Emma Marx-Hall: Well, technically we weren't called Knave of Hearts then. We were called Prince of Darkness, which we chose because it's both a little glamorous, and a little "fuck off". I was never really sure about it because for one thing, it sounded a bit goth, and for another, Lane hated the Satan reference.
But anyway.
Prince of Darkness was Emma Marx-Hall on lead vocals and guitar, Alan Léonin on bass, and this bloke called Kenneth on drums. Kenneth and I met at the students' union. I feel a bit sick telling you about it now. I had worn one of my 'hot' dresses, you know, where you always feel like queen of the fucking world. And I went out on the pull, and I pulled this bloke who never took his fucking hat off, because I wanted to know what kind of hair he had.
Brown, as it turns out. Boring as you please.
I mean, he was nice enough, and he agreed to play drums with us, which is always a plus because at the time, no one played drums. Lane was thinking about taking up drums, even though she kept saying that music wasn't her thing. But we couldn't even find a drum set, so that was basically not happening.
So Kenneth played. And I think he thought that he and I had a thing, and I wasn't really sure if maybe we might have had a thing. So we practiced the songs and it was all going pretty well. And we did a few shows at parties, and then this one was at a proper club. We were supposed to be the opening act. I say supposed to be because we sort of made it impossible for someone else to go on after us, which I will explain.
There was a fair amount of people at the club; it was one of those little basement places. Odor of hipster filtering through the air. A fine mix of charity shop, cheap beer, and sweat. I'm sitting on Kenneth's lap and having a panic attack. Alan is pacing in circles and having a worse panic attack. Kenneth is not having a panic attack and has his hands all over me. I am batting his hands off. He is playing with my hair and I hate it, especially because he is wearing a hat.
We go on. "We are Prince of Darkness," I say, "And we're here for your souls."
Our first song is...great. I can't even remember which song it is. I just remember feeling really good about everything after that. My panic attack is gone, and Alan smiles—a little, you know he never smiles with his teeth. He is going to sing the next song. It's called "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die". We put bits of into this one song called "The Omen", which is sort of about depression and sort of about being the antichrist, but this song is mostly just about depression. I remember this really well. Alan goes, "This song is called 'I Hate Another Dead-End Street'"—that's the name of the club—"'I Hate Another Dead-End Street And You're All Idiots.' You think you know who you are because you've got a uniform to wear, but you're just as shallow as all the rest, and you choose your friends because they get you the best drugs..." and he keeps going on like this. Like I realize that he's in the middle of a panic attack and really needs to get off stage, but Kenneth starts counting us in.
And it's not 100% Kenneth's fault, because inside me there's this little voice of pure evil saying: what you are about to do, is about to be awesome. And in a way, it was awesome. We started playing the song, and halfway through, Alan, who I now realize is probably also drunk, starts talking—not changing the lyrics or anything, just talking, going on about I don't even know what, but part of it includes the phrase "I'm on medication that says not to drink alcohol on the label" and someone in the audience says, "Why don't you just kill yourself and get it over with?"
And Alan turns his back on the crowd and walks out.
So I say, we can't play this without Alan, and I try to unplug my amp, but instead I unplug the mixer, and the sound guy starts yelling at me, and Kenneth thinks I'm trying to do a punk rock thing and starts kicking his drums around. Just sort of, not smashing them because we can't afford a new drum kit, just kicking them. And then I run over and start yelling at Kenneth, and we're basically having a row on stage, so then of course we get bounced—can you say that you get bounced? The bouncers take us out. It's our own concert. I start crying and Kenneth says it's my fault. I tell him he's out of the band and he says fuck the band.
Alan is sitting next to a skip and playing his bass.
He's smiling with his teeth.
We rode the bus home and I put my head on his shoulder and almost fell asleep before we got back to student housing.
Alan Léonin: Yeah, the infamous "I Hate Myself And Want You To Die" concert. I'm fairly sure I was drunk, and I tried to convince someone in the audience I was crazy—I think I said I couldn't drink alcohol with my medications, which was...complete bullshit, and he told me to kill myself. And Emma had some idiot on drums that she only let in the band because she was in love with him. That was what it was like, at the beginning.
And then things started to change.
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