On a crisp and sunny Sunday afternoon, I sat down with Anthony Casey and Shayan Naziripour. We talked about their drag alter egos, Shanda Leer and Veronica Vamp. They were gearing up for the Sad Mag Madonna Tribute at The Cobalt. We talked about the challenges of being a man in a dress and how one gets there, as well as the evolution of performance personas, and the queer camaraderie of The Cobalt.
If you’re looking to see the ladies on stage, Shanda Leer will be at Oasis for Jerk It! on December 20th. If you’re keen to see Veronica Vamp…well, patience is a virtue! I can assure you—she’s well worth the wait!
Sad Mag: Who are you?
Shanda Leer: I am Shanda Leer, your tipsy aunt at a wedding. That’s my self-appointed title.
Veronic Vamp: Very nice. Very nice indeed. I am Veronica Vamp, lady of the night, mistress, working girl. All of the above.
SM: How did you get into drag? How did it become a thing that you do?
VV: I’m the newbie here. I started doing cosplay—that’s how I got into drag. I really enjoy anime characters and the ones I really like are the strong ladies. So I started cosplaying them. I started out with Faye Valentine from Cowboy BeBop—that was my first cosplay. I also Love Sailor Mercury from Sailor Moon. She loves romance novels, she’s got blue hair…dirty romance novels and who doesn’t love blue hair?
SL: I started at the Cobalt as a dare from Peach Cobblah. It was the Pride Ball in 2012. I had hinted at it for a while. But there’s some exposition to this and I’ll keep it short: I’m from Nova Scotia. Growing up there, I think I was 19 and I went to my first gay bar, by myself, I had no idea what I was doing. I went to this place; I think it was called Vortex. I was there and I was terrified and there were these three old queens who just kind of descended on me. They were chatting with me and asking me all of these questions. I was still doing that thing where I was saying, “Oh yah, I’m kind of gay but not really, hahaha.” I was young, what’re you gonna do? At the end of the conversation, one of them said, “Are we the first drag queens you’ve ever met?” and I said yes. They asked me if I thought I’d like to do drag sometime and I said, “Oh, I don’t think so.” And one of them leaned over, right in my face and said, “Listen, honey, when you do drag—and you will do drag—use the name Shanda Leer and don’t forget it.” And so I’ve always had this amazing drag name that I’m in love with and I told Peach that story and she said, “Just get on stage at the Pride Ball.” And I did. And, actually, a couple of weeks ago we were talking about when I’d started and she said, “You know, I honestly thought it was just going to be a one time thing. I thought it was just going to be a joke. And look at you now.” I’ve blossomed!
SM: That is an awesome story! Tell me about the Madonna Tribute show.
SL: Miss Vamp here was co-hosting.
VV: I co-hosted with Isolde N. Barron. She’s lovely, she’s always hilarious.
SL: She-larious!
VV: Oh, I love puns! Well, the night was a competition with a bunch of other queens. Shanda Leer included. I co-hosted, held the trophy, and made sure those queens worked for it!
SL: I’m excited because, you know, most gay men, they love Madonna. At least one song, if not completely. In the last Sad Mag show, the Mariah tribute, I think I was the only one who genuinely liked Mariah.
VV: I won!
SL: She won. Whatever! That’s cause you stripped off on stage!
VV: That’s cause I was a dirty, dirty whore! (laughs)
SL: I try to keep Mimi classy, but whatever. I was excited for this one because it was fun to do a Madonna number. Normally, Shanda’s whole thing is kind of campy and silly, lots of Broadway. You know, the classic old lady standards. So when I have the chance to do a full-on Madonna number with dancing and everything…I’m excited!
SM: What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of doing drag?
SL: What’s RuPaul’s favourite quote? It takes a lot of balls to put on a dress and walk out the door. Right? So having the drive to do drag in general, you’re tapping into something that’s already, sort of, intrinsic to your personality. I don’t know. What are the difficulties? Starting off, doing my own make-up—that was hard. Finding clothes.
VV: Especially for a man’s body.
SL: Exactly! That fit a man’s…generous body. Actually leaving the house and confidently.
VV: Oh yes, that’s the hardest part I think. Scaring people. Terrifying children.
SL: I think another, I guess, difficulty, is people…I don’t want to say taking it seriously because, in the end, it’s a fun drag show to have fun. But, I don’t want it to be some novelty, like people just truck us out every weekend so they can watch the cute ladies put on a show. I see a lot of history behind drag so I always want to represent that. I think that’s a bit of a challenge these days, even once you’ve worked up the balls to walk out the door.
SM: Kudos to that! How long have you been performing for?
VV: I first started at the Cobalt in 2012. I failed miserably. Ok, I didn’t fail miserably. I got to the second round.
SL: Second round’s great! When did I start? Oh right, Pride Ball, 2012.
SM: So you’re both fairly new to this. Tell me about a favourite performance.
SL: I’m a huge ham so I love all of them. Some go better than others. My favourite one…I don’t know. I love any time I get to do a Barbara Streisand number. The most recent one was at Jerk It last weekend at Oasis. “Don’t Rain on my Parade” is my favourite one to do. Of course—every girl loves Funny Girl.
VV: Any one where I get an injury of some sort. If I’m wondering where that bruise came from the morning after, that was a good night. My favourite performance…I would say I don’t really have one. Any time when I can shake my pussy in front of a crowded stage is great!
SM: Have you ever had a major stage disaster where something goes really wrong?
VV: Like when you fuck up a lip synch?
