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We catch up
with the extremely talented McQueen shortly before their headliner gig
at the Carling Academy in Newcastle to find out more about the band,
their music and their recently released debut album 'Break The Silence'.
MM - Hi girls, thanks for taking the time out to talk to us today, we
really do appreciate it.
McQueen - No problem, it's an absolute pleasure.
MM - Would you like to give us a brief history on how the band came
about, did you know each other before or did you advertise for like
minded musicians?
Leah - Well basically we've been going for about 3 years now and we
all just knew each other before, like a lot of bands do. When
you're a musician and you're out on the music scene you meet other
musicians and you end up with bands breaking up and new bands forming
all the time. It was just exactly that really, we all came
together in a very small world.
MM - How do you feel that the bands sound has developed since you
originally started?
Leah - I think we've managed to create a real sound which is McQueen
and I think that has come from being stuck in rehearsal rooms for long
periods of time, listening to other bands and getting inspired by the
bands.
Hayley - I think also because we tour as much as possible, to that
effect you can't help but get influenced by the bands you tour with and
the experiences you have. I think our sound has grown, but at the
same time I think it has remained very distinct as McQueen.
Leah - If you listen to the McQueen album that is out now, you'll
see that it's a bit of a journey because we have some punkier tracks,
then some rockier tracks. We've got some moshier tracks and then
some slower tempo-ed moshier tracks. All together on the one
album. There are so many different musical flavours that have gone
into it, but still we've retained the McQueen sound. We're very
proud of that.
MM - At what age did you become
interested in being a performer and who/what inspired you to join a
band?
Leah - Well I can answer that very very
simply because I grew up listening to rock music and Guns N Roses really
did it for me. I saw all these Guns N Roses Videos and DVD's when
I was growing up and it was just like WOW! I really want to be
doing something like that myself and so I just applied myself to it and
carried on. Here I am now in a band doing what I have always
wanted to do which is great. I think for me it was definitely Guns
N Roses, Skid Row and Pantera. They were the main three that
really made me go WOW! that is what I want to be doing with my life!
Hayley - My brother's a drummer and I used to always go along to
see him play, then one day I was asking him to let me have a go on his
kit and as soon as I got on it I knew that was it, the drums nothing
else would do. I went through school and college and all the time
I knew I didn't want to do anything else apart from play the drums.
That's how much it influenced me. Any type of music, I would just
listen to everything I could and then I would play it. Now I'm
just out on the road now having fun doing it.
Cat - Similar sort of thing here really. Ever since I was
little my brother played guitar and I would always ask him to give me
some lessons, but he was always too busy with his friends and his own
band. In the end my mum worked out a deal where she'd pay him some
money to teach me a bit and so that's how I started off. He was
into Punk bands, the Sex Pistols and stuff like that. I just
always thought he looked really cool with the guitar. It all
carried on from there, ever since I was a little nipper.
Sophie - Again my story is pretty much the same. My older
brother got me into the late 80's metal where you had bands like
Megadeth, Metallica and Pantera. I remember he would always get me
to start headbanging to it when I was about 5 years old. I always
thought yeh why not? MM -
Why not indeed.
Sophie - Yeh!
Exactly!
MM - The band have been together for 3 years now and have finally
released their much anticipated debut album 'Break The Silence' last
Monday. Would you like to tell us about some of your particular
favourites off the album?
Leah - Definitely, I'd like to say we love every single song on the
album! It's hard to answer that question because my favourite song
changes all the time. We've had copies of it and have been playing
it live for a while so it changes all the time. I'll be doing a
show and be doing something crazy with a song and it will feel really
good at that time. I'll think yeh this is it. At the moment
I'm really loving 'Neurotic'. I love the way it's the first thing
you hear when it goes into your stereo and it's just so unforgiving.
It's so full on from the moment it starts, it's menacing and I feel it
is quite a dramatic McQueen song. It's just so aggressive and I
just love that about it.
I love all the songs and the whole point of being in McQueen for all of
us is that we wanted to write an album of songs, that we ourselves would
want to go out and buy. We don't write songs for other people.
