Stacey Q

Swain was born on November 30, 1958, in the Orange County suburb of Fullerton, California. She is the youngest of three children. Her mother, Joyce, bred Cardigan Welsh Corgis that have appeared in Hollywood films and television. In a 1989 interview, Swain said she was three years old when she asked for dance lessons, but had to wait until she was five, when she did classical ballet. In 1969, she became the youngest member of the Dance Theater of Orange County, a local company that performed at benefit shows in Anaheim. She spent 11 years studying ballet and also learned flamenco dancing. She performed at multiple Disneyland's Christmas Fantasy on Parade events. She studied at the Community Theatre of Performing Arts and the Wilshire Theatre of Arts. She also performed in costume as the "Dutch Puppet", a name she used as a publishing alias during her early recording career. She went to Loara High School during her sophomore year, but then transferred to Anaheim High School. After graduating from high school in 1976, Swain joined the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, where she performed as a showgirl in her first year, and as an elephant rider in her second year. Her first singing project was a Los Angeles radio spot where she introduced and announced programs while impersonating members of The Go-Go's.

In 1981, Swain was introduced to Jon St. James, the proprietor of Fullerton's Casbah Recording Studio, which hosted recordings for the bands Berlin and Social Distortion.

Jon was a big fan of synth bands like Kraftwerk and M; when he met Stacey Swain in 1981, he knew right away that this impossibly stylish former Ringling Bros. elephant girl and veteran of the Disney Main Street parade possessed star qualities perfectly compatible with electronic music, a genre Stacey also adored. She was enamored of the obscure Japanese band The Plastics and The B-52's, and simply could not get over David Bowie. As a student of style, Swain could literally turn rags into a fashion statement. On one occasion she went to the renaissance fair in Agoura dressed simply in two large pieces of soft leather she bought from a shop in Anaheim.

St. James was developing a synthpop group called Q, named after the James Bond character. The band consisted of St. James on guitars, and Dan Van Patten and John Van Tongeren on vocoder and synthesizer. She served as the assistant producer on the band's four tracks for The Q EP when St. James realized they needed a vocalist for their first track "Sushi", which Swain provided as she had previously recorded demos at his studio. She then became the lead singer for Q, although at that time, she still considered herself more of a dancer than a singer.

In 1981, Q (the original project) was Jon, Dan and myself hence Jon Q, Dan Q and Stacey Q. Q, the original name of the project, references James Bond and the scientist responsible for all his high-tech gadgets. ...

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