By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer

When you hear heavy metal diva Otep sing, shredding her vocal chords on the dozen tracks of her latest album, “The Ascension” (Koch), you’d never guess that she’s a mild-mannered and fascinating conversationalist. But backstage in Chicago, shortly before taking the stage with her band while on tour with Hell Yeah, she had a lot to say and never once did she raise her voice. Prepare to be delighted and surprised.

Gregg Shapiro: What types of music did you listen to when you were growing up? Did you have a broad range of taste or did you listen to the kind of music that you play now?

Otep:  Oh, no, I never really listened to heavy music. I was sort of forced to listen to a lot of gospel music and Elvis. I took after my mother a little bit. She liked Guns ’N Roses and The Doors and those kinds of bands. I didn’t listen to a whole lot of music. I was more of a literary girl. I read a lot. I drew a lot. I was more lost in my imagination most of the time. I didn’t get into music until relatively later in life.

GS: Who did you like to read?

O: Sylvia Plath was one.

GS: I’m glad that you mentioned her, because if you rearrange the letters in your name, it spells “poet,” and I was going to ask if there were poets who influenced you.
O: My mom made us read every summer in between school years, so I would read anything I could get my hands on. I read Bukowski and Ginsberg and Kerouac. I was forced to read a lot of school stuff, too. But I read a lot about ancient history, so that’s where my love and adoration for ancient cultures and things came about.

GS: Are there any CDs from the music collection of your youth that would cause you embarrassment today? Are there any Tiffany CDs in there?
O: (Laughs) No, no. I think I had my older brother’s “Purple Rain” cassette. But that’s a great record, though. He’s a magnificent musician and a wonderful lyric writer. I don’t know if it’s an embarrassment, but it is a little weird, now that I look back.

GS: Who would you say are your top two or three musical influences?
O: I get switched on by a musician who puts passion in their music, not necessarily by the type of music that they play. It can by everyone from Trent Reznor to Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison, Thom Yorke, cats like that.

GS: I’m glad that you mentioned Cobain, because you do a cover of Nirvana’s “Breed,” which opens with a spoken quote that goes, “Nirvana means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world.” Why did you include that quote and why did you choose to cover that song?
O:  I wanted to bookend that song with two different phrases about Nirvana. The first one, that opening line, those are actually Kurt’s words, not mine. It’s the reason why he decided to name the band Nirvana. I ended the song with another quote that is, I think, the actual Buddhist explanation of Nirvana. Why I wanted to cover the song is that I miss Nirvana. I miss someone like Kurt Cobain.

GS: Foo Fighters don’t do it for you?
O: I love Foo Fighters. It’s more about Cobain’s energy and what he brought. I love Dave Grohl. I reached out to him when we covered this song and I’ve met him several times. He’s a swell guy. The Foo Fighters have their own message and their own sound, their own music. It’s a little different than Nirvana’s sound and message and I miss that being present. I miss someone like Cobain being around. That was the reason that I did it. And I didn’t want to cover a song that was popular to people. I wanted to cover a song that was one of my favorites.

GS: How does the songwriting process for your band? You’re credited on all the songs, but you also collaborated with other people.
O: I’ll sit down with whomever—the band or Jay or Holly or Greg—with an idea in mind, the type of song that I want to write at the moment. It’s an emotional urge, an itch. I’ll either sing the song or read the lyrics and they’ll play me some of their riff ideas and I can pick and choose what sounds like what I’m writing, so we start from that foundation and it grows from there.

GS: “Perfectly Flawed” is my favorite song on the new disc. I love the way it moves from suburban tranquility to being shattered by domestic rage. What inspired you to write it?
O: That bit that precedes the song—I wanted to show that usually it’s the opposite. That the outdoors environment is where you are most in danger and indoors is where you’re supposed to be safe. For a lot of people, it’s the exact opposite. They feel safer outside their home. I look back on the body of our work and a lot of our stuff is about what’s wrong with the world and what’s wrong with this and that. But I wanted to write a song that celebrates what’s right with us. I wanted us to take a moment—and anyone else who feels the way that I do—to realize that we’re fine the way we are without conforming.

GS: There’s also a strong political statement in “Confrontation.” When you sing “Stand up,” it made me think of activist organizations such as ACT UP and the chants they would say. Would you consider yourself to be a political activist, and if so, did that come about because of the current political climate or were you always politically minded?
O: I think I was always socially minded. I’m not sure if I’m a political activist, but I feel like I am a cultural and social activist. If I wasn’t in music, if I didn’t have this outlet, I believe I probably would be. I’m very lucky to have the rights that I have in this country. And even though there are a lot of people who want to compress and limit them at the moment, it’s not legal for them to do it yet. And I’m not going to let them do it. If we keep waiting for the next Martin Luther King or the next Gandhi, or someone else to stand up for us, it’s never going to happen. We’re just going to be standing there waiting. It’s up to us to stand up, speak out and strike back.

GS: What role is the religious imagery in songs such as “Ghostflowers,” “March of the Martyrs,”…
O: …“Noose and Nail.”

GS: What role is it meant to play in your music?
O: I was raised in a rigid, strict, religious household and it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I think that a lot of it is meant to not necessarily ask people to change their beliefs, but to question everything.  If your faith is still very strong after that, then fine. I don’t want me or anyone else to be spoon-fed anything. We have the right to question everything.

GS: Your band has played a handful of Ozzfests and as someone who identifies as a member of the LGBT community, do you feel like it’s been a welcoming experience?
O: There’s never been any negativity about anything like that. It’s mainly just been about me being a woman. That was the first negative stance. What was very interesting and almost inspiring and exciting for me was to see Judas Priest play. And to see (openly gay) Rob Halford up there. There are 25,000–35,000 people singing his songs, screaming with him. Not one person is being angry or ugly or mean or hateful. They’re singing. It’s every generation. There are guys bringing their sons there. You know that probably in their own communities if they see a guy walking around dressed in leather and spikes, they’re not going to shake his hand. But on stage, it’s a different thing. They weren’t judging him for anything other than his music and I thought that was really inspiring.

GS: As a member of the LGBT community, do you feel like you are reaching listeners within the community? Do you have a sense of a queer following within your own audience?
O: The people that support our music, they find a very inclusive environment. Most girls that I’ve talked to, they’re either on the team or they’re curious about the team. Some days they’re on the team, some days they’re not (laughs). What’s a lot more meaningful to me is when I see a lot of gay men coming to the shows. Sometimes these more aggressive shows can be very dangerous. You start to see a lot more people coming out and, if anything, our music and our messages inspire everyone to be comfortable with themselves and not judge other people, whether you’re straight or bent or curved or whatever. You just accept people for who they are because we’re all different and we’re all unique.