We rarely ever do Q&A interviews here at Don’t Panic. The only exception is if you promise to take us to a very expensive restaurant, buy us a very expensive meal, provide drinks throughout and answer every single pointless, probing and humiliating question we may care to fire at you. Oh, and it also helps if you’re totally hot and appearing with you in a decent restaurant makes us look like the kind of guys that appear with hot people in decent restaurants. Ladyhawke and her well-shaven manager were able to face up to these responsibilities so we skipped breakfast, put on our elastic trousers and headed down to the restaurant to interrogate her about anything and everything she may ever have done.

Hello Ladyhawke. 

Hello Don’t Panic. 

We came across two Ladyhawkes on Myspace when researching this article, one simply entitled Ladyhawke and one entitled Ladyhawke 40 female… 

I'm NOT the 40 year old one. 

Okay, cool so you’re the one that grew up in NZ? 

Yes. 

Were you able to get any music lessons in the NZ outback? 

No, I taught myself how to play pretty much all the instruments I can play now. It’s not necessarily the best way but it worked for me. It felt totally natural. 

A lot of people that ‘taught themselves to play’, play with their thumb in the incorrect position.

You mean guitarists? I always use the correct position. *shows us on a handy prop*

NO! I loved the brass band - there was nothing bad or untoward about it. It wasn’t the most credible thing for a teenager to be doing especially as much of my family were in it but it was a chance to be able to play music. There were no pretensions to keep. It was just about playing an instrument. 

So band camp was fun. 

Yeah, they turned me on to percussion. I learnt the glockenspiel. I must have been the only 16 year old in the world to play the glockenspiel.  

And that got you into bands?

I joined my first ‘proper’ band at school. It was a hippy, sludgy metal sort of band. I was the only girl in the band and I was the drummer! 

WTF? Girls can’t be drummers!

Well I was, and I was a good drummer. 

Are you sure that was your first band… 

Noo, I was in a really bad ‘family band’ when I was even younger. I was on drums again, my sister was on keys and my other sister on lead guitar. 

Oh, we wanted to bring that up and embarrass you. 

Too late. 

And that’s when you wrote Back of the Van… 

Yes. 

When you were a little girl playing in a band with your immediate family… 

Yes.

So what actually happened in the ‘back of the van’ exactly? 

When I wrote it I was living in Sydney. The sun was shining and everything was right with my world. It’s about that summer feeling, young love in the summer… 

And in the ‘back of the van.’ 

It’s not about sex AND OBVIOUSLY NOT WITH MY FAMILY!

Okay then, don't 'protesteth' too much', do you still bang the drums in Ladyhawke? 

Yes, I do the drums and in fact play all the instruments. 

What! How do you manage to play drums, bass and guitars at the same time? 

I don’t play them all at once obviously. When I play live I have a backing band with me. I do vocals and sometimes the drums. 

Would you say you are maybe a control freak? A bit like Carlos Borat (so we hear). 

I wanted to be more than just a guitarist or drummer. I was playing in many bands and even though I liked them and the people in them, they just weren’t really my thing. I wanted to try my own material and just started doing shows as Ladyhawke. 

In proper English we call them ‘gigs’. 

We only really call them ‘gigs’ if we are actually the artist performing. Generally we call them ‘shows’. 

But you are performing and you just called it a ‘show’. 

Yeah but normally I would call it a ‘gig’. 

Gig, show, potato, patata’ innit. 

What?

What other little differences have you noticed about our little island while you’ve been here? 

A lot of people seem too cool for school. At gigs people will just stand and stare at you until the song ends then will either applaud or not. It can be very unnerving. 

EVERYONE that ever came to England and played a gig says that. You just read that somewhere and repeated it. 

No, it’s true. In NZ people get up and dance or at least move around. London is a terrifying place for a new performer.

Where in London have you played? 

Fabric, YoYo. I played Kings College also which was nice. I actually got to play CBGB’s [legendary punk venue] while I was in America.  

Wow, what was that like? 

It was AMAZING. The stage is rotting nowadays. You want to start jumping around like Joey Ramone or something but you’re terrified of falling through the floor. None of the toilets actually had any doors on them either. Not in the men’s anyway. 

Why were you in the men’s toilets though? The men’s toilets aren’t for girls. I had to explain that to Miquita Oliver only last Friday. 

Well, duh - I wanted to see the graffiti. Blondie and people had been scribbling up the girls. I wanted to see what the men’s were like and add my own of course – next to Blondie’s. 

Were you a big fan of Blondie, you’ve mentioned her a couple of times now? 

Yeah, I’m a massive fan of the 80’s and old music in general. Fleetwood Mac are one of my favorite bands. 

Didn’t you do some stuff with Peaches? 

We met up in Sydney last year and became friends. We just spent some time fucking around in the studio; we didn’t actually get anything proper done. 

How did you meet her? 

Through Jadea from LeTigra. 

The old six-degree celebrity network, eh? 

I suppose. 

Do you have any other celebrity friends we might be interested in? 

My friend Sarah Larnach. She isn’t a celebrity yet but she will be. You guys are into art right? She’s the most a.m.a.z.i.n.g artist. 

So you’re into art. 

Yes, and I really like computer games as well. I am actually a massive nerd. 

That's my speciality, computer games and lots of nerd-jokes that nobody else gets.

Then I'm your perfect interview.

And this was a perfect interview. Thanks for the perfect interview Ladyhawke! 

Thats Okay.

FIN.

More from Ladyhawke here.