Before she was supermodel of the world, RuPaul sang lead in an '80s rock band

By Fusion Staff  |  March 29, 2016 | 6:05pm
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Monday night’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race went back (back, back) to the titular host’s roots with a challenge that saw the nine remaining queens performing live in new wave-inspired bands.

That’s right. While RuPaul broke into the mainstream as a high-femme, blonde bombshell with her 1992 hit single “Supermodel (You Better Work),” a drag persona she continues to cultivate every week on Logo TV’s Drag Race, Ru spent most of the ’80s performing and genderfucking up and down the Eastern seaboard.

As she explained last night:

Now, long before I became ‘Supermodel of the World,’ I was in a punk-rock band called Wee Wee Pole. I was inspired by bands like The B-52’s, Wendy O. Williams [of Plasmatics], and my all-time favorite Blondie.

Thanks to the archival magic of YouTube (and by that, I mean thanks to Janet Jackson), we can watch videos of Ru performing live with Wee Wee Pole right now in the present. Here’s a clip of the band doing “Funky for a Honky” and “Body Heat” in 1983 at Atlanta’s (long since closed) punk venue Club 688.

As long as we’re reminiscing Ruminiscing, here’s another pre-fame video of RuPaul talking about her gig go-go dancing at the (still open!) Pyramid Club in New York’s East Village neighborhood. She seems fun.

Bad at filling out bios seeks same.

 
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