Courtney Act is a total self-proclaimed hippie; a vegan, pansexual, polyamorous genderqueer who lives on the gender divide and spends far too much time talking about Burning Man. She's also an immense talent; as apparent from her 2003 stint all the way to the semi finals on Australian Idol and more recently reaching the top 3 on RuPaul's Drag Race Season 6. I adore her.
We talk at half 10 on a Wednesday evening. I'm tired, I look and sound it. It's been a draining week. I pick up the call and almost instantly my day is somewhat better. Courtney's alter ego Shane sits with a beaming grin against a plain white wall and as I apologize for the state of my face I realize I'm actually pretty excited. Before I begin recording we talk for a few minutes about life and it's clear why she's loved by so many fans. She's compassionate, logical, and driven. Nice.
I caught up with Mx. Act about her new EP, the AAA girls and her life on the forefront of the new generation that is beyond labels.
M: Hello! So coming up soon is the release of your Kaleidoscope EP, and there are 7 tracks there?
C: I think it's been cut to 6 now actually... But yeah, that's right!
M: Can you tell us a bit more about it? What's your favourite song on there?
C: I think maybe ‘Ugly’ or ‘Body Parts’… I was like tired, and it was the first time I was
working with some writers and I was out the night before and like, I’m always
very well behaved unless Adore and Bianca are around and I was really tired and
I was like ‘ohh’. I was writing a song and I just wasn’t in the best mood and I
kind of went to places that I hadn’t before in songwriting and it was really
cool to be in a room full of (well not a room full of, there was four of us)
people; the producers and a couple of other writers and go to vulnerable
places. I’ve always been quite Pollyanna in a way and I think I’ve realized in
this last year that you can still have a positive outlook and you can have that
light and shade of the past, it’s a part of who you are and so even though I like
to look on the bright side, I can still have those other sides that weren’t as
bright represent who I am as well.
M: How did you start doing drag in the first place?
C: I mean… I started performing when I was like – not in
drag, but just performing when I was like 6 years old or 5 years old and I grew
up performing with a theatre company and I would do shows like pantomimes. I would
dress up as like, a mouse in ‘Cinderella’ or a dwarf in ‘Snow White’ so I was
always wearing costumes and playing different characters and things but then I just
remember there was always… there wasn’t a clear defined gender of a mouse – it was
just a gender neutral mouse. I’d never really had a… I don’t think I ever
really had a rigid bond with masculinity but I didn’t really realize that
until, y’know, in the last couple of years like I look back and I think a lot
of kids are kind of fluid with their gender anyway until puberty where you go
in a direction I guess and you start to do what everyone else does, but I remember
just a few incidents like a costume party in high school and like another party
at my theatre group dressing up in drag and having fun doing it and I think I didn’t
really do it again until I moved to Sydney and I was friends with lots of drag
queens and I was fascinated with drag queens and trans women and I was kind of
fascinated with drag, but I needed… an excuse to do it? Thing is, I didn’t think
I could be allowed to do it unless I had an excuse to do it? And so I had this
business idea to go around nightclubs with a neck tray selling lollipops and
fans and chewing gum and the club that I approached said that they wanted a
drag queen and couldn’t afford to pay one so I started doing drag and in my
mind it was completely legitimized because it was a business venture and I was
furthering my career and it was a small business and this was all very, you
know, noble and okay in my mind and then, cause I was kinda under the belief
that it was wrong to do drag and that I shouldn’t be doing it and I wanted to
be an entertainer or an actor or a singer and if I wanted to do that then drag
certainly wouldn’t be the path that would take me there and it was kind of
challenging because it was a struggle through my 20's with my innate desire to
do drag. I think it’s beyond doing drag, it’s more being Courtney and being
able to have this experience as a female presenting person and male presenting person
as Shane and I think that I had to legitimize it, to answer the question more
quickly, I started trying to find a way to legitimize what I did but secretly
it was pretty innate. I just don’t think I have a rigid gender line anyway and
I think that was a way of breaking through that.
M: Ah! It’s interesting finding out this kind of stuff because
you don’t really expect it? It’s good though, it’s interesting. Kind of linking
to that, what would you tell younger Courtney 10 years ago?
C: 10 years ago. Well, I think 10 years ago… 2005 was
probably a pretty low year for me cause I had done Idol in 2003 and then 2004 I
was signed to Sony and in 2005 it all kinda curbed off. I think the best advice
is that everything that is going on is a part of your journey; the good bits
and the bad bits and maybe even more importantly the bad bits as they’re going
to be what defines you and what enables you to succeed in the future.
M: Recently you toured as part of the American Apparel Ad
Girls-
C: Willam is over there right now getting her face beat for
her music video she’s shooting today!
M: Are you serious?!
C: Yeah!
M: Ah! What did you enjoy most about working as part of the
American Apparel Ad Girls?
