Fat Girls Rock! So why aren't there more in Rock Music?
Picture of Brianna Wideload, a young fat womxn with long dark hair, pictured at a music venue, sitting with a mic standing in front of her and a guitar in her hands.
By Brianna Wideload
Content warning: The “Fat Camp” video mentioned and linked to in this piece includes adult language and graphic descriptions of experiences with weight shaming.
Finding a famous plus size female guitar player in the history of rock music can be a rare challenge. There are way too many slim female guitar players on Instagram and Tiktok. I barely see any fat girls screaming with an electric guitar. My name is Brianna Wideload and I’m currently in a grunge rock band called French Fries. I was raised in Long Beach, California, and there are not too many grunge rockers here let alone plus size ones. Fat liberation and plus size positivity needs to be seen in rock music. It is crucial. I live for rock music and I’m very passionate and vocal about being a fat girl in rock.
I’m learning more about the history of fat women in rock. For example, groundbreaking plus size lead singer Debra Iyall from the rock band Romeo Void is a fat female rock star role model. She wrote iconic songs in the 1980s, toured the world, and appeared on television shows. Today, she still performs, and she often posts selfies on her Instagram account.
I really want to connect with more plus size guitar players. The only other plus size rock singer I’ve been able to connect with online so far is a female rock singer named Carys Rose. I asked her about being a plus size rocker. She said, “Being plus size on the rock music scene makes everything so much more difficult due to discrimination. I get hate comments telling me to lose weight several times a week.” Even though she gets trolls, she continues to post videos of herself playing guitar and uploading her music to Spotify.
My latest album, which can be found on Spotify and Youtube, is called Ravenous. The word ravenous means having an extreme hunger. I have a hunger for rock music and a hunger of the finest food as well. “Fat Camp,” the first single and music video off my new album, was inspired by plus size Tiktok celebrity Jaimie Weisberg, who mentions her time at a fat camp many times in her videos. I needed to write a creative song about this.
My album is a mix of raw emotion, anger, hunger and a little bit of everything. Sodium Queen is a big middle finger to diet culture and its obsession with restricting sodium foods. Baby Blue Cupcake is a colorful portrayal of the reality of the pretty girls in high school and misogynistic American beauty standards.
Every guitar player's dream is to get signed to a record deal and buy mansions in Beverly Hills. My mission as a plus size singer and guitar player is to teach plus size girls not to be afraid to play guitar and join rock bands. There’s gotta be a big breakthrough beyond slim female rock stars. Fat liberation and plus size positivity needs to be known and made aware in rock music. It is crucial.
Pic of Brianna Wideload, a young fat womxn with long dark hair; a t-shirt reading, “Believe there is good in the world/Be the good in the world” behind her.
Brianna Wideload was raised in Long Beach, California. Her journalism experience has been since high school and city college. She has been songwriting since the age of seven. She's a plus size grunge rock singer, animal rights activist, vegan junk food lover, and has a passion for plus size fashion. Her music is available on Spotify. Her Instagram profile is plantbasedtestimony and her website is frenchfriesrockers.com.
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