Drag It Up

We recently caught up with the amazing Glasgow Queen, Alana Duvey and talked about her show Drag-Opticon, how she got into drag and more! 1. How did you find out about drag? I'd say when Dharma Geddon first sat me down and made me watch RuPaul's Drag Race for the first time. I was sceptical at first as I didn't think it was something I'd enjoy too much but it was season 4, arguably one of the best, definitely one of our favourites and I was hooked from the start. Sharon Needles, Latrice Royale and Chad Michaels were very much my standouts right off the bat! I guess I always remember Lily Savage, Dame Edna and Eddie Izzard being on TV growing up too, I always found them hilarious and still do. I always knew they were men in dresses but I was maybe a bit too young at that point to know that's a thing called drag or transvestism and that's what they were practicing. 2. What made you decide that this is what you wanted to do? It's crazy as I never w

1. How long have you been doing drag? I've been doing drag since March 2018. But never performed until late Augusst 2018. 2. What or who inspired you to start doing drag? I was at a really rocky point with my mental health and I just needed to try something to take my mind off things. I started out doing cosplay in 2015 because because of my poor health and a lot of the skills cross over e.g. sewing, wigs, etc. But I never realised that afab (female at birth) queens existed until seeing Marla Sinner perform at Trigger at AXM in Glasgow. A lot of the local Trigger girls got me really inspired to start drag and I never even knew before going to local shows that a scene even existed for LGBT people and the fact that everyone is a bit spoopy made me really fit in. 3. What makes you stand out from other queens? I try to do exreme looks but glam them up. A little bit of spoop doesn't hurt anyone! 4. How did you get your first show and how long had you been doing drag

1. Do you feel like drag gives you a confidence boost? Yes I do feel like drag gives me a confidence boost. To go from looking like a hot mess into a glamazon would make anyone feel good! 2. What are your long term goals and aspirations? Well for me I'd love to take this to be a full time career. If someday I can do this full time and be successful then I'd be happy. 3. What's been the highlight of your career so far? By far winning drag me to hell this October! It was my first competition and it still feels surreal that I'm the current queen of Halloween <3 4. If you were to lip sync for your life and got to choose the song, what song would it be? Groove is the heart- deee-lite 5. Have you always loved performing before you started doing drag? Always! I remember when I was maybe 5/6 doing a dance for my mom and dad in my underwear to my sharona by the knack. I've also done musical theatre in high school and just loved the stage ever since!

1. How long have you been doing drag for? I have been doing drag for almost two years now. 2. Do you feel as if you've came far since starting drag? Yes, absolutely I've grown so much. For how little I've been doing drag I've improved a lot. You should see my glow up pics haha. 3. Who's helped you the most throughout your drag career? My entire drag family has helped me improve a lot, but the biggest one's are Felixx (previously Kelly from Accounting), Paris Gore, and my partner in crime Leo Del Crooner! 4. Who are your drag influences? Aja, Peppermint, Meatball, and Biqtch Pudding. 5. Do you feel as if it's hard for a performer to get themselves out there? No, not if you put in the hard work and know how to work social media. You just have to dedicate a lot of hard work and time into what you do on that stage and how you present yourself online, or even attend shows that you're not in and meet ppl; it costs money to make money. 6

We recently caught up with Jay Jackson aka "Laganja Estranja" and talked about dancing, drag, dancing queen and more! Check out our interiew below and we hope you enjoy it!                                                  Photography: Davide Laffe 1. Who or what inspired you to start drag? I was definitely inspired by the greats such as Coco Peru and Divine, the drag queens that came long before drag race, obviously RuPaul is a huge inspiration to me. I grew up with movies such as " But I'm Not a Cheerleader" , movies where he had small cameo roles, but he had such a big presence as a drag artist. I'm definitely inspired by people like Alan Cummings and overall I would say the art form itself inspired me at a young age because it was really a collaboration of dance, theatre, makeup, costuming, which was very common to what I was doing at the time which was Musical Theatre. 2. What made you decide to start dancing? I decided to start dancing when

1. What was the first indication that you wanted to get into music? I come from a family of singers, guitar players, and sing-a-longs before bedtime while growing up. So making music and hearing music was there from my toddler-hood. Writing music came more in my early 20s when I was writing poetry and having relationship agnst and existentail angst about my sexuality and relationships and my spirituality. So I didn't really write or compose music until Alaska asked me to help her with music for our early collaborations ca. 2007-2010. 2. What was the inspiration for the music video Aliens? How did you bring this to life? Musically, it's a love-letter to the work of musicians like Jewel, Joan Baez, and ABBA--our parents/grandparents generation of great melodies, deeper subjects in the lyrics, and catchy post-choruses one can hum. I adore folk music and acoustic music, so it springs from that. Video-wise, I wanted cows and a field like in the music video of  "Swee