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Dunno what to say. Stoked to have these people in my zine, in the world and in my life. Looking forward to meeting those I haven’t. MPM all the wayyyyyyyyy...
1. Tell us about Melting Pot Massacre! Whatever you want to say about it.
Shasha: MELTING POT MASSACRE is Shasha on vocals, MZ on guitar, Mai on drums, Supii on bass
and Andi on second guitar. Collectively we identify as 1.5/2nd generation migrant backgrounds in Aotearoa with roots from all over Asia. We started wanting to puncture the predominantly white male machoist hard- core punk scenes in Auckland, but also challenge the white female riot grrrl-sounding stereotypes associated with all-female bands. There was this void we felt not
not just in music but also within the activist circles we were involved in, a lack of intersectional rage so to speak – a rage that can encapsulate our experiences of diaspora, racism, and other lived forms of marginalisa- tion growing up as immigrant youth, as people of colour situated, connected and moving across colonized land and time, as Asian feminists transgressing gender and race boundaries within our own contexts, and as grass- roots activists channeling politics through music. The name Melting Pot Massacre aimed to do some of that. We try to posit in people’s minds the popular eurocentric project multi-culturalism, known as the “melting pot” and metaphorically puncture it (the massacre) through our performances.
2. And what about past bands you have been in?
Shasha: I have sung in three or four bands, mostly cover bands: my most memorable ones were a skapunk one that did lots of ReelBigFish, Less than Jake, Save Ferris and No Doubt covers, and another one that just wanted me to sing like the goth chick from Nightwish! That was all during my late teens and they were all in Singa-
pura, where I was born and raised in. I’m possibly 1.75 generation migrant actually unlie the rest of the band (lol), being a mid 80s-90’s kid, so my earlier influences ranged from BoyzIIMen to Nirvana, then Cranberries to SpiceGirls. It was only when I met this guy (who eventu- ally became my boyfriend and eventually an ex), that I got introduced to zines, hardcore and political punk stuff. In retrospect, a lot of “grrrls” that I was friends with in the underground scene back then got involved through con- nections with guys too, which says a lot in fact about the very gendered access to subculture “capital”. I always felt there was something strange about all of that way before I learnt of the word feminism, and so I made a zine to rant about it (it was called “Puink”) and eventually started a zine distro (Puinkilla Projects) to connect with punks across the world. I got more interested in zine writing and social justice than making music after that. That’s also how I basically linked into activism when I moved to Aotearoa.
MZ: My first ever band was wizard rock band called the Muggle Struggle, but it was just for fun and we never performed. We were trying to draw attention to the political nature of the harry potter series, with songs such as “Voldemort is a fascist” and one about dementors as capitalist soul-suckers. Second band was an anarcha- feminist riot grrrl punk band called Hysterror then the name changed to Mad Bitcher after changing drummers, we wrote a lot of songs against rape culture, police violence, anarchy and animals.
3. What kinds of activism or organising or actions do you all partake in?