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An interview with Hunter Valentine

If you haven’t heard of Hunter Valentine yet, I’ll do my best to school you and bring you up to speed. The three badass Canadian babes practically sweat rock ‘n roll, and lead singer Kiyomi McCloskey growls with the ferocity of a scorned lover while looking like a young, part-Asian Joan Jett. With Adrienne Lloyd on bass and Laura Petracca on drums, the openly queer trio released their third album, Lessons from the Late Night, today on Tommy Boy Records. Also today, they’ve be doing all they can to break the world record for performing the most gigs in a set amount of time all around New York.

I chatted with Kiyomi and Adrienne about the new album, their coming out stories and who their picks are for the AfterEllen.com Hot 100.

AfterEllen.com: Where did the three of you meet?

Kiyomi: I met Laura first in Toronto back when I was 17. I snuck into a gay bar. I thought I was such a cool, really bad ass kid. I was standing at the bar wearing those super ’80s-style cycling glasses as sort of a joke. And me and my friend were both wearing them and Laura just walked right up to us — because she’s kind of a prankster and a joker — and we started talking about music and we hit it off right away. And we’ve been playing music together ever since.

We were introduced to Adrienne after we kicked some dude out of the first incarnation of Hunter Valentine. We were introduced through a Canadian musician named Lorraine Segato who was in the pop/new wave band Parachute Club back in the ’80s. So we met Adrienne, played a few times and then our first big gig was Pride Toronto, and the rest is history.

AE: Are you going to be playing any prides this year?

Adrienne: Yeah! Actually we’re playing LA, San Fran, Portland, Toronto. You must have a Ladyfest we can hop on to.

AE: If there is any way I can make it so you can come out here, I will make that happen. The new album is Lessons from the Late Night. I’m wondering what are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from the late night?

Kiyomi: The biggest lesson? Is to always wake up in the morning and not look at anything as a regret but as a lesson. And learn from that.

Adrienne: I would say from the last album to this album, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that people around us — people we’re dating, people we’re working with on a business level — those people come and go, but at the end of the day, I’ve always got Kiyomi and Laura sleeping beside me in our minivan. As we change cities or no matter what’s happening in our personal lives, we’ve got this future invested in each other.

AE: You’ve got a line in your song “Scarface” about a girl dragging you into a bathroom stall. Why do you think lesbians always default to the bathroom?

Kiyomi: I think if something goes wrong and someone starts crying, then maybe no one will see it and they can deny it ever happened.

AE: But I mean, even if it’s like sexy times, we always go to the bathroom for a make out session. Maybe that’s just me and my friends.

Kiyomi: I think, we should investigate the history of sexual activity in gay bars. There’s a long history behind that, not sure where it got started, probably at the Stonewall Inn. I think it’s kind of intriguing for people because it seems like you’re hiding.

Adrienne: I think if you’re in the bathroom stall making out and you think it’s a secret, it means you’re very drunk. People can see those Converse shoes and there’s more than one pair!

AE: How did you know I’m wearing Converse?

Kiyomi: Adrienne is wearing them too!

AE: See, then they won’t know which of us is which in the bathroom stall.

Kiyomi: Converse are like the lesbian disguise.

AE: Both of you are gay right? Or queer? It’s always a crapshoot when it comes to labeling. I think “queer” encompasses a lot of different groups, I just say I’m gay.

Kiyomi: Yeah, I feel like as I get older people want to use more and more labels. I love women but I would never rule out the possibility that somewhere down the line I might fall in love with a big hairy dude. Oh man, that’s going to make some of the lesbians who read this want to vomit — but you just never know, ya know?

AE: No I get it. I feel the same way. We’re all trying to teach people that love is love.

Kiyomi: Exactly!

Adrienne: Don’t we, as people who are queer, advocate open-mindedness? I think as a Canadian, it’s easy to be complacent about gay rights because we have them there. So it’s interesting now that we’re living in New York and don’t have them. There’s a lot more people fighting now over what they feel are their civil rights and that’s an interesting and exciting thing to be around. Growing up in Canada it feels a little bit different.