We don't write songs for a particular scene. We don't write songs
for someone with a specific hair cut. We write songs because
that's what we want to write and that's what we like. If people
like it then that's fucking great, but if they don't I really don't give
a fuck.
Hayley - My favourite at the moment is 'The Line Is Dead', simply
because it's so fucking great to play. It really is such great fun
to play. Also 'Not For Sale' from the album is another one of my
favourite tracks. Actually tonight we'll be starting the show with
'Not For Sale'. My arms are a bit cold and although I'm into it,
it takes me a bit to warm up for songs so I'll have to warm up for that.
As far as the recordings go though I fucking love 'Not For Sale'.
When we were in the studios recording it there was this huge fucking
thunder storm going on outside and I could see it out the windows.
There was lightening going off all over the place and the clouds were
all purple. It felt a bit kind of freaky because here I was
playing this song and going fucking mental inside and outside it was
also going fucking mental. I was playing so fast and I was feeling
so tired at this one point, then I hit this huge crash at the end of the
song and the all of a sudden the desk just went dead. Everything
just went completely dead. The storm cut out the power on
everything, but it was just so weird how it all happened. I was
like Shit! did I just do that???
Cat - I like them all and find there's a different song with a
different flavour for whatever mood you're in.
Leah - A bit like a packet of Opal Fruits!
Cat - Yeh! If I had to choose one favourite then I would maybe
choose 'Break The Silence', the title track on the album. Because
it's the title track it really means a lot to me and actually talking
about the recording, it was actually the first song we heard played back
and we were like ... fucking hell that's quite heavy isn't it! ... It's
a real moshy tune and I remember it was one song as soon as we'd
finished recording it, we just wanted the producer to play it back again
and again and again! We all just sat there and were almost crying.
It was like ... oh my god, look what we've done, did we really do this?
...
Leah - Actually I have some scoop on that, the middle eight
vocals were written in the studio because there wasn't a vocal line over
that particular part in the song. Our producer had said that we
really needed some vocals over this part and so I went in and wrote
something really quickly. I took it into the vocal booth and we
put a lot of effects on it. It worked really fucking well on the
spot, but we'd actually left this particular effect on the vocals, we'd
forgot to turn it back off. So in the last chorus where you hear
the vocals, you can actually hear me breathing in between the words,
which you wouldn't normally hear. It sounded really good and when
we first put the record on we couldn't figure it out, finally we did and
we loved it so much we told them to leave it in.
Hayley - Yeh we said fuck it, it was obviously meant to be, just
leave it.
Sophie - 'Break The Silence' is my favourite without a doubt.
It's just so aggressive and it's just like a big fuck-you, bring it on.
It's brilliant and I just love the bass line on it as well, it's one of
my favourites.
MM - The album is released on Demolition Records. How did you
come to hook up with them and is it just for the one album or does it go
further than that?
Leah - Well I hope we're going to be with Demolition for some time
because they are really really cool guys. Plus, they are so rock-tastic
because they've got David Lee Roth, Hanoi Rocks, Twisted Sister.
They know all about releasing rock albums because they specialise in it.
We think they should be worshipped by everybody because they really know
their stuff.
Some of the bigger record companies who tend to deal with the more
mainstream stuff, pop bands and things like that, they don't really know
what to do with an album like the one we are releasing. It's a
hard, heavy album. When you look at our music I can see where they
would maybe get a little bit confused with it and wonder ... who do you
sell it to?
When they have pop artists they don't have to think about it too much,
but with a band like McQueen and other rock bands who are doing a
similar kind of thing, it's very difficult to try and find where the
market is. But these guys have been doing it for donkey's years
and they know their shit.
They're also from Newcastle and they're like a family. That's how
we run as a band, we're like a family. Our management, all of our
agents and everything are all very very close to our hearts. We
have a very great team around us already so to bring Demolition in, you
can really feel that love is already there. We really love them.
Hayley - How it all came about was the daughter of the top dog
came to see us play.
Leah - Yes the daughter of the big chief himself!
Hayley - Yes, the daughter and his brother both came to see us
play independently at different shows and they both went to him and said
something like ... fucking hell you've really gotta sign this band!
