Interview with Jenny Woo, with her guitar performed her tunes and explore the world sharing messages about loyalty , value and humanity
Jenny Woo is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist renowned for her unique fusion of acoustic melodies with the raw energy of Oi! and punk rock. In 2008, she composed a few songs on her acoustic guitar, blending the traditional themes of the punk and Oi! movements with the simplicity of folk music, and began performing them at punk events and local bars. Her early songs were straightforward and addressed issues like friendship, loyalty, unfulfilling careers, and not caring. In March 2009, Jenny recorded a five-track demo and independently distributed it. Throughout her career, Jenny has released multiple albums, including “Alberta Rose” (2011), “My Revenge” (2013), “Proud of Every Scar” (2016), “Tear Down Walls” (2018), and “Rebels Rule – Rule #1” (2021). Her lyrics often explore themes of personal empowerment, identity politics, and social issues, reflecting her commitment to authenticity and self-expression.
Jenny’s dedication to her craft has led her to perform in over 65 countries, sharing her music with diverse audiences worldwide. She has also been involved in various musical projects, including the Montreal-based punk band Birds of Prey, and the street punk band Jenny Woo’s Holy Flame. In addition she is committed to empowering women in the punk scene. Her “Athena” project has encouraged some female authors in this ongoing collective project whose aim is to unite women across the subculture through music, art and action. “Athena” was created in honor of strong women everywhere, moved by the slogan “may we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them.” Jenny Woo’s resilience and passion break barriers and inspire to remember the importance of the value of meritocracy, loyalty, and ethos within the communities.
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Can you tell us what motivated you to start a career as songwriter, and musician, and choose acoustic Oi! path? Have you been interested in music since your childhood?
I have always had something to say, and I have always loved the power of music – so becoming a songwriter and a musician was a natural route for me. I remember as a child listening to old rock n roll albums (The Beatles, Elvis Presley, CCR) with my dad growing up and just absolutely loving the way that the rhythm, the voice, and the intention behind the frequencies. I started my training as a musician with piano at a very young age and then started picking up guitar when I got interested in punk music as an early teenager. I loved the anger, the authenticity of punk and I started getting into oi! Music when the values of punk (no future/live for today) no longer attracted me. I loved the message behind oi! – the idea that we should be proud of who we are because of what we work for, that community, friendship and loyalty are of high importance. Unfortunately, the oi! Scene has always been very male dominated and when I auditioned as a guitarist for several local oi! Bands in my hometown, I was turned away because the guys believed that it would be impossible to be considered a “serious” band if there was a woman on stage with them. I was really angry, and so I decided to start my own solo oi! Project which is how I started the genre of acoustic oi!. Playing acoustically allowed me to accompany my own vocals and lyrics on guitar without the need of a drummer, a bassist, or a lot of amplification and equipment. I figured it was better to play alone than to not play at all.
You’ve cited Johnny Cash as an influence. What aspects of his music or persona resonate with you, and how have they shaped your artistic direction?
I think that Johnny Cash, the man in black, attracts a lot of people with his image of being a working-class outlaw. In his songs and his message he speaks up for the everyday worker, the person who has small hopes and dreams inside of the big machine of the system. He speaks to people who still want to feel important when they come from humble origins, and his story speaks to the success of an “ordinary man” becoming big with his music. I really loved how he was able to accompany himself with the guitar – both melodically and rhythmically. His solo act demonstrated that he could captivate an audience without a band, with just his voice and a guitar. I loved the idea of the black imagery symbolizing both a deep-seated grief and sorrow as well as the black horse and the unexpected hero rising up. His songs like “Get Rhythm” influenced a few of my songwriting ideas as well as the rhythmic accompaniment of my guitar playing.
Her musical journey began at the age of five, learning piano under the guidance of her stepfather, a piano teacher. By thirteen, she had expanded her repertoire to include guitar and drums, driven by a desire to form a punk band. Her transition into the skinhead subculture was influenced by its values of loyalty, community, and pride, which resonated deeply with her personal beliefs
Your music combines the raw energy of oi! with the stripped-down essence of acoustic performances. What inspired you to merge these seemingly contrasting styles, and how do you approach balancing the intensity of punk with acoustic melodies?
