Le Butcherettes' Teri Gender Bender Talks Bloody Pig Heads, Malcolm X and Abuse

How has your stage show changed since the days of performing in Mexico?

We used elements before like the blood and the pig's head. [...] Now, it's just me. It's too expensive to be spending so much money on meat and it's bad for our luggage [laughs].

Did you used to lug that around from city to city?

In Mexico we did the dumb mistake of leaving the meat in the luggage for three day and we opened it up and it was the worst smell you can imagine. I think that's probably one of my motives to stop doing that.

When you throw yourself in the crowd, do you ever get nervous that the audience won't catch you?

[...] The stage was six or seven feet away from the rail and the people, and I didn't think about that. I literally backflipped off the stage and onto the floor bashing my head. My head was the first thing to bash against the floor and then my body fell on top of my neck. I didn't get hurt, I didn't get one bruise on my body, not one fracture or anything. I could have seriously paralyzed myself. I didn't feel fear and that kind of scares me, because when I'm onstage I'm capable of doing so many things to myself, which is bad.

I got this long email from my mom saying, "Teri please don't do this again. You don't want to die -- especially as an opening band."