What's In Your Fridge: Kieran Strange

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      What’s in Your Fridge is where the Straight asks interesting Vancouverites about their life-changing concerts, favourite albums, and, most importantly, what’s sitting beside the Heinz Ketchup in their custom-made Big Chill Retropolitan 20.6-cubic-foot refrigerators.

      On the grill

      Kieran Strange

      Who are you

      I'm a geeky British pop-rock artist who's had the pleasure of living in Vancouver for the past seven years, after leaving my family in the U.K. and moving to Canada to follow my dreams of spending my life playing and creating music! I've been blessed with a small but incredible team and some truly amazing fans worldwide, and since embarking on my solo career—following fronting a couple screamo punk/progressive bands—I've toured all over Canada and the U.S. each year, and have been lucky enough to tour as far as Japan and Europe, too. When I'm not performing or writing music, you can usually find me writing fiction, playing role-playing games (i.e. Dungeons & Dragons), crafting, painting, drawing, or lounging with my kitty cats in a sun spot somewhere in my house.

      First concert

      The first time I ever properly witnessed a live band performing a “gig” would probably be when my uncle’s cover band played at the pub I grew up above, when I was about six or seven years old. It was a pretty rough place in small-town England, so my brother and I were only allowed into the bar itself to watch for about five minutes, and I remember being pressed protectively up against one of the grownups for all of it. I had always been a fan of music and performing (ugh, I wanted to be the sixth Spice Girl—seriously), so to see someone I knew up there, singing his heart out in front of a huge (drunk and rowdy) crowd, really struck a chord in me, pun fully intended. I didn’t go to an actual proper "gig” gig until I was 16, and then I saw My Chemical Romance and Babyshambles in the same week, which absolutely blew my mind.

      Life-changing concert

      Okay, so it’s a bit of a copout, but it’s a festival—Download Fest 2007 at Donington Park in the U.K. That was the most live music I have ever absorbed in my life—three stages of nonstop rocking bands, blistering hot sun, and so many food trucks. It was the year My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, and Iron Maiden headlined—easily three of my favourite bands at the time—plus a bunch of other acts I love like Korn, Marilyn Manson, Paramore, Papa Roach, Billy Talent, Enter Shikari... This was the summer I moved away from my family and to Canada for music, so being exposed to that much live music that I loved, exactly a month before I actually got on the plane, was insanely inspiring for the crazy gamble I was about to take with my life.

      Top three records

      (This one was just mean, seriously. I’m supposed to pick just three!?)

      Muse Origin of Symmetry or Absolution. Either, because I honestly can’t choose. They’re both absolutely incredible albums, and they were around the time Muse cracked down on their sound and really found who they were as musicians. The first Muse song I ever heard was “New Born”, and I fell in love with both Matt Bellamy’s voice and lyrics, and the catchy, complex melodies and riffs. Muse is still one of my all-time Top 5 bands, and likely will be for(ever?????) a long time.

      My Chemical Romance Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. This album gets a LOT of flack thrown its way for spearheading the “emo” movement, and for “causing” teenagers to self-harm despite the fact that the band were strong advocates against drug abuse, suicide, and all forms of self-harm. When I was in high school, this album gave me hope—I was a messed up, socially awkward, emotionally challenged, gender-confused kid with zero awareness that I wasn’t the only person who felt that way. When my friend lent me the CD, and I started checking the band’s interviews out online, I couldn’t believe I was listening to someone who felt the same things I did and was just as much of a freak as me.

      Daft Punk Discovery  This was one of my favourite albums as a kid, before I even knew what a "concept album" was. I loved the story that went behind it with the Interstella 555 movie, and how the music videos all linked together to tell part of that story. Without this album, I don't think I would be as driven to create concepts in my own music, or work on my own upcoming concept album (2016).

      All-time favourite video

      David Bowie and Mick Jagger "Dancing in the Street" This is literally impossible to pick because I have so many music videos that I love, so I'm gonna pick a silly one. "Dancing in the Street" by David Bowie and Mick Jagger, because it's just so absolutely ridiculous and I never tire of watching it. It looks like they just got wasted one night, pulled out a video camera and a poor friend who was roped into doing the camera work, and did it in about an hour and a half. Ah, back in the days when "that's good enough" was good enough!

      What’s in your fridge

      Random home-baked goods. I'm lucky enough to have a roomie who's obsessed with baking, which means our fridge usually has the delicious fruits of her labour stored within it. Mwahahaha! So I may occasionally come home with far too many bananas for us to eat before they start to go brown so that she's forced to make banana bread with them, or I may send her recipes I find online over Facebook knowing full well that she'll be way too tempted to try and make them...so what??? It's no different to her sneaking her laundry in with mine...right???

      Red Dog Blue Kat Raw Pet Food. In a sealed, rectangular, glass container at the very bottom of my fridge sits a strange and foul substance. It looks like smoothly ground meat the colour of raw steak, it gets defrosted in two-pound packets and then spooned into the container, and it both terrifies and confuses the hell out of my my guests. But my kitties love it! I’m insanely picky about what we feed our cats, and after we tried out a bunch of different “healthier” options for them, we decided to put them on the raw-food diet and we’ve never had any regrets. I definitely recommend it to any other cat mums and dads out there—just make sure you consult a vet or look up specialist instructions about the transition to raw, because it can wreak havoc on their insides otherwise. :(

      Aloe Vera. I always keep a bottle of  pure aloe vera gel in the fridge in the summertime because I have pale skin which can burn to little more than a crisp with just 1.365 seconds' exposure to the sun. Keeping it in the fridge just makes it even more cool and soothing if it ends up being needed by anyone.

      Check out Kieran Strange on Bandcamp

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