Pansy Division is back! With a new album, Total Entertainment (Alternative Tentacles), on a new record label, and working with a new producer (Chris Xefos), the queer quartet is fresh as a daisy and ripe for the plucking. The band’s trademark queer punk sound has a renewed vitality, particularly on songs such as “Blurry Down Below,” “When He Comes Home,” “Not Good Enough,” the title track, and the hidden track “At The Mall.” Total Entertainment lives up to its title with forays into country (“He Whipped My Ass In Tennis…”) and rock disco (“No Protection”). The Gay and Lesbian Times recently spoke with co-founding Pansy Division member Chris Freeman about the band and the new album.

Chris Freeman: We’ve gone from being tagged militantly gay to being a bit more open to a variety of different things. We don’t have to define ourselves as being only a gay band. Some of our songs are addressing themes that are a bit more universal. After 10 years, if people have heard about us, they probably already know that we are a gay band so we don’t have to slam it down their throats. At the beginning, there wasn’t anybody else doing what we were doing. Part of the deal was, let’s be as out as we can because both Jon and I had been in bands prior where we were told that if we came out of the closet, we would not have a musical career (laughs). We thought that this was a good chance to prove them wrong.

CF: It seems kind of scant…. We fully expected that there would be dozens of bands coming out of the woodwork, and there really haven’t been. There’s an underground (scene) of stuff. In Vancouver, there’s the Skinjobs, in Los Angeles there’s IAMLOVED. There are actually a lot more gay bands in Los Angeles right now. Still, there are very few that have risen to any level of recognition. We still seem to be the benchmark for it. We don’t mind that, but it’s kind of like, “Hey, come on. We don’t want to be the only ones dancing out here on this dance floor” (laughs).

CF: I would have never thought that it would come back around the way it has, with AIDS on the rise again. I just learned the other day that a friend of mine, at 37, has seroconverted. It crushes me. What are people doing out there? There’s another song on the record (“Spiral”) about crystal, about the idea that someone is going down on this thing. Having to make comments about drug abuse and unsafe sex — couldn’t it just be matter of fact at this point that you have safe sex? How can it be that all these people are coming up positive? The other thing is that we’ve been told for years, “You know, Pansy Division, you’d be a lot more popular if you did dance music.” But that’s kind of not the point. That’s why we started out as a rock band — because we didn’t like dance music. Then we thought that if we were going to do a dance record, how would it be? Some of our favorite bands in the ’70s decided to churn out a disco song to concede that disco was here. Kiss did “I Was Made For Loving You.”

CF: Exactly. That’s what we were trying to do. There’s even a Kiss riff at the end if you listen for it. We thought, “Let’s do our Blondie ‘Heart of Glass,’ let’s do our ‘Another One Bites The Dust,’ if you will. If we’re going to do a dance song and it’s going to be played in a gay disco, what’s the message that we want? Have safe sex, please.”

CF: We had someone in mind, but he turned out to be a flake. But we would love it. If anyone reading this feels like they want to do an extended remix of “No Protection,” a la Cher, or somebody else, to really pump up the disco, please let us know.

CF: It was…. Jon played the song for me and I was ecstatic. I thought it was hilarious. I said, “It sounded like a country song — let’s really push the country angle.” Chris was all over it — he said, “Let’s get a banjo on here. Let’s get slide guitar.” And we were like, “Yay!” We pushed the rhythmic track to be a lot more country and those other elements fit right on top of it. When we heard the final outcome, we were just rolling.