Lee Aaron at peace with her moniker ‘Metal Queen’
Canadian female rocker Lee Aaron was recently interviewed by Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon for Canada’s The Metal Voice. Lee Aaron was promoting her new covers album Tattoo, which was just released via Metalville Records on April 26, 2024.
Back in 1984, Lee Aaron released the album Metal Queen and she has been known by that moniker ever since. With respect to her thoughts on her moniker Metal Queen, Lee Aaron indicated (as provided by The Metal Voice with slight edits):
“I guess I was the first to coin it but it’s kind of become a ubiquitous phrase to define women that perform harder style music. I guess it’s a good thing. So it’s never going away, that’s what I’ve learned. So I’m at peace with it. At a certain point in my career, probably more in the late mid to late ’90s when the media with the advent of grunge, they just did an about face. Music is cyclical and it does that where they were just like say ‘Oh sorry, you’re associated with big hair music or classic rock or anything to do with the ’80s’. If you had released albums, your career fell off the edge of a cliff in the ’90s. It wasn’t just me. It was all of those ’80s bands. So I went through a phase in my life where I felt a little bit pissed off about being defined completely by that moniker and I didn’t want to play the song in my set. I was just like, ‘This is killing me right now’ but it was killing everybody right?
However, in later years, I have been able to talk a lot about that song because I get asked about it consistently because again the lyrics were about feminine empowerment or empowerment in general. And I’ve got to explain the song and the narrative of the tune was really about pushing back against that ’80s sexism with women, and men completely controlling and running the industry. We had to fight. The handful of us that were doing hard music in the ’80s were women. We had to fight for every scrap of credibility and respect that we received. Not only on the musical front but also in the boardroom with the suits. And having the opportunity to talk about that now, I think has completely reframed not only the name of the moniker but the tune and what it stood for as well. So you know, I’m actually happy to be called that now.”
You can listen to the interview with Lee Aaron on The Metal Voice below:
Lee Aaron‘s “Metal Queen” video: