The Queens of rock ‘n’ roll

Despite the cold snap, a rock ‘n’ roll Queen tribute band is thinking of sun, garlic and summer as they aspire to perform at the 2014 Gilroy Garlic Festival.
Called The Killer Queens, the four woman team – whose drummer is a lifelong Gilroyan and Gilroy High School alumna – has come a long way from 2012 when they played dive bar gigs in San Jose.
Nowadays, the group has gained a considerable following and is continuing to land bigger shows like their upcoming New Year’s Eve performance in Truckee in the Sierra Nevada mountains where the band will play for an audience of 1,000.
Modeled after Queen, the iconic 70s British rock band famous for numbers like “We are the Champions,” “We will Rock You” and “Another One Bites the Dust,” The Killer Queens pay tribute to their inspiration with spot-on renditions of classic Queen songs, adding a heavy dash of their own girl power and authoritative stage presence.
The ladies are now targeting the Gilroy Garlic Festival on their list of dream gigs for 2014, in addition to corporate parties, larger clubs and other festivals.
It’s the “same band, different sound,” said drummer Dana Parker, explaining how much the group has improved since they started playing together almost two years ago. “Now, I feel like we’re really getting into the groove of it and getting into our characters.”
Parker, 32, is a wife and the mother of two girls, and goes by the stage name “Rogetta Taylor,” a name inspired by late Queen drummer Roger Taylor. Her bandmates, fittingly, have also adopted fantastical feminine alter egos that pay homage to Queen: Lead vocalist Nina Noir, from San Jose, goes by “Frederica Mercury.” Guitarist Joyce Kuo from San Jose has adopted the moniker “Briana May” and Oakland bassist Donelle Rippon goes by “Dawn Deacon.”
“I know a lot of people say Elvis is the King of Rock, but I’d say Queen – because a lot of their songs are so epic,” said Parker, who didn’t realize how many of the songs she knew were Queen songs until she joined the band.
This year, the band has been enjoying more concert bookings – they’ve had somewhere between 20 to 30 – and the girls are settling into the personalities of their characters, explains Parker. At the rate things are picking up, Parker expects they will have 100 to 120 performances under their belt by the end of 2015.
Just three weeks ago, the ladies brought down the house at Winters Tavern in Pacifica. An employee there named CJ described the band as “hot and sexy” and said customers have been commenting on the performance ever since.
“People had a good time,” he said. “They (The Killer Queens) definitely left a good impression.”
At 5 feet and a half inch tall, one would never guess the blond and petite Parker is an animal on the trap set. She stands tall in personality if not in height.
A Gilroy native in every sense of the word, her musical roots date back to when she was part of a ska band that used to perform regularly at 9Lives in downtown Gilroy, back when the venue was called the Gaslighter Theater.
The idea to start the band came from guitarist Quo. She had previously played for a San Jose-based band called Kung Fu Vampire, and got connected with Parker who had been the drummer for the same band prior to Quo’s arrival.
“I had seen her play a bunch before and we were friends, so she would come over and drum at my house,” said Quo.
Quo was the die-hard Queen fan.
“I’ve been a really big Queen fan for many years,” said Quo, who bought all their records a few years ago, taught herself most of the songs and then decided to form a band.
Quo, who had previously heard Rippon and Parker play on separate occasions and knew they were good, asked them to join. All that was left was a lead vocalist.
Quo reached out to Noir, whom she knew through mutual friends, and the rest is history.
With more weekly practices and performances behind them, things are picking up for the grassroots girl group.
“I didn’t know Queen at all to start,” said Parker. “Now I’m a die-hard Queen fan because I have such an appreciation for all the styles of music they did.”
The group plans to make an outing of their upcoming Truckee performance. They’ll rent a van and bring along husbands, boyfriends and close friends.
“In our mind, that’s our foot in the door to where we want to be,” said Parker, alluding to the group’s aspirations of entertaining large audiences.
In the last couple of years, The Killer Queens have learned how to interpret the music so that they can perform live without having to use a pre-recorded track of backup vocals and guitars. Performing live with just what they can play by themselves allows them to be more spontaneous, the girls say.
“We like to improvise on stage – feel off the vibe of the audience and feed off that. And that was a lot of what Queen would do in the 70s or 80s,” explains Quo.
The band has certainly adopted Freddie Mercury’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” mantra, forging ahead with a passion that’s already generating fan mail and enthusiastic audience participation during concerts.
“We’re just really excited to share the legacy of Queen with other people,” said Quo. “So far we’ve gotten a lot of great audience participation and support.”
The Killer Queens will perform at 9 p.m. Dec. 14 at the Red Devil Lounge on 1695 Polk St. in San Francisco. Tickets are $15. Doors open at 8 p.m. and the audience must be 21 or older.