Kate Nash on returning to Hoopla and toppling TERFs with new politically driven single ‘GERM’ (EXCLUSIVE)

“I feel no threat from any trans person who might be in the toilets,” Kate Nash sings in the opening verse of her brash, politically-charged new single ‘GERM’. The punk, guitar-driven single sees the pop star addressing TERFs head on, pulling no punches in telling them plainly: “You’re not radical. You’re not rad at all.”

Nash delivers ‘GERM’ only weeks after the Supreme Court ruling which determined that the word ‘woman’ refers only to “biological women” under the Equality Act 2010, thus triggering a wave of anti-trans responses from institutions around the UK and emboldening the already loud voices of figures like JK Rowling and Graham Linehan who have fought against trans rights for years.

For Nash, the song is an attempt to ensure that the historical record includes her voice, proudly defending her trans friends and attempting to dispel notions that trans women are a threat to cis women. To achieve this, she employs spoken word, delivered in her signature unaffected London twang, citing real life statistics which evidence what she feels is the real threat to women – cis men. “The 69,958 rapes that were reported between Oct 2023 & Sept 24 in the UK do slightly concern me though,” she sings, before noting: “91% of people prosecuted for sexual offenses are cis men aged 18+. The biggest threat to cis women sadly comes from cis men. These stats are from Rape Crisis.”

It is a bold statement from an artist who has always worn her feminist politics on her sleeve. We caught up with the ‘Foundations’ singer (and recent OnlyFans creator) as she prepares to perform the song for the first time this weekend, when she will take to the stage at Mighty Hoopla festival for the third time in her career. This time, however, she will be joined by the London Philharmonic Orchestra for what is sure to be a spellbinding and inspiring performance.

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Hi Kate! This new single of yours ‘GERM’ packs quite the punch – can you tell us a bit about why you were compelled to write a song like this?

I’ve been thinking about taking on this subject for a while. Feminism is the most important ideology in my life. You know, that’s like what I feel I’ve been built on and I take it very personally that the loudest feminist voice in the room is anti-trans, and it’s excluding trans people from feminism. So I basically wrote this essay a while ago, and then when the Supreme Court news came in, I just reacted. I think I’ve been realising the last couple of years with me maturing on the internet and maturing my political voice that I don’t have to respond online to things all the time. My superpower is my music, so if I can take time to really consider what I think and then put it into my music, instead of just reacting on my phone, that’s actually way more impactful.. But I just wanted it to be on record, in music history and in feminist history, for there to be somebody else in culture that is saying that I just don’t believe that’s feminism.

“Feminism is dismantling systems of oppression, so to be transphobic is not feminist”

Feminism is dismantling systems of oppression, so to be transphobic is not feminist. Feminism has to be intersectional. So I wanted that on record, because at the moment, the loudest cultural voice in the room, who created one of the most successful things ever to come out of the UK, Harry Potter, is transphobic, and is very cruel online and very crass, and it’s just become so nasty. I just need to put this out into the world, even just so in history, this exists. I hope that it also allows other cis women and feminists to be more vocal and be less afraid to approach the subject, because I think people are afraid to talk about it.

As a fan of your work, my first thought as soon as I was listening to ‘GERM’ was that it really reminded me of ‘Mansion Song’. Does that resonate with you at all? 

I hadn’t thought of that. But yeah, I think, that was from the early days where I was considering, how do people view women? I was seeing, especially back in 2007/08, there was a lot of ‘groupie culture’. And it was like, how do the men in those rooms view those women, and how does society view them? I think a lot of people misinterpreted that song, but like, ‘That girl is a mansion’ meant that like, there’s so much more to a woman, which comes back to how defining ‘woman’ is not actually helping us. Actually, feminism taught me not to define a woman, because, if you go back 100 years, what did the definition of a woman allow a woman to do? Not vote, not have money, not include black women. There’s so many examples where actually unpicking a definition helps us progress. So I feel it’s really the wrong focus.

I’ve always had an interest in spoken word and poetry and politics, and it does kind of come into my work sometimes. I think this is probably the most political thing I’ve done so it feels like, in a way, even what I’ve been doing with OnlyFans and everything has kind of led to this in a weird way.

You’ll be playing the song for the first time at Mighty Hoopla. How do you approach performing a song like this, which is quite serious in subject matter, at a festival like Mighty Hoopla? 

