October is Kayt's 5-year anniversary of seeing Red Elvises, so she bravely volunteered to
be the next vict...uh, Fan of the Month... |
Fan of the Month! |
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For the record, what is your name?
Kayt Owens is what I go by, my actual legal name is quite similar but is way too mundane to be mentioned here.
Where were you born, and where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida and lived there until I broke away from the South and moved to New York in my twenties.
What were your main interests, entertainment and otherwise, growing up? Any obsessions you don’t mind people knowing about?
Oh man…there’s a reason why I’ve never attempted to answer these questions before now…how much time do you have for my obsessions? Hee! When I was a kid I was a TV addict. In my house if anybody wanted to know what show was on on any given night all they had to do was ask me. Later on, I discovered music and got rather heavily into – don’t laugh – The Monkees. Most of the other kids then were into The Beatles…I was a freak. Oh well… Then there was the Rocky Horror Picture Show period of my life, where I spent about a year dressing up in outlandish thrift store costumes and wigs to resemble the characters in the movie and hanging out in seedy movie theatres, running up and down the aisles in various stages of undress while getting squirted by people with water sprayers and sometimes even getting pelted with toast (if you haven’t seen the movie you might not know what I’m talking about here…rent it if you’re curious and not easily offended). Then, much later on, there came the Culture Club period where I participated in such activities as camping out overnight amongst gun-toting hillbillies in Virginia for front row tickets and sneaking six people into a posh hotel room meant for no more than one or two, because that was where the band was staying and they had more money than we did, so we had to economize as much as possible. And in the late 1990s my roomie and I drove all over Texas, not just to follow the band Dead or Alive but to sell merchandise at their shows, thanks to our friend with the marketing business who supplied their t-shirts and let us handle the merchandise-selling for part of the tour. I’ve actually been into the wild fun and laughs of following bands around for quite some time but have never before been able to get to know and hang out with people in a band quite as much as I have with Red Elvises – because they’re so approachable, down-to-earth and NICE! And, I suppose, because we live in the same geographical area. It helps to be able to see them relatively often and not just love from afar. I also love all things Cirque du Soleil and have seen all the Cirque shows except for the first few. My roomie and I even traveled to Disney World in Florida mainly to see the Cirque show "La Nouba!"
Tell us about your musical endeavors and any musical instruments you play…
Ha! Me? Right… See that lamppost over there? How musical is it? That’s me. I wasn’t even ever in Band in school, although I was in Chorus until 8th grade. I remember being able to sing – alto and second soprano, in church, mostly – until around the age of sixteen or so but after that time, inexplicably, my voice seemed to take a turn down the “Please shut up, I’ll PAY you NOT to sing!” road. Now, if anyone is ever in the car with me who actually has musical talent I try not to let them hear me sing along with the radio or CD player, for fear of hurting their ears.
We had an electric organ when I was a kid and I’d mess around with that a little. How my parents kept from running out of the house screaming I’ll never know. We later acquired a piano I did try taking lessons at age fifteen or sixteen but never got very far due to complete lack of talent and a strange tendency to mentally literally interpret those lines between the…what are they called? – measures? – like periods at the ends of sentences. So my playing had a sort of un-charming choppy quality to it, to say the least. Our pastor’s wife taught me to play mostly Baptist hymns and my specialty became Christmas songs in whatever key has four flats. Those were fairly easy – I could read just enough music to do it - and I actually could play most of them in a way that people could tell which songs they were, such as "Silent Night” and “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear.” The only non-religious songs I could play with any sort of recognizability were “Heart and Soul” (either part, separately), ”Chopsticks,” “Tarantella” and “One Tin Soldier,” but that last one was a bit choppy, I’ll admit. My next teacher was an impossibly cute young guy who made me so nervous I developed the annoying habit of kicking the leg of the piano bench with my foot, without so much realizing I was doing it. Imagine my major teenage angst when he asked me to please stop doing that – how embarrassing!! When I lived in New York I bought a very used electric guitar and even more kicked-around staticy little amp from a pawn shop and then signed up for lessons. I was the only one in the class with an electric guitar, everyone else had acoustics. I didn’t feel like lugging the little amp all the way up to the West Side, so whenever I managed to play a chord everyone had to be really really quiet to hear me. Nevermind that my hands were almost too small to properly make most chords anyway. I think I was a guitar class dropout. I do occasionally drum with my hands on my steering wheel while stopped at traffic lights, but I kinda doubt my “drumbeats” are in any way in actual rhythm with any song on the radio (or ever heard on the planet). So it’s really best that I stick to my one musical talent of turning on stereos and otherwise just attend concerts to appreciate the musical talents of others!
