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Interview
by SashaS
8-8-2002
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| Queen Adreena's willowy leader |
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Baby vamp
Queen Adreena: Rockin’ ‘doll fatale’
A lot of people will argue that Rock’n’Roll is mainly an attitude that resonates; it’s about that magical connection that brings us together in the world above reality, but still indeterminate, whether it’s NIN and Korn or Queens Of The Stone Age and Slipknot that have it... Or, it could all be just clichés of the accepted rockarama.
Yet, there’s been a returning contender who, at a time when there are less genuine characters and sexiness-overall has cloaked talent, remains sadly ignored over the past couple of years. A sylphlike and fragile looking lady but strong of spirit, a woman-child, a femme fatale in baby-doll attire. Her name is Katie Jane Garside who is a vocalist and leader of Queen Adreena. Their debut album, ‘Taxidermy’ appeared two years ago on Warner Bros’ imprint Blanco Y Negro but only stirred passions of discerning few. That being an unprofitable enterprise for a major label, the band finds itself having their second opus, ‘Drink Me’, released on the indie-dom legend, Rough Trade.
Gone is the rocking Gothism of the debut and it’s been replaced with psycho-punk, a journey into the heart of darkness. ‘Drink Me’ is not simple listening, it requires descending into a hallucinogenic realm, hovering near the line dividing sanity from psychosis. It is a solid record that’s crying for general attention but if the band failed to do it on a major, what chance is there on an indie? When quizzed about the switch, Garside simply shrugs it off. She’s been there before…
Garside’s career commenced over a decade ago, when she led the punkoid rockers Daisy Chainsaw. But, within two years, in 1993, she had to step back from the music biz because, “If I hadn’t left it would have killed me.” She withdrew to the beauty spot of Lake District and, when sufficiently recovered, moved to Wales to re-start writing music that finally saw her fronting a new band upon settling back in London. That’s a long-gone past but it still haunts her.
“I’m fine now, thank you,” the still elegantly wasted looking babe states casually. “I was really in a bad way and performing in Daisy Chainsaw was really traumatic for me because I couldn’t articulate what I was doing. I don’t want to put my past down but it was really a primal thing that was more difficult because I wasn’t writing... This is more self-aware, it is reclaiming what I missed and that was performing; at the time I didn’t realise how much I needed performing because if I don’t do it my body almost starts dying. I had to give in to my nature’s demands.”
Invincible solitude
To regain her place as the female equivalent of Iggy Pop, she had to go through renewing her partnership with Daisy’s guitarist Crispin Gray but with one significant change – she’d write songs to stamp the band with her personality: perplexing, varied, dark, breezy, heavy, punkish, gothic, art-rocky, cyberistic... ‘Drink Me’ is a cocktail combining guitar-pop of ‘Pretty Like Drugs’, a claustrophobic scream that’s ‘Hotel After Shaw’, spooky lullaby ‘Sleeping Pill’ and soul-surgery on ‘My Silent Undoing’.
“That’s what it is all about, songs to perform live,” softly spoken sexpot elaborates. “I’m not interested in the business and we pay other people to do it for us. I write stories, I live in a pretty strange way but it is the way that suits me the best to survive. I renounce quite a lot of responsibility that way but I’m an artist and have no need for business control.”
“I don’t see anyone for weeks and weeks and performing is my only way of being in touch with life. I’ve always lived my life internally; I have a complete internal life with characters, family and colliding universes. That pushes me to be creative and I’ve expressed it in many different ways and this is only the most visible.”
Whether she’s got a partner in her life remains unanswered with Garside looking like the question was about the meaning of life, a subject she’d probably have lot more to offer.
Reluctant founder of Riot Grrrl
Dressed in a silk slip short enough to reveal her knickers and leave enough thigh strategically exposed before stockings interfere, she is a little girl-lost as well as the erotic queen she acts to the limit, while out-rocking competition. Something that didn’t pass by Courtney Love who named Katie Jane as one of the trio of ‘founders of Riot Grrrl’ rock movement from the dawn of the 1990s, alongside Kat Bjelland of Babes In Toyland.
“Yeah, that was really nice but she (Love) put herself on the list and I’m not sure about that. But all lists are fake, manufactured, because I don’t think you can quantify anything; everything is different. And, I’m an individual.”
Garside’s individualism is often mistaken for weirdness and she is frequently referred to as a cryptic persona, or for short - nuts.
“I’m a lucky girl and I treat the world as my plaything. It is part of my picture, background to my life story and I don’t rely upon anybody for anything. So, whatever the world thinks, let them.”
SashaS
8-8-2002
Queen Adreena’s album ‘Drink Me’ is out now on Rough Trade
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