Having established himself as one of the top film writers around thanks to acclaimed tomes on the likes of Walter Hill, Tom DiCillo and Burt Reynolds, Naas author Wayne Byrne’s latest book – co-written with the Psychedelic Furs’ Amanda Kramer – explores the careers of 10 women who have enjoyed extraordinary success in music. Titled Hired Guns: Portraits Of Women In Alternative Music, among those profiled in the book are David Bowie bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, Gang Of Four’s Sara Lee, Susan Miller of Kurt Cobain favourites Frightwig and more.

Among the other major artists these women have worked with are the iconic lies of Sinead O’Connor, Page and Plant, Oasis and U2. With a foreword from L7’s Jennifer Finch and dedicated to the memory of Twin Peaks chanteuse Julee Cruise, the book compellingly explores each musician’s background and influences, as well as their ups and downs in the world of music. For those who want a real insight into the music industry, the creative process and how artists emerge, it’s essential reading.

How did Hired Guns come about?
Amanda and I had discussed doing something together at some point. Her interests are kind of the same as mine, in that she’s very interested in the various contexts in which art is born. It’s about where artists are coming from socially, politically and culturally, and in terms of their education and family. These are all factors in why people become the artists they do. We both love the idea of documenting art we’re into and the reasons behind it.

In terms of pitching the idea, the editor might not have heard of Sara Lee or Caroline Dale, but if you put beside that that they’ve played with U2, Page and Plant, Oasis, David Bowie and so on, it instantly draws a picture of who these people are. In a way, I was a hired gun! Amanda does a brief introduction, and I do the post-script, where I give more context to why I did the book. It’s not necessarily this political feminist tract – it’s about the culture, the history and all these other influences.

How did you go about structuring it?
To me, it’s 10 distinct narratives – it’s their career summed up in a chapter, with some background and early life. That was important to me, to put it in context, because editors might suggest ways to go with a book. In this case, it was, ‘Will we lean in more to the feminist political stuff?’ We didn’t really want to go down that road, because there are other books out there and that’s their thing.

I suppose that element is part of it, because we are talking about how these brilliant women were able to survive what is often a harsh, male-dominated industry. That’s part of it, but it’s not the context.

You also look at how they are able to negotiate the ups and downs of the business.
Some of the women detail that struggle more than others, like Sue Hadjopolous and Gail Ann Dorsey for example. It’s the internal industry politics that goes on. Gail was also a solo artist and that’s what drew her to David Bowie – she was an all-rounder who played all the instruments. She says in the book that she wasn’t primarily a bass player; she played guitar, which you can write more fully formed songs on.

Gail also says that she sometimes writes on keyboards, because you get more of a sense of what the song will be. But she’s famous as being a bass player. The different women go into various depths. Some of them talk about their childhood a bit more than others, and some talk more about the artists they’ve worked with. That’s what I loved about it – each story has a different tone. I always dig into the sociology of art I write about, so what’s fascinating to me is that the women’s backgrounds are nearly half and half.

Half were classically trained from an early age, and they generally had a comfortable middle class background. The other half are untrained, with complete raw talent, and their music was discovered at the right time in that right place. They could have been from a music scene, or it could have just been the quality of their work that got them noticed.

But I love that dichotomy: the classically trained middle class thing and then the more blue collar approach, of picking up an instrument and working at it til you get noticed. I love that element of raw art.

Did you find any major differences in writing about film and music?
My approach was similar, in that when I was talking about the albums, I approached it very similarly to how I wrote about films. Again, what’s the cultural atmosphere that this was born out of? You apply the same stuff. It’s like yourself, when you’re writing about music in any kind of depth, you’re looking at what went into it and why. You’re looking at the production, the release and what was going on in culture.

So the approach was somewhat similar, but I think this detailed a harder struggle for the artists I was writing about. The only person in film I’ve written about, who I could maybe compare it to, was Tom DiCillo, because he came out of the independent world, which is very tough. Again, Tom is half and half in terms of what I was just talking about. He went to NYU, so he studied film, but his approach to filmmaking is not what he learned from a book or a professor.

If anything, he would say what he was taught in NYU was complete fuckin’ bullshit! They would look at his scripts or student films and say, ‘But you didn’t go from plot point A to plot point B!’ And he’s going, ‘Who cares if the scene or the film works?!’ I could compare it to that – in some cases, these women had a tough time getting to where they did. But they’re all successful and they all made it in some way. Nine out of the 10 are all still playing with major artists.

The one woman not currently active in the industry is Susan Miller, formerly of the band Frightwig, whose t-shirt Kurt Cobain famously wore on MTV Unplugged.
That led onto people going, ‘Who are Frightwig?’ If you were into punk or underground music, you would have been familiar with Susan maybe through Frightwig or Bad Posture. They came out of Caroline Records, SST – that kind of scene. Courtney Love was a huge fan of Frightwig, and obviously Kurt being
into the music he was into, would have been aware of them.