What accomplishments are you most proud of at this point in your life?
Surviving thus far! No, seriously… I guess graduating from college after getting “A”s on every paper I wrote (even those written while halfway drunk), any accomplishment involving writing, which is my one talent in life, moving my roomie and me all over the country successfully to live in New York, Dallas and then L.A., and getting to be part of The Red Pages staff. Ealasaid, as Editor, does such a fantastic job and each month I’m happy and proud to have been part of each new issue. Oh, also being lucky (and brave!) enough to appear in the Red Elvises’ video for “I Wanna See You Belly Dance” and shooting video footage of some Dead Or Alive shows in 1996 that ended up being used in their late-1990s remake video of “You Spin Me Round.” And when I finish my first novel and get it published I’ll be sure to let everyone know how proud I am of that.
What are your favorite movies?
In no particular order: “Harold and Maude,” “The Day The Earth Stood Still,” “sex, lies and videotape,” “Shirley Valentine,” “Enchanted April,” “Six-String Samurai,” “Mail Order Bride,” “King of Hearts,” “Cabaret,” the 1974 version of “The Three Musketeers,” all Monty Python films, most any Mel Brooks movie with Gene Wilder in it, and various 1950s “B” science fiction movies.
Do you have any favorite books?
I read tons of different things…I have a stack of unread novels by my bed. I like “Good in Bed” and “In Her Shoes” by Jennifer Weiner, “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac, anything Douglas Adams ever wrote and most everything Ray Bradbury has written. I also sometimes enjoy non-fiction…self help, books about hookers or mental disorders or musicians…whatever interests me at any given time.
What music are you into, in addition to Red Elvises?
Lots of different types of music from Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James to Chris Isaak, Cyndi Lauper, Bob Schneider (who Igor actually turned me onto, he has some cool songs), Matchbox 20, Enigma and lots of stuff in between. I like oldies from the 1950s/60s, the Beatles and Janis Joplin. I love the music of Cirque du Soleil and new age stuff like Vollenweider and Kitaro as well. I also like bands I’ve met and sort of got to know and spend a little time with, such as Gene Loves Jezebel and Dead Or Alive.
When, where, how, etc. did you first hear and experience Red Elvises?
October 29, 1998 in Hollywood, California at The Martini Lounge. My roomie, friend Alma from Chicago and I were introduced to them by a mutual friend. It took probably less than five minutes for me to get hooked and the rest was history! We saw them the next two nights too and I wrote about all that in a Red Pages articled called “My First Time.” I don’t remember what issue that appeared in though.
About how many times have you seen them?
As of right now, 80. There are no doubt some people who have seen them more times but I’m pretty sure I’m probably the only freak who keeps track of it on my computer.
What is it about Red Elvises that draws you to them, that you like the most?
Hmm….what’s not to like? Like I said above, they are truly nice guys, approachable, easy to talk to, fun to hang out with, good looking and, of course, creative, theatrical and mega-talented. I love to hear and watch them play, they produce such terrific, feel-good music and make it look so easy even though I know they work as hard as they play and always give 100% even when they’re not feeling so great or are tired.
What’s the farthest you’ve traveled to see them? And do you have a good story around that?
