A month ago I
went to Knebsworth Park for Sonisphere Festival to watch bands and get drunk.
Whilst I was there a certain act caught my attention. I was ready to watch Limp
Bizkit, until three ladies came on the stage with stunning dresses and great
voices. Turns out they were called The Lounge Kittens, a great name for a great
trio, so I thought I should interview them not only for my own curiosity, but
just to give you, the reader, a taste of what they're like.
~Matthew Clewley
MRD: You cover famous rock songs in a girl group style, who is
influential to this style of singing?
TIMIA: While a lot of our set is Rock and Metal, there is also
some Pop, Dancehall, Hip hop and Dance in there too. We like to mix it up! I
suppose some of the better known originators of the '3 girl close harmony'
vocal style would be The Andrews Sisters, however, I guarantee that we
swear infinitely more than they did.
Where did the wonderful idea of
your trio come from?
TIMIA: Jen had suggested to me that we start a duo together for
fun, to do a few low key gigs. I suggested that the songs should be our
favourite rude and explicit songs or tunes that people don't usually cover-
particularly not in a loungey, swing style with vocals and piano. It all fell
into place when we met Zan.
How did you all meet and form The Lounge Kittens?
Zan: Well Timia and Jen met at university and came up with the
concept of TLK, then we all met through Jen’s work as a Rock Choir leader. Both
Timia and I are part of the choir and we all became friends through that. One
night on a drunken evening out the girls suggested I should become a Lounge
Kitten too (although it was still just an idea at this point!). Of course I
said yes…….and then we didn't do anything for about six months….until Jen
booked us a couple of shows and we hastily put some arrangements together!
Who are your favourite cover
bands, and did those too inspire you?
TIMIA: I've always loved covers
that are done a completely different style. Me first and the Gimmie Gimmies got
me into punk covers, and then of course there is the "Punk Goes..."
series of compilations which always provides gems. It's always been about
Richard Cheese though, he's something of an idol to me and I know the other
girls are big fans too.
You are a unique cover band may I
add, have you heard other artists like Richard Cheese or Selo I Ludy who add a
spin on a metal cover?
TIMIA: Without Richard Cheese there
would be no Lounge Kittens. We make a point of never covering any song he has
done. I mean, how many Lounge Covers of 'Killing In the Name of' does the world
need? One will probably do it...
Can it be challenging writing a
metal cover song in your own style?
JEN: Surprisingly,
I feel the metal songs are much easier to 'Kittenize' than the more poppy
sounding songs, because we could never achieve the same musical result as the
original, due to us harmonising 3 female voices with just a piano for backing.
It's always going to sound different. But it's always so much fun to cover
metal songs, because we can completely camp them up or make them really cheeky,
a complete flip!!
I saw you sing an introduction for
Limp Bizkit at Sonisphere, how did those guys come to contact you? Did
they see or hear your cover?
Zan: Well, we tweeted Fred Durst with
our video for our cover of ‘Rollin’ back in February and he picked it up, loved
it and shared it through Limp Bizkit’s Facebook page, which is obviously the
main reason it's had so many hits. He came to see our show at Sonisphere and
afterwards asked us if we would come out and sing Rollin on stage with them
during their set – so of course we said ‘yes’ and before we knew it we were on
the main stage at Sonisphere in front of 40,000 people.
JEN: We had absolutely NO idea that it
was going to happen. We found out literally 3 hours before the performance that
we were going to be singing on the main stage, it totally reflects how much
faith Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit had in us to do the job well and get the
reaction intended. We were really touched!
How did Glastonbury and Sonisphere
contact you?
Zan: We contacted them. We emailed
the people that book the bands and were lucky enough to have them reply that
they wanted us to play. It’s as simple as that. We are absolutely over the moon
to have been booked for some of the biggest festivals in the UK this year and we've had an absolute blast playing at them.
What kind of venues will you be
playing around the UK?
Zan: We’re playing all kinds of
venues when we head out on tour in September and October. Cabaret venues, rock
venues and loads of bars and pubs. We love to play anywhere as long as people
are having a great time and singing along.
How was your time in the
beautiful land of France?
TIMIA: Idyllic. Working at this
pace and intensity with your best friends is incredibly fun, but also exhausting.
We gave ourselves some quality time off together, just the three of us to spend
time being friends and finding ourselves again as Timia, Jen and Zan because
that's who we are and who we were before we were The Lounge Kittens.
Do you plan on releasing more
videos of covers on your YouTube channel?
JEN: Oh absolutely we do! I don't think
we realised how much fun making music videos could be. It gives us an
opportunity to be really creative, fun and most importantly, SILLY! We all love
being silly together, making faces, making fools of ourselves and the video
allows us to show our fans who we really are and what we're about. We don't
take ourselves seriously, and in turn, neither do our videos.
Do you plan on giving us original
material in the near future?
Zan: People keep asking us this! At the moment, we really love
what we do and don’t see it as a stepping stone to releasing our own original
music in the future. But never say never. I’m fortunate enough to work with two
very talented ladies so who’s to say we won’t start writing at some point. But
for now, putting our own spin on our favourite songs is definitely enough –
there are still SO many songs we want to cover!
