With song titles like U.S. Gay, genre queer band Sons of an Illustrious Father makes music that is inherently political, bending the airwaves to dispense charged messages of dissent. “I want us murdered, martyred, mutilated / Matthew Shepharded to the calm,” Ezra Miller belts in the first track on their latest album, Deus Sex Machina: Or, Moving Slowly Beyond Nikola Tesla, referencing the 21-year-old who was tortured and killed near Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. The trio — made up of actor Ezra Miller on drums and keyboard, Josh Aubin on guitar and keyboard, and Lilah Larson on guitar and drums (all three sing) — enjoys twisting the government body’s nipple and unapologetically dismembering society’s concept of gender and sexuality.
“The power of art is that it permits us to express things too complicated for words,” says Miller. “People often get caught up in trying to find the words for things that are ultimately ineffable, and for me, art is a way that we can speak in a language that’s easier to understand, even if we’re talking about things that are hard to agree on.”
Their political activism extends well beyond the outro of any of their indie bops. They’ve been particularly impassioned about the Dakota Access Pipeline, a battle of attrition between the U.S. government and the fossil fuel opponents of the 1,172-mile-long underground oil pipeline — many of whom are indigenous to the land the government intended to plough through to build it. One of the leaders of the movement is 14-year-old Lakota Sioux Youth Leader, Tokata Iron Eyes. Sons became familiar with the work of Iron Eyes simply by nature of following the story, and personally asked her to interview the band, presented below alongside portraits of the band by David Mollé.
Tokata Iron Eyes: I’m just gonna introduce myself even though you guys know who I am. My name’s Tokata, which means “future.” My last name is Iron Eyes; a lot of people think that’s really cool. I’m 14, I’m a freshman in high school. I like to read and write. I do public speaking stuff here and there.
Ezra Miller: You’re a movement leader and activist superstar.
TIE: I have two siblings: my brother, he’s 10 and he’s ruthless. My sister is eight and she annoys me because I was just like her at her age. So I’m dealing with that because she started stealing my things recently, so that’s fun.
EM: Were you a thief at that age?
TIE: I think I was. [laughs]
Lilah Larson: Who were you stealing from?
TIE: I don’t know. I just remember I used to put makeup on my brother, because I didn’t have a sister yet. I used to tell him that it was medicine and if he didn’t let me he would die.
LL: Wow, you’re like the archetypal older sibling. [laughs] Your sisters put makeup on you too, right?
EM: It was a very welcome and important part of my upbringing and understanding of my own gender expression. They didn’t have to make such threats. [laughs]
TIE: What is one thing that music has given you or taught you?
Josh Aubin: One thing that music has given me or taught me is a sense of an understanding of what a family and a community can be outside of what it was defined as in childhood.
LL: For me, music gave me a space in which to explore my authentic identity and made it easier for people to understand and accept me, because I was a rocker.
EM: Music has opened up so many spaces in my consciousness that otherwise may have been left completely unexplored. Music has the power to actually change the way that your brain and body receive the world.
TIE: In what ways has music in general, but also you in a band playing together, helped you to express your beliefs?
EM: The power of art is that it permits us to express things too complicated for words. When it comes to our feelings about history, about our society, about God, about faith, about social justice and change – a lot of the time we struggle in the pursuit of reaching common ground with others about how we perceive or understand those things. If you look at the wide world of every sort of political or religious discourse it feels like people often get caught up in trying to find the words for things that are ultimately ineffable. Art is a way that we can speak in a language that’s easier to understand, even if we’re talking about things that are hard to agree on.
"The power of art is that it permits us to express things too complicated for words... It's a way that we can speak in a language that's easier to understand, even if we're talking about things that are hard to agree on."
TIE: What impact do you want to have on those who listen to your music?
EM: Deep impact.
JA: We want them to watch the movie Deep Impact from the year 1998 and then forget that they watched it.
TIE: Was it bad?
LL: I don’t think I liked that movie.
TIE: If there was something you could’ve told yourself before you started — when things got hard — if there was something that could’ve told yourself when you were going through those things, what would it be?
LL: Drink more water.
TIE: I like that answer.
JA: Go home when you need to.
LL: I think it’s really important to remember in times of struggle, and I often don’t, that this is but one moment, you know? This is one bead in a long string and the next will inevitably be different, and perhaps difficult in other ways. This too shall pass.
EM: You need better pants. These aren’t working for you.
LL: Yeah, that was very true for you at that very difficult time. Drink water, wear comfortable pants, get enough sleep, and go home when you need to. This too shall pass.
EM: You shall not pass. [laughs]
TIE: When you were kids, who were some artists that really either helped you or just shaped who you were at that age?
EM: Nate Dogg. Nirvana.
JA: The Bouncing Souls.
EM: Yeah!
JA: Bad Religion.
LL: I remember the first time I heard, Sonic Youth’s Youth Against Fascism, and was like, “Wait, you can write songs like this?!” Similar to when I first started listening to Rage Against the Machine.
EM: Dead Kennedys. And the way that Jello Biafra could use sort of rude, loud sarcasm — which I knew I was capable of that age — but he could use it for good. To do justice.
LL: Yeah, similar with Kathleen Hanna. I feel like she’s brilliant at using a sharp edge to carve something really beautiful.
TIE: This is a very broad question but I figured I’d ask it anyway because it’s probably different for all of you. If there was a purpose for you making music, if you could narrow it down to a couple things, what would they be?
EM: Service.
LL: Survival.
JA: I guess I would say both of those things. Service, both to oneself and to others, and survival of oneself and of others.
LL: I think survival but spelled with an E instead of a U.
EM: I’m comfortable with that.
CREDITS
Photographer: David Mollé
Photography assistant: Phil Nix
Stylist: Jessica Wu
Styling Assistant: An Nguyen
Hair: Wade Lee
Makeup: Juan Jaar
Makeup assistant: Kimia Zakerin