The Simply Amazing Kitty Kowalski
Interview By: Ginger Coyote
It is election time and I wanted to interview one of the raddest outspoken females I know the tantalizing and feminist women on the music scene the ultra cool Kitty Kowalski would be the icing on the cake Here is my interview with Kitty…..
Punk Globe: It has been a hot minute since our last interview.
I know that you have fought a battle with a health issue you have had. Do you mind telling the readers more about your ordeal?
KITTY: Yeah, it was breast cancer. It’s one of these things you don’t think will happen to you and then it happens. I was joking about it up until the day I was diagnosed because I thought there was no way this was happening. One of my favorite friends who was part of the LA Scene died of breast cancer, so I thought well that was different.
You get the phone call where they tell you it’s cancer, and I recalled a corny TV Movie from the 70s about it called, “First, You Cry”. I think I whimpered for about 30 seconds and then I got angry. That was the punk in me. I was like, fuck this, I’m gonna fight this thing with everything I’ve got. I didn’t think, Why Me, I thought, why not me – that’s the way things go. Bring it. I’m going to take down this MF.
People said to me, “You’re so brave.”. What choice did I have? Curl up and die? That’s never been my style. I was going to go out on my feet, not on my knees. I still have to do chemo maintenance. It has its drawbacks. Body aches, joint pain, and the lot. I have one more year on this shit. It messes me up. But I’d rather have the weight gain and joint pain than the other option. Fat and alive. I’ll take it.
Punk Globe: Judging from your posts on Social Media it looks like you are feeling much better and are back as a powerful force as an advocate for good health and making sure that the Orange Stain will never be President again.
KITTY: As a native New Yorker, we knew in the 80s Trump was a joke. My father was a lawyer and sued Trump and won for his Client. Same old deadbeat shit. There are two things that make me say I’m glad my father is not alive. The first one is the 9/11 attacks. That would have broken his heart. It broke my heart, and my mind a bit. That human beings were capable of this kind of evil and violence and destruction.
I never in a million years thought that a joker like Donald Trump would be taken seriously on a world stage. That is the “businessman” who bankrupted a casino. Where the house always wins, and people hand you their wallets at the door.
How does this link with health? Strong bodies, strong minds. I am someone who always wants to learn, grow, be better evolve, and keep moving forward physically and mentally. They told us for cancer we should do 20 minutes of movement per day. I think that’s good for anyone. Move every day. Keep your mind engaged. Don’t eat total crap. Sugar is the Devil. You are what you eat. This includes reading. I subscribe to The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Mother Jones. The Atlantic has some of the best writing in the English Language. I try to support good writing like I support good bands.
KITTY: Aside from him being a despicable human being, Trump doesn’t read. Beware the person who thinks they know everything They stop accepting and evaluating new information. Conspiracy theorists are the worst because they are poseurs to information. They believe some guy on the Internet “because he said so”, but do it under the guise of “questioning”. “I’m just asking questions…” says every person who has already made up their mind and no rational information to the contrary will be evaluated. It’s a feedback loop of confirmation bias. I live in the real world. I have no sacred cows. I’m not afraid to say, “Oh, shit. I was wrong.”. I’m incapable of being offended. My feelings don’t matter, because reality matters. I was always a match and science dork, so the scientific method of proving a theory or not matters. Let the data determine reality. My opinion doesn’t matter.
Punk Globe: Were you happy with Liz Cheney and Adam Kizzinger for coming out against The Blob? Liz lost her seat in Congress and Adam did not seek reelection. Brave Soldiers.
KITTY: I’m a huge supporter of Liz, Adam Kinzinger, The Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson, George Conway, and the like because they have two feet in the real world and are more concerned with the good of the citizenry than party loyalty. I was fully conscious and watched the Jonestown Murder/Suicides go down on real TV. Everyone was fascinated. After all, no one would believe that parents would poison their children because someone told them to. We earned a new pop-culture phrase, “drinking the Kool-Aid” from that. And here we are. It’s shocking to me that people subjugate their autonomy because thinking is hard. Trump is the least worthy person to die for. He’s not worth pissing on if he were on fire. I just hope someday that people who sacrificed their freedom, their sanity, and whatever else for this buffoon can see that there are much worthier causes in their towns and neighborhoods where they can make a difference, and not be slaves to a supposed billionaire who is draining their resources.
Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Rick Wilson, George Conway, and those GOP members who are calling out Trump for being the horrible human being that he is are true Americans. They’re not “drinking the Kool-Aid”, so to speak. That takes guts.
Punk Globe: I am so happy that you support The Harris| Walz ticket. America needs a WOMAN President.
KITTY: It’s really about time. When the whole world was going tits up during the pandemic, the countries that did it right were governed by women, like New Zealand and Finland. A man will set himself on fire to stay warm. A woman will make the sacrifice of the one for the many. I think of the Star Trek movies.
Punk Globe: You were involved with a new video giving it to that traitor con with both barrels we will be posting that badass video for all our readers to see
KITTY: The song and video were written and conceived by a great artist, Jim Surhe or BigTwin, and he sent me the demo and I offered to be the vocalist because I was so passionate about the message. We did it over Zoom and it was really fun. I never imagined the video would be that intricate. Jim is amazing. If you are familiar with the Harvard Lampoon, he did a whole book of the Stanford University comedy magazine retrospective. Jim, his wife Kate, and I did the Women’s marches, both in DC and NYC. We did the one against guns. For a time I lived next to Sandy Hook and Newtown with my family and the damage that was done psychically to that community was so sad. All those kids. I have some personal experience with this that is not mine to share, but when people say it’s a hoax, I just want to rip their heads off. The staff at the local hospital was completely traumatized by what they saw that day.
Punk Globe: Your thoughts on The Swifties backing Kamala without Taylor but with Carole King and Liz Warren?
KITTY : It’s no secret where Taylor Swift stands. She’s made that clear. We also want her to be safe because sadly she’s become this lightning rod for misogyny, “single cat lady” hate, and jealousy. It’s nuts. She had to cancel a concert due to a terrorist threat. Some dude shot up a little girls’ dance party in the UK because of the Taylor theme. I still have “Warren for President” shirts from 2016: “Nevertheless, she persisted”, Girls can run for anything, especially President, a Middle Class Strong coffee mugStuff like that. I’d have Warren in my cabinet no problem. She’s as smart as Jimmy Carter.
Carole was a surprise. I mean, she’s got that hippy vibe so you can guess where she is on the political spectrum but I’m so glad she joined the call and got people revved up. Kamala’s appeal is across generations. Even my 89-year-old mom is excited.
Punk Globe: Tell us about your band The KOWALSKIS and your music.
KITTY: Where do I start with this? All I can say I have been a music dork since I was a child, and was listening to the King / Goffin songs, and all the Brill Building songwriters, At a very early age. Records were my toys and I paid attention to songwriters and such, even with the Mamas and The Papas. I knew who Lou Adler and Don Kirchner were. Neil Sedaka. All that stuff. I loved The Monkees and The Beatles. Then came Elton and Bowie and Jagger and Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and I just lost my mind. This is what I wanted to do and to be.
I started off as a pianist and violinist which gave me the ear to be able to figure out any song. I saved up all my babysitting and Christmas money to buy a guitar in 1979 and get a little amp. There were some cool guys in my town who taught me stuff. A guy called Chris Brokaw, of Come, Codeine, and many other bands, bought me Leave Home by the Ramones, and it was all over. I just pushed forward trying to be in a band. I didn’t know how.
Took me a while to get to The Kowalskis. I was not 100% comfortable with being a front person or singer but when all the others fell away, I was the one left standing. So, I thought, I have to do this. There was a kind of 60s-influenced pop music with a punk feel I thought was missing. When I started and was writing this album in my head, the first Muffs album came out in 1994, I was like THIS is the thing I’ve had in my head the whole time. Kim Shattuck was just so much better at executing it, but that’s where I was. I was more akin to The Ramones’ “End of the Century” as produced by Phil Spector than “punk rock”. We were put on these hardcore bills and I don’t think we fit it. We were a huge disappointment if you were looking for the straight Ramones-based punk rock or Fat Wreck Chords style punk rock of the mid-to late-90s. I wanted to be more of a pop band like Blondie or something.
Punk Globe: Will we be seeing a resurgence of KITTY KOWALSKI with the band?
KITTY: Oh, yes. I am always doing music. Whether it’s my radio show, little Projects like Taylor B. Anthony, or these cameos. I’m working on a musical with Jed Davis, and written by Arturo Vega, trying to get it to see the light of day. I’m just trying to make it happen because I believe in it. It’s called, “Rise and Shine” and it’s up on Bandcamp. 4 of the 5 days or acts have been released. The next one will be on Arturo Vega’s birthday, October 13th.
I’m trying to put together a compilation of everything we’ve done as The Kowalskis AND get on the bill for the Rebellion Festival in the UK for August 2025. We did a show a few years ago at some nowhere place in NJ and two kids came up and said, “That’s the best show we’ve ever seen!”. I don’t care if we play to 15 people as long as we get a couple of kids excited.
I want to take the band to Rebellion this year coming. That’s been a goal of mine. I just need to make it happen. That will be a Kowalski’s gig, hopefully with the compilation to support it.
Punk Globe: Are you still working with The Dickies? I interviewed Adam the killer drummer for The Dickies a few months ago. I brought you up. He gave you killer props. A very nice guy!
KITTY: Yes, I’ve had a very long relationship with The Dickies that started at Coney Island High. Jesse Malin and I were huge Dickies fans, and we were in the office of the Club late at night. Jesse was like, “Let’s call Leonard” because it was 3 hours earlier. We convinced them to come out, if we got their airfare, and sorted out accommodation and transport. I was the van driver band mommy and I had a three-bedroom apartment in midtown, so it was a band crash pad for many bands. We had no problem with them doing other shows at other clubs, so they would do a few nights at Coney, maybe NJ, Philly, or Boston. That’s where it started. So I did the same thing any time The Dickes wanted to come to the NYC Metro area even after Coney Island High was closed.
Adam is a stellar person. I was at his audition. He brings such great energy to the band and his playing is impeccable. The fact that he’s played with Eddie before makes that rhythm section just so much more locked in. Stan is an absolute gem. Leonard just has otherworldly talent. Leonard and I are both pop fans. We also bonded over Aristotle; theory of the spirit world. He turned me on to Jellyfish. They are stuck with me and vice versa. When I do shows with them, I’m back in band mommy mode, which feels very natural to me. Stan Lee definitely needs someone to look after him and make sure he has enough hair conditioner. Stan is the best. We’ve become good friends over these years and tours and shows.
Punk Globe: Besides keeping Don The Very Old Con out of office what does the future hold for Kitty Kowalski?
KITTY: I really want to get the “Rise and Shine” musical done and out there. It’s so good. I love doing my radio show, and challenge myself to find new music all the time, whether it’s new or old. I love learning new things. I think I should write more instead of doomscrolling.
I do want to make more new music. I need to do it. My living situation is a little crazy right now but I hope to have a little room in my house and in my head where I can do my thing shortly.
You learn when you have cancer that time is finite. You don’t get more of it. I try not to waste it. I’m also doing a gut renovation on the house. That takes a lot. It’s to keep improving everything. My house, my music, myself. Keep working, keep learning, keep getting better. I try not to be afraid to fail. I’m of the Samuel Beckett “Fail Better” camp.
Punk Globe: Kitty, You have gotten quite involved with Cyber Security.Tell the readers just how involved.
KITTY: It was wild. I had a friend who pulled me into her cryptocurrency company at least 7 years ago. I needed to learn blockchain technology and everyone in that universe was a hacker. You would go to these tech conferences, and you could not use the hotel wi-fi or some hacker would clean you out. I learned that the Bitcoin blockchain has never been hacked. I was like, why, and how, and then I just dove in to learn as much as I could.
We even went to Budapest to pitch our company to a bank in an incubator competition. We put in our best effort and again, I crammed more learning into three days than I had in a whole year. We got really close to the $250,000 EU prize but didn’t get it.
