“I was being a contrarian and people would be like, ‘Well, how’s it been being a queer person in the South?’ Then I was being like, ‘Well, me and my family actually have complex conversations about it and there’s more to theology and belief than the people from Westboro Baptist Church who stand outside Planned Parenthood.’ I was just interested in the fact this cultural category is a little bit more nuanced than people from outside of it want to consider.
Baker and Torres met backstage 10 years ago at a show they played together in Chicago, when Baker was a “really cute and sweet” 20-year-old baby, according to Scott, who approached her offering weed.
“But there are some things about religion that are inborn into civilisation that are valuable, like the need to gather and to have communal worship and to live in a community with each other.” She remembers learning about a prehistoric human skeleton found with a hip that had once been broken; it had healed together in such a way that experts know the person was alive for a long time afterwards.
Scott feels very curious, very open, though she’s not a religious person (“I find religion to be really oppressive and limiting and dogmatic,” she says).
Their friendship feels palpable through a screen – with Scott just the joker to bring out Baker’s lightest, funny side – despite the fact they’re video-calling in from different ends of the country.
