Queen Adreena

The first time I heard of Queen Adreena, I thought they we're Kerrang's "Hype of the week"- I mean face it how many Kerrang-hype bands are rubbish? I won't list them here, because it might be slander. When I actually heard Queen Adreena, it was like nothing I'd experienced before, I'd heard bands that had had a similar effect on me (i.e. Mothburner) but Queen Adreena was different. There was an awe of fascination for me, and as I started to research them, and read interviews. I became truly fascinated. I felt I had to do this interview there are always bands that I want to interview, but there was this total fascination for me that made me want to do this more than anything. Come the actually day I was as nervous as hell, I'd been unable to find out who I needed to make contact with in order to pre-arrange this interview, so I had to go back to my old style of "if you've got a spare 5 minutes...". And so the story goes, I was standing on the street corner in Middlesborough, being robbed blind by people who'd lost their train fare to Newcastle (I must have given away over £3) and I saw a mini-bus/ van roll up. As my nerves went into overload every thought passed through my head. One of them was that I wouldn't recognize Katie (the obvious choice to ask for an interview) and another was that I would totally lose my bottle. The bus was so far up the road, so I couldn't see clearly, but in the distance I saw someone who was definitely female wearing a tattered pink dress slip. My worries about recognising her were thus quashed. She entered the venue, and came out, so I bit my tongue, closed my eyes and hoped for the best. I was tempted many times to just turn around and go back, but I got there, and I started by nervously asking for her autograph (hey- I'm a fan as well as a journo) before getting the courage up to ask for an interview. Often you get a bit beating around the bush- erm, ahh, if we get chance (and then the band spends the rest of the afternoon propping up the bar or playing with their mobile phones) but we went straight in. things were going good straight away! Now I had the most nervous interview I've done. I didn't quite know where to start. Luckily Katie is perhaps the nicest person I've ever interviewed, and so we began by discussing how I first heard Queen Adreena. And as one of the first songs I'd heard was "X-ing off the days" that was a good place to start.

So what is "X-ing off the days"?
"It's a long story. Crispin wrote it about me when I left Daisy Chainsaw it's a song about vitriol and about me. He and I we've got such a long and involved history we've kind of almost grown up together and it was the missing link between this band and the last. I don't usually sing other people's songs unless they mean something to me. When I left it was a very distressing time for him, but for me it was the beginning of a new era."
As Katie talks she is very calm and collect, she has an extremely pacifying voice, she had told me before hand she often talks fast, but she seemed to have slowed down, possibly because I had to write this interview! Not good. She leaves pauses between sentences, partially because she is thinking about how she is going to phrase so that her points are clearer. During longer pauses she often looks out of the window, we were sitting on a window sill, and by this time it was a lovely sunny day, so why not?
"Time comes into the new album a lot, time is something I've got great respect for it's a metaphor for however hard we try, we are not in control."
Something catches Katie's eye "Look at the nice bug", she points out this really interesting insect, I've never quite seen anything like it before, it had wings that were quite colourful. Unfortunately I was a bit behind in my writing, so I wasn't able to have a proper look. Whilst still watching the bug Katie explains "I fought very hard against this marriage, it was a very difficult time yet life inspired I do this with Crispin, and that's where I live today"
Another pause.
"There's a great respect the fact that you're in the hands of something as massive of the hands of life."

