Teri Gender Bender

Teri Gender Bender serves as the stage identity for Teresa Suárez Cosío, the El Paso-based vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. Although she gained widest recognition leading Guadalajara’s post-punk feminist rock outfit Le Butcherettes, she also shared leadership of Bosnian Rainbows alongside longtime associate Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and headed Crystal Fairy. Her work spans so many styles that they tend to merge whenever her name surfaces. Le Butcherettes issued their first full-length album, Sin Sin Sin, in 2011 and it attracted notice far beyond Mexico. The 2014 release Cry Is for the Flies and 2015’s A Raw Youth each opened additional touring routes. Beginning in 2010 she contributed regularly to Omar Rodriguez-Lopez’s solo projects and, together with him, launched Bosnian Rainbows; that group’s Live at Clouds Hill surfaced in 2013 and its self-titled album followed in 2016. Suárez and Rodriguez-Lopez later teamed with the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover to create Crystal Fairy, whose self-titled debut appeared in 2017. Le Butcherettes resurfaced with bi/MENTAL in 2019 and followed it with 2020’s Don’t Bleed. In 2022 Suárez issued her debut solo album, Cuando Yo Era Una Nina.

Born in Denver, Colorado, to a Mexican mother and a Spanish immigrant father, Teresa Suárez Cosío began experiencing repeated dreams of playing guitar at age ten and took up the instrument shortly afterward. When she was thirteen her father suffered a fatal heart attack, prompting her, her mother, and her younger brothers to relocate to Guadalajara.

At seventeen, while still attending high school, she and classmate Auryn Jolene formed the duo Le Butcherettes. Their performances incorporated 1950s clothing and household objects—brooms, feather dusters, blood-stained aprons, and raw meat—as symbols of Mexican women they viewed as oppressed within a machismo culture. The pair quickly built a strong following in Mexico’s underground scene; their concerts sold out and drew praise from international writers and cultural observers. Suárez also took the surname Gender Bender as a personal feminist declaration. The debut EP Kiss & Kill earned attention in Texas, Arizona, California, and Mexico City, yet the live shows generated even greater interest. After Jolene departed, a succession of drummers passed through before Alejandra Robles Luna settled into the role permanently in 2016.

Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez attended an early performance during which the power failed; undeterred, Suárez moved into the audience and kept singing through a megaphone. Impressed, he introduced himself and soon signed the band to his label. He produced the 2011 album Sin Sin Sin, whose emotionally unfiltered songs, shifting melodies, angular riffs, and unexpected hooks drew praise from critics, fans, and DJs worldwide. Rodriguez-Lopez also toured as Le Butcherettes’ bassist for roughly a year surrounding the release.

While continuing to work with the group, Rodriguez-Lopez’s main band the Mars Volta entered a long hiatus, leading him and Suárez to form the post-psych and post-punk outfit Bosnian Rainbows in early 2012 alongside former Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks and keyboardist Nicci Kasper of KUDU and We Are Dark Angels. Their self-titled debut arrived on Sargent House in 2013. Meanwhile Le Butcherettes remained active, playing clubs and support slots throughout 2013. They toured until summer 2014, then recorded the widely acclaimed Cry Is for the Flies—again produced by Rodriguez-Lopez—which Ipecac issued that September, after which the band opened for the Melvins.

As Le Butcherettes’ audience expanded, their ambitions grew. In September 2015 they released A Raw Youth, once more produced by Rodriguez-Lopez and featuring guest contributions from guitarist John Frusciante and Iggy Pop. Critics praised the jagged recording, with some suggesting it signaled the band’s arrival in the rock mainstream—an idea Suárez found amusing. Following the album’s release the group toured Europe with a reunited At the Drive-In and headlined U.S. dates. Suárez also supplied lead vocals for the Melvins’ cover of the Bikini Kill song “Rebel Girl.”

The year 2016 kept Suárez especially occupied. Beyond appearing on a dozen Rodriguez-Lopez albums, she released a cover of Depeche Mode’s “I Feel You” with the Lions and Rodriguez-Lopez. She also helped launch Crystal Fairy with Rodriguez-Lopez and two members of the Melvins; the first single, “Necklace of Divorce” / “Drugs on the Bus,” came out that year, as did Le Butcherettes singles “House Hunter” and “My Mother Holds My Only Life Line.” By year’s end Crystal Fairy had completed an album and begun touring.

Crystal Fairy delivered its self-titled Ipecac album in February 2017. Both Melvins members were sufficiently committed that they considered pausing their primary band, yet the project dissolved before that step could occur. Suárez and Rodriguez-Lopez instead collaborated on four of his albums that year—Zen Thrills, Chocolate Tumor Hormone Parade, Azul, Mis Dientes, and Doom Patrol. Late in 2017 Suárez reconvened Le Butcherettes to finish bi/MENTAL, produced by former Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison. Although planned for 2018, the album appeared in February 2019; the band then toured Europe and North America. In September they issued a cover of the Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love with Someone You Shouldn’t’ve.” Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Suárez’s only recorded contribution in 2020 or 2021 was a guest vocal on CocoVera’s single “Feel Better.”

Returning as a solo artist in 2022 while based in El Paso, she proved highly productive. The four-track, electronically focused EP Cuando Yo Era Una Nina appeared on Clouds Hill in June and established the sonic direction she pursued for the rest of the year. In August she released a rapid series of EPs: olivia, she wanted me to leave her alone on the first, madre would not allow it though three days later, pestering became a virtue on the eighth, and the experimental breakbeat set leaving her to be was just not an option three days after that. On the fifteenth came the avant-pop EP erik, even he found it to be obscene; X-rays were taken to make sure i am there, that i exist followed on the eighteenth, I Suddenly Remembered That I Am Not (It Feels Too) on the twenty-second, Funny on the twenty-fifth, and You Were Truly the One That Made Us Laugh on the twenty-ninth. The four-track Saturn Sex EP arrived in October and the State of Fear EP in December. In total Suárez released forty-eight songs—material equivalent to four albums.