Feminine rage with Scene Queen to 23

SCENE QUEEN

SSCENE QUEEN started their career on TikTok, paving the way for hyper-femininity in rock and alternative music by boasting a trap infused, pink fuelled version of hardcore music. If you think Hayley Williams and Taylor Momsen pushed boundaries, you’re in for a treat. As we stood leaning on the edge in the smoking area in Club Revenge during The Great Escape, the day after Scene Queen’s Thursday night set, we talked about misogyny in the music industry, new releases and how paving the way for more femininity in the hardcore scene has led to their success. How was last night? It was great. I loved Brighton. So I’m excited to come back and hopefully have a show where it’s not just industry people. What are you most excited for this year? I’m just excited to finally have this EP that I just like released out. I’ve been working on it for about a year now. I’m finally getting that out in the world and getting to see people’s reactions. So most of my career kind of took off on TikTok during the pandemic. It was the first time this year that I’m able to tangibly see its effect because I can see them singing it. So I’m most excited about playing more shows. And coming back to the UK this year. Maybe? Wink wink.

Are there any bands that you’re really excited for any artists that you’re really like?

I really like poutyface. The home team is pop punk band that I love. I feel like it’s amazing. I love hyper pop stuff. I clearly have a thing for that. Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m listening to right now.

Anything fun you’re working on?

Yeah, so I just released this EP and I have another single coming out really soon here in a couple of weeks. I’m planning on hammering out a couple of singles. I’m getting a feature on one of the singles coming up. And I can’t say who but I wish I could. They should be out late May or early June, maybe.

QI would say if you took early KESHA’s wild energy and gave it some brutal breakdowns, and then high pitched screaming mixed with trap a lot of different things.

You’re signed to Hopeless Records. Have you seen any major negatives or positives since you’ve been in the music industry?

Well, I think my whole project kind of came out of necessity for me in the music industry. If you’re in hardcore, in order to be as respected as men in the industry, you need to present yourself as more masculine. Or you need to be some sort of vixen, where you have to be sexy, but you have to appeal to the male gaze. Especially like as a queer person. I feel like my whole style is kind of for the feminine gaze. I’ve experienced a lot of misogyny in the scene just because people don’t want to take women as seriously in this genre that I’m in. So by playing up the hyper femininity, I’ve been able to weed out misogynists and elitists. So you know for a fact if you’re going to my show that it’s going to be an accepting crowd.

So like, the feminization of hardcore music,

out of the box I get, the more room there is for people inside the box. People are becoming a lot more likely to invest in women doing other facets of rock. I’m not saying that every artist has to do hyper feminine music, but if someone’s doing hyper femininity, then there’s more room for any sort of femininity. Being as loud as possible is my whole intention because I know that someone needs to do those sorts of things to make any progress. So I’m okay being the one that gets like hate for it if it means it’s gonna push the genre boundaries.

How do you deal with that now that you’re famous and you have an online platform? How do you deal with the constant bombardment that Tik Tok brings?

Even when I wasn’t pushing boundariesI was still getting all this flak from people on the internet just being like; “Oh, I hate when girls try to do metal.” When people are attacking my music I’m able to just isolate like that to Scene Queen and that’s not me. Which I think has been the best thing for protecting myself, just being able to shut it off.

which is what I know it has, it’s been something a long time coming. How are you finding paving the way for something like that?

I say this all the time but I feel like the louder and more out there that I get with my music- the more Best song: Pink Rover Instagram: @scenequeenrocks TikTok: scenequeenrocks

Words by Charley Murfitt