Queen Crony have very little use for genre boundaries. The young Boston quartet make music sorta like an M.C. Escher painting: all jagged edges and sharp twists and turns with trap doors and staircases that lead to entirely different places. A Queen Crony song sounds like pop music and the avant-garde thrillingly being pulled apart and smushed back together at weird angles. With that in mind, theirs is a project that certainly flexes its conservatory pedigree, but never at the sacrifice of hooks or musicality or feeling. Its members see Queen Crony as a fully democratic endeavor, and one in which each member’s musical proclivity and voice gets a chance to shine. In other words, it’s essentially a band about their friendship.

While there’s certainly a precedent for groups of their ilk in Boston (this very publication has shined a light on a few), it’s rare to see one so dialed into chaos make such a strong opening statement out of the gate. Which is to say, their debut album Horse Pony–released right at the tail end of 2020–more than makes good on the promise shown during their sweatily triumphant gigs. Revered in hushed tones among scenesters, a Queen Crony show is an exercise in bedlam: bodies flailing and instruments akimbo on crowded stages, they simply make bodies move with force via sheer exuberance. The dank basements dotting Allston’s ever-mutating musical ecosystem become tumultuous dance floors for twenty or so minutes at a time.

While the fate of many young (and old) projects obviously hangs in the balance as we zoom past the one year mark of the pandemic, the members of Queen Crony have largely remained positive. Then again, if you were armed with songs as deranged and oddly beautiful as the ones scattered across Horse Pony, would you have cause for concern? Probably not. Vague but hopeful plans of touring and new recordings await, but for now, let’s learn more about what makes Queen Crony tick.

Allston Pudding: Who is Queen Crony? 

Queen Crony: Jolee (she/her) sings Voice

Matt (he/him) plays Guitar

Brad (he/him) hits Drums

Grace (she/her) plays Bass

Rubin (he/him) does Keyboards and Trumpet.

AP: When did the band form?

QC: We formed in the spring of 2018, but we didn’t have the lineup we have now until January 2019.

AP: Where did the band form? What brought you together?

QC: We all met at NEC. Rubin initially got all of us together to play some music he had written for 2 guitars, keyboards, bass, and voice, which was our original instrumentation. We wanted to be a no-wave/noise type project, but after we played some shows with other bands we decided we really wanted drums. It happened that one of the guitarists didn’t have time for the project anymore, so they quit, we got Brad to join, and we have been rocking ever since! Rubin wrote most of the songs on Horse Pony, but we definitely all bring our own little flavor to the group sound. Now we arrange all the songs pretty collaboratively. 

Photo by Omari Spears

AP: What do your backgrounds in music prior to forming the band look like?

QC: We all went to school for Jazz and/or Improvised Music, but we all have experience in a wide variety of stuff from Metal to Pop to Folk etc. Grace and Brad are both from Texas which adds a little Southern twang to our music. Brad is the sweetest rocker of us all. Grace is the funkiest and she holds it down. Matt is just really the sickest guitarist ever, so that enhances everything for sure. Rubin is just a wacky weirdo who writes confusing music that somehow then makes sense in the end. Jolee just likes to get silly and rambunctious in life and music. We have all been in lots of bands before, and have projects aside from QC (check out Grace and Jolee’s duo called Houndsteeth!). 

AP: Is there any one common thing that inspired you to pursue the music you’re making as Queen Crony?

QC: We all love messing around in different genres, one original idea was to be a kind of improvisatory metal band with Jolee fronting it. This was unrealistic though because Jolee doesn’t like to do the metal vocal style haha! We tend to take small ideas and run with them. Everyone is free to do their thing. We are all friends and respect each other a lot so we always just vibe when we’re together. The goal is for each person’s musical style to shine.

AP: Are there any especially relevant influences–musical or otherwise–that you feel would open up listeners to what you’re doing?

QC: Deerhoof, Caetano Veloso, Naked City, Mr. Bungle, Rong, and Melt-Banana are a few to start!

AP: How did your debut full length Horse Pony come together? How long did it take to write? Where and with whom did you record? Etc.

QC: Like we mentioned before, Rubin had written a lot of the songs on this album, many of which we’d been playing for a year or so before recording. We recorded all 13 songs in one weekend in January 2020 at Blue Jay Studio in Carlisle, MA. Our really good buddy Peter Atkinson engineered, and it was just lots of fun. Everyone kinda went wild adding parts in the studio, and it really made the album come to life. But truly it was Peter’s utmost care in the mixing and mastering that makes Horse Pony.

