The LA-based five-piece Rock group KingQueen released a new single and video on December 9th that marks a leveling up for them in terms of sound and mission, and also an exceptional partnership with film director K. Rocco Shields for their video. “Burn This Motha” takes the very socially conscious band’s LGBTQIA+ concerns into clear and direct territory but also expands that message to take on so much in the world that’s still oppressive, destructive, and restrictive of human rights. While working on the song, the band found that the relative simplicity of its lyrics and its orchestration was actually helpful for fully developing each instrumental part and constructing a powerful identity for the song.
Working on “Burn This Motha” became influential in developing other songs that we’ll find on KingQueen’s upcoming EP in 2023, road-testing them all on their summer tour and noting which songs really resonated with audiences before going into the studio. Making the multi-faceted video with Rocco Shields also helped crystalize the issues that concern the band the most and gave them a clearer sense of the connection they continue to seek with their audiences in commenting on life experiences. I spoke with the band’s founding vocalist Sabrina Petrini about the role of live performance in the ongoing identity of KingQueen, how “Burn This Motha” came about as a song, and what key experiences the band had making the track’s video with Rocco Shields.
Hannah Means-Shannon: You all have a strong history as a live band. Has making studio recordings always important to you, or were ever focused more on playing?
Sabrina Petrini: First of all, I love performing alive. Especially after the pandemic, it made me realize more than ever how much I needed it, how much it made me feel alive, and made me feel connected with other human beings. When the ability was stripped away from us to be able to look people in the eye, I realized that more than ever. When things are too perfect, it becomes boring for me, and I missed imperfections doing pre-recorded performances. I missed things going wrong! [Laughs] We do have a few songs that are more dancy and fun, but a lot of our music speaks to depression, equal rights, and life issues, so that’s a kind of exchange between us and the audience that we both actually need.
I think that’s what makes this project a special project because it feels like we’re doing things that matter. We’re not a political band, but at shows, we’re always bringing up stuff that’s going on in the world. We’re not just playing to play. I think that’s why we play so often. It feels more like we’re part of the planet rather than just being in the studio.
HMS: The kind of music that you make, as far as I’ve seen, almost presupposes another person on the other side of the conversation, so I can understand why the audience becomes that entity.
SP: It’s a kind of personality thing. And I think a lot of the people who come to our shows can relate to the things that we’re doing. It’s healing in some way, for us, just as much as for the listener.
HMS: Do you traditionally write songs that then get played a lot before they might be recorded?
SP: Yes, playing the songs is almost like an audition. We’ll be writing something and then it gets played a few times before it even passes a more sophisticated songwriting session where we’re planning out different parts for the purposes of recording. I don’t have an ego about my songwriting. I’m completely audience-based. If I’m playing something, and I see they are not feeling it, we don’t play it again. If it’s a song that doesn’t register, we just move on, and it doesn’t get record.
With “Burn This Motha”, we were playing it between February, and September, when it got recorded. On tour, we could see everyone’s reactions to it, across California, and it was truly showing us that it was a song that was needed. It passed the test! We knew we should record it.
HMS: On that Golden State Tour, then, you were playing songs from your self-titled EP, but you were also playing songs that weren’t so official yet, and didn’t have a studio version, like “Burn This Motha”?
SP: Yes. Some of our sets were two hours long. We actually revisited a couple of songs from the past and completely changed the sound and the structure. One of those was “Overthinking” that used to have a completely different beat to it. Now it is a solid Rock song and it has also made it to the EP that we’re currently recording. It’s funny how you can write something, and a couple of years later, it becomes the song it was meant to be.
There’s another song coming up on our EP called “Beautiful”. I actually started writing that on the piano and I thought it was the cheesiest thing I’d ever written. Our keyboard player came over because we were going to do a TikTok live thing and I told him about it. He said, “Nothing’s cheesy here. You just have to put an electric guitar to it.” Now it’s one of the songs that people are really loving. It speaks about the fact that we are all beautiful and unique in our own way, no matter our background or what we look like. Some of those songs have now passed the test and are being recorded for the upcoming EP.
Being in the studio after a tour like this feels important in a different way. With everything that’s going on in the world right now, I think unity is something that people really need. This is a very important moment for KingQueen to be putting these next couple songs out.
HMS: Regarding the relationship between “Burn This Motha” and the other songs that you’ve been recording for the new EP, do you see musical connections between them? Are they all coming from the same kind of zone?
SP: I feel like “Burn This Motha” set a new tone for the band. It led to a deeper songwriting, but also utilizing everyone’s instrumentation without overdoing it. For example, if you listen to the Rock band from Italy, Måneskin, their recordings are very thick but you aren’t hearing ten different guitars. It’s more song-based and message-based. I think that’s kind of what happened to us. “Burn This Motha” elevated everything else we’re doing. When people ask, “What’s your next EP going to sound like?”, I just say, “It’s going to be thick!”
