Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kay Dolores. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kay, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?
When I started Suicide Queen, I knew I wanted my friend Dorian Dolore involved. We’re both from St. Louis but we didn’t meet until I was living in Oakland and he was living in Chicago. We connected talking about music and production and other forms of moral degeneracy and we would trade demos for the projects we were working on. So when he eventually moved to LA, I asked him to play guitar in Suicide Queen because, in my thinking, 300 or something miles between Oakland and LA were not a sufficient obstacle. When I scheduled the first SQ show, he was going to take the bus up to Oakland, which would have been the first time we actually met in person. But it ended up not working out for that show, so I asked my friend Michael Vile if he would join on synthesizer for at least that show. I was already playing guitar in his band The Vile Augury, who were also on the bill, so it would be a pretty even trade. The line-up of Suicide Queen has changed so many times since then between people leaving and joining, and it’s taught me to be flexible and adaptable and ready to face challenges. And in some cases, it has proven my friends are real, because they still somehow deal with me even when we’re not in a band together. In others though, it’s proven you can’t hold on too closely—you’ll only get yourself hurt.
Kay, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m a musician and a disaster. I grew up in St. Louis, where I went to Catholic school and played the piano and a lot of Mortal Kombat. I found the guitar and the drum machine some time after an unpleasant bone dislocation situation, which led to several calamitous decisions, not the least of which was starting a band. We would play some of the usual St. Louis places that don’t exist anymore, most notably the Hi Pointe, a lovely upstairs bar that to me was a magical and wondrous place, regardless of the graffiti and the piss and that sort of thing. There were some instances of industry flirtation but none of them were really right. They all felt creepy and controlling and exploitative. I’m glad I had the sense to turn them down! Eventually I was able to get out of Missouri, staggering onto a commercial airliner bound for California with a suitcase and a hope or two.
I think my first friend I met on the subway platform. I was sitting on some kind of circular bench when he was exiting his train and his water bottle got stuck in the door as it closed, so he kind of fell onto the bench next to me after he wrenched free his water bottle from the train’s thirsty clutches. His outfit indicated we were probably into the same things—creepy music, creepy movies, the occult, that sort of thing. I was correct.
It wasn’t until I had been in California for maybe two years that I started a band, which was vaguely Depeche Mode-influenced. That was a fun project but I needed it to get darker and heavier. That’s how Suicide Queen started. Six years later, we signed to the label COP International, and recorded the first record “Nymphomaniac.”
Releasing that record was a great feeling, but I’m most proud of what we’ve accomplished when we get in front of people, and when we get to meet new fans and other bands—meeting people sometimes from all kinds of places in the U.S. as well as from Mexico and Europe has been incredible and it blows my goddamn mind sometimes, that it’s me who gets to do this. We’re nearing the completion of the second record and I’m hoping it takes us on another wild ride!
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Musical Instruments Digital Interface is best known by its acronym MIDI. Programming a hardware drum machine was my first introduction to it, then Fruity Loops a little later. The ability to control every note played by an effectively infinite set of synthesizers and samplers, with hardware or entirely on a computer, entirely by yourself, has been the biggest writing and performance tool I’ve ever had, next to the guitar or the piano. I wish I had gotten into it sooner, although I suppose 15 was a fine enough age. I mentioned being flexible and adaptable and MIDI has allowed that, as well as the creation of more complex textures than I ever would have been able to build with just a guitar and a drum machine. Granted, that didn’t stop me before—it just wasn’t very good!
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Go to shows. Get there early to see the openers. Buy a shirt or a CD or a digital download. Bring your friends. Tell your friends who couldn’t come with you because they were busy falling asleep in front of another episode of The Voice or the acclaimed medieval fantasy adult drama Game of Moans or whatever. If you own the bar or the venue, please make it a place bands want to play and patrons want to go to see bands play. Have a decent stage and a decent PA, have some kind of backstage green room, have a sound person who isn’t getting drunk or high on the job. Have decent bathrooms and good security staff who keep people safe at shows.
And if nothing else, leave a nice comment on the YouTube video, share it on your social media with your friends, all that good stuff—tell your mom, tell your priest at confession, tell the deer that slink ominously through your neighborhood.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Geoffrey Smith II; Kay Dolores