Our Lisa has interviewed a fair few bands in her time, some have been good and some have been terrible, but she openly admits that The Lounge Kittens were the loveliest, most genuine band she has ever spoken to. Lisa joined the 3 Brighton ladies on the Gibson bus at Sonisphere and talked all things feline…
This is Lisa Fox from Rock Sins and I am here with the lovely Lounge Kittens!
Hi (x3)
Hello ladies, can you introduce yourselves please?
ZL: I’m Zan.
JD: I’m Jen.
TG: And I am Timia.
Hooray.
TG:And together we make…
The Lounge Kittens da da dah (x3)
So how’s it going?
JD:It’s pretty, pretty good.
Really, really super well?
Yes (x2)
JD:Pretty amazing today actually.
ZL:Better than anything we’d any one could ever have dreamed off.
How does it feel to be at Sonisphere because you were at Glastonbury last weekend and now you’re at Sonisphere?
JD:It’s great.
ZL:It’s great.
JD:We’ve been so looking forward to coming to Sonisphere.
TG:Yes.
JD:It’s so much…
ZL:We had an absolute ball at Glastonbury and it was like a big one off, off the bucket list particularly for me but we were in the cabaret areas at Glastonbury so much more comedians that kind of thing. And here, we were saying at Glastonbury we were like, so much of our material leans towards the rock and metal and we were saying I can’t wait to get to Sonisphere because so much of our set’s going to go down so well. So yes it’s just brilliant.
JD:Yes.
Fantastic. So tell me how did your sound and style come about, how did you guys come together?
JD:Well I came up with the idea for Timi and I to start a duo, we decided together that we were going to do some music outside of work and you know Timia thought that it would be a great idea to do these kind of, you know, the rock songs and the rap and the metal and all of these kind of songs that we love, but totally change them. And we were originally going to do it as a duo and we went out drinking one night with Zana and we just thought that she was the tits so we decided that we wanted to recruit her as a Lounge Kitten.
ZL:They were like, “You should be a Lounge Kitten”, all drunk listening to some terrible music…
JD: It was the Vengaboys.
ZL:Oh was it.
TG:It was, we were on a bus…
JD:We are on a bus right now.
TG:On the Vengabus.
ZL:Maybe we should commandeer it, let’s go on a little magical Venga mission.
The Gibson bus is coming and everybody’s jumping (x3 singing)
ZL:I think we’d get in loads of trouble. But yes, then, so they recruited me and I thought it was just a drunken conversation and then about six months later Jen booked us some gigs and it all went from there.
You were in and that was it.
ZL:That was it, yes.
JD:No escape.
ZL:No escape now.
TG:She’s shackled now…
ZL:I am.
Literally. Shackled by the eyelashes!
JD:We just wanted to do, we wanted to do music that we really loved, you know, because we’re all such avid rock fans and metal and all of that kind of, you know…
ZL:We all have dreams of being in a metal band but it’s not really achievable for us so we’ve done the best we could.
TG:I was in a metal band when I was 19.
ZL:Were you? Oh my god that sounds amazing, can we cover one of your songs?
TG:We never actually wrote any. We did, we did, we basically rehearsed for like a month and then we did no shows and then we had to split due to artistic differences.
JD:Wow that is…
So rock and roll (x2)
JD:That’s going in, that’s going in the Kitten autobiography.
So how does it feel to be playing on the same stage as some of the bands that you guys are covering so, like Rollin’, you know, Fred Durst? I’ve heard rumours.
JD:Well I heard that we’re…
It will have happened by the time this goes out…
JD: Yes that’s true. Yes apparently, well we thought we’re playing the Satellite stage, which is the smallest of the stages and we thought they’ll never, they won’t allow us on Fred Durst stage but apparently if Fred says, “I’d like you to come on this stage”, then we’re allowed on the stage so, we might be, we might be making a little guest appearance, might.
TG:That’s just going to sound really weird when it’s in the past, if it’s…
JD: Yes.
TG:…and if it hasn’t happened we’ve just said it to like loads of people.
JD:Loads of people.
TG:And everyone’s going to be like well that didn’t happen did it?
[It did happen]
JD:It has been talked about by Fred Durst therefore we are hopeful that it will happen.
TG:He talked about it on the telly.
JD:He did. He did.
TG:If it doesn’t happen then we can say, we were disappointed in you Fred, you made promises…
ZL:You let us down, Fred…
TG:…you made promises that you haven’t, come true…
ZL:We’re not angry we’re just very disappointed.
Disappointed yes (2).
JD:Don’t play with our dreams.
You got our hopes up…
TG:Then you dashed…
JD:Not just our hopes, the hopes of the entire, like, Kitten…
TG:Anyone who cares.
JD:Anyone…
TG:Anyone who knows us.
ZL:All three of our mums. You know.
You can set your mums on him.
JD:Oh god he won’t be able to handle that.
No I don’t think he could, I reckon he’s a big pussy cat really or a kitten.
TG:Do you know what, he’s so nice, he’s been really supportive of us over the last few months and, yes he’s really, really lovely.
JD:He’s a sweetheart.
TG:Maybe he doesn’t want us to say all that, no he’s like a total macho man, like he’s totally super cool and like barely talks to us he’s just so super cool and like rock star.
