Princess Chelsea "The Great Cybernetic Depression" 2015

...“We wrote democratically all together, and I have to say I think we were great,” she says with a laugh. “Brad screamed kinda like Frank Black and would play bass or guitar, Vincent and I would provide BVs. I would shred classical-inspired keyboard riffs on a digital Roland synth, and Vincent, who had never drummed before, drummed like someone who shouldn’t be drumming like that, but it was awesome.”...
...Though the only music they ever released were demos pressed on mini-CDs and sold at gigs, Teen Wolf made their mark with memorable gigs at inner city Auckland venues such as the Wine Cellar and Eden’s Bar, and toured with So So Modern as part of a Low Hum package. Jonathan Bree, who co-founded Lil’ Chief with Mannion and was playing at the time with his group The Brunettes, remembers Chelsea eating meat pies on stage, getting drunk and occasionally passing out while playing. “We were a bit bratty,” Chelsea admits, “but still mostly very nice.”
Through gigs and her Marbecks job she got to know the Lil’ Chief fraternity, including multi-band member Gareth Shute, the label’s “postmaster general” Lawrence Mikkelsen, and founders Mannion and Bree. Teen Wolf did one tour as support act for The Brunettes, but by the mid-2000s they had broken up. In 2006 Chelsea joined an expanded Brunettes line-up for a Big Day Out performance, but could not officially become a member at this time; she was now going out with Jonathan Bree and the band’s “no partners” policy prohibited it. This changed in 2008-2009 after The Brunettes signed to American indie SubPop and began touring extensively. For practical reasons, Chelsea, along with Heather Mansfield’s partner, American musician Andrew Thompson, became a Brunette.
The next couple of years would see intense touring in the US and Europe. But by 2009 the band had become beset with problems – as detailed in Gareth Shute’s Brunettes story on AudioCulture.
While The Brunettes were in the throes of disintegration, Princess Chelsea began to emerge. Before the final Brunettes tour she had begun recording demos of her own. She had uploaded one of these, ‘Monkey Eats Bananas’, to MySpace, and it had been discovered by someone at the Auckland City Council who was looking for a theme for a television campaign. “We’d been stuck in New York for eight or nine months with The Brunettes. I had no money and I was babysitting for cash to, like, feed myself, and then I just got this email saying, hey, we want to use your song for TV and I ended up getting, like, a pile of money!”
In the space left by The Brunettes, the Princess Chelsea persona took form. The name had originated with a nickname her fellow Teen Wolf members Brad and Vince began using on a Low Hum tour. “I think it was ’cause I was the only girl on tour and they thought it would annoy me. It was also funny because I am so not princess-like. Even now in my thirties I’m often dishevelled and covered in food with a beer in one hand, or sometimes two beers in two hands.”...to be continued... - Nick Bollinger and AudioCulture
trax:
01 When The World Turns Grey 02 Is It All OK? 03 No Church on Sunday 04 Too Many People 05 We Are Very Happy 06 We Were Meant 2 B 07 Winston Crying on the Bathroom 08 We Are Strangers 09 We're So Lost 10 All the Stars
…served by Gaius…