Style Rider: Babes Trust of Brooklyn Electropunks Bottoms Keeps Calm and Stays Untangled

Photo by Amy Lombard

There is simply no community of performers who covet the importance of personal style more than men in drag. Try and out-dress a drag queen and prepare to fail. When you consider the stakes, fashion’s role in this particular world is, for lack of a better word, mandatory. This week on Style Rider, we spoke to Simon Leahy, one third of the gayest dance-punk band in Brooklyn, appropriately called Bottoms. As the keyboardist and songwriter for Bottoms, Leahy a.k.a. Babes Trust chooses to address the darker side of the drag scene (self-hatred, AIDS, adolescent trauma) through liberating electropunk performance art. The result, according to JD Samson of trailblazing queer-pop outfits MEN and Le Tigre, feels reminiscent of early sets by the similarly evocative band The Gossip. Samson recently signed Bottoms to her label Atlas Chair and released their debut EP Goodbye earlier this year.

This coming September (12-13), Leahy as Babes Trust will be performing at Bushwig, the fourth annual festival of drag, music, and love in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Ticks (get em here) are 40 bucks and that price includes over 100 performances, featuring Babes herself as well as Lady Bunny, No Bra, Macy Rodman, Chae Buttuh, and many more. Expect games, prizes, and a BBQ sausage-fest. In celebration of this upcoming fabulous throwdown, we chatted with Babes Trust about her style staples, including wig detangler, travel pillows, and of course, lube. Because let’s face it. Every girl needs that every once in a while.

"Truvada is great because you can be totally reckless and not get HIV/AIDS. Comes in handy in places like Berlin when your wandering around FICKEN3000 blackout at 5am… Go figure."

"I travel insanely light usually 3 pairs of underpants, socks and 2 changes of clothing. 2 dresses. 1 pair of heels. 1 wig. However, when traveling the thing I can't live without is a pillow, if you don't have over 3 star hotels booked its essential. I'm a fucking baby."

"For when you don't want to hear your bandmate anymore talking about how fabulous he is. For when you can't listen to bleeding techno music when trapped backstage. When you stay in any shit hotel and there is building going on at 8am, people fucking, etc., etc."

"The best thing ever for the tour come down. After tour or a big show I usually get very depressed and shaky. These are essential to clear your mind."

"So you can have endless chats with your mom, friends, work colleagues. Keep up to date with your social media account and log onto the countries in vogue app. (usually Grindr, but PlanetRomeo in large swaths of europe!)"

"After two shows in your wig will be fucked. This is a little life saver. Spray in and a hundred strokes later! Like new."

Follow Bottoms on Twitter and check out more of their music here.