For the first time ever, Lorraine Lewis will be bringing Femme Fatale to Belfast when the Faster Pussycat tour arrives in the city in September. Femme Fatale will be supporting along with Blacklist Union.
Back when MTV played music, Lorraine and Femme Fatale made regular appearances with the tracks “Waiting For the Big One” and “Falling In And Out of Love”. Unfortunately, their self-titled debut album in 1988 was their only release before the band split in 1990.
She then fronted Vixen for a few years before returning with new music recently.
The interview will transcribed and posted here shortly and the video is available on the NI Rocks YouTune channel -
Friday NI Rocks Show No804 (22nd May) – Uploaded 23rd May 2026
SHAKRA - Just Live Loud!
FEMME FATALE - Living Like There’s No Tomorrow
Interview with LORRAINE LEWIS Part 1 (13min)
BLACKLIST UNION & LORRAINE LEWIS – Jackson
Interview with LORRAINE LEWIS Part 2 (10min)
FEMME FATALE – Bad Love (ft Bumblefoot)
Interview with LORRAINE LEWIS Part 3 (9min)
FEMME FATALE - If
VIXEN – Red
NIGHT RANGER - Don’t tell Me That You Love Me
TESLA - Spread Your Wings
CLUTCH – Evil
Promo feature for new DAN BYRNE album Part 1
DAN BYRNE – Pulling Me Under
Promo feature for new DAN BYRNE album Part 2
HEART – Barracuda
STATUS QUO - Caroline
AC/DC - Touch Too Much
KISS - Love Gun
Promo feature for new album by THE KARMA EFFECT Part 1
THE KARMA EFFECT – Long Gone
Promo feature for new album by THE KARMA EFFECT Part 2
ARMORED SAINT - Every Man – Any Man
SPREAD EAGLE - Ant Farm
BLACK SABBATH - The Mob Rules
IRON MAIDEN - Where Eagles Dare
NI ROCKS – Hi Lorraine, thanks for taking some time to chat to us. There are quite a few things I wanted to talk about, including your new single which we’ll come to shortly. But first of all, let’s talk about the upcoming tour of Europe in September. You’re touring with Faster Pussycat and Blacklist Union. How did you get involved in that and what can you tell us about the tour?
LORRAINE - How great is that? Well, first of all, let me say hi, Nigel. It's great to see you. I know you are in Belfast and yes, Femme Fatale, Blacklist Union and Faster Pussycat; we will all be in Belfast in September. I am over the moon excited about this tour. You know, Taime and I go way back to the Sunset Strip days. I met Taime when he used to work at a place called Retail Slut on Melrose Avenue. And I was really intrigued with that place because I had just moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico. And I was on Melrose Avenue walking around, checking out all the clothes and all of that stuff. And Retail Slut was known for being super edgy, kind of punk rock, if you will. And they had like a baby doll, several baby dolls in the window with nails through them with like paint as blood. I was really like, oh my God, what is this crazy place? And I went inside and lo and behold, there was Taime behind the counter. He used to work there and he looked really cool and edgy and kind of vampire-y, had black nail polish that was chipped, day-old eyeliner on. And I just thought he was the coolest looking cat that I had seen in LA. So, we got to chatting. I told him I had moved from Albuquerque and I was here to get a record deal. And we became fast friends and I would go visit him whenever I could at Retail Slot. So, we go way back and that's just a really cool honor for me to be touring with him. And basically how the tour came about is that I know Faster Pussycat was going to go out on tour. Blacklist Union led by Tony West, an amazing singer. Him and Taime are friends. And when the idea was sprouted to possibly go on tour with Faster Pussycat, they made it happen. Blacklist Union is direct support and I am the opener and I am happy and grateful to be opening up the show with the boys. I will say you boys better be ready because I don't come to play. I'm like in it to win it and go for it and be the femme fatale that I am. So yeah, I'm going to put on a great show to start off the night. So I'm very excited about this.
NI ROCKS – We’re looking forward to it. The tour includes a Belfast date, which is on 13th September and we’re all looking forward to. Will this be your first time in Belfast?