AP: How do you feel Boston (both the city itself and the music scene) influences what you do with this band? 

QC: The music scene here in Boston definitely has a huge influence on us. We love playing shows with bands like Rong, Birthday Ass, and Beverly Tender, and there are so many good bands always popping out of nowhere. The Boston music scene has had a lot of heavy-hitting bands over the years like Guerilla Toss, Birthing Hips, and Pile and we definitely feel inspired to carry that same energy, especially in live performances. 

AP: How would each of you describe your approach to making music with the band?

Jolee: I was really thrown out of my comfort zone when Queen Crony initially started and now I literally feel unafraid of any musical encounter thanks to this band. In fact, I am now actively always searching for musical settings that feel as free and open and weird as it does with this group. Everyone rocks so hard, I feel completely accepted being totally dramatic and wild with QC, and I love letting loose and going super hard. 

Photo by James Forsythe

Grace: My approach to playing with Queen Crony is really informed by the fact that we started as a four piece with no drums. Then, my approach was to be both the drummer and the bassist, all while trying to keep up with the band’s spontaneous and improvisatory spirit! Brad’s presence has really allowed me to take a more personal approach to the music. As a band that tries to both play into genre stereotypes, and also turn those stereotypes on their head, our instrument’s roles in the music don’t have to be what they would typically be. Through the course of each song, I get to play the role of bassist, percussionist, soloist, improvisor…really anything! In that same vein, I feel that part of Queen Crony’s magic lies in our sensitivity to each other’s musical choices. I think Brad and I are particularly sensitive to one another as we take turns being the rhythmic rock to the band, ditching the typical roles of our instruments to join the chaos that’s occurring in the trumpet, guitar, or voice.

Matt: I aim to make my guitar sound either nothing like a guitar or painfully like a guitar depending on whatever the other weirdos are doing. Queen Crony for me is finding that scary ground between completely letting go and going crazy and/or meticulously crafting each little part. But, it’s all incredibly fun and my real goal is to just make as much eye contact as possible with everyone else and lock in and jump around and stuff

Rubin: I aim to rock hard, and to enhance the group sound, making space for everyone to shine bright. Most of the time I am just listening to how great everyone else sounds.

Brad: I try to approach every song differently. Exaggerating the style and energy of each section and interacting with what everyone else is playing.

AP: There’s obviously a lot of moving parts to your sound, how do you typically compose a Queen Crony song? 

QC: There isn’t really one way that we do it, some songs have been inspired by riffs we came up with. Some have been entirely through-composed. Some have started as sketches and were brought to life in a collaborative way. In most cases we arrange everything pretty much together, with everyone presenting ideas and coming up/enhancing their own parts along the way. Sometimes somebody just makes a really cool sound and we have to turn it into a section or a whole song.

AP: Your music moves through genres pretty fluidly, how exactly do you categorize it to others?

QC: The broadest label would be experimental rock or art rock; and when we describe ourselves we usually say that we are a genre-hopping band.

Photo by Omari Spears

AP: Speaking for the Pudding, I’d say you all definitely have a rep for dynamic gigs, how would each of you describe a Queen Crony set to the uninitiated?

QC: Wow that’s really nice to hear that we have a reputation. We want to play differently each time, we always want it to be fresh…but also we are always stoked to just play loud and unabashedly. We love to go really hard. We want to get people dancing and we are lucky that people in Boston know how to jump around and have fun at shows.  

AP: What would a dream bill for a Queen Crony gig look like to each of you?

QC: Hmmmm, a dream bill might be with Deerhoof, Luge, Locate S,1, and Melt-Banana. That would be sick, maybe it will happen someday. And I know it’s like a year later but just want to shout out this really epic show we were going to play with Godcaster, Rong, and Birthday Ass on March 27th 2020. RIP. Hopefully we can recreate that bill someday ❤️ 

AP: What’s next for Queen Crony?

QC: We are gonna go on a huge big tour as soon as it’s safe to do that. I think everyone wants it to happen ASAP! For the time being, we are working on new songs and starting some remote recording projects, gearing up to record another album this spring/summer!