International Clash Day London Broadcast Preview: Queen Zee

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Clash’s landmark album London Calling, KEXP will travel to London for a 4-day live broadcast and online event, featuring live performances and exclusive interviews. Queen Zee will take the Studio 9294 stage on Thursday, February 7 alongside fellow UK bands IDLES, Heavy Lungs, Soviet Soviet and Goat Girl. Get familiar with the band before their performance below.

Queen Zee (fka Queen Zee & the Sasstones) are taking over the UK with their unique brand of loud, angry, and rebellious shows that are completely bonkers. Iggy Pop himself championed the band calling them "Strange, weird & crazy,” so I’m not sure much else needs to be said to convince you to tune into their broadcast.

By tying together meticulously crafted punk songs that focus on queer culture and diversity and the visceral intensity and urgency of hardcore punk, Queen Zee are blazing a new trail for queer punk bands everywhere. Their most recent release was last summer’s Sass or Die / Medicine split single and will be releasing their self-titled debut album on Friday, Feb. 8.

KEXP spoke to Queen Zee about the significance of The Clash in a brief interview. Read below.

KEXP: What does The Clash mean to you and have they inspired your music at all?

Queen Zee: They're one of our all-time favourite bands. As a band, we have such varied tastes but The Clash are one of the few artists that transcend those boundaries. They captured what was happening in youth culture at the time immensely and weren't afraid to experiment, push the boundaries of what was possible. It's something I would like to think we do in our own way. I want to reflect what is happening right now in 2019, culturally, musically and politically.

Do you find there to be parallels between the lyrical content and ethos of London Calling and the current state of England?

It's incredible, really, how many parallels there are, and you're left to think, "Are we doomed? Are we just going to repeat this cycle until we can't?" Austerity has lead us to nowhere but poverty, and this is something The Clash knew before I was even born. Yet here we are, starving kids to the point of malnutrition so a minority can amass wealth so large they could never possibly have any use for it.

What can audiences expect from your performance for KEXP's International Clash Day London broadcast?

Our new record is out the day after! So there will be some of that, and we might be covering a particular band, no hints on that though. Other than, y'know, the name of the event.

Queen Zee will perform at KEXP’s International Clash Day London broadcast at 6:00 AM PST / 2:00 PM GMT on Thursday, February 7. Check out the full schedule of performances here. Below, watch the video for “Sass or Die,” directed by Dom Foster and shot in the legendary Peter Kavanagh's Pub, Liverpool.