The Punk Archive: Two of you met on set for Sondheim's Company. What were you all doing before then? Can we get a little taste of each of your musical backgrounds?
Jen: How long do you have?! All I've known is music! Since I was 4 years old I've been working through as many instruments and styles of music in theory, writing, Jazz and Classical performing and teaching. I began on piano and was trained classically, through school I learnt flute, alto saxophone and steel pans (which was where I began to truly understand jazz). I went to a music school based in Harrow, London where I was part of many orchestras and bands and performed as a soloist at venues like the Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall, and then went to Southampton University to complete my BA in Music and half a composition Masters, whilst being heavily involved with the Musical Theatre society. I then met Timia through ‘Company’ and got a job as a choir leader for Rock Choir which is where we met Zan! So…. That was a condensed version…
Zan: Yeah, I have no musical background. I started off as an actor…..then a million years later met these girls through choir and they said ‘you should be a Lounge Kitten’, so, lucky me!
The Punk Archive: You have been singing together since 2012 and your career is taking off fast! What do you think has given rise to your success?
Timia: If I didn't know better, I would list a load of redeeming qualities about our music, personalities, videos and general rad-ness. However, I fear that may be doing a disservice to Zan's charming yet relentless, meticulous and enthusiastic social media strategising.
Zan: Absolutely not! I think it's the quality of what we do (we are ALL perfectionists and control freaks) combined with the comedy that I think has pushed us forward. Plus, it's something a little bit different I suppose. And we've had a lot of great help too, thanks to the magic of the internet.
Jen: Hear hear!! I think it genuinely was a combination of the three of us. We had a lot of support from our fellow Rockies (Rock Choir members) who we will cherish forever. The process of the Lounge Kittens is completely shared through mine and Timia's music writing, Timia's styling and Zan's incredible managerial, media-ruling and industry networking. We all genuinely make it work together.
Zan: We are so grateful for all the support we've received so far. Fred has been really cool, offering words of encouragement and helping to push the Rollin’ video across the globe. We're hoping we get the chance to meet him at Sonisphere, that would be amazing!
Timia: All manner of people from all over the planet have enjoyed something we made and then told us about it; that's a melted-butter happy feeling.
Jen: It's been a completely ‘pinch me, am I dreaming?’ state of mind for the past 3 months. We honestly just wanted to make some music hoping that people would like it, and the response has just been incredible. I still can't believe that we've actually been conversing with THE Fred Durst. To have such kind and supportive words and actions from him is the biggest compliment of all, we feel like we did a good job for Limp Bizkit. My 13 year old me is crying hysterically like a teenager at a Beatles concert….
Zan: Geez? 13!?! That makes me feel OLD! My 19 year old me feels the same way….
The Punk Archive: If you could class each other as one thing, for example “the comedien” or “the man eater” what would your titles be?
Zan: That's really tough! We always joke that Jenny is Musical Kitten, Timia is Style Kitten and I am Marketing Kitten (it's not the most glamorous of the jobs but someone has to do it!)
Timia: Goofy Kitten, Hyper Kitten and Grumpy Cat. Or maybe…Loud Kitten, Gin Kitten and Sarcasti-Kit. Nope, it's no good I can only come up with insulting or self-deprecating ones.
Jen: I like to think of us as different types of internet cat – ‘No no no’ Kitten, ‘Hamilton the Hipster Cat’ Kitten, ‘Maru’ Kitten, ‘Surprised Kitty’ Kitten… you pick any internet cat, one of us will be like them…
The Punk Archive: I love your style. Your voices are beautiful. Do you have an album? Are you able to put anything out with the copyright restrictions?
Zan: We're looking into the red tape behind putting out an album at the moment. Obviously we'd love to do it, we love recording.
Timia: I love being in a dark, windowless room with the same 3 people for long tracts of time. People get weird…that's my favourite because that's when magic happens. Plus giggles.
