Kim Gordon on her influence as an iconic guitarist: “I never thought of myself as a musician”
Kim Gordon has spoken to NME about her relationship to the guitar, as well as her and Sonic Youth‘s influence on modern music, despite never considering herself to be musician.
Despite being primarily known as the bassist in the seminal alt-rock pioneers from 1981 until they split in 2011, due to the end of her marriage with singer and guitarist Thurston Moore, Gordon found her first avenue into music from the art world via the guitar.
“My roommate gave me this guitar that her boyfriend had given her,” she told NME about her first real six-string back in the early ’80s. “She got mad at her boyfriend and they broke up, so she gave me the guitar. Jeffrey Lohn from Theoretical Girls came over and taught me how to make half jazz chords, or jazz chords but playing half the strings.
“It’s an interesting story about this guitar. When I met Thurston, I had it and he was like, ‘I know this guitar’, because he knew the ex-boyfriend. It became the guitar he used for ‘Burning Spear’, where he would stick a drumstick through the strings and then use another to make percussive sounds. That was my first guitar. My second guitar was an East German one that I bought in Berlin. That was super cool-looking. It was called an Eterna. I wish I could remember the first songs that I played it on, but it was quite early.”
Now, she has teamed up with Fender to launch the Limited Edition Kim Gordon Jazzmaster, based on a 2008 Mexican Standard she was gifted on Sonic Youth’s last tour of South America – albeit with the colours inverted and unique tweaks from friends and collaborators.
Known for approaching music from a more textural and experimental point of view, Gordon explained how she was proud to put her stamp on the legendary model – also played by the likes of Elvis Costello, Dinosaur Jr‘s J Mascis, Television‘s Tom Verlaine, The Cure‘s Robert Smith, and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine – but that her own guitar influence came from somewhere quite organic.
“Well, from the very beginning I saw a bunch of ‘no wave’ bands play, and that’s very inspiring and so free and dissonant,” she shared. “I grew up listening to jazz and free jazz, so that just registered with me. At that time there were people like Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham who were using tunings to create overtones with multiple guitars. When Sonic Youth started, I first played guitar but then I was playing basslines, so it made sense to switch to bass.
“I just played by ear and never properly learned. I approached it more as a visual artist first. I never really thought of myself as a musician and had no aspirations to play bass or guitar. I just fell into it like a lot of people [in] post-punk that were inspired by music being a tool for expressions of anti-corporateness.”
Gordon added: “In a sense, I haven’t really changed. I have more of a vocabulary of playing, but I never really learned.”
In that sense, is it more surreal to hear traces of her influence as a musician in other artists?
“Sometimes, but I don’t really pay that much attention,” Gordon replied. “I feel that in general, people use dissonant music now and they’re not afraid of it. When we started out, the term ‘noise’ was used as a derogatory term. For us, it was a shading or a colouring, just being realistic in expression and reflecting the world. It was a tool, but we didn’t think that much about it.
“It’s kind of unique that it has a humbucker pickup for the bridge, but it also has the conventional Fender single coil, which is a sound that a lot of people like.”
It’s an especially interesting time for Gordon to release a guitar, given that her latest album ‘Play Me’ is more beat-driven with a trip-hoppy vibe rather than the rock sound she may be known for, the latest evolution in her continued and celebrated solo career.
“Some things get sampled and put in,” she said. “I don’t actually play guitar live for this record, apart from maybe on one song, because I have to focus so much on singing. Sarah [Register, guitarist] replicates some of the things and then makes up some stuff too. There’s one song we do every night that is basically all improv and an old song that has guitar on it.”
Her three solo albums have taken fans by surprise and proven to be a real breath of fresh air, but has she thought about her next move?
“Not really,” she replied. “We made two or three new songs recently. We might end up in the same place, but we’re thinking about starting in a different way. We haven’t yet decided on anything.”
The last time Gordon spoke to NME was in 2019, when she warned of the impact of President Donald Trump and foresaw the end of capitalism. Given that ‘Play Me’ deals in these horrorshow doomscroll times, does she still see a reckoning on the horizon?
“I don’t know. I feel like it’s kind of even worse right now,” she said, speaking to NME just a few days before the Republicans’ huge losses in the US midterm elections. “All of the power and wealth is in the hands of about five people. Incredible spending is going on with AI companies in these unprofitable data centres. It’s not good. Also, just the fact that the AI agents can hack everything now means the internet isn’t safe anymore, but that could also be a good thing if we don’t have phones?”
Given that now is a really harsh climate for musicians and creatives, Gordon ended by sharing some simple advice for any would-be artists feeling daunted by either picking up an instrument or pursuing a career.
“It depends on what you want out of music,” she concluded. “For a lot of people, music is a lifestyle. It’s becoming harder and harder to make money from playing music in general, so a lot of people have other jobs, but it’s good for the soul. Just play.”
‘Play Me’ by Kim Gordon is out now, as is her Limited Edition Fender Jazzmaster. Visit here for more information.
Gordon’s tour continues with an appearance at Hipnosis Music Festival in Mexico tomorrow (Saturday November 7), before a slot at Clockenflap in Hong Kong in December. She’ll visit Japan in January, ahead of appearing at Kilby Block Party 2027 in Salt Lake City in May.
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