JD: Anyway we’re totally grateful for everything that he’s done for us.
What does he make of your version of Rollin’?
JD:He seems to like it.
ZL:He seems to like it. He liked it enough to put it on Limp Bizkit’s Facebook page and shove it out through all of his social media outlets so we’re really touched.
TG:Yes.
ZL:We just got to sing it to him actually. He came and he dropped in to our Rock Royalty set just now and we actually got to perform Rollin’ at Fred Durst. Just even saying it sounds…
Sounds hilariously ridiculous. You got to sing his own song to him.
JD:Yes we got to serenade Fred Durst with his own song.
ZL:So bizarre.
TG:So weird.
Life is bizarre sometimes though isn’t it?
Yes (x3)
JD:Here we are on this glorious bus, having this conversation…
ZL:It’s entirely bizarre at the moment, like completely.
JD:Yes it doesn’t feel like real life.
So what’s next for you lovely ladies?
ZL:Well we’ve got, we’ve got a couple more festivals to do, we’ve got Boomtown and Beautiful Days, we’re doing some local concerts with our rock choir, that’s how we all met, we are all part of the rock choir, Jenny’s our lovely choir leader. We’re doing some of those next week and over the next couple of weeks and then we’re off on a mini tour in September so we’ll be a few dates to go and meet some more people hopefully. And then more videos.
JD:Yes a lot more videos.
Would you consider writing your own stuff ?
JD:I think the whole point of like what we do as Lounge Kittens is that we’re a cover group, I mean we could but I don’t know that…
ZL:The girls have both, I’m not musical at all, I just sing what I’m told. The other two girls are being very shy about it, but they’ve both written stuff of their own and very well. But yes I think the…
JD:The novelty…
ZL:…the novelty of Lounge Kitten…
TG:People come to see us because we do covers…
JD:They know the songs.
But a lot of bands do that really well, you know, a lot, I mean there’s bands like Rock Sugar are one that I was thinking of and they are like a sort of Glam Rock band who do cover versions of mixtures of songs so they do like Thunderstruck mixed with Judas Priest…
ZL:Yes. Oh we love a good mash up.
Oh yes (x2)
ZL:All love a mash up.
If you could mash up any songs what songs would you mash up?
ZL:Well I think, well we’ve done a specific Sonisphere mash up called ‘Now That’s What I Call Sonipshere 2014’, which we debuted just now and it’s got 15 bands, I think, I counted them, that are playing across the weekend so we managed to mash up Babymetal into Chas and Dave into Dropkick Murphys and there’s some Gallows in there and all kinds of the heavy stuff as well. So I think, we’ve pushed the boundaries as far as mash ups will go, I think, with that one.
Have you ever seen the video of the 4 Chord Song?
Yes (x2)
JD:That is good.
That’s probably the ultimate mash up as far as these things go.
Yes (x3)
You need to do something like that, that would be good. Have you not seen it?
JD:I’ve not seen it, no.
Oh my god…
JD:I’m sat here…
TG:We’ll show you. We’ll show you.
JD:Well show me on the Internet and then…
ZL:I’ll look it up on the Internet.
And then you can work out how to actually make that better.
JD:Oh.
ZL:Surely there’s a way we can sing it, there must be a way we can sing it?
TG:I’m sure we can.
ZL:Yes.
JD:We’ll give it a go, we always try to give everything a go, you know, we like to take suggestions from fans on our Facebook page and our Twitter. But we will really try and do absolutely anything.
Yes.
JD:We’ll give it a go but there are some songs that really don’t lend itself to like three part harmony piano and set up but we’ll always give it a go, so.
So one last question. What is your biggest Rock Sin?
JD:Oh biggest rock sin.
It can be a story, it can be band you like that you shouldn’t and there’s probably loads of them. But…
JD:We don’t, yes, because we don’t really have any musical guilty pleasures because our, part of our joke…
TG:We wear those on our sleeve…
JD:…is that we like to take those out and put them, put them out for the public to enjoy with us.
TG:I know my rock sin?
What’s your rock sin?
JD:I like Made in Chelsea.
TG:You’re so out of the band, that’s it.
JD:Alright good luck with our piano. Bitch.
TG:Oh burn. I love you.
JD:Whatever.
ZL:Oh I’m so standing in front of you when we’re on stage and Limp Bizkit is there. And you’re so small nobody will ever be able to see you. You’ll be completely eclipsed by this…
JD:No I deserve that, I know Made in Chelsea is a sin.
ZL:In general not even just for Rock. Oh I tell you what we really do, like, we really like RuPaul’s Drag Race.
TG:Oh yes but…
ZL: RuPaul’s.
JD:It’s not a sin we’re proud, we’re so proud.
TG:No shame. No shame in it.
JD:We love RuPaul.
TG:I love those queens.
JD:Yes we do.
TG:I love them.
Ladies, you’ve been wonderful. Thank you so much.
JD:No worries.
Interviewed by: Lisa Fox
You can check out our review of one of The Lounge Kittens’ many performances across the weekend at Sonisphere Knebworth 2014 when we saw them on the Saturday right here. Any further news from the Kittens’ camp including any tour news will be announced here as soon as we know anything! You can also follow The Lounge Kittens on social media – their Twitter is @TheLKittens and their Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/TheLoungeKittens.
