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I noticed you mentioned that there was a second version of Drink Me that was leaked but I can’t find it. Any ideas where I might be able to listen?

I got it a couple of years ago from QA facebook funclub group as Mediafire upload, so i guess the link is long gone now. But there's this account on Youtube Philly Peroxide that posted entire early mixes in parts, you just have to search on his video list.

Iirc Katie Jane sold the alt mix CD years ago on some auction site. There were also yet another early alternate mixes of Pretty Like Drugs and Kitty Collar that were released on vinyl in 2002 + different Hotel Aftershow take on Ride a Cock Horse.

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11/2004 - Repeat Fanzine

Queen Adreena

INTERVIEW WITH KATIE JANE GARSIDE By Lucy Watson, Laura Morrison and Tom Bage

Lucy: Your band have been quite quiet for the last few months. Are you looking forward to playing gigs again? Katie Jane Garside: "I think I give very obtuse answers to questions...It's never about looking forward to it. Actually maybe I should change the script, maybe we are looking forward to it. (Laughs). It's difficult to say because the last few months have felt strange, it's felt like going down a plughole. I've got a real sense of vertigo at the moment. So I can't tell you that I'm looking forward to it. I will get through it and find where I land after that. That's what will happen."

Lucy: 'Taxidermy' and 'Drink Me' are quite drastically different in their musical styles, so what kind of sound can we expect from the 3rd album? KJG: "We don't know yet. We're playing a lot of new material tonight so you'll be able to judge that for yourself. When I'm this close up to it, it's really difficult to tell. I'm on a bit of a negative slant today, but usually with our music I can only hear the bits that have gone wrong rather than anything that went right. When you reflect back on something it's very difficult to give an objective opinion, and I don't believe in objectivity anyway, I think everything's subjective. I just throw a deck of cards and wherever they land, that's where she finds herself. I'm not really the one to explain my part in it, you must do that as the observer really, and of course that will reflect your part in the grand scheme of things."

Lucy: Do you enjoy playing live more than the creative process in the studio? KJG: "(Laughs) I don't enjoy any of it. It comes and it goes, ok? There's nothing like when you're writing and you manage to catch something by its tail; when you're looking for those things underground that are skittering out of sight just when you're about to catch them. And when you catch them it is worth it, but it's a momentary pleasure. I've got so much noise upstairs, and I can hear things in my head that to me are absolutely devastatingly beautiful. I'm always trying to download them and get them here, but they never get here in the right state, they're always very disabled and they don't even begin to imitate what I can hear in my head. It's a frustrating process in the main."

Lucy: Your lyrics are simultaneously emotionally expressive and cryptic. Are you looking to be understood by your audience? KJG: "I'm always trying to understand myself, but it's like there's a point in the centre of the room, and there's a hundred windows to look at the same point from. All I can do is give you different angles on the same thing. God, you know, if I could find one conclusive thing in anything I would probably have something to put an anchor down on. But I cant, and I haven't met anyone that can. You can pick out anything you like in my lyrics, I don't seek to be cryptic. I love words for the sake of words, for me they're kind of free standing, and they don't really need to be explained. I think every word has its own character and colour and picture and the result you get with lyrics just depends how you put them together. You could just do it in a William Burroughs-esque way, or throw the deck of cards, and you'd probably still find something that our tiny little minds would latch on to in order to gain some kind of emotional understanding. I don't think there's a constant, the only constant that there is for me is that there is no constant. I use myself as my canvas, I gut myself and fillet myself the whole fucking time, I'm always hooking myself out of the water, I'm always cutting my own head off and disembowelling myself, and as you can probably tell I'm quite angry about it at the moment. I'm very tired of it all, of my process and how I find life, because it always seems to be about living and dying all in one breath. I'm getting pretty fucking tired of that."

Lucy: Do you think drugs stimulate or hinder creativity? KJG: "Well that depends on the drug, because I think most things arrive in the form of a drug really. I know in myself that if anything I am, much to my greater expense, an adrenalin junkie. My synapses don't work well enough to put pills in my mouth, I can't do that, despite popular opinion. I don't need any help breaking down, put it that way. There's not much holding it together. If there was a drug that could put a line between two polar opposites and make them in to one thing I'm sure I would have it intravenous, but I haven't found it. I think drugs can be a bit of a lazy way for creativity anyway, you're better off in the cold light of day in the mirror."

