This summer, queer country band Karen & the Sorrows shot the music video for “Guaranteed Broken Heart” at The Doxee. We’re so thrilled to welcome Karen to Target Margin and honored to share with you our interview with her about her music. Check out Karen’s music video above and read more about Karen below!
It’s definitely been a journey! I’d recently split up with my longtime bandmates, so I had to bring together a whole new group of musicians. And then I realized that almost half the the songs wanted a string band, not the electric band I usually arrange for. So I had to bring together a string band too which was a new experience for me! But I really loved stepping into the role of producer in a big way and working to make these songs sound like what I was hearing in my head.
Why did you choose “Guaranteed Broken Heart” to be your album’s first single?
It’s a two stepping song, so even if you don’t know how to two step, I was hoping it would make people tap their toe!
Target Margin Theater is so excited to have hosted your music video shoot for “Guaranteed Broken Heart.” What did you envision for the music video and what about it led you to us?
I knew exactly what I wanted the set to look like for this video: a tiny jewel box theater that was both lush and a little shabby at the same time. I wanted it feel like the Miss Broken Heart pageant was very important to everyone involved, but not particularly important to anyone else in the world. We were really struggling to find somewhere in the city that fit that description and could work with our schedule. Finally it dawned on us that we could just build what we needed at The Doxsee! Purva Bedi, one of our video’s stars, is an associate artist at Target Margin, so Purva, our director (and Purva’s husband) David Andrew Stoler, and I were so thrilled when we realized we could make this at a theater we all love.
Queer country music is flourishing: what’s your experience working in this genre?
I put on the first Gay Ole Opry queer country music festival back in 2011 and started the Queer Country Quarterly soon after, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I really needed that space to exist, and it turned out so did lots of other people! Of course there have been lots of LGBT artists throughout the history of country music, but at that time “queer country” was just a made-up word! So it blows my mind that now it is actually a real genre.
Please tell us more about your album’s release and upcoming tour! What do you carry with you when you go on the road?
We just had a big show at Littlefield in Brooklyn to celebrate the album’s release with Onliest, My Gay Banjo, and the legendary Ebony Hillbillies. Everybody danced and ate lots of pie, and it was so much fun to celebrate with some of my favorite bands. Now we’re getting ready to hit the road on November 8th! A few tour must-haves for me: dresses that don’t get too wrinkled if I ball them up in my suitcase, fuzzy socks because my feet are always cold at night, and lots of snacks so the band doesn’t get hangry!