We’re back! It’s been a long while since our last Meow Mixx interview, but with a fresh new refurbishment, Revenge’s esteemed drag night “The Powder Room” is back with a bang! The first Powder Room of the year was hosted by Mary Mac and welcomed back house queens, Lydia L’Scabies, Rococo Chanel and Crystal Lubrikunt to the stage, as well as Revenge’s Lip Sync for Your Life winner Cherry Popper warming up the first headline act of the year, the incredible Detox! The crowd were eager and ready for the show, lapping up powerful vocals from Mary Mac, lip-sync extravaganzas from Cherry and Crystal and video aided chemsex and Peppa Pig acts from Lydia and Rococo. Then Detox herself took to the stage, captivating the entire audience with raunchy lip-syncs, a stunning ensemble and all round fabulousness. I got to speak to Detox after the show (with the occasional input from my dear Lydia), where we talked fashion, family and all sort of fun..
Emily: Hi Detox! How have you been finding the UK so far?
Detox: Well, I’m here quite often, so I’m loving it, it feels like a second home I’m here so much, so when there’s any chance that I get to come to the UK, I get very excited!
Emily: Do you find the shows you do over here differ from the shows back home?
Detox: In a lot of ways! In the US drag shows are like a staple, they’ve been around for as long as I can remember and the set up of them alone is just very different. Here there’s a lot more live acts, it’s more of like a big party with performances thrown into it. They tip in the States, they don’t do that here.
Emily: We’d be throwing coins at you otherwise!
Detox: Ha! You know I’ve had that happen to me before too, and I wasn’t mad at it! I think it’s funny!
Photo by Ellis-James Strevens
Emily: Do you find the queens themselves differ here as well?
Detox: It’s a lot more artsy which I really appreciate and there’s also, because of the influence that Drag Race has had, there’s a lot more queens that are obviously influenced by American queens, so it’s funny to come over here and see the artsy queens and then see the other spectrum where it’s like a bunch of Raven’s running around.
Emily: Do you have any British icons that have impacted upon your drag at all?
Detox: Vivienne Westwood, because I’m a fashion girl. I love Vivienne Westwood.
Emily: Where is your favourite place to perform in the UK?
Detox: It’s difficult cause every place is so different!
Emily: Yeah, from the South to the North it’s so different.
Detox: Yeah! I always really enjoy everywhere really. I had a really good time at Shade in Newcastle, I used to love the Black Cap when it was around, I’m gutted that it’s gone.
Emily: It’s such a shame, people are really fighting for it back.
Detox: I walked by it when I was shopping in Camden the other day and I was overcome with sadness because it’s not there, it’s like an institution. I feel really bad for the kids and Meth and everybody.
Emily: They found a new venue, but it’s not the same, and the history is so important.
Detox: I know! It had such a history there at the Black Cap. I walked by and there was a bunch of punk kids like sitting outside having a candle like vigil almost, and it made me really sad. It’s a sad thing for the community there.
Photo by Ellis-James Strevens
Emily: Definitely. You’re hugely fashion influenced, and you have such a love for Mugler.
Detox: Mugler! Mugler, Mugler, Mugler. The 80’s, Jem and the Holograms, Madonna. She’s my icon, I love Madonna. I remember literally being a kid and watching the Vogue Fashion Awards and seeing the showcase that Mugler did and it changed my life. Like, literally changed my life watching it. I just remembering being a kid and thinking “what in the hell is happening here”. I’ve always been influenced by him.
Emily: Was it that particular show, or were there any other influences?
Detox: Yeah! I have an older sister as well and she’s one of the biggest influences in everything I do in life. She was a big fashion girl, so I looked up to her as a kid because I’m 7 years younger than her. She’s gonna hate me for saying that hahah, cause they can Google my age, ha! But she was like my icon, my superhero.
Emily: So you were in the recent Marco Marco show and you feature in them every year. How was the new layout this time around?
Detox: It was interesting! Well it was real fun being in Miami because it was our first time being there, and we used a lot of the local girls there which was really fun and some regular Florida girls, like Sassy Devine who comes out to do the show. She’s from Florida and she was able to come. I hadn’t been to Miami in a long time and it was really fun to be back. The vibe there was so fun, it’s so bright and vibrant, it was a really really good time. And the collection was so Miami, it was so bright. It was different for Marco, so fun.