I think this song made the band closer and made us realize that with our time that we have on earth, we should spend it saying what we want to say, and not sugar-coat it.
HMS: There are a number of interesting things about this song. There’s an interesting contrast that the song is kind of simple, but it’s actually very clearly stated, and each musical part is so clearly developed and presented.
SP: That’s what I like about it. When I’m singing, I know what I’m saying, but I also want to make sure it is still open to what another person’s issues might be. I know what I mean when I’m saying “revolution”, but my revolution doesn’t have to be your revolution. I’m not anti-government, but I’m saying you should vote. I’m saying, “Keep on marching, express your pride.” When I say that, I mean gay pride, but it can be your pride. I wanted it to have a message that was timeless and that people could use forever for their own cause.
HMS: It’s interesting how clarity in the lyrics helps cut through a lot of lack of clarity that we encounter in the media. That’s one of the reasons that it’s great that the video starts off with a bunch of news clips. Because it establishes that the things you are talking about are not fictional, they are real. A few years ago, I would have thought some of this was fictional, but now, sadly, that’s not true.
SP: This is real! That’s the thing, right? When we started writing it, Ukraine was about to get invaded, and that’s part of the anger I was feeling at the time. Then it evolved to things I’ve been feeling anger about over the years. Then, when the abortion laws came up, that shows what I’m saying about this song being timeless. Unfortunately, that’s true. Unfortunately, there’s another news story every day, like the Colorado shooting. This song is relevant because that’s so terrible.
I actually try to stay away from the news because I feel so helpless. It infects my whole day and I carry all of it with me. It’s a curse and a blessing because I get to write about it. Choosing those clips for the video was really hard, actually, because it’s not fiction. You can now be sued for having an abortion. That’s absolutely crazy to me. Parents can be sued for gender-affirming care. Fox news talks about the “Woke Agenda”. In that context, what’s wrong with being woke? Searching for those clips brought up states that wanted to ban drag performances, calling them “creepy drag queens.” I’ve never felt unsafe at a drag performance and kids actually love it.
HMS: How did you find out about and work with Rocco Shields for this video for “Burn This Motha”?
SP: I met Rocco a long time ago. I think it was at Outfest. She had a tent for Love Is All You Need? It’s about a gay world, where everyone is gay. It’s flipped so it’s basically weird to be straight. It was such a powerful short. Everybody needs to watch it. I met her then, then a couple of years later, I saw that the short was becoming a feature film. I reached out to her and asked if she needed any music for it. I got one song, an instrumental, placed, and it was amazing to be part of it. It premiered at the Arclight in Hollywood. It was such an intelligent film and it was insane to get to be a part of it.
Knowing that she does things that I consider important, and fast-forwarding to now, we had a lot of people asking to direct our music video for this song over the summer. People were suggesting that we record it and make a music video. In my gut, I was waiting for something, and one day, I thought, “Who’s the right person?” I wanted someone to do it who would feel everything the band is feeling from the perspective of feminism, equal rights, and more. Because it’s not just about LGBTQ+ rights, it’s everything. It’s about environmentalism, too.
I thought maybe I’d reach out to Rocco to see if it could be her, or if not her, maybe she could suggest someone. I needed it to be the story that we are. I was surprised that she even took the meeting with me, and she loved it. She brought an amazing crew in, and we shot it at her Genius Produced studio in Culver City. I gave her the basics of the ideas that we had and she took it to the next level. The way that she made us feel was incredible, since we’d never been on a set like that together. We were able to deliver what we had to deliver. Our previous videos had been a friend holding my camera! I didn’t have to be behind the camera, either. I could just be “talent” because she cared so much about it.
HMS: Obviously, the attention to detail is there in the video, and that shows how much Rocco cares about it, too. There’s so much packed in there. She went above and beyond. Also, this is a video that supports thinking about the song. It amplifies the ideas of the songs and reminds people what it relates to.
SP: I was telling her, when I looked at the clips, that each one of these scenes could have been its own music video. It’s so fast and just “boom, boom, boom!” It packs in everything we wanted to say. There was nothing unsaid. We brought up issues in Iran, environmental stuff, and nothing is random. I’m also so grateful for everyone who showed up and was part of the whole protest scene.
HMS: I was going to ask about that. You brought in fans and friends for that scene, right?
SP: Yes, and before we even shot it, I was telling them that it meant a lot. I was telling them what the band was about. It just felt like the people who were there understood that it was more than just a music video. It was amazing to be in a room with people who agreed on so many things. If you look at all the signs, it’s tackling racism, it’s tackling a lot of things. If you look at all those signs, and think, “It’s 2022”, how are we still debating these things? How are we still debating human rights? How are we still racist? How are we still homophobic?
Even in the days following making the music video, I was thinking, “Did this really happen? Did we really do this?” It really could not have been done without a single person who was on that set.