Jen: Thank you for your compliments! We are very excited but need to make sure we've done all of our research first so we don't encroach on any of the artists we love. Completely agree with the girls though, we absolutely love it, we all get very silly and weird when we're in a recording session, it makes me so happy as it reminds me that we're all human (albeit fabulously immature).
The Punk Archive: Your biography is very entertainingly satirical… I imagine you're all incredibly fun to hang out with. Are you all a little bit nuts?
Jen: We love the professional side of our band, and we spend a lot of time making it as clean, precise and aesthetically musically pleasing as possible, but the actual charm of each song comes from the memory of our rehearsals, when we all sit around making faces at each other, swearing at each other, singing the wrong note unexpectedly and screaming ‘THAT’S TOO HIGH!’ to yourself or singing the entire song with a lisp just for fun. We all very silly…
Timia: A disproportionate amount of time and effort goes into trying to make the others laugh, often by being as grotesque, bizarre or silly as possible. If you crack a kitten by making her laugh-snort, cry or dribble with laughter, that's when you know you've won. It may be the most rewarding thing about being a Lounge Kitten.
Zan: I think one of the best things about how everything has taken off is getting to experience it with our best mates. We're all really close and we love nothing more than a proper giggle. We were crying with laughter in rehearsal yesterday. It happens all the time, we really are just very, very silly!
The Punk Archive: You guys have some pretty high profile events on your agenda this summer! Will you be playing anything for us humble small venue goers to catch you at too?
Zan: We are always gigging, anywhere and everywhere and as excited as we are for the huge festival shows, you can often find us singing in our local pub. We're starting to get out and about to other parts of the country now, which we're really excited about.
Timia: We're going to Plymouth in September; the world truly is our oyster…
Jen: We treat every gig as an experience to make new fans and friends. No gig is beneath us, we are just as excited to play locally! And even though the high profile events are incredible, sometimes you just can't beat the intimacy of a pub gig where you're practically breathing/spitting on the audience.
The Punk Archive: What's next in the World Takeover agenda for The Lounge Kittens? Clothing and Catcessories?
Timia: That might be dangerous…if I had my way we'd all look even more like Drag Queens than we (sometimes) already do.
Jen: I imagine us playing some elaborate gig in Japan with actual kittens (CAT CAFÉ!) or perhaps life sized cartoon cats that personify us individually…
Zan: I'm not sure I want a life sized cartoon cat me!!! We are excited to be about to release our very first batch of merchandise haha. The concept still seems totally bizarre to us! And we're very lucky to have the fabulous www.pinupgirlclothing.com sending us fabulous dresses. Wouldn't it be wicked if they made a Timia dress, a Jenny dress and a Zan dress??!
The Punk Archive: I don't think I have EVER heard women sound so sweet saying the word 'fuck'… It's rather disarming. Do you find you have men and women alike swooning? I swooned….
Timia: Personally, I have experienced minimal swoonage but I know for a fact that the other two have (to varying degrees). It's nice to know that you swooned, though I have no doubt that 5 minutes backstage as a first hand witness to the laugh snorting, gurning and industrial strength underwear would shatter the illusion VERY quickly.
Zan: Yeah, exactly. I'm not sure Fred Durst would think we were quite so ‘stunning’ if he could see us cackling with laughter as we try to squeeze into our spanx haha! But I think Jen gets the most swoonage, especially online…..
Jen: I am fairly inexperienced to swoonage generally in my life time, I've always been a bit of a tomboy (it was Timia that showed me how to properly put on make up when I was 23!). It was a bit of a shock to read comments on YouTube such as ‘Uh. Dat Red head’ and ‘I’d do them all and then come back and do the Red Head again’, especially seeing as I was gurning half the time… I think my mother would be proud.
Check out The Lounge Kittens' latest video, a cover of Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss A Thing:
http://youtu.be/xiwJdH3avHQ
The Lounge Kittens will be playing six shows at Glastonbury Festival from 25th-29th June and also appearing at Beautiful Days Festival from 15th-17th August.
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