AE: What were your coming out stories?

Adrienne: Nothing can top this so take it away Kiyomi.

Kiyomi: So when I was 16, I had my first girlfriend. We met on the basketball team and nobody knew about us. So June rolls around and that’s when Toronto Pride is. We marched in our first Dyke March and had a great time — went out after and celebrated until the late night hours. Woke up the next morning and had about 20 voicemails and people wouldn’t stop calling me. I was like, “What is going on?!” So finally I picked up the phone when somebody called and they were like, “Dude, have you seen the newspaper yet?”

AE: [Large gasp]

Kiyomi: Some of the songs were written like two years ago. It was really awesome to work with our producer Ian Thorton because we used him for one of our first real professional recordings almost five years ago.

Adrienne: Yeah before we had our first record deal we worked with Ian and it’s like, you always remember your first. We learned so much doing three songs with him.

Kiyomi: I think it was cool for him too because he got to see us grow and build so much from what we initially came to him with. We were probably really, really bad. It’s been five years, a lot of work and dedication and growing as a musician.

AE: Right now we’re doing the AfterEllen Hot 100 poll. If you had to nominate a few hot celebrity ladies, who would they be?

Kiyomi: Rachel McAdams.

Adrienne: Pink! Pink would be a Hunter Valentine pick, especially after that Grammy performance. Her acrobatic efforts are appreciated. Alicia Keys!

Kiyomi: Alicia Keys is one of my all-time favorites! There are so many. Natalie Portman — how many ladies do we get?

Hunter Valentine’s album, Lessons from the Late Night is available now, as is their new DVD, We’re Here to Recruit You.

Kiyomi: And I was like, “No why?” They were like, “You need to see this.” So I ran down to the corner store and got to the newspaper stand and it was on the front cover of the Toronto Star

Adrienne: Which is like the most widely distributed paper in Canada.

Kiyomi: And it was my face kissing the girl who I was dating on the front cover and it said, “A quiet moment kicks off Pride. Two young lesbians embrace,” and there’s a pride flag hanging in the background. And that’s how I came out to my parents. Actually that’s how I came out to everyone.

Adrienne: And the nice follow-up to that story is that the first show I played with them, Toronto Pride, and they, that same weekend, had reprinted that photograph. It lives on! Someone has been using an illegal shot of a minor without their permission, but it is such an iconic shot.

Kiyomi: I have a pretty accepting family and I don’t really think they were all that surprised.

AE: So Adrienne, how about your story?

Adrienne: What can I say that can even possibly compare to that?

Kiyomi: She’s still coming out every day.

AE: Ah yes, you’re officially coming out on AfterEllen.com, congrats! Tell me a little bit more about the album.

Kiyomi: Some of the songs were written like two years ago. It was really awesome to work with our producer Ian Thorton because we used him for one of our first real professional recordings almost five years ago.

Adrienne: Yeah before we had our first record deal we worked with Ian and it’s like, you always remember your first. We learned so much doing three songs with him.

Kiyomi: I think it was cool for him too because he got to see us grow and build so much from what we initially came to him with. We were probably really, really bad. It’s been five years, a lot of work and dedication and growing as a musician.

AE: Right now we’re doing the AfterEllen Hot 100 poll. If you had to nominate a few hot celebrity ladies, who would they be?

Kiyomi: Rachel McAdams.

Adrienne: Pink! Pink would be a Hunter Valentine pick, especially after that Grammy performance. Her acrobatic efforts are appreciated. Alicia Keys!

Kiyomi: Alicia Keys is one of my all-time favorites! There are so many. Natalie Portman — how many ladies do we get?

Hunter Valentine’s album, Lessons from the Late Night is available now, as is their new DVD, We’re Here to Recruit You.

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