C: What did I enjoy about working with Willam and Alaska the
most? Willam has taught me how to be less perfect! She’s taught me how to care
less, in a really positive way and she’s also changed my sense of style because
before working with Willam and Alaska I would always wear costumes that were
made so I had never worn anything off the rack. On Drag Race I wore a dress
that was off the rack and I remember just being like ‘You… are a drag queen.
You cannot wear clothes from off the rack. It’s not right.’ And so working with
Willam and Alaska in a band with American Apparel- all these clothes and I’m
like ‘what am I gonna do with these?! I can’t wear these clothes!’ and then I realized that I could wear them and it’s really changed my style and evolved over the
last year into less stage and more fashion so that’s amazing and Alaska… I just…
Alaska makes the audience- lets the audience come to her. A lot of performers
reach out to the audience but she just stands there and she’ll be like ‘Anus’
and you just get sucked in to the world of Alaska and she’s… Willam and Alaska
are- Willam is like, flippant and reverent and controversial and Alaska is just
quirky and intelligent and really interesting and I really just enjoy being
around them both.
M: Do you think you’ll do more music with them?
C: I’m sure we’ve got shows coming up… we’re gonna be back
in Leeds in October and at the moment each of us has our own album coming out
so we’re kind of focusing on those which I’m really excited about but I’m sure
that we’ll be able to do our own stuff with the AAA stuff as well.
M: Recently a lot of queens have been bringing out music –
have you heard much of it?
C: I’ve heard Violet’s (Chachki), Ginger’s (Minj) and Pearl’s
(Liaison); I’ve heard Miss Fame’s – I’ve heard the singles, I haven’t heard
much else. Before I watched the finale of Drag Race I was messaging with
Bianca, Adore and Darienne, and I was saying ‘Don’t tell me who wins’ because
they were on the East Coast and Adore already knew the winner, they all already
knew the winner and I was like ‘I don’t know the winner yet but I just watched
each of the girl’s music videos and based on that alone, Violet was the winner’
and then as it turns out Violet to be the winner, I thought it was gonna go to
Pearl or Ginger but I thought that the song ‘Bettie’ and the video was pretty
fabulous.
M: Coming back to just performing, what’s the coolest venue
you’ve ever performed at?
C: I think there’s a few. The Sydney Opera house was pretty amazing;
Burning Man was probably one of the most electric. I performed each year for the
last three years and you see a burning man on the Tuesday night. I’m doing a
Sunset Sessions for my Kaleidoscope EP which I’m really looking forward to
because Burning Man was the inspiration for a lot of the songs on the EP and
just the general vibe like I went- my first time was in 2010, no 2012 and it’s
been a big inspiration for me and so getting to be at Burning Man performing my
own original music I wrote about being there will be really cool.
M: It all sounds incredible… You have the coolest life,
honestly.
C: *Laughs* we’re pretty lucky. It’s kind of amazing like
just being on tour with Willam and Alaska and Adore and I are in Miami soon and
a bunch of us are in Manchester… no- Mexico! On the 10th of July I’m
doing my first ever solo concert at the Gramercy Theatre in New York which is
gonna be really exciting – I’ve got 2 synth players and an electronic drum kit
and I just had a meeting today with the lighting designer and the
projectionists and the set designers to make a very small and modest yet still nonetheless
a pop concert. That’s really exciting for me because really that’s all I’ve
ever wanted to do – perform my music onstage in like a… in that kind of
environment.
M: Oh yeah! People have been talking about it and buying
tickets all over my twitter and I honestly wish I lived in America so I could come!
C: I think there are talks of having one in London soon. We
can sit on a toilet floor and discuss it!
M: I’ll definitely hold you to that! I’m excited now – don’t
let me down! But sadly this is the one of the last questions I have for you for
now – Do you have any advice for a new Queen/BioQueen; someone who is just
starting out?
C: I do. I think obviously, you know drag is a big
inspiration but just use the internet, go out, see things, look at things
online and be inspired by whatever takes your fancy – don’t feel that you need
to be a comedy queen or a pageant queen or a fishy queen; just do whatever
feels right to you and that’s always going to deliver you the best results.
M: Last question, pretty similar to the one I asked Adore
actually! You were in the Season 6 Top 3 with Bianca and Adore, are you still
as close to them as you were on the show?
C: So close! Being friends with them has been the biggest
gift of RuPaul’s Drag Race. They’re kind of like, and Darienne as well – the four
of us, went through this shared experience as well so we really understand each
other and are able to, whether it’s the high notes or the low notes, share
those with each other and really understand and just laugh and cackle and I pretty
much go out and drink about once every 6 weeks unless I have drinks with Adore,
Bianca and Darienne because we just have so much fun like I just remember being
in world pride in Toronto last year which was such a fun week and all of us
were there. I remember another time in Vancouver, wandering through the suburbs
of Canada with Adore and Bianca and we were all drunk and there was a skunk and
Adore started chasing it and I don’t know, they’re really special memories.
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