Peggy Sue and the Pirates
“We talked about being a band for about a year but never did it because we were a bit shambolic.” Despite such frankness from the duo, it would seem the voyage of Peggy Sue and the Pirates’ vessel has avoided the whirlpool of ‘shambolic-ness’ and is well on its way to discovering the buried treasure. Get ready to be pillaged.
Although the moniker suggests a motley crew with parrot in tow, the only Pirates here are Katy Klaw and Rosa Rex. After meeting at school in London then moving to study in Brighton, the girls bonded over a love of Regina Spektor and flirted with the idea of getting musical. It was Katy’s big break that soon doubled up as Rosa’s: “A guy offered me a gig but I’d never played live before so I asked Rosa to come and keep me company. We played three songs and everyone quite liked it so we carried on.”
And carry on they have. As a self-proclaimed “mish-mash”, the girls have toured with diverse artists such as Kate Nash, Blood Red Shoes and Kid Harpoon. “It’s funny because people don’t really know what to do with us,” Katy claims. “We’re probably the only band that can get away with playing with all these different people.” Upcoming support slots with Maccabees and Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip, as well as appearances at boutique summer festivals, look set to continue that eclecticism.
Perhaps it’s their uni years in Brighton, where every man and his dog own a guitar, that helped them branch out? “When we were both living there, it made such a difference,” agrees Katy. “I think it’s easier to get started and move up the ranks a little bit.”
Now, however, Rosa has moved back to London making the songwriting process a little tougher. “Usually, one of us will have written a song then we’ll finish it with the other,” Katy explains. “We really want to start doing more together,” claims Rosa. “We were supposed to do it this morning but we got up late.”
The reason for their lie-in is a late night after a live show in Hull. The girls inform me that, if an audience is unresponsive to their set, they’ll try their best to change that. Katy says: “If we’ve had a shit gig, we’ve always lost our voices the next day. We just go ‘fuck this’ and sing really loud; we’ll make noises and scream, getting aggressive as we can.” Any other onstage rock ‘n’ roll antics? “We’ve never broken a guitar onstage,” claims Rosa, “but if I’m really drunk and there’s a drumkit, sometimes that gets slayed. It’s awful.”
Anyone who has seen the girls live will already be aware that this raw almost punk stage presence informs their music, a disparate blend of anti-folk, new soul and storytelling. The energy of their ramshackle appearances has so far been retained on self-recorded EPs but what will happen when they sign a deal and are taken into the studio? “When people have recorded us previously, it’s been both too clean and too messy. We definitely want to keep that ‘live’ element. The March EP is literally me and Katy introducing ourselves and then playing the songs, and it works because we’re not focusing too much on the recording process.”
This ‘March EP’ is the third in a series of monthly limited edition CDs, with the duo determined to complete a full twelve. Fans can expect covers, rarities and even new songs. Rosa, a former English major, is in the midst of translating Renaissance play The Tragedy of Mariam into her own ditty. “It’s about a woman who gets her head cut off by her husband, the king, because he’s jealous, and then he regrets it afterward. It’s hard to write without directly lifting from the text because it’s quite musical. We’d probably get sued for that though.”
Influenced by everything from the Temptations and Paul Simon to Billie Holiday and All Saints (“We had the combats!”), Katy throws an even more unexpected thread of her musical lineage into the mix: “My R‘n’B phase was somewhat longer than Rosa’s, and it involved a bit more garage. I was a garage girl for a little while.”
Soon, Katy will be able to say she was a pirate for “a little while” too. Their original name (the result of “a crude story” they won’t explain because it’s “so tenuous”) has been hijacked to a degree by indie-popsters Pete and the Pirates. “We might challenge them to a duel and then, erm, lose and change our name.” In an effort to reclaim their own identity, the girls are set to become Peggy Who? I still reckon Peggy Sue and the Drum Slayers is way cooler.
Peggy Sue and The Pirates – New Single Out Now
Words: Luke McNaney
