Her hair styled into Sailor Moon braids, her violin bow slashing at the air like Joan of Arc's sword, a Lourds show is halfway between a rock concert and being initiated into the Elysian mysteries. The curious may first venture into her sanctuary because they're intrigued by her outrageous costumes or her ever-growing reputation, but once they witness the way this tiny girl-woman can fill a room with her voice, her music, and her passion, they keep coming back. Anyone who had seen her play, however, might be surprised that, in person, "The Queen of Rock" is utterly unprepossessing. Lourds was kind enough to grant CORPORATE MOFO staff writer The Mighty Afrodite an interview in Rosario's Pizza, near Arlene Grocery. The following is a true and accurate transcript of this historic meeting of minds:

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Mighty Afrodite: Let's talk, first, of all, about your musical history.

Lourds: I started playing when I was three years old.

MA: Was that your idea, or did somebody else just put it in your hands and say, "Hey, try this"?

Lourds: It was absolutely my mom's idea. Nobody knows much when they're three years old. I don't think I had a natural inclination towards anything, but my mom wanted all three of her kids to start playing the violin at three years old. And it also was that Asian overachiever ethic to have your kids good at everything, I think she expected it to be a hobby, to make me that much more of a Renaissance woman, a well-rounded person, as opposed to the fool that I am, deciding to do music for a living. I started playing huge stages when I was five or six, Carnegie Hall when I was seven. I was a miniature violin prodigy. I would do piano recitals and violin concerts, play for people, travel around the world. It was absolutely a prodigal upbringing, and it was cute—"Look at my daughter, she plays instruments, she can do sports"-the whole gamut.

MA: A real Renaissance kid!

Lourds: [laughs] Yeah. Then I started jumping off of stages.

MA: So. . . when did that start?

Lourds: I saw a KISS concert, and I was so. . . inspired by the energy.

MA: How old were you?

Lourds: I was seven, or six. Truthfully, anywhere between six and eight. I say eight for interviews, but somewhere between six and eight, those are the really intense formative years when you're just developing your brain. And all the pomp and drama and fire and explosions and excitement—

MA: Hey, I'm up for anything with explosions.

Lourds: I was so thrilled by it, and I don't think my dad took me knowing what we were going to be seeing, I think he thought it was probably just a circus sideshow. Really, I thought he thought it would be clowns. . . makeup. . . this was going to be fun. He saw an ad in the paper, and he took me there, but next thing you know, I was jumping off of stages and just wailing into the audience. I was totally inspired by this band. Some people say my tongue was sticking out. . . but the point is I really, really got into the entertainment factor of it all, and the rock 'n' roll aesthetic and I put that into the classical world that I was totally immersed in.

My conductor hated it! He really hated it, and he reprimanded me after the concert, even though the audience was cheering, and yelling, and screaming, and excited at the sight of this little kid playing into the audience. I think that's when I started not caring about classical, because my conductor said, "You're crazy, you should not be doing this." And you can't tell me I should not be doing this. I was going with my heart. I was just expressing myself. If he was cooler, I might still be in classical music.

So, I started playing harder with my bow, now I'm finding ways to distort the violin, and I'm embellishing Bach concertos and Beethoven concertos, and making my own endings to them. And I'm becoming more and more rock 'n' roll, to rebel against my strict teachers, who really wanted me to become the next violin prodigy, to be the next Itzhak Perlman, the next Isaac Stern.

MA: But to do that, you had to have your own character.

Lourds: I would think!

MA: Otherwise, you're just another violinist in a sea of violinists.

Lourds: And, like I said, had I gotten that kind of support, I think I might still be pursuing classical music, you know, and then I would have my own character, and I might have been in orchestras, and I might have been the next Itzhak Perlman. It would be Lourds, and it would be classical music. But, you know, because he said "no," I said, "Fuck you," pretty much, in my own little seven-year-old way.

Next: "Then I discovered the electric violin"