I think that we can derive power and message in music through a variety of mediums. With a lot of distortion and heavy drums, we can express a kind of primal scream and anger that comes with sheer volume and intensity. With well placed lyrics, confidence, and authentic delivery we can express the same anger and truth through just one acoustic guitar and a voice. I think that all music derives its power through the honesty of its message. Aesthetically I am very attracted to heavier music with a lot more distortion, but given that I was set on a path of being a solo artist I knew that this wasn’t necessarily available to me as a medium. So I had to start thinking of ways that I could deliver my same message of anger and strength through a different method and I found that I could blend the intensity of traditional oi! Music with the clarity and confidence of stripped-down music. At first I found it extremely challenging to find the confidence to deliver my lyrics and intention without hiding behind drums and distortion. One can feel very vulnerable when she is alone on stage with only her voice and guitar. However, with time I found a way to carve out my own sound which balanced both my influences and my reality.
You also incorporate elements of traditional Canadian folk. How do you see the relationship between folk narratives and punk storytelling in your work?
Folk music is the music of the people. It tells the stories of everyday people going through everyday moments of growth, tragedy, and persistence. I think that punk music is similar in that it is not music produced by massive record companies with the intention of making money. Punk music, like folk, is music that is written by real people for real people. It has minimum production and is shared from people-to-people directly – whether with shared playlists or live gigs. I love both genres of music, and I thought that it would be interesting to create a blend between folk and punk in some of my work in order to connect with the core human element in both. This is why in some of my songs you can hear banjo, blue grass strumming, or even some basic acoustic bass which I believe underlines the feeling of folk music in my songs about punk and oi! Community.
You are a Canadian of Scottish and Chinese descent, how have your multicultural roots influenced your songwriting and musical themes?
The punk and oi! Scenes are dominated by white artists. Although there is a strong anti-racist message coming from the community (one of the things that originally attracted me), I find that this message falls short in that there is not a lot of inclusivity and representation. Many bands sing about being anti-racist, but they don’t know what racism feels like and they don’t make space for people who have these lived experiences. I have found it extremely challenging as a person of colour to have a real conversation about racism within a white community that is self-prescribed as anti-racist. Many people are so interested in defending their own position of inclusivity and being anti racist that they don’t realize that their actions are pushing people of colour away. For example, even though promoters and organizers have good intentions, I have always found it strange when my bio reads “Asian woman plays acoustic music” as the first and most important thing about me. There are almost never biographies of other bands that say “white men playing punk music.” I think that people pick out my ethnicity because it’s interesting and exotic for them, and because it is important for them they project it on me as opposed to asking me about my own relationship with my ethnicity. I am a biracial individual, but the audience often targets my Asian roots because they fetichize this or find this the most interesting part about me. It feels like a complete reduction of my personality, talents and accomplishments. I am proud of where I come from, but it’s more for the story of my family’s immigration than it is about my actual connections to China and Chinese culture. People often like to reduce people to a colour and a certain narrative in order to get a “diversity check mark”, rather than letting people of colour express their own complex narratives. This is something that needs to change.
Additionally, given the reality of the internet and the world around us, I have received quite a few memes about myself either as COVID-patient zero (i.e. the “Jenny Flu” memes) and in yellow face. Unfortunately, I think that anti-Asian racism is often seen as “light racism” and is more comical and accepted than other types of racism, even within anti-racist communities. Oftentimes, when these memes are shared the white audience is polarized – they either laugh or become morally outraged on my behalf. However, not once do they ask me what it feels like to be a target of racism. Everybody assumes that being anti-racist means speaking out for people of colour, but I think that being a true ally means standing with us and giving us the space to speak for ourselves. We need to get better at having these conversations. I have felt a lot of anger, sadness and identity issues about these subjects which has become a large part of my lyrics and songwriting.
The punk and oi! scenes are often male-dominated. What challenges have you faced as a female artist in these genres, and how have you navigated them?
