Artist Spotlight: Katiejane Garside [Rubythroat]

It’s been about 10 years since I spoke to Katiejane Garside (QueenAdreena, Daisy Chainsaw) on the phone about her music, for the print magazine that would become my MA project, that would become something that I would sell commercially, and now this. In 10 years, a lot has changed, but KJG remains an artist in the truest sense, with new Rubythroat material out in the open.

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S] How are you today?

My body is pulsing, ticking, vibrating and twitching, a psychic snowstorm…I am happy to hear the child, that pushed her way out of my body playing up on the skylight, and I am happy to tap away inventing answers to invented questions, and I am happy to polarise this question into something manageable.

S] What have you learned about yourself through the music that you’ve made, from when you started out, until now?

I love to be eaten by voice thereby – a mind of terrors and errors becomes quieted, a radio turned down low in a distant room and surely in the end that doesn’t end, it’s just a bit of fun – a 20 year old Katiejane might have the answer I’m looking for.

S] How have you inspirations and motivations changed?

A man walked up to me in highgate woods, he gave me a book called ‘Queen Of Dreams’ by Heather Valencia, an autobiographical shamanic story of Heather, as a Yaqui dreaming woman…I spoke to her sometime later, she told me I was a flower singer.

S] What would you say the biggest challenges you face as an artist now?

A mind of terrors and errors…but of course I love her as best I can.

S] What does QueenAdreena represent to you now?

Loneliness through a scratched lens catching the light transit van 4am.

S] And Daisy Chainsaw as well?

Befriended by rats, kids living, and dying in a bayswater bedsit

S] What advice would you give to artists coming up now who are inspired by your work?

Younger generations have been beautifully upgraded and don’t need my advice, if they are artists they know this. It’s not something you hummm and haa over and… if you have absolutely no aptitude for anything else (medicine, roadsweeping, philosophies, sciences, breadmaking, teaching, literature, breadmaking) if you are absolutely called to do this, then do it with your absolute entirety and know that you will loose everything for a moment of pure unadulterated freedom.

S] How do you define success as an artist?

Singing flower being able to use a full stop and walk away.

S] To any person I speak to who wants to learn how to perform on stage, and have a presence, I usually direct them to your work – how do you reflect on your time on the road with your bands, and the “art” of your live performances?

Look up at the stars, take in the loose fact that you are less than a grain of sand in infinity, realise you have absolutely nothing to lose…then slowly, quietly begin to growl.

S] Would you say that you’ve found happiness, as an artist and/or as a person?

I love my extended family, and I show up for work.