Q&A with Baby Queens

Baby Queens are a five piece hailing from Cardiff, who’ve been really hitting their stride this year with acclaim coming their way, some high profile live performances, and more. We covered them in PULSE a little while back, after I caught them live at a summer weekender in the valleys called Rhondda Rocks and was instantly hooked. The band take a bunch of influences and bung them together to create a blend of soul, reggae, R&B, hip hop, indie, and so on.

Baby Queens’ five members are Cara Elise (vocals/guitar), Estelle Ios (guitar), Monique B (vocals), Ruth Vibes (vocals/guitar), and Vanty (vocals). As their schedule is getting busier and bolder with the big time on the horizon, CULTURED VULTURES managed to catch up with Estelle from the band for a quick Q&A to see how things are and where they’re going. Check it out below.

 baby queens interview

First of all, hello and how are you? Who’s hitting me up with answers?

Hello Cultured Vulture how’s it goin! It’s Estelle here, from the band.

We featured you in an edition of our Pulse music feature, but for those of our readers not up to speed, how would you describe yourselves? What are Baby Queens all about?

We’re a group of friends that decided to come together to form a band about 2 years ago now. We’ve all done our own thing in music for years. Me and my sister Cara had our front room set up with amps & a pa system & we would jam all the time with anyone who called round. When Vanity stayed over we would always play somethin’, and the day Monique showed up and mentioned she had the urge to be in a band, we started putting together some songs. Shortly after that, Ruth, Monique’s cousin was on board and the Baby Queens were born!

You’ve got a pretty unique sound, that fits a number of contrasting genres together. What would you say are some of your biggest musical influences? What inspired you/ lead you to this sound?

I think our early influences probably range from gospel, to Michael Jackson, to punk rock and roots reggae! After that, well, for me personally the list is endless, but from a musical perspective of the band, we tend to go for soulful melodies and riffs on the guitar and work around that. We all agree on legends like Lauren Hill and we like guitar based R&B like Miguel and Frank Ocean too.

I actually caught you live at the Rhondda Rocks festival in Porth over the summer. How did you enjoy that?

Ahh nice one, I think it is great that they put something like that on for the community. We had a good time there, the people were really accommodating and friendly. Defo glad to support events like that.

Speaking of a gig, how has gigging been lately? Getting around a lot? Where can our readers catch you in future?

Ye we’ve been pretty busy lately – we had a mini UK tour with our Strangetown label-mates ‘The Earth’ which was great. We did Festival Congress on the weekend and Sŵn Festival. We’re playin at Black History Month on the 25th Oct. We got 2 London shows in November, and we’re playin Oxjam and Cardiff Made too. All gigs are updated on our FACEBOOK and TWITTER page regularly.

How’s the music scene around you in Cardiff? Many like minded acts? Anyone you’d recommend we check out?

All the Horizons Cymru bands are amazing, we’ve had the pleasure of bein able to see many live performances from the horizons 12 over the year and their all incredible. Other acts we like include

DARKHOUSE FAMILY

THE EARTH

SAM JONES

What’s next on the schedule for Baby Queens? Debut full length album? EPs?

Yep, we are currently workin on our debut album and its goin great! Some brand new material which is always excitin to start playin live. Release date will be announced early next year.

What’s been your biggest and proudest moment as a band so far?

Hard to say just one y’know, I reckon getting ‘Redlight’ used for the UAD plugin advert, bein chosen for the BBC Horizons 12, gettin daytime airplay on Radio 1, and playin on the BBC Introducing stage at T in the Park was all wicked.

Outside of music and the band, what else drives and inspires you? Any other big passions?

For me its Activism & Politics. Takin care of the corrupt injustices of this world and trying to spread the good word about climate change, renewables, fair trade and eboloshing slavery/poor conditions for workers etc etc.
We all enjoy football but I’m not too sure who we all support actually lol. An of course we like drinkin an dancing on the weekend ;)

Lastly, and most importantly, if you had a pet vulture that was really cultured, what would you call it?

Marmaduke Morrissey

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