LORRAINE - It will be my first time in Belfast. I mean, I've done a lot of traveling, a lot of touring, etc., but never Belfast. So this will be my first time. What do you guys drink out there? Is there a certain kind of beer that I have to drink?
NI ROCKS - The traditional one is obviously Irish Guinness, but we've a lot of whiskey drinkers too, so we like our whiskey here.
LORRAINE - Okay. I like my whiskey too, so we'll have to throw one back when I get out there.
NI ROCKS – Will fans get a chance to chat with you after you’ve done your performance or maybe get stuff signed?
LORRAINE - Oh yeah, of course. Anybody can show up with vinyls or the CD or the cassette tape, by the way. I know that a lot of people still have those. And I will definitely be out and about and ready to sign. I know that I'll be at the merch table after the show. There's going to be some special merch from Femme Fatale, 8 by 10s. And then obviously whenever you make a purchase, you get a chance to take a selfie with me on your own device. I'm all about that. I'm all about the friends and fans of the band. This is a long time coming. And we're talking decades that I've been doing music and never been to Belfast. I would hope that people would be like, oh, dang, I remember her from the MTV days and come on out and support. It's going to be a hell of a show. It's going to be a hell of a night. I've been at the Blacklist Union rehearsals. Great band, great music. I mean, they're the real deal. And of course, Faster Pussycat is the crown cherry on top. You know, Taime and the boys always put on a great show. Taime is an amazing front person, great singer. And you can't deny those songs that have lasted for decades, you know, House of Pain, Babylon. I mean, so many great songs. So I'm excited. I'm going to be side stage, you know, checking it out during the shows and people will definitely get a chance to say hello to me. and hug and high five and selfies and all that stuff.
NI ROCKS – We’re looking forward to that. The recent Femme Fatale video for “Bad Love” featured Sean McNabb, Steve Brown and Nick Mason but I’m not sure if they are part of the upcoming tour line-up. Can you tell us who is going to be in your band when you come?
LORRAINE - Yeah, well, I will tell you that I've been honored and grateful that Steve Brown, who's been my producer for this release on Cleopatra Records…we've worked really hard. We have one more song to deliver to the label. I'm hoping that the album is going to be released in August, right before the tour, so that people will have a chance to get the vinyl and CDs, et cetera, as well as streaming. But all of those boys, even Bumblefoot who played on “Bad Love”, I would love to have those boys be my touring band, but I don't know if you realize, Sean McNabb is now on tour with David Lee Roth. And everybody's got something going on. Rounding up rock stars for my band, although challenging, I am really luck, I will have Nick Mason on drums, who actually was in the video for “Bad Love”. And I have a guitar player in the UK that is going to be my guitar slinger. I'm actually going to meet him for the first time this weekend. His name is Mike Wroe. Is that how I say his last name? W-R-O-E. Great guitar player; really seems to get the whole 80s vibe, a great player. And one of the things that I noticed about him is that not only does he seem to love 80s rock and be a great player, he looks like a young Keith Richards to me. I think that that's really cool. He came to me from Rex, who was in the Eagles of Death Metal camp. When we reached out to him our assistant Jen said, you know, Lorraine needs a guitar player for this UK tour and he suggested Mike and it just seems like a slam dunk. And I'm not ready to announce the bass player yet. But yeah, things are really great. And I'm excited. And we're going to have some rehearsal time. I've already sent them four songs that are definitely going to be in the set, which is “Bad Love”, “Living Like There's No Tomorrow”, “Waiting for the Big One”, and “Falling In and Out of Love”, of course. And then I'm kind of reaching out to the fans to find out what other Femme Fatale songs they want to hear. I've got a short set. I would imagine I'm gonna be on stage for 30 minutes, maybe 35 if I'm lucky. So, we're talking 7, 8 songs. I mean, I'd love to add “Rebel,” but then I also have a new ballad that's coming out this summer called “Home is Where the Heart Lives”, which is a killer song. I just recorded a song that was written by me and Jon Carlo (?) and David Julian. And that is a great song. I haven't even decided on the title yet. It's either going to be “Don't Call Me Your Angel” or “When the Devil's Not a Stranger”. I haven't locked that in yet, but it's killer, banger of a song. So yeah, the set's going to be challenging to put together because I want people, I think “My Baby's Gun” is going to make the set because that's from the first record and it's a great opener and just kind of sets the pace that shows you we are here to mother-funckin rock. So, I'm going to go take it to the fans to help me put the set together.
