-- One week before you arrived in Tokyo we had Tokyo Pride. I hear that Pride in New York is amazing. Do you go?

M: I love it. I'm gonna miss it because we’re on tour. It's like a big, gay party.

-- What do you think about Gay Pride, in general?

M: Um... There's a part of me that's like, "It's so corny. It's so cheesy. It’s kind of ridiculous.” But I also think it’s kind of amazing at the same time. As soon as it happens, I get really excited about it. It's so cheesy and over the top but...

B: I think it's important to have a day of celebration...

M: ...and visibility!

B: Even though I don't really like parades that much, I think it's important.

-- Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda on Sex and the City, just recently announced that she’s engaged to her long-term girlfriend. Do you think you’d want yourself to get married in the future? What do you think about gay marriage?

M: It's about to pass, I think, in NY. It's going through the legislature.

B: I think it'll pass but, who knows, the next day they may say, "Sorry, we canceled it."

M: But, yes, I’d love to get married! Definitely. Are you kidding me? I want to marry my partner and have the same rights as straight people. I don't want to be discriminated against.

B: Yeah. It's so crazy that America is still like that. I'm actually half-Norwegian--I have citizenship there. That country, and all of Scandinavia really, is very progressive. It's not an issue at all.

-- Even in Switzerland, we have partnerships.

M: I can't believe that we can't do that in the US. For instance, if I fell in love with someone who lived in Europe we could never be together in the US. That person couldn’t come and get a green card--they couldn't stay here with me. That's crazy! It really sucks.

-- That’s a good point. As long as same-sex partnerships are not legally recognized, international couples have a really hard time.

M: It’s terrible.

-- Are there any places in New York that you’d like to recommend to our readers?

M: There used to be an amazing lesbian party by Kim Ann Foxman from the band "Hercules & Love Affair", but it’s no longer around.

B： Hercules & Love Affair are the best band ever. Kim Ann was just on the cover of GLU, you know! We just played in Berlin at this party called "Sick Girls" and right afterwards Kim Ann came out and DJ'd!

M： One place we’d definitely recommend would be a café that we love called Metropolitan, in Brooklyn. It’s a gay café with an open terrace in the summer. It’s really great.

There’s also a very cool lesbian event, Hotel Motel. And its initials are HoMo! (laughs) The people throwing it are my friends DJ Lauren Flax, JD Samson from Men and Le Tigre, and Luiza Sa from CSS. It’s a neat place to check out.

-- So, what are your future plans?

B: We'll be touring more after we leave Tokyo.

M: We have ten days off and then we'll work on making an EP. We'll probably release it in the fall.

B: And then we’ll have more touring in the fall.

M: We’ll be touring in December and start making a new record soon after. Then hopefully we'll come back here!

B: Yeah, I hope so!!

-- We can’t wait to see you here again soon. And keep on releasing songs that rock!

★Hotel Motel’s MySpace page:
www.myspace.com/whitelightningnyc