Zia McCabe of The Dandy Warhols on Revisiting Dig!, New Music and the Joys of being Topless

Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum

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The Dandy Warhols defined the late 90s and early 00s: spontaneous, cool, and incredibly moreish. After releasing their third album Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia fresh into the millennium, it would be hard to imagine a world before Bohemian Like You or Get Off. And in a few years, we would get the opportunity to follow the band along with The Brian Jonestown Massacre in, arguably, the best music documentary ever made: Dig! 

Dig! by Ondi Timoner is being re-released during its 20th anniversary this year, with a recut being showcased in Sundance as DIG! XX and the Dandy’s newest album ROCKMAKER set to be released next month, Polyester caught up with the band’s keyboardist and bassist, Zia McCabe.

There is nothing like Dig! out there - it feels more like an art piece than a music documentary. We follow The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre in their quest to take over the world with their jingle-jangle power pop, narrated by Dandy’s frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor. The two bands have the grace of musical talent but are, particularly for The Brian Jonestown Massacre, faced with the enticing rock n’ roll lifestyle of drugs and recklessness that can get in the way of the music. The film is an exploration of two quintessential bands of the decade in successes, tragedies and chaos.

“I have a lot of mixed feelings about Dig!” McCabe tells me over Zoom. “I wanted to dispel any myths of this lingering rivalry that was kind of fabricated in the first place. I feel like they took out some stuff I liked and put in some stuff I didn’t like. But you know, it’s not our film. It’s Ondi’s. It’s our story but it’s not told by us, or necessarily for our benefit. I still think it did more good than harm. There is nothing quite like it because who goes and films two nobody bands? Nobody does that, what a waste of time”. 

Luckily for us, someone did. Seeing The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre hang out, jam out, spiral, fight, and be hilarious in a very nonchalant way, fed the craving for all who couldn’t live the 90s Portland and its music scene. As a Gen Z viewer, it is bittersweet. A moment we will never return to with the advent of technology.

There is nothing like Dig! out there - it feels more like an art piece than a music documentary.

“We had a naivety of just being filmed constantly, but now everyone is born the author of their story. There’s no anonymity to life anymore.” McCabe agrees. “When we were first performing no one had phones, I was performing topless and it wasn’t a problem. There’s maybe some crappy instant camera with a picture of me that's undeveloped in someone's basement, but that was it.”

McCabe’s bare chest on-stage represented not just an era of simpler times free of handheld tech, but also her own personal freedom. “I had my boobs out all the time because I didn’t identify them as sexual objects.” She explains, “I carried that mentality into concerts and mosh pits. The guys didn't have their shirts on, so I didn’t have my shirt on. I was like, ‘This is awesome.’” 

Unfortunately though, as per the British way of life, we can’t have nice things. McCabe tells me how this comfortability with on-stage nudity was robbed from her: “The English press took it away from me. When we were blowing up and cameras were more prevalent, the press was always asking: ‘Why do you take your shirt off? Are you a feminist? Are you an exhibitionist? Is this a publicity stunt?’ Then we played at Witness festival and the crowd started chanting ‘get your kit off’ before we came on, like 30,000 people. It was terrifying. After that, it was over, and I felt disallowed that freedom of expression on stage.” 

Despite this experience, McCabe’s time in The Dandy Warhols flourished. Starting in the band at just 20 years old, swapping her sole life experience of growing up in a log cabin to be thrown into the world of touring, McCabe exclaims: “I’m the muscle of the band” after I ask her what it's like being a ‘girl in a band’. She divulges, “I was hired as the token chick. It didn’t matter that I didn't play any instruments. It mattered that I was cute. It mattered that I had a really enthusiastic personality and was a quick learner. Those are the things that got me through the door, but I didn’t feel the sense of duty to be like, sexy. It took me a long time to acknowledge misogyny in the industry.” She continues, “In 13 Tales, I didn’t feel like my contributions were really being heard. I was confused. I was told straight that it was because I’m a girl and my musical contributions aren’t as valued. It seemed the obvious reason to everyone else, but I think I just refused to see it that way. Sometimes I feel like the acknowledgments made things worse.”

If acknowledgements make things worse, then it's understandable why McCabe would have mixed feelings on Dig! Although it is an artefact of a sorely missed era, the film showcases the hedonistic as well as the fabricated - telling the world false narratives of the two bands, especially with their relationship. “I get that it's crazy but there was also just so much beauty and poetry in our experience,” McCabe explains, “For me wanting to remember my story and my life, if this were the time capsule that was left, so much would be missing. And that's a little bit hard for us to see because we were there.”

McCabe and her musical peers have proved that these chaotic depictions of rivalry and erratic behaviour were, at least a lot of the time, manufactured for entertainment with the legacy that was built and continued into the present day. “It's been received really, really well, which is so exciting to see because we're so old. How are we still relevant? This is amazing.” smiles McCabe, referring to their upcoming album, ROCKMAKER. The Dandy’s continued relevance is obvious in their recent single, Danzig with Myself featuring Frank Black of Pixies. The heavy bass and fuzziness are accompanied by their quintessential snarky Dandy lyricism: “Some days its just so obvious / some days insidious / but half of the people alive today are / fucking idiots” maintains the band's elements that bring flocks of listeners - from all generations - to their shows and, of course, watching Dig! at an afterparty.