BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai recently caught up with self-styled Victoriandustrial vocalist / violinist / performer Emilie Autumn to discuss the long awaited North American release of her new album, Opheliac. Discussion included details on her cover of the QUEEN cassic 'Bohemian Rhapsody', found below:

Prior to the North American release of Opheliac, Emilie issued a cover of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. A bold and potentially suicidal move commercially according to some people, to which she responded ‘This track is going to reach out, grab you by your hot buttered short ones and make you its bitch.’ Judging by the response from fans and people outside her usual circle, it did just that.

“I understand the new listener mentality of going into it thinking ‘I’m not going to like you…’ and that’s okay. I can deal with the ‘Prove yourself, bitch’ mentality because I know I can do it. I’m delusional enough to think I can (laughs). There’s every chance that I can convince you to listen to something that you don’t normally listen to.”
“It was just a personal challenge, really,” Emilie says of covering the Queen classic, which works in spite of not being a huge epic like the original. “I liked the idea of taking one of the most famous songs of all time and putting my spin on it. And just being able to do that song vocally. The thing is, I didn’t know if I could do it so I went into the studio thinking ‘Okay, I’ve listened to this thing through headphones a million times, I’ve written out all of the vocal parts, let’s see if I get it right.’ I wanted to take a couple songs (the other being Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’) that were so anti-goth and redo them, so it was the endeavour to do something silly yet musically serious. I’m not just in on the joke, I made the joke but I also take the music very seriously, so I wanted to see if I could do it.”
“As far as putting it out, the thought that everybody would roll their eyes and say ‘How dare this girl cover that song?’ was too delicious. It was enough to know that people would not like the idea that I had. Once it was recorded I had the confidence to say that I did it right, I hit that high B-flat (laughs), so screw you if you don’t like it.”

Go to this location for the complete story.

Emilie is currently on tour in the US in support of Opheliac. Remaining dates are as follows:

October

22 - Mexico City, MX - Lunario
24 - Pomona, CA - Glasshouse
25 - Los Angeles, CA - Key Club
27 - San Francisco, CA - Great American
29 - Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theatre
30 - Vancouver, BC - Rickshaw Shop
31 - Seattle, WA - El Corazon

November

2 - Salt Lake City, UT - Murray Theatre
3 - Denver, CO - Bluebird
4 - Lawrence, KS - Granada Theatre
5 - Minneapolis, MN - Varsity
6 - Chicago, IL - Logan Square Auditorium
20 - Oklahoma City, OK - Diamond Ballroom
21 - Little Rock, AR - The Village
22 - New Orleans, LA - House Of Blues
25 - St. Petersburg, FL - The State Theatre
26 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Culture Room
27 - Jacksonville Beach, FL - Freebird Live
28 - Charleston, SC - The Music Farm
29 - Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle

December

3 - Millvale, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre

More info at this location.

<center