At hearing this my mind actually starts to "think" and suddenly I feel so small.
"I try to spend most the time getting out of the way of myself so life can live through me rather than me live through life."
Now this is possibly one of the most intelligent things I've ever heard, it makes me think about all sorts of things and I think how much easier everything would be if I could get out of my own way. In fact thus far and for the remainder of the interview, Katie has come across as a highly intelligent person. In many places she seems to have been dubbed as a "fruitcake" whereby if that is the case then a fruitcake must be someone who is highly interesting and intelligent. My brain then recalls one of the questions I'd wanted to ask, and so I asked it, it was about the Incubus tour, I mean a band like Queen Adreena are a strange choice to support Incubus, aren't they?
"The Incubus tour was strange, but it was good for us. The show wasn't easy for us, which was a good thing."
Katie is glaring out of the window, the day is one of those days when even the city seems relatively pleasant.
"It's a challenge facing arena's full of boo-ing crowds. It makes you stronger, you get better leg muscles standing through it."
She stands up and continues to look out of the window.
"They are different to us, but in the root, the singer, Brandon, is very pure. They're in a strange place. They're linked with all the hardcore metal bands, and they're not really that."
She sits back down, I figure seeing how we're on the subject of tours, it would be a good idea to continue on that topic, and ask about this tour, "Tour's aren't really good or bad, it's very tiring, especially travelling, they shake you out of patterns and you have to live here. I think with habits and repetition a very safe wall can build around you, stop challenges, cut a groove really deep, that you can't climb out of. Touring skims off the surface, you don't get chance to put your roots down, you have to start new every where" A very interesting outlook, whereby most bands don't mind or like touring, there is this certain lack of, as Katie said "put your roots down", touring becomes your routine, and it's not the bestof routines, "It's kind of a paradox because you're always losing your definition, whilst defining yourself."
See what I mean about intelligence yet?
"If you have a choice, don't do it. Only do it if you have no choice. Because otherwise she'll devour you"
There is a pause again, and there's a certain awe that I'm in, it's as if all there is, is me, Katie, the window sill, the bug and the sun gleaming through the window. The pause is broken by Katie

"Oh no it's a religion, you get punished if you're a bad girl" she then explains a bit further "I mean religion in the true sense of it, a commune with a God or a life force in the middle of it, it's not just life, it's my food."
One thing that has been quite well documented is that Katie "disappeared" to the lake district for a while. Not that I blame her, if I could I would too. The lake district was the next thing I asked about. "I was there for 6 months. I climbed mountains and I screamed into the wind.
I got so much, standing on top of mountains so you can see the whole picture. I find it feels so good to feel so insignificant in the big picture of mountains, deserts, oceans and fire."
"They'll let you know that you're never born and you'll never die."
"That you're all eternal and as one."
There is a slightly longer pause, as Katie gently adjusts the flower in her hair, "there was something I was going to say, what was it, oh yeah..." there's another pause as she thinks on how to phrase it, "I have a very polluted city inside me, I live a dual life, one in my polluted life, one on top of the mountain. That's why I had to find the mountains, because I know there's no way to escape the polluted city, you just have to find another way to look at it. The more you fight it the worse and more polluted it gets. So I live there and I live somewhere else too."
There is a short gap again. During this gap those words echo in my head, I suddenly realise what I've been doing wrong.
The next question I ask is a bit of a silly question in a way, I ask "what is your favourite song?" now, it's pretty certain that no band can really pick a favourite song out of their own, but the reason I often ask this is because I nearly always get a really good answer, this time is no exception "I can't answer, it changes every day. Some days I'll hate them all, some days I'll love them all."
And then she makes herself a bit more clearly, "Well I don't love them all at the same time."

Now follows the intelligent bit: "It's a piece of time, I spent a long time away. I have a great tendancy with isolation. I'm happy and content there after a while it becomes a sickness"
"Making a record is living in both worlds. By design I'm isolated, and in the end it became a disease and that's why Crispin's important to me."
"He's very mathematical, he's a pure mathematical person, he give structure to my chaos, and I give chaos to his structure."
"It's a difficult marriage
but we're working on it."
"It's a very difficult time because I hadn't seen him in years and we were both in need of what we could give to each others creative process"
and what a creative process that is... you'll have to turn to the reviews page to read our album review; of one of the best albums written in years.
Following that Katie has to leave to find some flowers. And as we bid farewell and see you later, I finish my notes and then sit dreamily watching the bug. Until I'm asked nicely to leave the venue (and I'm not being sarcastic here, I was asked politely and nicely). I step outside into Middlesborough, it is still a lovely day. I then decide to go for a walk, I feel up to it, I feel as though I could walk forever, one thing that surprised me was the time, I couldn't see how it could be past 4.30pm, but it was after 5pm and indeed I found that confusing. I then spend the rest of the day wandering around, thinking, and standing back on my street corner (some one actually asked me what my going rate was, I actually explained that a) I'm male, I just have long hair. b) I'm straight c) I'm not "on the game").
The gig was awesome, possibly the best gig I've ever been to (even better than Slipknot) and you can read the review again on the reviews page.
And sometimes you know, when you go to a gig, you get bruised, and the bruises heal, but this day has been an experience that'll stay with me for a long time. And I mean that in a positive way.