The t-shirt was a nice acknowledgment – I don’t know how conscious it was. Was to it just a t-shirt he wore, or did he want to give props to them on that kind of platform? Either way, I’m sure it was great for them. Frightwig are still playing in some form these days, but I don’t know if did anything for them at that point. Susan Miller has done a PHD and she’s now an academic.

Was Amanda into Frightwig?
She knew Susan Miller from back in the day. Amanda lived on the west coast in Santa Cruz for a while – she lived with Courtney Love for a bit. So she knew them from back then. I wouldn’t say Amanda’s music was ever that raw. Her first major act were Information Society, who were out of Minnesota, although Amanda was coming from NYC. They were an electro-pop band, but they really hit in mid-’80s New York club culture. Amanda has punk instincts, but she wouldn’t have been on the same scene as Frightwig – she just knew them.

As you mentioned previously, Gail Ann Dorsey was a solo artist when she first came into Bowie’s orbit, although he first saw her perform years before he worked with her.
She had to go through that whole thing of, ‘She’s a black artist trying to make it in the mainstream music culture.’ This was the mid-’80s, so of course they were thinking, ‘Make her R&B, the next Whitney Houston’. But if you listen to her albums, they’re very alternative. I almost think of her as a female Prince, because she can cross genres of effortlessly. For god’s sake, Andy Gill from Gang Of Four is on her first album!

The first notes you hear are his distinctive guitar sound. So you’re never gonna pigeonhole Gail as a Whitney Houston-type artist. It frustrated her that that was their narrow vision for her, of R&B/pop kind of stuff. She actually crosses soul, funk, pop, rock, and in some cases, really hard-driving alternative stuff. So she struggled with that on a couple of albums – they just kept coming back to trying to mould her into something she was never going to be.

So Gail being Gail, and independent-minded and totally with the resolve of being herself, she went, ‘Screw this solo artist situation, I’ll just go and play with somebody.’ And she always played with interesting artists, whether it was Tears For Fears, Gang Of Four or Charlie Watts.

In previous interviews, Gail has talked about how working with Bowie really stretched her creatively, particularly when it came to something like duetting on ‘Under Pressure’.
Absolutely. Now, I’m sure he was able to see that if you hire Gail Ann Dorsey, you’re hiring someone who can write songs, perform proficiently, sing – and she looks great, which was always part of the Bowie aesthetic. He was into image, which sometimes gets knocked as, ‘Oh, they’re only about the look’. But it is so much a part of Bowie’s very fluid personas down the years – his image would change. It makes sense that he would have striking looking band members.

We’re not reducing the artistry or the music here. We’re going, ‘They can fucking play like hell, but they also look cool too’. And there’s something to he said for that.

What other stories were you particularly struck by?
Again, it comes back to the sociological aspect. What interested me was the family dynamic early on, and whether they were, not pushed into music, but encouraged into music. Some people were born into families where music was part of their culture, and it was seen as social capital – music is part of middle class culture, especially classical music, piano playing and so on.

Whereas other ladies had to work their way into it harder, because they didn’t have that easy access into the conservatories and classical training. I find that an interesting contrast and dynamic, because all of these women have now reached a level where they are considered eminent in their field. That’s because of who’ve they played with, and their skill and versatility. But I’m always interested in the factors that get you there.

Being a huge Gang Of Four fan, would Sara Lee have been someone you were particularly interested in?
Yes. My favourite Gang Of Four albums are the two she’s on – her bass playing is just stunning, I love her style. A classic example is ‘Is It Love’, which has a new wave disco aesthetic. Also, her vocals are a big part of it.

There’s definitely a strand of Gang Of Four that could have been more commercial.
Yeah, and I think if they’d continued on with Sara in that vein, they were getting quite commercial. Sara’s background was that she was playing with Robert Fripp, and she knew Hugo from Gang Of Four, who I think was involved in the whole Fripp thing. He had mentioned to her that he was leaving Gang Of Four to do something else, and they were going to be auditioning. She went for it and got the gig.

Sara did those two albums, toured with them and left in I think ’85. She was at a bit of a loose end for a while and didn’t jump straight into other bands – she was playing in New York, where she stayed, because Gang Of Four effectively quit in New York. She wasn’t exactly rich, so she was literally making ends meet working in diners.

Was Sara really into the whole Gang Of Four aesthetic?
She definitely thought Andy Gill was the most unique guy possible. Having worked with Fripp, she was used to unique guitar players, so she recognised talent and skill.

Hired Guns: Portraits Of Women In Alternative Music is out now.