When I speak to my male counterparts in the oi! and punk scenes about their “worst” experiences touring, they often cite things like how hard it was to sleep on dirty mattresses, how sound equipment was broken, how promoters didn’t pay them the full agreed upon amounts. Whenever I speak to female musicians in the same community, our worst experiences involve rape, sexual assault, and violence. We are often not given space to speak about these issues, and many of us are afraid to speak up simply because there is a lack of understanding, empathy, and action when it comes to women’s issues in our scene. Oftentimes women are expected to be beautiful and slim whereas these values of beauty and worth are not projected on male musicians. Women are held to another standard when it comes to musicality. For example, as vocalists we are expected to have an incredible range and tone and presence on stage in order to be “good front women” whereas men can simply shout into a microphone and stand in one place and be accepted.
I find it extremely frustrating that women can be in bands, playing music, for years and years and are never given the same pay nor the same respect that male bands are given. For example, in the majority of oi! festivals, women musicians are booked either as the pre-party, after-party, or opening gigs but never as the headliners. In many festivals, there is not one single woman on the stage despite several women buying tickets and standing in the audience. All these kinds of prejudices are nuanced and not always apparent, but it’s clear that there are lines drawn. As women we are often expected to just be grateful to be invited to play, and are discouraged from asking for the same conditions such as pay and accommodation that men have.
I don’t know if I have always been the best at navigating these issues. I have been sexually assaulted by promoters, members of other bands, and so forth but I have been afraid to speak up. It feels overwhelming to already have so much critique about my body, the way I look, the quality of my music, and I just felt like in order to carry on I had to bury a lot of my sadness. I have had moments where I lacked the strength to stand up for myself and ask for more. But I am trying to get better. I find a lot of comfort and community in my female friends and other female artists who have unfortunately suffered the same thing. It has helped me enormously to know that I am not alone, and that there are more and more women speaking out and taking the stage. I believe that change will come.
You’ve been vocal against biases and prejudice. How do you address these themes in your music, and what reactions have you encountered from diverse audiences?
I try to be sensitive to the fact that my experiences are my own experiences, and not the experiences of all women or all people of colour. I write about them often in my music through my own personal lens. I have a lot of songs about personal perseverance and finding that rock of truth and strength in the core of oneself that gives us the foundation to our identities and our dreams. I had some reflections and moments of truth that I wanted to share on my album “Tear Down Walls”, but I simply could not find a way to do this in a melodic way. So I took the words and made it into a spoken poem on the album. This is a very different medium when it comes to the oi! scene, but I felt like it was the best way to share my experience.
I don’t think that my music is always well accepted. Many people in the oi! scenes say that I am a poser or I don’t know what I am talking about. Of course it’s impossible for me to be right all the time, but each person’s truth is unique to them. I think that a lot of audiences diminish my message and try to make me seem like an idiot or a bimbo because it suits their own narratives of who they think women should be. Many people just ignore me or see my music as inconsequential because they don’t think that I deserve to hold a microphone or take space in a male-dominated, predominantly white scene. I can understand that all music is not for every person’s tastes – however, the reality is that I am a solo woman who has continued in this scene for 20 years with 7 full length records and who has been touring thousands of gigs in over 65 countries. So whether or not you like my music, invalidating me through ignoring me is just a symptom of prejudice on who they think gets to matter in this community. On the other hand, I have received countless messages from women all around the world who have supported me from the beginning, and with whom I have created important friendships. I have also received extremely warm welcomes from punk scenes in the global South who have appreciated my story and the fact that I would travel to play for them. Also, there are some audiences who like my music and who play it simply because they like the sound and what I am doing as a musician, which means a lot.
If you could dispel one misconception about Oi! music or culture, what would it be?
Many people conflate the oi! scene with racism. The oi! scene is based on the skinhead scene, and when people read this word the first thing they often think about is neo nazis and racism. However, the original skinhead scene originated in 1960s England with a mix of Caribbean and British audiences. The roots of this culture are in multiculturalism and community, and it is truly unfortunate that one part of this community got side-tracked into a far right-wing agenda and that this extremist element has come to define the whole subculture. The skinhead scene, and the oi scene, is not a racist scene. It is one built from international communities that span from Latin America to Asia, and that has a strong anti-racist message. Unfortunately, there are some people who still take the word and use it for a racist message but this is outside of the spirit of our community.
