international news _ 16th August, 2006
Spektrum Star’s Naked Truth
Text by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Lola from London punk-funk experimentalists Spektrum chatted to Skrufff this
week about the band’s decision to appear naked on the cover of new single
May Day and revealed that she developed her penchant for stripping off after
attending Native American sweat lodges.
“I’m generally a loner, I don’t really join classes but via a few
coincidences I came across this man from Canada who visits Europe sometimes
and teaches you how to build a ceremonial sweat lodge,” she explained.
“You build a pyre and welcome the Guardians in, get loads of blankets and
make a tee-pee then you make a big fire pit in the middle with girls on one
side, boys on the other, and take you clothes off and crawl round on your
hands and knees with the fire burning in the middle,” she laughed.
“You’ve got to sit there stark naked while you’ve got some geezer there
going ‘hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo, hey-yo’. It’s a very strange experience but
amazing because you come through lots of barriers, you’re naked and
vulnerable surrounded by people you don’t really know when you go through
this process. Mentally it was a great experience, I did it two years ago.”
The striking singer said, however, that stripping off for the May Day
photo-shoot, which Spektrum staged at a naked bike ride protest, was
considerably less comfortable, even though she kept her top on throughout.
“So there I am topless, having given my clothes, bag and mobile phone to a
friend, with 700 naked people outside the American embassy, but I can’t ride
a bike properly,” she recalled.
“Whereas everybody else was really fast, so I was ended up being left on my
own, stranded outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. I had to
walk for about half an hour across Central London, topless.”
May Day is out now on Nonstop Records.
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