The very farthest would have to be when I went to Florida in September, 2000. I happened to plan a trip to North Carolina to visit my mother at the same time the guys were hitting Florida, and, as my mother and I had talked about driving down to Florida for old times’ sake (I grew up there), we decided to do it during that trip. The guys were playing my college campus, Florida State, and since I hadn’t seen the campus in more years than I care to mention, I thought it would be super cool to see them play there. And it was! I was driving my mother’s car down the main drag in Tallahassee, Tennessee Street (why the main street of a Florida college town and state capitol has the name of another state I have no idea…go figure), when suddenly in the rear view mirror I saw this big familiar red van coming up in the lane next to me. I have to admit that I got all giddy…I mean, I was a little tired from the 400-mile drive and then to have Big Red pass me in a town 3,000 miles from our home was just too cool. I actually let out a little squeal I think. My mother started to fear for my driving ability at that point, but then, a lot of people do that anyway, even when Red Elvises are nowhere around. So seeing them play that night was a mind-bending blend of the old with the new. The FSU campus had changed a lot but it brought back many good memories of when I went to school there, and here was my favorite band right there near the Student Union, sweating it out in the ultra-high humidity of a north Florida mid-September night. The next day we all headed for St. Petersburg and after that show I ended up hanging out with Oleg and Phelan till nearly 4am in a coffee bar, which was fun. My mother and I had to race a hurricane to get out of the St. Petersburg/Tampa area the next day as we headed east toward Orlando (the guys had to contend with the rain and high winds all the way down the Gulf coast as they headed for their next show in Naples) but it was all in all a good trip anyway. The second farthest I ever traveled to see them was Seattle for the Bumbershoot Festival the following year, and that was pretty cool too.
Which show is your favorite out of all the RE shows you've seen?
There’s no way I could possibly pick out a single favorite, so many of the shows bring back happy memories for me. I wish I could remember which show it was that I was first invited up to dance onstage, but each time that happens it’s a really happy night for me. I’ve just been really lucky to have had a lot of great times with these guys over the past five years.
Any other standout, all time great memories of shows you’ve seen so far?
I went to San Francisco in March 1999 to see them at The Great American Music Hall, which was a huge and beautiful old concert hall, and that show ended up being used for the double Live CD. I think it was the first time I got to go backstage…well, it was the first really big venue I had seen them play that actually had a big giant security-guarded backstage area. Zhenya gave me a wristband to get in the door and go backstage and so I found myself sitting in their dressing room when they started changing clothes. Now keep in mind I had only been seeing them for about five months at that point so I was still a little shy. I’m sure no one who knows me now would believe I was ever shy but I did used to be and it still kicks in from time to time, believe me! And when the pants started coming off I was out of there fast, not that some part of me didn’t want to look, but…well, I just didn’t think I should see…well, certain things. That memory always makes me laugh. During the show the security guard allowed me to stand near the side of the stage right next to the door that led to the stairs down to the backstage area. I saw a picture once of the stage and areas on both sides of it, taken from a long way off, and there was this tiny dot of color on the left side (if you were standing in the audience looking at the stage it would be the left side), and I knew that was me. It still gives me warm fuzzies to think maybe one of the screams on that live CD could be mine.
What are your favorite Red Elvises songs?
I never get tired of “Belly Dance…” I also love “Colors of Rainbow,” “Natasha Loves (or in the English version, “Singing”) Reggae,” “Juliet,” “Lovepipe,” “Gypsy Heart,” “Sad Cowboy Song,” and “Candle” sung in Russian. Really, it’s very difficult to pick a favorite because I love so many of their songs.
What would you like to see them do in the future? Any ideas? Anything you’d like to say to the band?
I’d love to see them do a movie where they have starring roles… Red Elvises as superheroes or something, saving the world and making it safe for rock ‘n roll! Yeah! I should get right to work on writing that! And, of course I’ll love it when they record more CDs and make more videos. I also always thought it would rock to hear them do a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's song "Proud Mary." But basically... Just keep on showing the world what good music should be about, guys!
Okay, last question… Do you have anything you’d especially like to say to all the fans?
Just keep on loving and supporting Red Elvises and focus on things that make you happy! Oh, and all of you who go see them, please send your concert reviews and photos in for the Red Pages!! If anyone wants to be a future Fan of the Month please write to: redelvisesfotm@yahoo.com – go ahead, do it now!