Cheetie Kumar

Birds of Avalon’s guitar heroine makes a case for the return of guitar-rock love

By Sheba White
Published: March 27th, 2008 | 1:50pm

Birds of Avalon’s co-guitarist Cheetie Kumar is amazed when I tell her the juicy gossip I’ve found out about her. “How did you find all that stuff?” she squawks from somewhere on the road to Kansas City, Missouri, the latest spot on the band’s 36-stop U.S. tour in support of its newest EP, Outer Upper Inner (released March 18, 2008). Kumar sounds as upbeat as a spring bird when she speaks. She’s not at all like the grizzled guitar goddess one would expect from someone who has spent a good chunk of her life on tour, beginning in 1998 with the garage-rock bonanza that was the Cherry Valence and now with her guitar-rock reincarnation as part of the Raleigh, North Carolina, five-piece that she and co-guitarist Paul Siler formed in 2005 with drummer Scott Nurkin, vocalist Craig Tilley, and bassist David Mueller.

With a bit of Google stalking, it isn’t difficult to cull little details on the lady who’s becoming known as one of the best guitarists of her generation. Fans — many of them male commentators — are known to leave a plethora of charmingly geeky, sigh-laced love notes on chat boards about her, complimenting both Kumar’s physical and technique sexiness — two traits that aren’t often simultaneously praised by chatroom dudes when it comes to female musicians. They also cite her for being one of the few female musicians to publicly embrace ’70s Irish rockers Thin Lizzy and English prog rockers Yes on her fan-of list — a trait that seems to be so anomalous as to inspire insta-awe. Yet, the prevalent tone underlying these messages is a familiar “Wow, and she’s a girl!”

Kumar seems unruffled by the suggestion, speaking as though she’s just another musician plugging in amps and slogging through the music-world mire. “I go back and forth on it,” she says of the female guitarist response. “Most times, I just don’t see what the big deal is, and I don’t think it’s a big deal at all. If you play in a random town with a random band, there’s a chance that there’s going to be a girl playing guitar.”

“At the same time,” Kumar adds, “I also think that people think a woman in a band is going to be using her sexuality, and the guitar is just some sort of accessory or device to help her achieve those image means.” Kumar adopts a condescending, lispy tone imitating such detractors: “‘you can’t possibly be serious? Honey, you know the power switch on your amp? The red one?’” then flows right into dude-monotone without a hitch, “‘a girl guitar player? This band’s gonna suck.’” Although her impersonations infer personal experience, she doesn’t seem scarred by the remarks. Her throaty, womanly laughter reverbs across the phone lines, as though a G5 chord were played just below earbleed levels.

It turns out that Birds of Avalon — a name inspired by what Kumar loosely describes as a mystical-natural, Alfons Mucha–feeling the band was trying to convey — not only forgo sucking, but they’re garnering praise, especially in hard rock circles, the fans of which have spent the last decade watching as what they call “bore-core” muted their beloved genre. “I guess there’s this dumbness associated with guitar rock,” Kumar says, paraphrasing what she perceives to be its social stigma: “You can’t possibly be serious playing heavy or hard rock, because it’s for dumb people, and it’s played by dumb people who hate women and who like to throw things out of hotel windows.”

Birds of Avalon — like their frequent comparisons and friends the Fucking Champs and Drunk Horse — are noted for bringing attention back to skillfully crafted guitar rock, particularly by incorporating what some critics have referred to as Siler and Kumar’s anti-riff style of playing. “I like that,” Kumar laughs, taking a stab at the definition when prompted. “Maybe like early Black Flag? Hopefully it’s something that doesn’t make you do that stupid devil-horn symbol. But it still makes you want to listen: no irony, no tongue-sticking-out spandex, but it’s still guitar.”

Similarly, Kumar says that Birds of Avalon’s process has always been to create songs with intelligent lyrics that tell a story, rather than reiterate the typical “sex-you-up” fodder prevalent in so much of guitar rock. The result is a swirl of “angular” (Siler) and “linear” (Kumar) guitar work and driving drum beats accompanied by dreamy lyrical pop sensibilities (Tilley) that have reviewers throwing around words like “swaggering” and “magnetic,” and citing Birds of Avalon as “potent proof” that intelligent guitar rock does, indeed, exist.

For Kumar, it’s all just music, unless of course, one is talking about guitar work and weird sounds created by guitars. Possibly inciting scores of future chatroom-generated love notes, Kumar says of her love for the guitar, “It’s like this primal thing. I hear the sound of it and I just like it. I think it’s in my genes or something. I hear a well-played guitar and it just excites me. I still feel like a kid when it’s played well.”

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