The EP Athena was created by a group of women in the punk and skinhead scene, notably Beki Bondage (Vice Squad), Clara Byrne (Dakka Skanks), Jenny Woo, Jess Swan (Esperanza) and Rebe Kämpfer (Brutus Daughters)
You’ve been involved in creating fanzines like “Subculture Spirit.” In an era dominated by digital media, what role do you believe print fanzines play in the punk community today?
I wanted to create a paper fanzine because I loved the idea of having an artefact in one’s hands that withstood the test of time. I loved the idea of having something to hold onto as times change. I believe that print media still plays a huge role in the punk community because it is important to archive pieces of history. Digital media comes and goes, it can be easily edited and changed and deleted. However, paper fanzines are a true testament to independent journalism – they are what remains of an era and a truth.
Having performed in over 65 countries, can you share a meaningful experience from a country, or from the backstage of a tour, where you found the punk scene to be particularly unique or unexpected?
I remember in 2013 when I was touring in Indonesia, one of the guys who was coming to the gigs and who was part of the local skinhead crew invited us to stay at his family home. His name was Ujank Hawkins and he had the biggest smile I have ever seen. I was traveling with Diana, the owner of Randale records, and was playing solo acoustic sets for the tour. We travelled 4.5 hours through the jungle on broken roads to get to his family home in the middle of a rice field. When we arrived it was 5:30am and we heard the first call to prayer coming from the speakers in the village. The family in the home consisted of about 20 people – women, children, babies – who all slept on the floor so that we could have the only bed in the entire home. We felt honored but we also felt so bad that they gave us their bed! When we woke up, the punks and skins from the town went out and picked fresh vegetables to cook for us for breakfast. I never experienced such hospitality – the generosity of these folks who had nothing to give but gave everything was overwhelming. I remember that the house had no electricity, and yet one of the women did have a phone (not sure how she charged it?) and we took a photo all together. It was a beautiful moment.
Another moment was when I played in Centurion in South Africa. One of the local punks, a guy named Izaak, had organized a few local gigs for me in the Jo-burg area. He was of Afrikaans background, and he took me all around the city for tourism as well. We visited the Apartheid museum together, and he told me his family’s history in South Africa and what it was like to be born in the Apartheid system. In this museum you draw a card at the beginning, and depending on your card, you follow a different path through the museum. He drew the card for “black” and I drew the card for “white” and we took our different paths. We stood at the end of the museum and cried together, it was a hugely powerful moment of experiencing humanity, and history together – two people with totally different lives, feeling something greater than ourselves. For the first time in his life, despite living so close, he travelled with me to Soweto and I could feel his discomfort but he did it anyway because I wanted to see the townships. He had actually never left South Africa to that point, and yet there was so much to see and experience that was new inside his own country. I remember feeling so touched and amazed that he had learned about my music, and that we had the same favorite bands, even though we lived so far apart from each other. It was a big lesson for me in terms of how the internet is an intensely important tool for community and for music, and how even though we can be so different from others, this subculture brings us all together in a bond of togetherness.
International Women Day 2025 theme is “Accelerate Action”. From your perspective, music can be a tool to overcome barriers? What can it teach about strength, resilience, and solidarity with other women? Have you noticed that something evolved over the years, especially concerning societal perceptions?
I absolutely believe that music can be a tool to overcome barriers. It is an art form that allows us to express our truths, and it is an art form that is easily shared through recordings and performances. I think that all women who have the courage to stand on stage can teach us about strength and resilience, because I know that they have already been through so many challenges just to get there. I believe that the only way that we can bring forward the position of women in our society and in our scene is to stand together. We must support each other’s successes and defend each other in order for us all to advance. I have seen that there have been more and more women on the stage and in bands in the punk scene in the last years, and thanks to the internet more women are reaching out and connecting with each other and finding support. Women’s messages are being more often shared and more often believed thanks to strength in numbers and strength in solidarity. It has become less acceptable to be overtly sexist (i.e. grabbing a woman physically or threatening rape and violence). However, sexism is now more nuanced and more hidden than ever before and we have to continue fighting against double standards regarding the quality of musicianship, beauty norms and sexuality. We have to be persistent, we have to be resilient, and we have to be strong. Together.
Photos courtesy of Jenny Woo
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