Uxbridge band Colour Me Wednesday were joined by Sparkle Motion, a queer cover band playing queer songs, who will be performing at TransPride in Brighton on 21st July; ARXX a two piece band with the lead singer beholding a crazy vocal range; and Neil Singh who brings the dreamy melodies and politcal matters to life! Before the evening commenced, I had a chat with the lovely members of Colour Me Wednesday.
How did the band form?
Jennifer: We're sisters [Harriet and Jennifer], so Harriet wanted to start a band and show all the boys at her school that she could.
Harriet: Yeah because I wanted to play electric guitar, that's always been my main thing and I literally did not know any female guitarists. I knew some from what my dad had shown me, however there were none my age. It was just all boys, so my best friend and I, at school, we learnt together, she was on drums. I didn't want to sing at that time, but Jen started finding her voice around the same time.
Laura: We [Jacka and Laura] were later additions.
Jacka and Laura, how did you meet Jen and Harriet?
Jacka: I met these guys whilst doing my undergrad dissertation. I was doing it on DIY feminists bands in London. SO I interviewed Jen as part of my research. Then a few months later when I finished my course they asked if I wuld play a few shows with them. The first one was here at The Green Door Store actually and the second one was the main stage at Indie Tracks. So yeah, I've been around for three years now.
Harriet: Jen and I didn't want to force anyone to be permanent, but then we had a discussion with Jacka and agreed that we wanted Jacka to be permanent.
Laura: And I just starteed hanging round until they let me join.
Harriet: Yeah, Laura is in a million bands!
Laura: I keep making jokes about being that Green Day fan that gets pulled up onto the stage to play with the band. I'm like that fan who just never left.
Is there a meaning behind the band name?
Harriet: It's interesting, but it literally means nothing! That's why I don't even usually talk about it. There's a few things; one, I quite like people creating there own meanings for things and personalising the name, secondly, it was when I first started the band with my best friend at school and we just chose a bunch of words that we liked sounding together. We always liked the word 'Wednesday' then tided it into Wednesday Adams, which was pretty cool.
Jacka: We here about a lot of hair dresser deals , where they will do cheap deals on colour peoples hair and the offer is called colour me wednesday. There are a lot of hairdressers that do that offer with the same name as this band. But we think we came up with it first.
Do you have any fond memories of your first gigs?
Harreiet: When Jen and I started the band we perfomed at our dad's work place, a day centre for adults with learning difficulties. They always wanted live music and we'd get a lot of request for the Beatles.
Jennifer: We were playing covers then, but we played alot of obscure covers back then.
Harriet: We toured America once and I have very fond memeories of that. Apart from we did hit a dear pretty bad. But since Jacka and Laura have been in the band we've played on a lot of different stages. I like big stages with big audiences because the audience becomes a big mass and I feel more confident, rather than picking out individual people in smaller venues.
What is it like when you're performing to a full audience?
Jacka: The thing I love the most is, when I joined Colour Me Wednesday, whilst playing songs the audience knew all the words and were signing along. So I get alot out of seeing audience memebers signing along, who have invested alot of time listening to our music. Now that we've released out new album, just ove a month ago, it's so exciting seeing people that already know all the words!
Harriet: I really didn't expect it.
What do you want the audience memebers to take away from your gigs?
Jacka: FORM A BAND!!! It's really fun!
Harriet: I think just to feel empowered, whatever that may mean to that person individually.
Jennifer: We've noticed that our fans are the quiet type, reserved, going hmome studying the lyrics and learning everything about the band. Making a personal connection with our music and I think alot of the lyrics we've written at home, that are personal, it'll be weird if a connection wasn't made. They're putting their own personal twist on it, which is really rewarding.
Are there any bands that you'd like to work with in the future?
Jacka: WOLF ALICE! We want to support Wolf Alice!
Jennifer: I think it would be good for bands that have been able to pass the through the all white male line to get smaller band to support them that arn't all male.
What is like being a femme band in the music industry?
Harriet: We're in a little bit of a bubble, in the sense that most of the plces we play to people we play to and with are either; female, non-binary, trans, queer, so we generally dont even think about it.
Jacka: We're not the only ones that we play with, because within the circles we play in there are alot of trans people. In terms of our direct experience, we're not on our own.
Jennifer: But there is a reason we play in the places we play, because, to an extent, there is no where else for us to go.
Harriet: When we do go and play elsewhere, it is a different experience.
Laura: We have got backhanded complements from sound managers at festivals. But it's whatever.
Do you find it empowering doing your own thing and disregarding backhanded comments?
Jacka: It's nice for me to see other trans people in the audience from the perspective of the stage. Realising that there are people like us.
Do you have any plans for the summer in terms of festivals?
Jennifer: We're doing a festival called Fuse Festival in Litchfield. It's a family friendly festival.
Harriet: Indie Tracks.
Jannifer: Everyones really nice! And we're playing Grilling Linda Festival.
Laura: I think it's pronounced grilling Linda.
Jennifer: But that sounds like their going to grill Linda MacCartney the person.
Harriet: We've also got one other festival called Red Bell, up in Leeds in September. I don't know how their going to get all those bands on in one day, but we'll see.
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