Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Queen Divas of the Universe

RIYL

The Runaways, L7, Vixxen, Lita Ford

Inception

San Diego , 2009

Influences

Suzi Quatro, the Runaways
Sponsored

Queen Divas of the Universe consists of music vets: bassist Shaaron Hancock-Schuemaker (Tim Flannery, Koko Loco, Hot Flash), keyboardist Laurie Beebe Lewis (the New Mamas and Papas), and guitarist Roni Lee (Venus and the Razorblades).

Released in December 2011, their debut full-length All Wrapped Up in Christmas includes ten holiday evergreens, such as Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph,” marking the first new music from Clairemont-based guitarist Lee in almost three decades.

Lee arrived in San Diego in 1984 to settle down with her family at the tail-end of a career that had seen her perform in latter-day versions of Steppenwolf and Spirit, as well as record an as-yet-unreleased album under the band name Touch, backed by the original Heart rhythm section.

However, it’s Lee’s earliest group, the Kim Fowley–constructed Venus and the Razorblades, that had the biggest impact. Although the band wouldn’t have any chart success, they released one of the earliest U.S. punk singles, “Punkerama,” in 1977. Meanwhile, one of their songs, “I Want to Be Where the Boys Are,” cowritten by Lee and Fowley, became a regular part of the Runaways’ live set.

It likely helped that Lee was then roommates with Runaways Joan Jett and Sandy West. The song was included on their 1977 Live in Japan album, while more recently it was sung by actress Kristen Stewart in the 2010 Runaways biopic. In 2011, it was covered by punk band F-13 on a Runaways tribute disc.

Now a mother of three, Lee is anxious to get back into music but acknowledges that while the energy level in her music is still high, things are less boisterous today than during her time rocking on the Sunset Strip.

“Venus and the Razor Blades were the first punk band to reopen the Whisky A Go-Go for music after the club had been used as a theater for some time,” she recalled. Van Halen was a regular opening act for her band at the club and recorded another of Venus and the Razor Blades’ songs, “Young and Wild.”

“All shows started with a wrestling match to get pumped up, usually instigated by Joan Jett and myself,” Lee said. “She and I would ride the shoulders of the Van Halen boys and have ‘fights.’ I remember getting rolled down the stairs of the Whisky in a barrel by David Lee Roth,” she laughed. “I believe Joan and my boot heels’ holes are still part of the famous ‘Whisky wall’ backstage.”

Lewis began as a guitarist. "I graduated from guitar to double bass. I got sick of bass and went back to guitar and my sister took up bass. We started a band called Pitch-blende. My mother loved Scrabble. She found the word in the dictionary. We bought a school bus and we cleaned it out and we were the original Partridge Family. My mother drove and my sister and I were in a band. We traveled all over Michigan. We toured with Bob Seeger, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, the MC5."

After high school she logged about a half million miles playing piano in a Dixieland jazz band. "And after that, I hooked up with the Spinners. Then Les Elgart, the big band leader. From there, I joined the Buckinghams. We recorded an album and toured with the Mamas and the Papas. When the tour was over the Buckinghams went back to being an all guy band. So I looked at San Diego and I married my husband and I started singing with the Mamas and the Papas. I replaced Mackenzie Phillips. That was for about a year until she had her baby and got clean and sober from all the drugs she was on."

How did Queen Divas of the Universe come to be?

Schuemaker: "Well. I had another all-female band called Hot Flash, and we went through some personnel changes. And I had called Roni. She wasn't available but she gave me Laurie's phone number, and somehow or another we all managed to meet up and we played."

Lee: "Laurie had the band name because she got in a fight with her husband one night and basically he said to her, who do you think you are? Queen Diva of the universe? And she said yeah, as a matter of fact, I am."

Says Lee, "We decided long ago that we are a cover band. Even though we have originals that's not what we're trying to do. We can play anything, though, because we've all three done everything. We've all got a big long history. We get together whenever we can."

According to Lewis, "One of the goals we have as the Divas is to take each genre that we represent and make a little play, a little story about our backgrounds. Where we came from. A 55-minute little show that would introduce us."

Sponsored

Upcoming Local Shows

No shows scheduled

Post a show View show history
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.