry that?’ to ‘Wow, you’re actually a guitar player’ to ‘Sorry, we already have a woman on the bill.’ Well, we won’t play that game. We lift each other up.”
Bonnie & The Mere Mortals’ howling country rock draws from Dolly Parton, David Bowie, and The Cure in equal measure. “People who love our music, they all love it for different reasons,” says Ramone. Raised on a cattle farm on the border of the West Virginian panhandle, she describes her childhood self as a Goth kid content to sit in a tree reading Edgar Allen Poe or idolizing shadowy rogues like Johnny Cash and John Prine, a gritty misfit amidst country conventions. “Growing up in a rural place, I couldn’t comfortably come into my queerness. Then I moved to the city to do that, but I felt like I had to hide the fact that I was from the sticks.” Having lived within the painful limits of preconceived boxes, Ramone uses music to bust them open for everyone else, binding listeners via that universal, human desire for connection. Aptly dubbed Y’allternative, the band draws a vibrant audience that includes Appalachian boomers, the queer community, young punks, and cowboys. It’s for fans of Hank Williams and Chappell Roan. For steel workers and for drag queens.
Ramone, who is also a trained photo-realist and widely acclaimed professional tattoo artist, cares as much about the visual experience as the sonic. “If you ask me, the absolute best art that’s being made right now, is coming out through Drag,” she says, relishing the artform’s celebratory absurdity. “Why can’t I sing a coal miner murder ballad in drag?” There’s an openness to every performance. When a performer can be open, a listener can too.
The band made their full-length debut with Southern Gothic in 2022, followed by its companion record Live & Unplugged at the Club Cafe in 2023. The latter, recorded in front of a sold-out audience in their hometown, saw praise from tastemakers like Americana UK and Rainbow Rodeo, and put the band on the road. “Those releases built the foundation,” Ramone says. “Now we have the house.” The title track of Take Me to the Moon is a cosmic western, a Bowie-esque actualization of a brighter future, with a wink of intergalactic escapism. “What’s going on in our country, the world, it can all feel really hopeless,” Ramone says. “It sometimes feels crazy to be making independent art in a time like this. But I think it’s important for people to know that you’re still allowed to have dreams.”
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