Ensconced in a jungle of wires and blinking lights, All the Queen's Men look like they've dressed for an after-hours office party in the Financial District instead of a headlining show upstairs at The Middle East. They're nervously making last-minute equipment checks when the music playing over the PA suddenly cuts out and a drum sample is triggered. Drummer Tamora Gooding, keyboardist/ samplist/ vocalist Christine Zufferey, bassist Chris Farrell, and guitarist Catherine Capozzi launch into their opening number with high-heeled intent and furious authority, and it's immediately clear that this won't be a polite set.

"You want me to lick the boardroom floor/ to do it on all fours/ to rub you when you're sore/ to be your private whore," sings Christine with a feral and accusatory look in her eyes while Cathy grapples with a Les Paul that is nearly twice her size. Slash-like hair hiding her face, she bounces around the stage Angus Young-style and wrenches out jagged, effects-laden chords and lead lines that sound like they're coming from any instrument but a guitar. It's obvious that she studied under David Bowie sideman Reeves Gabrels, who taught her how to make weird noises with her guitar.

Their ferocious stage presence should be no surprise-All the Queen's Men slogged through the scene for years as a straight-ahead rock outfit with a different frontwoman before reinventing themselves as a Garbage-meets-Iggy Pop's-mojo roctronica (their term, which I think is brilliant-I advised them to copyright it immediately) outfit and joining forces with Christine, formerly of like-minded electronic rock faves January. "Before Christine, All the Queen's Men was two guitars, bass, and acoustic drums-no electronics," says Chris. "It was aggressive and passionate and loud; it was just all rock."

Christine recalls the details of the band's current formation, "January had recorded our third CD, but we had broken up and I was a singer without a band, and ATQM had recorded a CD with their old singer that never got released, and six months later we ended up connecting."

"Our old singer actually used to play January's CDs for us when we'd be driving around town," says Chris, "and I was always like,'Aw, that band's awesome, who the hell are they?'"

"We always wanted to do gigs with them," says Cathy.

"And through the power of email, we formed a supergroup," Tamora laughs.

Although ATQM is anything but categorizable, their music will appeal to fans of Fatboy Slim, Led Zeppelin, and anyone who appreciates a good pop song. A broad description? Yes. But consider their influences: perpetual chameleons and sonic experimenters Bjork and David Bowie are band favorites; All the Queen's Men are also the only people I've ever met who actually like Radiohead's Amnesiac.

"We'd like to challenge the Boston rock scene to break out of its jangle pop masochistic boy crap," says Chris. "I went to NYC to promote the band at a party at PS1; it's an outdoor party and all the scenesters came and they were really cool, and everyone that asked me about the CD was really receptive to it. I must've met three or four DJs-there were no musicians or band people-just kids, producers, and artists. Around here you can't turn around without bumping into a guitar player."

"Bands like Count Zero aren't like every other rock boy band that's out there," says Cathy. "They're doing something interesting with sampling and guitars and they're a really great band. Doors are starting to be broken down, but let's face it, most clubs want you to be up and off in two seconds, and they're not too thrilled if you've got an intense setup and take more than fifteen minutes to set your shit up."

"I really like the rawness of rock music and I really like all the electronic stuff, but I don't want to just do rock or pure techno. I want to combine new and interesting sounds that you don't hear in a typical rock band," says Christine. "We have one dance and one techno remix that we're trying to get played in clubs to reach out to a different audience."

"Essentially, we're still a rock band-the basic element is rock, and we love that, but we've taken electronic elements and mixed them in, in our own way," says Cathy. "It's a twist on what's been tried before by bands like Garbage or David Bowie's Earthling album or Bjork."

All the Queen's Men have brought the fusion of rock and electronica to an entirely new level through their unique mix of instrumentation and approach to their music. Tamora triggers pre-recorded samples and lays down a static, processed groove on her Roland V-drums, which Chris augments perfectly with his rock-solid and unwavering industrial P-Funk bass lines. Cathy deserves high praise for her stunningly individualistic guitar playing and her ability to convincingly integrate it into a style that, by its very nature, is anything but guitar-friendly. She and Christine are the rocking soul of the band-Christine is one of the most impassioned and primal singers on the Boston scene. Every note she sings oozes desperation, as if she might be singing these songs for the very last time.

"Christine has a totally unique voice," says Chris. "People try to compare her to someone else, but they always fail-'Well, it's sorta like Chrissie Hynde...' and it's like,'What are you talking about?'"

"I think it's hard for women because that's like saying to me, the guitar player,'You're better than Joan Jett,' and it's like,'Well, that's nice...uh, thank you,'" says Cathy. "It all depends on what people's reference points are. So much has been shoved down people's throats by the radio, and they try to listen for anything familiar and say,'Oh, it's like this!'"

"Somebody told me we sound like German pop with Macy Gray singing," says Christine [laughter all around].

"We have this rock background and this passion for electronic music, and trying to bring the two together gives us a rawness, and that's what I think makes us different," says Cathy. "Someone wrote to us and said that our music is for people who really love music and don't like to be told what to like [by MTV or radio]. That's where we're coming from with our music."

The band applied their rock influenced do-it-yourself aesthetic to their debut album, Madame Static.

"We've been working on the CD since February," says Cathy. "It's a do-it-yourself-er. Christine and Tam were the engineers and co-produced it, and we recorded it in the bedroom."

"We did the drums on an 8-track in our rehearsal space, then brought the 8-track back to Christine's apartment and dumped everything into the computer and did all the overdubs," Tamora explains.

"It was me and these three in the bedroom..." Chris adds slyly [laughter].

"Long days and long nights!" says Cathy.

"Yeah, we did some work all right!" says Christine.

One might wonder exactly what kind of "work" the band is implying, given the possible connotations of their name; every time I said the band's name to friends and showed them the album cover, they automatically assumed ATQM was gay. This might be due to the fact that when one does an internet search for "All the Queen's Men," the first thing that comes up is the official site for All the Queen's Men the movie, starring Friends' Matt LeBlanc. The movie's tag line is "Cross dressing commandos cross enemy lines!" I'm not sure if they were being sarcastic (I hope not, because it's a genius idea), but they mentioned the possibility of hawking their disc outside theaters as a spin-off soundtrack and hiring drunken, boom box wielding cross dressers as a promotional street team. But ATQM blanched at the interpretation of their name. "I think it's an interesting name'cause it makes people wonder," says Christine.

People will indeed wonder if the band continues to use drag queens as MCs, as they did at one prior show they organized. In any case, they gave no definitive answer or explanation for their moniker.

Interesting name aside, the only thing audiences really need to know is that All the Queen's Men is a truly musically innovative and passionate band that consistently puts on an entertaining live show that will undoubtedly improve to dizzying heights over time. Be sure to check'em out at their CD release party on Saturday, September 22 at The Middle East Downstairs (part of The Noise's 20th Anniversary Party).

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