Watch the RuPaul-Fronted Punk Band That Inspired ‘Drag Race’s’ ‘New Wave Queens’ Episode

(photo: Logo TV)

Music fans, if you’ve been sleeping on RuPaul’s Drag Race for the past seven seasons, now is the time to shanté, stay, and start your DVRs’ engines. While the series has hosted some sickening musical challenges (“RuPaulapalooza” comes to mind) and esteemed guest judges (Henry Rollins in Season 2 was everything) in the past, this eighth RPDR season is the most rockin’ yet.

Season 8 has already offered a “Bitch Perfect” a cappella challenge guest-judged by superstar songwriter Ester Dean and an Empire-inspired episode with Faith Evans. And this week, none other than Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein showed up to guest-judge the “New Wave Queens” episode. It was totally atomic.

Straight from the set of SheBGB’s, prefab drag band Street Meat served lobster-rocking B-52’s realness, Les Chicken Wings let the feathers fly with their punk-rock attack, and the keytar-wielding Dragnometry brought the show to a Klymaxx with their R&B/new wave slow jam.

Dreaming is free. Watch the episode here:

At the start of the show, RuPaul mentioned Wee Wee Pole – the underground band he fronted when he was a fixture on Atlanta’s early-’80s queer new wave/punk scene – which inspired this episode. Thanks to the Interweb, video footage of this important era in punk herstory exists, so here it is in all its grainy, pre-glamazon glory. Even back then, Ru was werking it.

And here’s an exclusive interview with the ex-punk himself, in which he talks about his musical past. Can I get an amen?

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