He didn't even come to see us play because he trusted his daughter and
his brother and that's how that all came about. It really was that
whole family thing again.
Leah - It's great and it feels good working with Demolition
because they know their shit and if you're going to put your career into
somebody's hands, you really want them to know what they're doing.
I totally trust them and totally believe in them and I think they're
fucking wicked! MM - Yeh, well
they obviously must love you too because otherwise they wouldn't have
signed you in the first place.
MM - You've toured with a wide variety of acts over the past few
years, which ones stand out the most in your minds and why?
Leah - Wow, well
there's been so many. If we take it right back then we did about 5
or 6 dates with Juliette and the Licks and that was great, that was
really good for us. We also did a tour with Viking Skull, who are
very good friends of ours and we love them to bits. We got another
one off date with Juliette and the Licks and flew over to New York and
did a show with them there, then some more shows in the UK. It was
just such great fun. We also did Electric Eel Shock who are our
label buddies this past year and then we did WASP.
WASP, now let's talk about WASP. Those guys are fucking wicked, I
mean seriously they're great. It was a real honour for us to go
out on tour with WASP and believe me the fans of WASP are fucking
wicked. They're all coming back to see the McQueen headline shows,
which we all totally appreciate. Blackie Lawless is a real
character. We adore him for being a character. He is very
cookie and very eccentric and although we didn't actually get to meet
him, his demands were great. That guy is so fucking cool.
The other guys in the band like Doug the guitarist, were all so nice and
so sweet to us. On the last night of the tour the bass player came
over to us at the Islington Academy and he brought us a big bottle of
Jack and he just said ... there you go girls. It was so fucking
great.
Also touring with The Almighty after Boxing Day, we were here in this
same room with The Almighty and they are such a great bunch of guys.
It's so nice to be able to go out on tour with people who are just so
fucking great. You go out and the crowd is fucking great and
everybody's having such a great time.
Most of the bands we've toured with have been totally wicked and we've
had loads of fun with them. You know that after the gig
everybody's fucking tired and everybody fucking stinks bad, but you just
have so much fun with them and that's what we love to do, we love to go
out on tour and just have fun.
MM - The support slots have covered a wide range of bands that appeal to
all ages, was this a purposeful direction you took or did it just work
out that way?
Leah - Well it's not really down to us, it's down to our agent and
it's down to our management. They decide who we go out on tour
with. It's been really great though, we've supported 80's rockers
LA Guns and a whole mixture of other bands.
Cat - The great thing is we can play with 80's bands, we can play
with metal bands, we can play with punk bands, we can play with all
sorts of fucking bands. We still appeal to the audience because
our sound isn't just one particular sound. We don't sit in one
particular box and musically we tend to spread out a little bit, plus
our music also appeals to both sexes in the audience, which is great.
MM - I get the impression that it would
be all too easy to try and pigeon-hole you and pitch you to perhaps the
younger 'Kerrang' crowd, but having been to both The Almighty and the
WASP gigs, the older classic rockers and metal-heads really dig you, and
that's hard for a young band to get that kind of instant response and
win them over so quickly.
Leah - Yeh, we
went out on tour with those guys and now we're back to do our own
headline tour. Many of the guys who came to see WASP have come
back to see us on this tour. There was one guy who had seen us on
tour with The Almighty and is now coming along to 4 dates on this UK
tour! We have such a wide range of fans. Yes, we do have the
young kids, but we also have the older guys and the older females coming
along too. We've actually got as many females coming out to see us
as guys and that's so nice to see.
Hayley - It's so nice for us as a band because it shows that
people get us, they understand what we are about. When we go to do
the merchandise stand after a gig, it's so nice to just talk to such a
wide mixture of people. The conversations you have there are just
so interesting. Last night I was speaking to a guy who was just 17
and probably shouldn't have even been in the venue, but then the next
person I talked to was a 40 year old guy and it was just such a
completely different conversation. You just meet so many different
walks of life and I love that about McQueen, I really do. Even on
MySpace we just have such a wide mixture of people that are all so much
fun to talk to.
Leah - It's nice for us because we haven't tried to be
pigeon-hole into a certain type of show anyway. We wouldn't say we
were an Emo band, or a Metal band, or Punk, or specifically just Rock.
We have so many different flavours in there and I think that's one of
the things that appeals to all the different age ranges as well.
They can see where we've come from and can spot the obvious influences
of what we've grown up listening to, but then there's also this a new
flavour to it as well which we have given it and that's what makes it
all so fucking great. We've done well, but we've also worked hard
too.
MM - Have you ever felt under pressure to turn on your girly charms
and use your sexuality to win over an audience rather than your musical
skills?
Leah - You know what? There isn't a feminine bone in my
fucking body. We are just so not typical girls at all. Yes
we are all female, or so they say, it does say that on our birth
certificates, but we're not really delicate flowers and I don't think
you could really get through all this by being delicate flowers.
Plus I'm not going to be a fucking delicate flower and batter my eyelids
for anybody. I think that whole thing is all bollocks. If
somebody doesn't want to do something for us or whatever, then fine.
We have a really great team around us that work with us and I don't want
to use, or need to use my girly charms. I'm not really that kind
of person anyway. I'm not manipulative in any way shape or form.
If I want you do something I'll just fucking ask you straight out.
You're not going to get any fucking flowers or whatever from me.
We're just normal fucking girls doing stuff that predominantly males do,
but hopefully things are going to change and we'll get to see more girls
who are given the opportunity to do this, because it's great and they
should be able to do that.
MM - At The Almighty gig here there was
some older male rockers who'd perhaps had a few beers and were getting
quite excited watching you girls, leaning over the barriers and stuff.
The security guard went over and took one to one side and said ... Don't
touch the girls, don't crowd the girls, they don't like people getting
too close and touching them. I was pretty sure from what I saw if
someone had got too close or touched you and you didn't like it, you'd
have just cracked them out.
Leah - Actually
yes I do remember that because there was a guy who bless him was trying
to have my wrist bands off.
Hayley - Oh yeh that guy, I remember him too! I tell you what,
the rest of us girls were more worried about the guy than Leah!
Leah - What had happened was I'd leaned over because I like to
get in peoples faces and get really intimate and I don't mind people
touching me, although touch me in the wrong place and you'll get a hard
fucking smack. I really don't mind people touching me at all, but
he was going for my wristbands and this one, (points to one on left
wrist), this is very special to me because I got from a very dear friend
who's in a band in Finland called BloodPit. This guy was trying to rip
this particular one off me and I was like ... get the fuck off! ... and
so raised my fist.
After the gig he came over to the merchandise and he was fine and dandy,
all he wanted was the sweatband so I gave him a different sweatband in
the end. I remember is was a struggle at the time because he
wanted this one and I thought ... you ain't having it! But yeh,
we're quite gnarly for females, well I am.
Hayley - So really it wasn't the fact he was touching you that
you minded it at all, it was just that he wanted your damn wrist band.
Leah - Yeh, he wanted my sexy wristband! Bless him.
MM - I read somewhere that one of your songs 'You Leave Me Dead' was
actually used on the soundtrack of a paint-ball movie? How did
that come about and have you ever been paint-balling yourself?
Leah - Well I've never actually been paint-balling myself because
what I'd really like to do is just join the army and do it for real,
that would be great. I have actually got the DVD (Angels
and Demons). I have no idea how it all came
about, I think perhaps they just heard our song and thought it would be
cool to have it on there, which we think is fucking great and we happily
gave it to them to use because it's such a great song for what they were
doing. It was shot out in America and you have these two teams of
paint-ballers properly geared up like they are going into Vietnam, which
is actually where we are going next week! (The girls are
playing at the Unite Festival in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on the 2nd
Feb).
Anyway, you have these guys with all the gear on and running about in
true military style shooting at each other and all these giant fucking
inflatable things, but it was the victory dances that really got me.
When they'd won they were like galloping about as if on horses and
during the McQueen song the funniest thing I have ever seen happened,
one of these guys was like pretending to ride this horse about and doing
this little victory dance and then there was this guy who was standing
behind this chicken wire fence thing and he was going ... this is
fucking shit man, I've never seen anything like this in my entire life.