Photo by Ellis-James Strevens
Emily: Can you tell us about your new cooking show?
Detox: YESSSSSSSS! I’m so excited about it actually. #EatItUpWithDetox with #MamaTox. My sister actually came up with the idea. My family is so important to me and I think that’s one of the things that’s very relatable to me as a queen, that I’m so family oriented. It makes me a little more real and obtainable to people I think in a way, that I’m like that. We thought it would be fun to come up with a scrap book, well I have a cook book coming out actually, like a scrap book that my mother and I have written with my favourite childhood recipes. In order to kind of build buzz for the cook book, we decided to do a little show, and it’s basically us just getting drunk and making my favourite recipes!
Emily: Is it always you and your mum, or are there other special guests?
Detox: It’s always my mom and we have a few special guests that come in. In our next episode we have Mizkonduct who is a rapper in Chicago, he’s my sisters doorman at her law office and the only black vegetarian I know, so we thought it would be funny to bring him onto the show to see what we could do. He’s a very interesting character, it’ll be fun to watch!
Emily: Performance wise, you’re so unique. I’ve never seen anyone perform in the style you do. Do you have any stories behind your song choices?
Detox: Mannequin is my favourite number to do ever. It’s my favourite number because it was my favourite movie growing up, and I came up with it with my boyfriend who passed away, so every time I do it I think of him. It’s also so nostalgic for so many people, so it reminds me of him, it reminds me of my childhood and even though I feel like, you know it’s so lame that I do it so often but every time I do it, I just have such a great time doing it. People love it and relate to it because they have their own nostalgia built around that number.
Emily: What was your first ever drag performance like?
Detox: My first ever drag performance I did Replicunt by Dirty Sanchez, which is Jackie Beat and Mario Diaz’s band, who I’m obsessed with. My sister actually went to New York for the first time, I think I was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old and she bought me back this CD of electro clash music from New York when it was in it’s heyday, the early 2000’s, and that song was on it! There were a bunch of stuff, I think it was called Bad Incorporated or something, but it was amazing, it completely changed my life. Then when I started doing drag I was like “I have to do this kind of music. I was much more of a gender bender and a club kid when I first started doing drag, and now I’ve had, you know, a little things put in me here and there, ha!
Emily: We have a few fan questions before we finish, @shannenchelsea asks what’s your favourite thing to do in-between shows when you’re in a foreign country?
Detox: Hang out with the girls and drink! I love to get the know the girls, especially when I’m visiting so often, I feel like it’s important to make connections.
Emily: It’s nice to have familiar faces!
Detox: Yeah! I mean that’s what I like in the United States is getting together and working with my sisters and having that time backstage and kiki-ing and like making fun of each other. That’s the best part to me I think.
Photo by Ellis-James Strevens
Emily: @isabelafrazao1 asks what’s your favourite English saying/phrase, in your best English accent?
Detox: Well the English accent that I do is kind of like an old timey English accent.
Lydia: Like Shakespearian?
Detox: Not that, not that, ummm..
Emily: Cockney?
Detox: Yeah, kinda cockney! It’s like “ERRRRR I’M GONNA HAVE A WEE PISS I WILL”, haaaaa! But I think my favourite English saying is “lets get mortal”, I learnt that here!
Lydia: I have a fan question! What do you think of Rihanna’s career post “Disturbia”?
Detox: I think it’s amazing! I was gagged when I was even asked to do the “Disturbia” video, and she was so kind and so pleasant. And then I did the “S&M” video with a bunch of the other girls and she and her whole team remembered me and they were so cool to me and she was like “haaaaay, hows it going?”, which was huge cause she’s a huge star. She’s very humble every time I’ve seen her. I like that’s she’s very mysterious, it’s all on her own terms, which is very important, especially for a woman.
Emily: Lastly, is there anything you want to plug?
Detox: My butt.
Emily: And on that note, we’re done. Thank you Detox!
Detox: Thank you so much!
Follow Detox on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to her Youtube channel!
Make sure you make it to the next Powder Room on Sunday 22nd May, with Willam and Alyssa Edwards! Tickets are on sale now, click here for more!