Lucy: As a band, you are distinguished by the extreme physicality of your live performances. Do you consciously make an effort to put on a show or do your performances just naturally come to you, and whatever happens, happens? KJG: "It's a bit of both, because you see, I think taking the stage is one of the most unnatural things anyone can do. In a way, just walking on stage actually creates an altered state - its not right, no one's meant to do that, unless you're a priest or a magician, or something like that. To put somebody who's very incapable in many ways in to that position creates a combustion reaction inside me. I know that, and I take the stage knowing that. Obviously there's all the usual things that affect my performance; if I'm on my 45th day of a tour I'm probably gonna be pretty fucking tired, so I'll be dictated by that. If I'm doing new material like tonight I don't know what's going to happen, because we haven't built the train tracks yet. The beauty of playing live is when my drummer goes in to 5th gear or in to 10th gear, and for some reason there's something that hits me in the base of the spine and I'm gone, and that's Halleluiah for me. During the last few months a lot of strange things have been happening onstage, I think the process is changing. I don't know what's going to happen tonight, I've been having quite a tough time on stage, I feel like something's pulling me under, as if something's got me."

Lucy: So does the crowd influence your performances on stage? KJG: "Yes they do. I'm unkind enough to be pretty impersonal about how I do it, so I use them for me to kick against in effect, or to surf on, (I don't mean physically surf). If you're in an empty room and there's a couple of people at the back, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a bad show - they might get the show of their lives. And then again when something's really heaving and going off, I get quite a distorted view of it, because I can feel quite overwhelmed lose my sense of place in the situation. I lose control of myself. I don't know, I probably wasn't meant to do this, I wasn't built for this. It wasn't a career option, I didn't start there and go there, I didn't pick up the things on the way. I've sort of gone round and round."

Lucy: As the lead singer of the band, most media interest is focused on you. Do you feel pressurised by your position or do you enjoy being the centre of attention? KJG: "I've been here on this wheel long enough, (and I say this with a little bit of trepidation because I think you have to be really careful with this kind of thing, because the motivation to do it in itself I think is usually pretty corrupt) I'm not doing it for anyone else, I need a cheque through the door like anybody else does, you have to keep eating, you have to keep living. I'm looking for some sense of going home on my own terms, and people's critique of me is not relevant, whether it's positive of negative. I do need a cheque through the door though, otherwise I'll have to go and be a butcher or something."

Lucy: What is the religious meaning behind the song "For I am the way"? KJG: "If you use the word religion in its truest sense, all it means is communion, it hasn't got any of the attachments to any written word. My understanding of the word communion is loss of the sense. Another way of looking at it is you've got to get in to get out, and the only thing that I know to be true is me, is this tiny little dot in the centre of the universe. It's the only thing that I know feels pain; I can see other people's pain and I can feel it in an emotional way, but not in a physical way. I find myself in the unfortunate position of feeling like I am the centre of the universe and that everything is a projection, made by me - i.e. you two don't exist, you're something that I created. I don't wish that sense upon anybody because it's not a good one. Through 'For I am the way' I'm saying that you've got to get in, because the only thing one knows to be true is oneself. And on a good day, if you stand on top of a mountain or go to the desert or stand in the ocean, and become completely inconsequential, linear time stops and you become everything and nothing. That for me is communion, that's how I define religion. I think there's a line in there which goes "Today the only bridge I have I burn" which sums it up really, because it is about cutting all lines of communication in order to really truly commune."

Lucy: Do you think that in the future your creativity will move from the sphere of music in to literature for example? KJG: "It's real hard to say. In a way, that sounds like a much easier life. But for all I know I'm deluding myself. I'm looking for someone to help me frame something at the moment, and someone is actually, someone's being really good to me. I would love to write, but I don't know if I'm good enough to do it."

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Dublin Castle 2004

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What's your fav Queen Adreena album? (mine is taxidermy) ❤️

Taxidermy is my favourite album as well! Drink Me following as close #2 favourite. It\s just one of the most unique sounding albums, I cannot think of a any song/album/artist sounding even close to Hide From Time, Madrayking, Sleepwalking, A Heavenly Surrender and so on. There's glockenspiel, the guitars, the haunted kind of vocals like in the beginning of X-ing Off The Days, Katie Jane's lyrics. I should also add that i love visuals of this album, all these 16mm videos and album art shoots are magical. It's such a shame there's so little of live footage from that time, though it adds onto this sense of mystery.