The woman who had this company pulled me into another one to run the tech and IT. We were submitting confidential financial data so everything had to be tight. Again, I learned about 30 different software platforms, became a certified Stripe Payments processing architect, and ran a development team to customize and automate our processes. I had to learn all of that too. I analyzed hundreds of lines of code to figure out why certain payment types were failing. I don’t know code but it’s like a puzzle. I love problem-solving. It’s challenging.
Cyber security is like being a goalie in hockey. You just have to find the holes and block them.
Punk Globe: Have you been a victim of Cyber Hacking like our pal Vera?
KITTY: Thank god, no. What Vera Ramone experienced sounds like a nightmare. Bebe Buell went through that. It was crazy. She and her husband, who is the nicest guy on the planet and likes to keep a low profile. I’m not going to get into the specifics because this person is not worth the oxygen, but this acquaintance reached out to me, I responded something fairly innocuous and non-committal, and then Bebe reached out to me about why I would say X, Y, and Z. They took my response, changed the text and sent it to Bebe as if I would say anything bad about her. Childish gossip drama. This person was way too old to be pulling this crap and I have no patience for it.
I just do not understand going out of your way to hurt someone like that. These are the puniest humans on the planet. Revenge is for the petty and small-minded. They live in the past. I have too much I want to do that is good, that helps people, that lifts people, that moves me forward or helps me evolve, like music and the musical. I have a sister army with my friends. I am one of those people who will help you move. I will bail you out of jail. I will do what I set out to do. I will fall on a sword to help you. Everything else is a waste of time. I could give a crap what people say about me or what other people do to trip others up. But if they mess with someone I love, they will regret it. They will suffer their own consequences. Karma is beautiful.
Punk Globe: One more reason to celebrate you as a “Strong Woman” I salute you
I am one tough broad. I have a really thick skin. You have to, if you are any kind of female performer. But I’ve always been in male-dominated fields, so it makes you tougher, playing with the boys, knowing when to hit back and knock the bully on his ass.
I did a whole radio show on great girl rage songs. Also with the entrance of Kamala Harris into the race, I did a whole show on Female Power Boss Songs. I’m so glad that even pop stars, who used to be these passive little wallflowers in the 70s are unabashedly physically, mentally and emotionally strong, like Beyonce, P!nk and Miley Cyrus. Olivia Rodrigo is great, and Dua Lipa.
Punk Globe: Who is currently getting play on your iPod?
See above: Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa for pop music, and on the more indie front The Beths, Shannon & The Clams, Amyl & The Sniffers, Wet Leg. I’m a chronic Shazam-er while watching TV shows, Movies and at the supermarket or wherever. I’m always looking for new music, from friends or being out and about, for the radio show or for myself. I love dance music and stuff I can walk or jog to and just tune out. I have this little iPod mini or whatever that I use to jog, and I have a playlist called “jog jams”.
Punk Globe: Do you have any Internet Addresses you would like to share with the readers?
KITTY: The Kowalskis website disappeared, so there is a Killer Kowalski group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/kowalskisNYC), which was the original name of the band. I’m on Instagram and Threads as kittykowalski. I’m kind of crap at social media, so there goes my career as an “influencer”, if that’s even a thing anymore.
I used to love Twitter but deleted my account a while back, once it devolved into a nazi-infested troll farm. Seems like the people who bang on about “free speech” are the ones constantly posting hate speech, and then get bummed out when it blows up in their face. Freedom of expression does not mean freedom from consequences. One of my favorite threads on Reddit is r/ohnoconsequences for this very reason.
Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words Kitty.
KITTY: Resourceful. Resilient. Reliable. That last one sounds boring but 90% of winning is showing up. Being there.
Punk Globe: The magazine just celebrated 47 years in publication a bit older than either of us. Any last words for the readers? And this interview will Be released in October, My birthday is on October 18 and we will celebrate
KITTY: Punk Globe has been a beacon of whatever music is worth listening to over this many years. So many influential fanzines and webzines have not lasted, but Punk Globe, and you Ginger, have, Having that stamina is no small feat. A Legend. I would love to see a 50th-anniversary Coffee Table book. There is a Kickstarter idea for you right there. I’m in! I’d contribute to making that happen, and I’m sure so many others would, too. This needs to happen.
And Happy Birthday to both of you! We’re glad you are still here and doing what you do!