I love Hoopla. It’s the best. I’ve played it twice. I think it’s the perfect place to do it. I think it is for this audience. It’s needed, that voice. There’s a gap in talking about this in pop culture. Yes, it’s heavy in subject matter, but it will also feel really joyous to perform it, I think, and be this really fun, empowered, fiery moment. And the rest of my set is going to be very beautiful, because I have the Philharmonic Orchestra with me, so it’ll really contrast which I think is cool to have this punk, fiery moment that’s timely. I mean, Trump just rolled back a bunch of more rights. It’s really scary, what’s happening. I feel like this is the audience that’s going to really understand it, where other audiences might find it more challenging.

You mentioned the orchestra – I saw your recent performance on [Irish talk show] The Late Late Show and spotted you had an orchestra at that too. 

I was in Galway after that, in a place called Spiddle, the week after that and I was recognised like 100 times. Everyone was like, ‘Did I see you on The Late Late Show last night? You don’t think you’re gonna see some from The Late Late Show walking down the pier!’ I’ve been doing some recording there. But that was awesome. That was a really cool performance, and they made such a great effort with how the stage looked and everything was cool.

Is this orchestral element becoming quite a core part of your sound at the moment, would you say?

Yes. It’s obviously an amazing opportunity for me to be billed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, because I can’t afford to do shows with a full orchestra. I’ve had a couple of string ensembles at two of my London shows. If I could have done this entire album campaign with orchestras, I would have, but it’s just too expensive, so it’s such an amazing opportunity that Hoopla have billed me with them. Glyn [Fussell, director of Mighty Hoopla], just totally understood the record and wanted to celebrate that.

“I think the rest of the world has actually noticed that and it’s taking female pop stars more seriously because of Mighty Hoopla”

I just feel like Hoopla actually believe in women so much and platform women. For me, it’s my first time headlining a festival stage. I think maybe I did that in 2007 but since then, it would be like my biggest festival performance, and most important, I think. I’m just glad it’s at a festival where I feel women are so loved and in a genuine way. Like pop music and female musicians have been given so much respect, and not in some pastiche way, where it’s like ‘oh we love the Sugababes, but we don’t take them seriously’. It’s like, no, they’re female musicians and we take them seriously. They’re part of our core and our youth. I think the rest of the world has actually noticed that and it’s taking female pop stars more seriously because of Mighty Hoopla. I really think that I’ve seen a shift in culture. 

There’s certainly a reverence with which pop acts are held by the Hoopla audience and by the festival itself, obviously, which is lovely to see. It’s a particularly challenging time for the queer community in the UK this year – what do you think is the role of festivals like Hoopla during times like these?

I guess, bringing people together to feel good and celebrate, because there’s a lot of time spent feeling bad and struggling. I have a lot of trans friends who have just gone through a real emotional turmoil and fear and isolation. My younger friends, I guess, have more community, but for some of my older trans friends, it’s really frightening. I feel like trans people are just trying to live their life, really, and the world is obsessed with them. So I think it’s a moment to celebrate each other and feel safe, obviously, and feel celebrated, and to feel like you’re in a place where you’re understood and you don’t have to explain yourself. We need moments like that. It’s fucking crazy out there.

You seem to have a really positive relationship with your older material, which is lovely to see. What sort of a journey have you been on with the older stuff?

I have been on a journey with that. When you’re really known for one thing, it just takes a long time to break out of that. I haven’t had the commercial success that I had with Made of Bricks since then and I’m comfortable with that, but sometimes the world kind of puts things on you because of the perception of you, so you have to break the cycle. I feel at a point now where I’ve actually achieved that. I love playing ‘Foundations’. If you have a hit, it’s such a cool thing to be able to give people, a euphoric moment where everyone knows every word, and they’re just fucking screaming it. I’m seeing now really young people find Made of Bricks, I have so many teenagers at my shows. I have so many songs now that it’s fun for me to dive back in and be like, oh, what haven’t we played in a while? It’s a fun place to be as an artist, because you have a lot to draw from.

Let’s talk OnlyFans. That caused quite a bit of fuss last year, which it seems like you enjoyed to some extent, and obviously it was intentional. Is it still a feature of your work, as a funding model? How do you reflect on the initial wave of attention that it received?