Drink Me is amazing too thanks to this aggressive vibe and guitar noise. (Interestingly, the "collapsing upon itself" distorted guitar wasn't a result of pedal effect but faulty/rewired amplifier Crispin found in some pawn shop.) It's also interesting how it's pretty much a concept album revolving around white noise & static, which KJG often cites as main inspiration for songwriting.

I find both of albums very relatable, as Taxidermy has this feeling of isolation and loneliness, whereas Drink Me talks about a need/attempt of "leaving the treehouse" but still feeling angry and lonely (like Hotel Aftershow). I would say it's also about self-destruction (which was evident even visually if you see these pics of cuts and bruises...) and a feel of disassociation, splitting identity (Sleeping Pill, Siamese Almeida, etc). Katie Jane seems to have a full on solipsistic view on the world which also peaks through some of the lyrics, overall there's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack here i thought of putting up in a blog article maybe, in if anybody cared to read something like that.

I like Ride a Cock Horse too since they're all pre-Taxidermy demos, but it's impossible to get on CD :/

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Katie Jane Garside and Melanie Garside for Kera Maniac magazine, 2004

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12/2005 - TWF Magazine "The Butterfly Effect"

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2005 - Trash Pit Magazine

Always one to court attention due to her rag doll in torn dress appearance and quirky off the cuff personality, vocalist Katie Jane Garside has always been the centre of attention in whatever band she has performed in whether she liked it or not. Dropping into the public eye in the early part of the 1990's in Daisy Chainsaw, the band released just one album before Garside disappeared for almost a decade until returning with a new band, Queen Adreena, in 2000. The band have built upon a somewhat cult reputation and now boast an ever growing underground following. Following the release of their new album 'Butcher & The Butterfly', Taz Miller caught up with Garside prior to the bands show at Rock City in Nottingham. 'Taxidermy' and 'Drink Me' were very different albums, how do they compare to 'The Butcher And The Butterfly'? There's a sort of... oh god I don't know how to answer those questions? You know the 'How are you?' questions? I think it's a lot easier to do interviews when they're written down so that I can be foxy with words rather than spontaneous! I don't know what the albums about really, it's just the one that survived. There was a great storm, some things survived and some things were washed away for better or for worse! What are your musical influences? (A humming noise is coming from a fridge in the corner) Sounds like that! The white noise all around us, the sound of the sea, anything around us, the sound of blood pumping through my ears. I mean I have extremely developed tinnitus so I have my own high pitched squeal and that kind of white noise cancels it out. If you cut out the outside noise I think voices, but it's not that. It's too easy to say you hear voices. That's what my influences are anyway, it's just white noise and pulling out external noise and then figure out what it's trying to say whether it's the spirits or the gods or the fucking nut case I don't know! What's your favourite song to perform? Ummm I don't know, I really don't know because it comes and goes. That's a tight rope as well, if you can cut down these external extractions it becomes like some physic ballet and then you can find it, and it you don't find that place it can become a living nightmare like a pendulum blade. What do you like to do outside of your music career? I'm trying to figure that out right now, there has to be another way... there has to be! What did you do before you started singing? I was a child I suppose. My mother and father looked after me and I moved to London when I was 16. I met Crispin when I was 17, and I always did this, always. Being bought up on a boat we had a lot of time to talk to ourselves and sing to ourselves. You've been working with your sister (Melanie Garside - Maplebee) this year how has that been for you? It's been an interesting year. She's gone on to much better things, for her own sanity really! Mel's doing great, she's doing things with the Medieval Babes and her own Maplebee Records so she's a really busy chick, but it was really nice. What is the best thing about being in a band like Queen Adreena? It's damned if you do and damned if you don't. There's a gorgeous seduction about it and it can also get down on you. A cliché question I know but do you get nervous before a show? Yes, I do I think about it before I go out and it's one of the things you get sick of, I get very tired of it. I don't know if I'm confused about the whole process, taking things for granted and things taking you for granted. I found a stack of fan mail and I think as a woman you shouldn't look at that stuff - I found it a bit distorted when I read it. Maybe I'll see you afterwards and tell you how it goes this time, maybe it will make more sense because I've let the fog clear a little bit and I haven't been drinking. That's left a big question mark so I don't know much about nothing right now. I want to go to the beach and look at the sea for a bit - something like that!

Taz Miller