The Skinny On... Iona Zajac
Touring member of The Pogues and recording artist in her own right, Iona Zajac has released three exquisite, soul-baring singles this year with more to follow. She takes on this month's Q&A
What’s your favourite place to visit?
I wouldn’t say I have a favourite place. But if I’m on tour and feeling homesick I’ll seek out a department store like John Lewis and buy something boring and practical like socks or pants. A grounding familiar place in an unknown city. I love Ridley Road Market too, I was born at home round the corner and lived there till I was four before moving to Scotland. It’s a wild place full of life and characters that feels quite similar to 25 years ago despite surrounding Dalston changing so much.
What's your favourite food?
Pastaaaaa. Comfort simple filling chewy goodness.
What's your favourite colour?
I think it would have to be red – for me it’s blood and power and rage and love and it’s the colour of my first record.
Who was your hero growing up?
My grandad. He still is. He’s 90 and I sometimes live with him in London. He was a producer at the BBC and can relay the plot and characters of every book he’s read in his life. We end days with a stiff G&T and practice our yodelling to the Soggy Bottom Boys. I’ve never met a more resilient man with such joie-de-vivre and interest in others. We get on the tube and by the time we’ve got off he knows all about the life of the person he sat next to.
Whose work inspires you now?
Women artists that do something brave and bold. I’ve found such inspiration in the making of my first record from writers like Emily Dickinson and Audre Lord. From musicians like Patti Smith, PJ Harvey and Eastern European female choirs – I like women who yell. Visually, I recently discovered Judy Chicago's Women and Smoke. Look it up, but for now picture a strong naked woman painted entirely red walking through a desert holding two flares. And Frida Kahlo always.
What three people would you invite to your dinner party and what are you cooking?
Billy Connolly, President Michael D. Higgins and Imogen Poots. I’m cooking Mediterranean fish stew with big chunks of chewy bread.
What's the worst meal you prepared when you first started cooking for yourself?
My go-to lunch in first year of uni was a 20p white roll and a tin of mackerel. How to lose friends in the library.
What’s your all-time favourite album?
I couldn’t choose one album. Gaelic Folk Songs by The Sound of Mull, Third by Portishead, The Livelong Day by Lankum, I Get into Trouble by Maple Glider, Colour Green by Sybille Baier. All unlocked bits of my brain at different stages.
What’s a song you love from the first physical release you bought?
Pump It from Black Eyed Peas’ Monkey Business – happy car journeys blasting this and still a go-to karaoke band when I’m with my sis.
What’s the worst film you’ve ever seen?
Most recently I can think of The Salt Path, it was a big case of nothing.
What book would you take to a desert island?
Hannah Sullivan's Three Poems. It’s the poetry collection I always return to and find something new. You feel every move of the people she’s writing about. Or Claire Keegan’s short stories Antarctica, she is the GOAT.
Who’s the worst?
The governments who are complicit in war and killing innocent people.
Tell us a secret?
I once had a sex dream about Elton John, we were running away from danger and he had lost his glasses.
If you could be reincarnated as an animal, which animal would it be?
I’d be a hare for a day because Zajac means hare in Polish and Ukrainian, so I think I’d make a good one, and I have no idea what they get up to.
You’ve had a busy year so far as a touring member of The Pogues – what’s that experience been like for you?
An absolute treat and at times very bonkers. I’m used to playing mostly on my own to crowds who don’t know me, so walking out on stage with original Pogues members to crowds practically climbing on stage with excitement and roaring the words you’re singing back at you is pretty surreal. It’s the best craic ever, I feel very lucky to be doing it.
You’ve also been touring as an artist in your own right, with three gorgeous tracks – Summer, Bang and Anton – released since February. What does the rest of the year have in store for you? Anything you can let us in on?
Thank you, it’s felt very exciting and special and also revealing and scary to release these tracks. They are part of a bigger world, and I will say the rest of it is coming quite soon...
Iona Zajac joins Lisa O'Neill for two nights at Cottiers, Glasgow, 22 & 23 Sep
Follow Iona Zajac on Instagram @ionazajac