Biography

Fashioning themselves as the first openly gay rock band, San Francisco's Pansy Division formed in 1991 around the music of singer/guitarist Jon Ginoli and bassist Chris Freeman. Seeking a musical outlet that reflected their own subcultures and views of gay life, the bandmembers drew influences from '60s pop and '70s punk, producing a heavy, but infectious pop-punk sound and establishing themselves at the forefront of the emerging queercore movement. After signing with Lookout! Records in 1993, Pansy Division began a wildly prolific run, releasing a new album each year over the next six years. Beginning with Undressed, they followed up in 1994 with Deflowered and gained mainstream exposure that year supporting Green Day on their Dookie tour. They continued to tour and record throughout the mid-'90s, at first as a trio with a rotating cast of drummers, then later with more permanent recruits Luis Illades (drums) and Patrick Goodwin (lead guitar). In the fall of 1998, the band released Absurd Pop Song Romance -- their last release for Lookout! -- and adopted a more serious tone than their previous albums. As Pansy Division entered the new millennium, they kept a slightly lower profile while preparing what would become 2003's Total Entertainment!, their first release for the Alternative Tentacles label. The album found a middle ground between the humor of their early records and the maturity of their previous LP. Goodwin left the band in the fall of 2004 and was replaced first by Bernard Yin, then by Joel Reader. Their new label issued the CD/DVD compilation The Essential Pansy Division in January 2006. After launching their first major tour in several years in 2007, they were the subject of director Michael Carmona's documentary film Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band, which debuted the following year. A new studio album, That's So Gay, arrived in 2009, followed a year later by a live collection and a set of rarities. Around this time, Ginoli also published a memoir of his time in the band. After a seven-year break from recording, Pansy Division returned in 2016 with Quite Contrary, their seventh studio release. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi