QUEEN V Lucky Lawler meets ALL THE QUEEN'S MEN Queen V is fronted by: V on vocals "You can't be afraid to stretch, throw off the noose." on lead guitar: Eric - the Mohawk guy, gigolo, son of a drag racer. on rhythm section The Neanderthal Brothers: Joey - drummer with hard nipples and Prophet -'body guard kind of guy' on Bass. (Also, they borrow this great English bloke, Tony, on guitar, he is their producer too, but we won't talk about him.) If anybody has any views on how New Yorkers won't move at gigs (see Man About Town March issue) and then go to a Queen V gig, everybody from the audience is up there on stage dancing. V: A girl even jumped up on stage and took her tops off, her nipple rings bopping up and down on stage for an entire song. And that was eight o'clock at night and on a Tuesday! How Did you all meet and how did this all happen? V: I was working on the project with Phil, our other producer, and a little bit with Tony. I was tired of playing by myself, I'd played a lot of acoustic shows and was in search of a band. Joey was introduced to me by a mutual friend, we caught up with Eric and Prophet recently came around, so it has evolved and come together. Eric: V has been hunting me down for months and I finally caved in. (Laughter) Joey: I was actually looking for her for a band that I was in, I was looking for a singer and then she just kidnapped me. Eric: Me, Joey and Prophet have known each other for a few months. Prophet and I, this summer, were both unemployed and we sat around jamming all day and the next thing you know, we'd written a bunch of songs together and it came time for this band to get a really serious professional bass player, it was such an obvious choice, that's him. V: Actually, I was putting on this all male review show. You know, topless males. E: Ah, yes, the early days. V: yeah, if you go online you can find nudie shows. P: Everyone has to make a living. E: Actually there was this party I went to in Philly, and there's this girl I haven't seen in about 10 yrs saying, "oh, how's your band? I hear it's going pretty well, but how do you make money?" So I say, well any money the band makes goes back into the band, and she goes, "You aren't a male Gigolo, are you?" So I'm like, "where did you hear that?" (Giggles all round) V on the name Queen V: V: it just happened, it was kind of a joke and it just stuck. You know. Shit, you spend 5 yrs in New York City trying to get your gig out there and all of a sudden, "Yeah, fuck it, I am Queen V, yeah, fuck you!" Also, especially 5 yrs ago, I was looking at other bands, and no one was doing it. Well, no women at least were taking on that real strong stance of rock and that's what I always wanted to do. So, I came up the Queen word, and the V is open to interpretation. crack up laughing as she gives us a knowing look... V: (contd.) If you must know... Are you pierced or tattooed? J: Well, my whole arm is tattooed. But V here is like a virgin. V: I have no piercings, tattoos, nothing. Not one little hole anywhere? V: Not that I wasn't born with. And the boys go: 'Wow!' V: (contd.) Eric is also pure, but I naturally have an extra hole than him. E: No comment. Yes, I'm also a virgin. Yes, I'm holding out, for that special girl. V: Yes, he's the only 25 yr old virgin I know. E: Some things are worth waiting for. Tony: Did you say you're holding (it) out for that special girl? E: Yes, literally. You can put my phone number out to the girls. So, who is available in the band? E: I'm available. I do parties! V: Entire parties... himself! Joey, what do want to be when you grow up? J: A sexual Animal! (Laughter) E: There is no truth to the Gigolo rumor, a nice diner and a bottle of wine is all it takes. Yeah, and a nice tip for when you leave in the morning. Tell us about your video. E: We have finished shooting our video "Plan B" which is our new single. It was shot out on location in Bushwick, Bklyn. We are really excited about this, it was shot by this amazingly talented kid, Arin. Prophet nearly knocked a building down shooting his scene. He was banging on the walls and kicking it over, it was like a small domestic disturbance during filming! People from two apartment buildings over were saying "What the hell is the racket over there?" It is going to be debueing it on the Mark After Dark Show, latenites Manhattan Fri.12:30 Ch. 67 and starting in Brooklyn on April 6 ch.34-67 4:30 am. Joey's wearing Top Hat, Combat Boots and little else. Oooooo! Great! J: It was quite a chilling experience, my nipples were hard like... The whole way through! E: Oh, you dirty dog you! It was a one, two, three shot. We shot the video in the afternoon, cruised over to Queens had a great show at Castle Heights, the great little dump that it is. And then we topped the evening off by shooting the new Spring episode of the Mark After Dark Show backstage, which is always exciting. So it was a good weekend. We believe in that in New York there does seem to be a rise of this whole Rock'n'Roll rebirth. Looking around at the bands that we associate ourselves with, that there seems to be an admiration for the artists here on the island. There is a climbing rise here in Manhattan. V: I think in the 'isle' of Manhattan, (as we prefer to call it, the Island being further out,) Don Hill's CBGBs, the Continental. There are little hot beds around. E: What I've been noticing about CBGBs is if you look at mainstream press everybody wants to reference CBs again, Spin, Rolling Stone, there's always a picture of CBs in there every other week. We like that, CBs is where we kinda got our feet off the ground. It's got great sound, and great staff. Continental still