NI ROCKS – Yeah, I saw “Fortune & Fame” mentioned too on one of your posts.
LORRAINE - I love “Fortune & Fame”, but then you've also got “Back in Your Arms Again”, which is gonna be a single. I mean, yeah, narrowing it down to 30 minutes, knowing that I have all of these great other songs that are just being released is gonna really be challenging. And then I have done some collaborating with Tony West from Blacklist Union. We're releasing, actually a week from tonight, 6 pm., the world premiere of “Jackson”, which was recorded by June Carter and Johnny Cash. We recorded it with Chris Johnson, who is considered the sixth member of Blacklist Union, worked with Evanescence, so many other bands. And he was our producer for that song. We have a video that's dropping that is the coolest. And this is not recorded like June and Johnny did it. I mean, we brought the punk rock. We bought a Ramones vibe to it. It is punk rock to the max. I think people are really going to dig the video and the song for sure.
NI ROCKS – That was actually going to be my next question, but you've answered most of it. Why did you pick “Jackson” as a song to play?
LORRAINE - We chose it because I was with Tony and we met with a friend named Heidi. We were hanging out. We had just done the song, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around”. And we like working together. We plan to release that as well. But she just kind of said, you guys should do that song, “Jackson”. And we kind of looked at each other and we were like, let's check it out. And so we did. And then obviously we wanted to do it, but Tony's idea was to make it more Ramones style. So it's in your face. You know, it's not the tempo that June and Johnny did it. It's really aggressive and cool. So yeah, that's really how that all came about. And we really dig working together. You know, he's got a great voice and I, I haven't known Tony for a really long time. We met in October at a funeral, by the way, for Glen La Ferman, who is a mutual friend, great rock and roll photographer. And that's how we met. And the interesting thing about going on tour, well, one of the many interesting things about going on tour with Faster Pussycat and Blacklist Union is that Taime actually introduced Tony and I at the funeral that day, which just seems so interesting and bizarre that now we're all going on tour together is like magic. You can't write this stuff. When the universe decides what they want to do, what kind of tour that they want to see, that's what happens. So it's really interesting. So I've done a deep dive with Blacklist Union. And if you don't know the music, you really should check it out. Hooks for days in those choruses. A great singer, great band. And again, produced by Chris Johnson, you can't go wrong with those tracks. So it's going to be a hell of a night, you know, kind of like I feel that Blacklist Union is kind of the new Hollywood, even though, you know, Sunset Strip, edgy, dirty rock and roll, even though Tony's. band and they've released six albums are on their seventh right now. But then you, you know, you've got like somewhat the new breed of Hollywood dirt, rock and roll. And then you've got the, the iconic Faster Pussycat who is all sweat and, and the streets of Hollywood. It's a great lineup. I think it's going to be really cool. I think it's going to be really amazing and magical. Look, we've got 19 dates in 26 days. It's going to be back-to-back to back on a lot of them. We're ready. We're here for it. I will say that the tour wraps in Italy on my birthday, September 26. I can't think of a better way to celebrate my birthday. Back in the day when I got the call about getting on tour with Cheap Trick, that was actually on my birthday that I got that announcement from HK Management. And he was like, I've got a birthday present for you. How do you feel about going on tour with Cheap Trick? I was like, hell yeah. So yeah, it's pretty amazing. And after all of these years and decades, really, to be on tour like this is, that's magic. That's all you can say. But you know, I am the girl that will never go away. Rock and roll is who I am. I'm never leaving until they carry me out. And so, yeah, I'm honored and grateful for sure to still be doing what I do, which is I love rock and roll.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play that now.