By Kelley Simms
FROM GREECE TO L.A.
Barb Wire Dolls
G
reece’s Barb Wire Dolls have taken
the punk rock world by storm from
virtually nowhere. Discovered by
prominent radio personality Rodney
Bingenheimer in 2010, the band sold all
their belongings and relocated to L.A. Since
then, Barb Wire Dolls has made their mark
on the Sunset Strip with residencies at
Whisky A Go-Go, The Viper Room and On
The Rox, and have played hundreds of
shows all over the world. The late Lemmy
Kilmister befriended the band on its first
night in L.A. and eventually signed it to his
Motörhead Music label and released its
third full-length album Rub My Mind in
June of this year. Fresh off the Vans Warped
Tour — where the band recruited many
new converts to its growing fan base —
Barb Wire Dolls are ready to hit the road for
a two-month US trek, which includes a stop
at the Cobra Lounge on Oct. 15.
Mosh: Barb Wire Dolls formed in 2010 at
an artist commune in Avdou in Crete,
Greece. What was Avdou like?
Isis Queen: We started the band in Greece’s
Crete and that’s where the Ikarus Artist
Commune is. It’s up [in] the mountains. It’s
a culmination of many artists who have
come through and have found their niche
for certain forms of music. We started the
band because we were fed up and bored
with the current state of music. There was
so much music flowing through the artist’s
34 illinoisentertainer.com october 2017
commune. We naturally connected in that
way to form a band that suited us and to
express ourselves through rock ‘n’ roll. The
whole village has a great energy of art. If
you close your mind to society and the out-
side world, you connect to that energy real-
ly easy.
Mosh: KROQ’s Rodney Bingenheimer was
responsible for bringing the band over to
L.A. How did that come about?
Isis Queen: He definitely discovered us. We
had never gotten any promotion through
radio in Greece. At that time we had a
MySpace page and we put up our EP, and
Rodney found us and started playing our
music. It was the biggest thing that hap-
pened to a Greek band, let alone a little
punk band that was starting up with an EP.
No one had ever gotten commercial play
on the radio in America from Greece before
and he would play us every week. It was
such a joy for us. Rodney kept telling us to
come to L.A. and after a few months of him
playing our music, we decided to take him
up on that opportunity because the crisis
just happened in Greece and things were
going downhill fast. So it just came as a
blessing and at a perfect time. We didn’t
own anything; just a few surf boards,
instruments and a car. So we sold every-
thing that we had and bought our tickets to
L.A. The first thing we did when we
reached L.A. was to go see Rodney and that
night we also met Lemmy Kilmister.
Mosh: Playing shows at the Roxy and the
Whisky for a relatively unknown band is
pretty huge. What was that experience like
and just being on Sunset Strip soaking it
all in for the first time?
Isis Queen: It was a great experience. That
first night after meeting Rodney we went to
the Sunset Strip and walked around, and it
was very alive. We’ve known about the
Sunset Strip that happened in the ’80s, but
we were also aware of the punk rock scene
and the Decline of Western Civilization movie
about the first L.A. punk scene. So coming
out that first night we bumped into Lemmy
Kilmister and he ended up signing us to
Motörhead Music on down the road. Our
first show in L.A. was a few weeks later, we
played at the Roxy Theater. We ended up
selling out the Roxy Theater on a Saturday
to over 1,000 people and that was our first
acceptance [in] to the L.A. scene. That year
we ended up doing residencies at the Viper
Room for months. It was actually a dream
come true for any musician.
Mosh: It goes without saying, Lemmy is
greatly missed. What was it like knowing
him?
Isis Queen: Lemmy is God in so many
ways. And just the fact that we met him
that first night makes it even more special.
He was very nice to us that first night.
Lemmy is everything that stands for rock
‘n’ roll. He is that godly figure in rock ‘n’
roll that you look up to. He finally came to
our show in 2015 and saw us live and con-
firmed that we also stood for everything he
stood for. You can’t get any better than that.
No matter what happens with Barb Wire
Dolls, that confirmation from Lemmy
means everything. If you get a confirma-
tion from Lemmy, that pretty much says it
all.
Mosh: A lot of old school punk rockers such
as members of the Sex Pistols and Dead
Kennedys’ Jello Biafra have also praised
your music. How does it feel to be recog-
nized by such legendary musicians?
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