Jaime Lowe’s interview begins: “The first time I saw Whore Paint, a self proclaimed-feminist, Riff Rock/No Wave/Crooner Shred hybrid band out of Providence, RI, I was immediately 16 again and at my first Sleater-Kinney show in my busted Docs, baby barrette firmly lodged against the side of my head with a newfound hope that there’s an entire league of cool ladies who I could aspire to be like. Tulsa-raised Providence resident and woman about town, Reba Mitchell (of Made in Mexico and Assembly of Light Choir fame) commands the stage as a seasoned front woman. With expert skill, she screams, purrs, and seizes the crowd. She and the band, composed of Hilary Jones, (formerly of Arcing and Sweetthieves) on guitar and Meredith Stern of Teenage Waistband on drums, clad in their uniform of black silk slips (“we challenge the idea that sexuality and blatant femininity necessarily preclude power”) dominate and devastate the audience, leaving mouths agape, eardrums split and ideologies flexed.
Whore Paint’s name is an allusion to makeup, “an epithet used to slander women who adhere to our cultural standards of beauty. Whore Paint is what we wear in to battle,” they declare. “Whore Paint is who we are as a band.” The whole interview can be read here.