rocks, Luxx, Don Hill's. Joey: I always felt at home at CBs. I like the new Luxx, it's all so clean, you can still smell the paint in the toilets! E: Yeah, and it's straight out of Austin Powers, 'The Electric Swingers Pussycat Club'! V: I don't know what's going on in LA, I know that NY & LA have a little bit of a different rock scene. There's just a whole different vibe. California could be another country, you know what I mean. It's its own thing. But in NY the climate has definitely changed, everybody sees it, in the last six months. A lot is still the same and whatever and it's not like trying to glorify your personal horrors from 9-11, but the climate has changed, it's different. We've been talking to bands for a long time and finding out who else is doing things, putting our parties together like at Luxx and CBs and Don Hill's, (we've got a big night there in June). I think it has just changed a bit, the way people deal with each other, that's what I have found personally here. It's just something more than "Oh, yeah, we're rockstars and we're so cool and we're rich and famous and I'm just gonna, like, jerk off all my excess for the rest of my life," that's like, well, great and...? But to do something that you are proud of that you can put on your tombstone that actually means something to you, I mean if it means something to other people that's great, but if it means something to you. I think we've found a lot of people feeling that way and a lot of them are musicians. Eric DJs at the Three of Cups with Tor (Joker Five Speed) on Thursday nights. It's become this meeting ground now. E: It's been great, all the bands come in there with their records hot of the press. Last week I played a brand new song from Push, the Slags brought their new record in, Joker Five Speed, we played our song, some band from Florida came in, the Green Goblins. That's a rock scene, when there's ten bands in the house playing their own records, rockin' out with each other, having a good time. V: genuinely interested and supportive of one another. Hey, not like we are a hippie tribe or anything, but... And there is a little friendly competition too, like in a very sportsman's like way, like "Okay, let's see what you've got," and you push each other and you get the best from each other. I've never seen that in New York. E: It has a great impact on the live shows also. Yeah, it's great for us the audience. We get a show! It's great because you are giving us a gig that's worth staying for the whole night. V: Yeah, stay hours at the same club! L: Yeah, not having to truck around from club to club. E: Yeah, like going to a concert. Like going to see Van Halen and Skid Row are opening, or another local opening band who was great, you know and that's what we want. I like these Luxx nights where you go and see NYRlx and you hang out for Queen V and later Push and you don't wanna go anywhere else and hopefully people can connect with that kind of a scene. It seems to be working. P: Yeah, New York really should have that kind of a scene because of the magnitude of the city. It is sad that it hasn't actually been more prevalent here, we are happy to help build it, it goes back to the Rock thing. The West Coast certainly has its own sound and the East Coast has its own sound but the East Coast rock is alive. V: There's a different influence on it, we definitely have that British thing over here. You know what I mean. Over there it's just a different take on it. It's Hollywood. It's probably the different climate. They don't wear any cloths. V: Yeah, here's it's about survival, you don't care if you look stupid with your hat on. It's fucking cold out! So it might be more about the music here, less about the looks. P: I dunno, but with me, I've always preferred NY musicians to LA musicians, every since I was a kid. That's my attitude. And I'm from LA! P: When I first came into this band, one of my goals was for this band to have the hottest rhythm section in Rock'n'Roll, Joey and I are really working hard to get it. V: It is so important to keep nightlife alive here in NYC because people look to NYC. Musician's in NY need a place to play, and without that we are basically sacrificing one of the most important art forms of our city. There just isn't enough space for our artists out there. E: Giuliani definitely put some handcuffs and drove them out financially. V: Yeah, and the cabaret license. Little bars can't have people dancing in them because they don't have a fucking cabaret license. Ridiculous laws and rules like that and they have cracked down a lot of clubs about that... Then there's the Tunnel, Palladium etc... those places, you can say whatever you want about the music that they play and about the big club scene, but there is something that whether it's me or you, it's an affirmation for everyday people to go be with 500 other people like them, everybody's dressing up and dancing as well. It's a natural high, a happy high. People need that kind of contact and that's what scares me about closing down these clubs, fucking with bars, threatening rock clubs here and there and I think is it very important that we keep a foothold here. What's your favorite position? P: All the positions are my favorite positions. All of them. J: I like the most awkward position I can probably get myself into. If I feel like I'm straining myself, then I feel that's my best possible position. E: Hanging. As in G&Rs Pretty tied Up. V: Third Base. (It sounds better than Short Stop.) We have no fear of being sexy. Rumor has it that Queen V is one of Mick Jagger's favorite bands. Look out for their full length CD 'Queen V' out soon! BACK TO HOME