SL: Oh yah. It always happens. I did a show one time and my CD was misplaced. I didn’t know what to do but I had kind of a back-up track so I said I could do that one instead. But I didn’t really remember all of the words and I didn’t have the proper clothes to go with it. You just gotta roll with it. Shit can go wrong at any time. Thankfully, I haven’t fallen. And my dress hasn’t fallen off…oh wait. No. I play in Out for Kicks, which is a queer soccer league, and at the awards ceremony that we have at the end of every season, they asked me to perform, so I did. I had this really cute floral romper as my costume, except I hadn’t tried it on in a really long time and I don’t know if I just grew or if my boobs got bigger but it kept falling down.
VV: You were growing into your womanhood!
SL: I was blossoming! On stage! My nipples kept showing so I finally just yanked it down and did a topless performance. It was so tight that I couldn’t wear bra so in the end I had this really crazy, genderfuck thing going on. They loved it!
VV: Yah, you make it work!
SL: You gotta keep it real.
SM: Do you have any goals for your performance?
VV: Fame! I want my pussy to be on every cover!
S:L Money! No, seriously. For each performance? I just want people to enjoy themselves and to think that I’m the best queen they’ve ever seen. That’s it—it’s as simple as that.
VV: Ditto! I think the goal is just to make people happy. I love to entertain people.
SM: Do you find that different audiences attend different shows?
VV: I don’t remember their faces by the end of the night….
SL: The last couple of months, I’ve been really lucky and I’ve been booked a lot. And I’ve noticed that the crowds definitely change depending on the party but, in the end, they know what they’re in for. The Oasis has been the most interesting, especially for Jerk It on Fridays. Cause Friday’s a hard night on Davie St.—there’s a lot going on. So some nights, the crowds have come in and it’s been a lot of familiar faces, which has been super nice. Other nights, it’s been different people, which is also exciting because then it’s a different crowd to perform for. But, occasionally you’ll get people coming in and they think they know what a drag show is but they’re still not really quite sure what to expect and then it’s funny to see their reactions. And it changes on a weekly basis too. But if you go to the Cobalt, girl, that’s family!
SM: Do you ever find that your performances create tension for your personal life? Or is there a disconnect?
VV: I don’t feel that, no.
SL: Well, you’re not Veronica all the time.
VV: True. I’m more mean when I’m in drag. All that make-up…it just brings the bitch in me. I’ve definitely noticed that. But I’m the sweetest bitch you’ll ever meet.
SL: I’ve heard that before! Shanda for me is very much a character and I think that, in my personal life, Anthony is….well, I think I’m more introverted than I give myself credit for. A great night in for me is being completely alone and not texting or calling anybody and watching Dr. Who. And eating pizza. But Shanda—she works the room. She’s kind of maternal, makes sure everyone has a good time. She’s got time for everybody and I enjoy that because I get to meet people. But if it’s me at a club, I am not going to go around and say hi to everybody and see how their night is going. I’m there to just enjoy myself and my friends. And even then, I’ll probably stay for 10 minutes and then leave because…girl’s tired!
SM: Have you found that your drag personas have evolved as you’ve been performing?
SL: Oh yah, definitely. She’s a little more busted and drunk than she first started off but now I think, any transformative thing that you do, has to always be in flux because you’re not going to settle on it right away. And it’s bringing out parts of me that I kind of knew where there but had never really tapped into so watching that evolve has been interesting. And now I think she’s a bit more of a lady, definitely still the tipsy aunt though. She’ll crack the weird jokes. She’ll think she’s the best dancer in the world and really, she’s just doing the cabbage patch. Poorly. I’ve seen it evolve and I want to keep seeing it evolve.
VV: I do feel like I’ve progressed and I feel like I’ve gone from, “Oooh, that’s a man!” to “That’s a…man??” So that’s my journey so far and I’m still developing the character. I’m a graphic designer, that’s my day job, so what I really love to do is create characters, drawing them. And I feel like Veronica is my cartoon character—all myself, but just drawn with huge hair and big-ass lips, lots of eyes, lots of lashes. An extreme character. Drag queens feel a bit like cartoon characters—fun and out there. I’m slowly getting better at drawing her. At first, it was just like crayon and not really colouring between the lines. But you get better and you, maybe, use a different brush or something. Or you actually find the right colour. More is more, more is better. Slap on some glitter. I learned about glue and then glitter on top—it solves everything.
SM: What’s next for you both?
VV: Shanda’s the more professional one. I only perform every once in while—the lady doesn’t come out that often. So what’s next is…?
SL: Do you want to perform more?
VV: I do want to perform more, eventually. But it’s a lot of money!
SL: Yes, it’s expensive. On average, I’m probably on stage twice a month. This weekend, I haven’t done any shows. But on the last 5 weekends, I’ve had one or two. And it’s been really great because I love performing! I did musical theatre when I was younger. Shanda’s not going to make it to Broadway but if I can still entertain people, then that’s great. There are some shows of my own that I’d like to do. I would love to do some live singing because I’m not the best but I can carry a tune. And, to bring it down, I’d like to do some kind of history project. Peach and Isolde have this amazing show called Tucked and Plucked and I love what they do. They interview queens from Vancouver and get the history of drag in Vancouver. I like that too but I also like that drag has been a really strong piece of queer history. I feel like I kind of want to educate people on that. RuPaul’s Drag Race has been amazing and I’ve seen every season and I own every season to date but sometimes I almost feel like it’s diluting the whole legacy that drag has. It’s great that it brings it to the mainstream so more people know who drag queens are. But, you know, there have only been a few on the show who have actually talked about and appreciated the history. Jinx Monsoon being one of them, she’s everybody’s favourite right now. I love her to bits. So there are a lot of things! There are a lot of Christmas shows that are happening in the next month. There’s going to be Jerk It on Dec. 20th at Oasis, which will be Christmas themed. I think January’s going to be a time where I figure out what I want to do for 2014. 2013 was the year where Shanda realized who she was. 2014 is what am I going to do with this?