KatieJane Garside

Early life

Garside was born on 8 July 1968 in Buckrose, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. She has one sister, Melanie. Garside spent her early years in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Her father had a musical background, having played in local bands in London.

At age twelve, her father took the family aboard a yacht, and they sailed the world for four years. She would settle in London in her early adulthood after returning to England at age seventeen. Garside has said that spending her formative years living on the sea gave her a "different perspective on things."

1989-1995: Daisy Chainsaw

Garside formed Daisy Chainsaw in 1989 after responding to an advert in a newspaper by guitarist Crispin Gray. Bassist Richard Adams joined the band, along with Canadian drummer Vince Johnson. The group quickly became well known for their wild live performances, featuring Garside drilling doll heads onstage and drinking juice out of baby bottles. The band's raucous concerts would sometimes result in Garside performing self-mutilation onstage. Russell Senior, guitarist of Pulp, recalled that at one 1989 concert in London, Garside wrapped the microphone cord so tightly around her neck onstage that she lost consciousness, and the show had to be ended early. Garside's look was described as a "Gothic street urchin image, complete with dead flowers meshed into her dreadlocked hair". In a review of one of the band's concert's in 1991, an unnamed journalist said: "KatieJane Garside is either in drastic need of psychiatric help or she deserves an Oscar for best actress."

The band released Eleventeen in 1992, which would be their only full-length album before Garside left the band in 1993. The album spawned "Love Your Money", which was the band's most popular single; they performed the song live on British television show The Word in 1992. "Love Your Money" reached number 26 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1992.

The band toured the United Kingdom with Hole and Mudhoney to promote the album prior to its release, and Garside drew comparisons from British press to Hole's frontwoman Courtney Love. Love allegedly cited Garside as one of the "first true riot grrls" in 1991; Garside never associated herself with the movement, which was based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

After Garside left Daisy Chainsaw, she disappeared from the public eye and music scene, going into seclusion. Due to her manic onstage histrionics and bizarre behaviour in interviews, rumours circulated that Garside had succumbed to mental illness. In spite of the rumours of purported seclusion, Garside was given a credit in the liner notes of the 1993 Frostbite album, Second Coming. She also collaborated with the industrial band Test Department in 1995 on their album Totality.

1997-2007: Queenadreena

Garside reportedly moved to the Lake District in 1996 after having a nervous breakdown, and lived in the historical Rigg Beck, a notorious retreat for artists and bohemians. She had no intentions of returning to music until the late 1990s when former guitarist Crisipin Gray contacted her; in 1999, they formed Queenadreena and released three studio albums: Taxidermy, Drink Me, and The Butcher and the Butterfly.

After recording Live at the ICA, which featured a live 2005 performance at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the band released two more albums, Ride a Cockhorse, which featured unreleased 4-track demos, and Djin, which was their final studio release before disbanding around 2009. In 2007, Garside exhibited a collection of photographs and artwork at the Woom Gallery in Birmingham, titled Darling, they've found the body.

Garside's solo work of this time includes a collection of home recordings called Lalleshwari/Lullabies in a Glasswilderness released in 2006. Complementing this release was a collection of short films made by KatieJane. Garside also collaborated with artist Daniel Schaffer, co-creating the comic books Indigo Vertigo and Lesions in the Brain.

2008-present: Ruby Throat, other projects

In 2007, shortly before the release of Queenadreena's final album Djin, Garside released her first collaboration with guitarist Chris Whittingham, titled The Ventriloquist, under the band name Ruby Throat. Garside met Whittingham while he was busking at a train platform on London Underground, and asked him to collaborate. In contrast to Queenadreena's metal and noise rock style, Ruby Throat is a more ethereal, vocal based project primarily featuring acoustic guitar. The album was well-received, and critics drew comparisons to the work of PJ Harvey and Mazzy Star.

The duo released a Tour EP in 2009, featuring handmade artwork, followed by their second record, Out of a Black Cloud Came a Bird (2009). In 2012, they released their third album, O' Doubt O' Stars, which featured a limited edition packaging with a book of lithographs and Garside's art, as well as handwritten lyrics.

According to their Facebook page, the band began working on a new album in the beginning of 2013. In 2014 a new song, "Secret Fires", was released on the third Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions compilation Axels & Sockets. It was accounced on August 1, 2014 that Ruby Throat's fourth album will be called Baby Darling Toporo.

In November 2016, Garside announced the forthcoming release of a limited edition book of 34 poems entitled 'A whispering frayed edge'.

Artistry

Garside has been noted by critics for her unique vocals, which alternate from "childlike whispers" to harsh screaming, particularly on her work with Queenadreena; a concert review published by The Guardian noted: "It's surprising that such a loud noise can come from such a small person." "I do strain my voice doing bad work," Garside commented, "[but] sometimes the impulse is too huge [and] I just have to." Additionally, she has been noted for her raucous, "carnivalesque" live performances.

Lyrically, consistent themes across Garside's various musical projects have included exploitation, sexuality, childhood, and innocence. While Garside's musical output with Daisy Chainsaw and Queenadreena were marked by abrasive, rock and metal-influenced instrumentation and vocals, her work with Ruby Throat is more restrained; a review published in PopMatters noted: "Garside’s breathy, nearly childlike voice is the dominant element of [Ruby Throat's debut] The Ventriloquist, gentle acoustic guitars and lap steels setting the stage for her voice. Despite the somber lyrical themes, this is a clear heir to the lineage of ethereal makeout albums like those from Mazzy Star and the Cocteau Twins."

Commenting on her artistic aspirations, Garside said in 2002: "I know what turns me on, and it's that fine line, that point where you're falling off the edge of a cliff, where your stomach turns, I'm always trying to find that point in music. You rarely hit it, and again, that's the joy of playing live, because there you can be just at that point where you've lost balance. I'm always walking between polarities, trying to find the opposing sides."

Garside has spoken little of her influences, musical or otherwise. However, during a 1992 interview with Paul Morley, she said she liked Carly Simon.

Personal life

Little is known about Garside aside from her professional life; she has described herself as a recluse. "I could be anywhere, really, and it wouldn't make a lot of difference, so I don't know necessarily that much about the country that I was born in and that I've lived in," she said in 2008. In 1993, after leaving Daisy Chainsaw, rumours circulated that Garside had become mentally ill; it was later noted that she had experienced a nervous breakdown at the time. After leaving the band, Garside moved to a house in the Lake District and went into seclusion until 1999 when she formed Queenadreena. Some time between 1999 and 2002, she had lived in Wales for a brief period.

As of 2012, she lived on a ketch named Iona with her partner Chris Whittingham and their two children, then aged 10 years and 10 months. The boat was damaged in a storm in St. Mawes, Cornwall in June 2012; they made repairs in Falmouth and left England shortly afterwards with the intention to sail around the world.

Discography

Daisy Chainsaw

Queenadreena

Solo

Ruby Throat

Collaborations