It kept going for like six months, which was really interesting to me. I was still doing press and podcasts and all this stuff. I was invited into parliament in January. I went to Belfast City Hall. It allowed me into some serious rooms, which was very interesting. The topic is so relevant as well because the reason I’m doing it hasn’t gone away. So I’m still doing it because music is just a cycle of paying for costs and trying to catch up with yourself when you’re putting on shows. It’s really been a relief for me to have as a support system whilst I continue to put on shows, because it just costs so much money, and I enjoy it. I feel like it’s an extension of what I do with my body artistically with photo shoots. And I’ve been naked on TV, I’ve simulated sex on TV, on Glow, and I have a lot of experience in entertainment, so for me, it’s just another expression of that. And I love the control, and I love being able to see how much money I can raise with a small number of fans, versus the millions of plays that I have on my Spotify that just doesn’t really play well at all. Yeah,

Lily Allen had a similar moment in the last year or so talking about selling feet pics and raising similar points to you. Obviously, she was an early comparison point to you early in your career. What are the chances that you would find yourselves part of the same conversation again, but under extremely different circumstances?

I think anyone who isn’t at an arena level and an arena level that’s selling out is experiencing similar problems. I mean, I don’t think Lily’s doing it for money… I mean, maybe she is, I don’t know her situation. But I know other artists that do it as well, and people that do it more discreetly, because as artists, we pay everybody. I pay my band, I pay the lighting engineer, I pay sound, I pay the mono engineer. I pay for anything that needs to be brought into the venue. I pay for the backdrop. I give 20% to my management. My agent takes a cut. I pay for the food, I pay for the bus or the van, I pay for the merch to be made. That’s thousands of pounds. And the costs have gone up, and my wages don’t go up. My agent does a really great job for me, and I get paid well considering, but it doesn’t compete with the costs that are exponentially going up in terms of the cost of tour.

“It always comes down to working class people advocating for working class”

Most people will only be able to get there and put that much time in if they have money already. That’s why we’re seeing loads of our pop stars now who are rich girls, or people that went to private school, um, or people that are famous parents. That’s often missing from the nepotism conversation. It’s so defensive. It’s like, ‘But I’m still talented!’ It’s like, sure, but can you just say what we really need to do is not close the doors on people that aren’t benefiting from nepotism. Can we make way for people that come from working class backgrounds, and can people with privilege be the ones fucking saying that? For once? It always comes down to working class people advocating for working class. I mean, Danny Dyer does this all the time. He’s always saying, like, we need to talk about working class people, but he’s working class, so where are the fucking posh actors talking about it? It pisses me off, 

Is there anyone that you might like to see at Hoopla?

I’d really like to see Kesha. There’s a few people I want to see but it’s quite difficult if you’re performing, it’s usually once you’ve performed. Or I can sometimes run up and see a couple of songs, but you’re nervous and you want to protect your voice and all these things. It just depends.

What are you listening to at the moment? Is there any acts internationally or in the UK that are really exciting or inspiring you?

I love Connie Constance. I’ve been listening to a lot of Fugazi lately, I’m not sure why. Backstreet Boys. Biird. Greebo is a really cool up and coming artist that I would like to shout out too.

I’ve seen Lola Young get a lot of Kate Nash comparisons. She’s also a BRIT school alumni and she sings with an accent and whatnot. What do you advise someone in her position to be doing at this point?

I think the climate is so different from when I first came up. I would just always advise people to trust your instincts. Have some mates around you that you trust. She seems to be doing so well. I always feel for young people going through whatever they go through in the music industry, because it’s tough. There’s no guidebook. And I mean, her whole thing is, like, being messy and she seems very much in touch with herself. So I would say just stay in touch with yourself.

Finally, we’ve spoken about the dire political situation that we’re in and all of the terribly loud voices. And so I was curious to know, who do you think must eat so many lemons?

There’s too many to count!  I mean Trump looks like he’s sucking on lemons. A lot. They compare his mouth to a butthole. I mean Elon surely as well. He’s the most pathetic, vengeful person. Like, Biden pissed him off and he’s taking revenge on the entire world.

‘GERM’ by Kate Nash is available to stream everywhere now. She will be headlining the Hayu Arena at Mighty Hoopla on 1 June.