He was really going for it and getting gnarly because he thought the
other team had cheated and he was saying the referee was a wanker and
all this shit. I just thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever
seen because there was such passion there.
But that was what was so great about it and that's why we were happy to
donate the song, because there was such passion in what they do and
there's that same passion in what we do too. It's just so funny
though when I'm singing ... "You leave me dead" ... and
they're like running around shooting at each other. It's so
fucking great, I love it.
MM - You've also had songs appear on a new Sony Playstation game and
in a Broadway play, is this the start of a McQueen invasion?
Hayley - Oh yeh, I've never really thought of it like that!
Yes it is the beginning of a McQueen invasion!
Leah - Actually when you think about it, it has been kind of like
that. EA Games took two of our tracks and put one on to Road Rally
and I think the other one was maybe FIFA 06?, which was great because
I'm a big gamer myself. When we were out in LA we got to tour EA
Games and I tell you something, I was most delighted. I did
actually manage to get some discounted games so I was really happy about
that. I think it's great because videos games reach such a wide
variety of audience and that's exactly what we want to do. It's
fucking wicked to be playing a game like Road Rally and 'Life Support
ICU' comes on. It's like ... WOW!, that's just so fucking wicked!
I absolutely love it.
MM - Tell me one thing about yourself that most people don't know, never
have known, and probably never would have known about you if they hadn't
read this interview?
Leah - Actually it's quite funny because people are starting to get
the fact that I'm quite particular about my whiskey and have been ever
since I first started drinking whiskey and got to know the taste of it.
If I'm going to have a Whiskey and Coke then it has to have just one
ice-cube in it. Specifically just the one ice-cube, if there's any
more in there they just go flying across the fucking room. It's
really funny because I didn't think that many people would know about
that, but then now we have people turning up to gigs and they go ...
there's your Jack and Coke and ONE ice-cube as requested! I think
... who did I tell?!?
I can't think of anything that most people won't know about me. I
think most people know most things about me now and the things that they
don't know, I don't know if I want to tell them! I might want to
keep them to myself! I suppose most people perhaps don't know that
I cut and dye my own hair. Oh and perhaps most people don't know
we're actually really poor and need more whiskey!
Hayley - Yeh, you dye your own hair and I just don't brush my
hair!
Leah - Yes, most people don't know that Hayley Crammer does not
brush her hair. Also most people don't know that Cat De Casanove
lives up a back passage! MM - Ah
so you're a back-alley Cat?
Leah - Yes and Gina, Gina's got
relatives that are the Italian ice-cream people, she's actually called
Gina Ginelli!
Hayley - Most people don't know she's actually related to the
ice-cream family so if you bring Leah a Whiskey and Coke, then you also
have to bring Gina Ginelli an ice-cream!
Leah - Oh and most people don't know that Cat De Casanove, that's
actually her real name by the way. She is in fact related to
pirates.
Cat - Yes that is in fact true! MM
- Any particular pirates?
Cat - Well I know they tried to blow up
Christopher Columbus when he was trying to discover America. If
they had they could have changed the whole history of everything.
MM - Any final words to all your fans out there before I leave you?
Leah - Yes, anyone who has been paying attention visit our website
at www.myspace.com/mcqueen
or www.mcqueenmusic.com
. Come and say 'Hi!'. We reply to all messages personally
but bare with us because it sometimes takes a while to plough through
them all.
Hayley - Can I just say that this has quite possibly been
the most fun interview we've ever done and your questions totally rock!
Leah - Yeh, we like you because those questions were just
slightly different from the norm and that's good, that's really really
cool.
Cat - Are you coming tonight? MM
- Yes, see you down the front!
MM - So there you have it folks, you wanted to know more about
McQueen and now you've got it. Our thanks go out to Leah, Hayley,
Cat and Sophie (aka Gina) for their time, good humour and very
enlightening interview.
These girls kick major ass and are wicked to watch live. If you
haven't already seen them perform then do yourself a favour and check
them out. So long as you don't try to grab any wrist bands you'll
be fine! ;)
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