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from their first practices, they wanted Pillow Qu
eens to be a more serious proposition than the members’ various teenage musical endeavours. I wonder what serious meant to them in that moment and if it means the same thing now? “It’s structured, it’s like another job. You leave your job to go to your other job which just happens to be way more fun. I think we’ve always felt like that,” says Lyons. “Yeah,” nods Corcoran, “and if ever somebody was slacking it was never like ‘fuck them’. It was like, I wonder if there is something going on? Because everyone always wanted to do it. So, if ever there was an issue, then there was obviously something else going on personally and that was something we could chat about or whatever. Going into the band, there was always this shared intention of taking it seriously.” Did this concerted notion to think of Pillow Queens as a real band, so to speak, make the immediate and impassioned response to their output a little less surprising in their own minds? “You have to keep in mind, at the end of the day, we are still women so we’re never going to do very well,” laughs Corcoran. “We pat ourselves on the back the whole time. We clap ourselves,” elaborates Lyons before Corcoran continues, “We applaud at the end of practice because if we don’t, who will? I think that’s what has gotten us as far as we’re gone because we’re like, y’know what, if you don’t like it, we do.” Thankfully, the people love it! But, with attention, comes exhausting discussion. As gay women writing love songs, it comes as little surprise that their songs routinely cover gay relationships. “We’re unapologetic! Unapologetically Gay!” proclaims Corcoran as she and Lyons laugh over the strange situation they’ve found themselves in, where their every move is deemed fearless, brazen and, again, unapologetic by some (certainly well meaning) commentator or another. “I think it is honestly people being like ‘fuckin’ fairplay to them’ but to us it reads as, what would we apologise for? We’re not getting up on stage and scissoring, y’know. It’s not all ‘we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.’ We’re just getting up and singing like anyone else would but because we’re four gay women it’s suddenly fearless and unapologetically this or that. We played with Pussy Riot and they’re really up against it over there, y’know? We’re kind of ok – we have equal marriage – if somebody shouts dyke at me on the street, so what? And Jesus, I’m not saying there aren’t people up against it in Ireland today! Obviously homophobia is still out there and that stuff hurts people but we’re in a very privileged position. Definitely in the scenes that we play in, everyone is very open. We’ve never had anyone be like ‘Gay!?’ If anything, it’s like ‘Ugh, women,’” Corcoran says with something between a laugh and a sigh. “Actually, I guess the queer thing plays in our favour with those people. They’re like “Oh you’re not like a WOMAN woman... It would 100% be harder for four straight women.” “They have to prove themselves more,” adds Lyons with a sense of resignation befitting the bleakness of the topic. Lyons continues, “It’s funny, I was talking to my mam and she loves this band and she loves that I’m in this band but she’s my mam and she worries about how we’ll be perceived and why does it all have to be so gay? She turned to my sister one day and said, ‘Do you think they’d do as well if they weren’t gay?’ And [my sister] said, ‘I think they do well because they are gay.’” “I get where you’re coming from,” says Corcoran, continuing Lyons’ thought, “Ailbhe [Reddy, a wonderful musician in her own right] messaged me the other day and said, ‘How many times do you think the word queer is going to be used throughout your campaign?’ And yeah, probably ten thousand. It’s a gimmick [from a PR perspective] at this stage. We’re conscious of it but we’re optimistic that the work does speak for itself and that’s kind of what we’re more hopeful of. I’ve said this before, but I’d have loved to have had a band of FOUR queer women writing and performing songs when I was teenager. We have a song called Gay Girls and we’re a band a called Pillow Queens and we’re on the national broadcaster. We’ve got RTE DJs saying, ‘Coming up is Pillow Queens with Handsome Wife,’ and we’re like, ‘This is the queerest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, it’s so cool!’” In Waiting will be released on September 25 via Pillow Queens Records pillowqueens.com 55