Gutsy axe-meistress Marnie Stern.

Roll model (pun intended) Jennifer Herrema, the driving force behind RTX.

Multi-project princess Amy Millan of Stars and Broken Social Scene, not to mention an upcoming second solo effort.

These women show more contrasts than commonalities — aside from unquestioned musical talent and double-X chromosomes, and the fact that DRIVEN admires each of them. Before you check out our interviews, try to guess which woman recently turned towards pop, which crashed a Jaguar, and which one  calls Europeans “really bad thieves.” (We’re inclined to forgive them these little transgressions, regardless.)

Both as one half of semi-legendary garage-sleaze duo Royal Trux (with then-partner Neil Hagerty) and as the original CKone girl, Jennifer Herrema was responsible for some of the most iconic music and imagery of the 1990s. Her latest project, RTX, embraces those roots while telling a much different story.

It’s been four years since you struck out on your own and formed RTX. Are you happy with how things have played out?

Yeah, it’s perfect. It creeps up on you. I never had an endgame in mind, but there’s always this thing up in my head that’s, like, ‘Let’s do this,’ and then when you look back, you realize that every step was a proper step because this is exactly where we wanted to be. If you keep this thing in your head, it just kinda pans out if you just follow the thing. That thing! [Laughs]

Do you see RTX taking any more experimental turns down the line, more akin to your work with Royal Trux?

Well, there’s never a conscious decision to veer off path. But as it is with genres, I feel like we’re still creating our own. It encompasses a lot of genres that have come before that we love and respect. We’re trying to define our own.

RTX is obviously a much more personal project for you than anything you’ve done before. It almost seems like if you had your druthers, this is what Royal Trux would have sounded like, too.

RTX is more of a product of being in Royal Trux and being me. It’s what I listened to growing up, and all the things that really had profound influences upon me. Those are very different from what Neil [Hagerty] grew up with, my partner in Royal Trux. So RTX takes the diplomacy out of it. It’s more straight-on.

You once compared RTX to [visual artist] Jeff Coons. What other non-musical influences do you channel?

He’s definitely one of ’em. I’m not lazy at all, but when it comes to creating stuff, I get a picture in my head and it’s not like I’m gonna sit there and create it and hammer it out. I like bringing influences together. I produce the whole thing, stage the whole thing. I know what I want the guitar to sound like, but I’m not gonna play it ’cause, fuck, I can’t play like that at all. I feel like a master of ceremonies in many respects, and I feel like that’s very much the way he operates as well.

You’ve done your share of modeling in the past. What draws you to that world?

It started with Steven Meisel and Calvin Klein. I was on the cover of some magazine, and he cast me for the CKone campaign. A couple years later he cast me again for the jeans and stuff, for commercials. I never went to an agency — I never did that — but there were different photographers who were interested in working with me, and they would cast me. Whenever I do that work I get to be myself; the models have to be so professional, everything perfect, toenails, fingernails, they can’t drink on the set… I can do whatever I want. I like that. It works out.

The kind of music that you make — both now, and back in the ’90s — is not commercial (latest album, JJ Got Live RTX, pictured below). And yet, Virgin Records signed Royal Trux to a famously huge record deal that would never happen today.

No.

Do labels still matter?

I think that what we see on MTV and commercials and major radio play, those three platforms are completely driven and run by major labels. Do I think that what they’re putting out there is necessarily relevant? Not so much. It’s only a matter of time before the public absolutely catches onto that. They’ll get tired of being force-fed. There’s not a lot of platforms, still, for independent labels and independent bands. It’s coming up, but as it is right now, the pocketbook rules. But I think it will change, for sure.

Meantime, what ever came of the Jaguar that you reportedly bought with the money from the contract?

The Jaguar got totaled. We were in the mountains and there was this old doctor, and it was late at night, and he ran through a stop sign and crushed the car. Neil was driving, but Neil wasn’t hurt. Yeah. So we got some money and I bought a racing car, a 1972 Monte Carlo with a V8 engine, and a turbo on it. It was super cool.

Very nice.

I totalled that one.

Oh, no.

Yeah! It got like ten miles to the gallon. It was so insane. But yeah, that one got totaled. Then I got sensible and I bought a Saab.

Although best known for her roles in Stars and Broken Social Scene, Amy Millan understandably saves her most personal material for the records that bear her name alone. With her latest solo LP, Masters of the Burial (Arts & Crafts), awaiting release on September 8, Amy spoke about the benefits of having tight-knit bandmates and the perils of striking out on one’s own.

What’s it like being a woman in a band full of men that tours constantly?

Well, we’re all very much like a family. [Co-frontperson Toquil] Campbell and I can get pretty feisty with one another. We probably fight the most out of anyone.

Fight how?

We disagree on things. It’s like you can fight with your brothers or sisters as much as you want, but if anyone else on the outside does anything to attack them you’re the first person to protect them. That’s the feeling that I have with the band. But I’m living as a couple with [bassist] Evan Cranley, so that’s pretty sweet. It’s a sweet shack-up for sure.

Are intra-band arguments the catalyst for branching out as a solo artist from time to time, as you do?

I was very nervous about doing that, but to be honest, my bandmates were the ones who were kicking my ass to get it together and finally get into the studio. I’m always walking slowly backwards while other people are pushing me forwards with my solo stuff. [The brand-new solo album, Masters of the Burial, pictured below.]

With Stars, you released a full-length album online [2007’s In Our Bedroom After the War] before it was available in stores. You guys were early adopters on that trend, weren’t you?

It’s interesting because I really thought we would get more attention as being one of the first bands that did it, but Radiohead did it a couple weeks later and we got really outshined by that. It was an interesting thing to do, though, and you don’t know the alternative of what would have happened. My big fear was that the record was going to be leaked, which is what happens now. And once it’s leaked, the consumer has no option other than stealing it. So I thought it was important that we gave them an option to support the band and buy the record. They just want to hear it. I think it’s important, too, in this atmosphere, with the crumbling CD world, that you come up with alternative ways of releasing records, and imaginative ways of distributing it. I’m proud of what we did, and maybe one day people will know that we were one of the pioneers.

What did you learn from that experiment?

Digital sales are on the rise, particularly in the United States. People in Europe are really bad thieves and… piracy is just deadly there. But you have to move with what’s happening. I think that someday people will be held responsible for that, but right now we’re sort of in No Man’s Land.

Any suggestions for what can be done?

The computer companies should be paying up, and the cable companies should be contributing. These people are making billions of dollars by selling software that makes it possible to steal. It’s like giving somebody a skeleton key, and saying, “I didn’t know they were going to open any doors with that…” I think that eventually, there will be a restructuring of the entire business, but for now we need to stay on our toes and work the internet to our advantage.

Speaking of your audience abroad, Canadian bands have enjoyed a lot of international attention over the past few years. Is the reception still as warm as ever?

Well, one of the most exciting tours I’ve been on in a while is actually going to the east coast of Canada. We went to Norway, Sweden, Copenhagen, and Australia, and Japan, and Singapore, but we’d yet to be to Newfoundland. It was daunting to me that we tried to represent ourselves as Canadian musicians across the globe, without having even seen all of our own country. So we’ve now played every province, which I’m very proud of.

Were you surprised to find you had that kind of reach?

To go that far from home and see everyone sing along, again, that just shows you the power of the Internet. I think it’s important to invest in your own country, and I think the east coast gets ignored a lot because it is quite expensive to get out to Newfoundland. It’s relatively far. My renewed interest is within my own country right now.