Exclusive Interview - Lola Fierce
Lola Fierce, hello darling, welcome my love to Spill the Tea! To start, how did you get into drag?
I first got into drag when I was in college. My singing teacher told me to sing this song from a musical called “Kinky Boots”. So when I was in New York I went to see the show and fell in love with it. When I came home I kept trying to do music but all I wanted to be was Lola. I knew I would never get to play the role. So I brought her to life in my own way. After that I just kept practising makeup then started off in local competitions. Now three and a bit years later, two local competition wins and getting to the semi final in a local pageant, here I am. I always say that she is just a bigger, more out there version of my day to day self that gets to do things I wouldn’t have before. A lot of the time I got laughed at for singing songs by Divas but now its something that everyone loves so it just brings me so much joy getting to go on stage and be myself.
How did you choose your Drag name?
It’s really funny because I never actually wanted to be called Lola at first. I was like nah thats to predictable but the more I thought about it and realised I really wanted to do “Land Of Lola”, it just felt right. So I went with Lola and then was like how do I have a cool second name. A diva I love is Beyonce and she has an alter ego “Sasha Fierce”. One day I was like, Lola Fierce…thats it.
“I’m one of a handful of artist on the Scottish scene to do original music and one of, if not the first Scottish drag artist to ever release an original album. That is an achievement that I’m so proud of.”
Your new single ‘Curtain Up’ dropped recently, tell us what the single is about?
The song came about because I started a show in Glasgow and before every show starts you always get the kinda rules and break down of the show. So I wanted to turn that all into a song and show that your here to have fun, be yourself and enjoy the show. I would say its my most “drag music” song yet. So it was a lot of fun to try something different and even rap a little on the track too which I don’t do often.
Describe the song in one emoji.
I would say this 🎭 best describes the song as it’s very theatrical and camp.
This isn’t your first venture into music, when did you discover you wanted to make music?
I always have wanted to make music. Its what I did before drag. So when I first started drag it was something I knew I always wanted to bring into my act. I can always remember when I started to write “Just Be” walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, that it just felt so right. I felt like I could sing about things I wanted to now that I couldn’t before because I felt to scared or worried that people would make fun of me for it. She brought out the confidence to explore music more. I’m one of a handful of artist on the Scottish scene to do original music and one of, if not the first Scottish drag artist to ever release an original album. That is an achievement that I’m so proud of. I love what I do and getting to share my own music with the world was scary at first but now its such an amazing feeling. Seeing everyone enjoy it and relate to some of it, is honestly one of the best feelings ever.
How do you go about getting inspiration for songs?
My inspiration comes from many different things. It could be things that have happened in my life, emotions I’m feeling a lot or it could be about stuff I love. For instance my songs “Scream”, “Last Halloween”, “Killer Christmas” and “Scream Queen” are all inspired from my love of horror. I’m a huge horror movie fan and one day I was like, I wanna do a horror inspired song to bring my love for horror into my music. Then you have songs like “Losing Myself” which I wrote because there was a time period that I went through where I wasn’t really sure who I was in and out of drag. It kind of all became the same person because you would go out to a show, out of drag but yet still get called your drag name all night. I mean don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t bother me getting called my drag name out of drag but at the time it was confusing to me as I was like who is the guy underneath all this drag. Where has he gone? It also was something a lot of my friends and me were talking about at the time. So its a lot of different things that inspire my music.
Do you only sing / create music in Drag?
I do love to sing in drag but theres just something about lip-syncing to a big dance song and slaying the stage with some choreography that gives me life. So I try to balance out singing live and lip syncing in what i do. Over lockdown too, I learned a lot more about styling my own wigs and stoning clothes too. I’m working on trying to learn new things in drag.
Shout out time! What one other Queen, King or queer performer deserves a shout out from you?
My shout out goes to CJ Banks. She is an incredible performer, such a nice person and I’m so lucky to call her my drag mother. The advice and love she has given me to help me be the best I can be is something that I won’t forget. She also sings and can slay the house down with any performance.
