Sister Roma on finding queer solace in San Francisco, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show

Thank you so much.

Tell me about your earliest musical memory, if you can.

Please tell me what might have been playing at home when you were growing up.

What are those kind of earliest memories of music you can recall?

I am a toddler, like maybe less than five years old.

I'm sitting in the car next to my mom.

She's driving.

And the radio is on.

And of course, there's no car seat, no seat belt.

This was back in the day.

And this song, Downtown by Petula Clark, was like at the top of the charts.

And it came on the radio.

Things will

be great when you're downtown No final place for sure downtown Everything's waiting for you

Next thing I know, I'm singing along.

Like, I literally was living for this song.

Downtown, where all the lights are bright.

Downtown, I want to go.

And I can remember the look on my mom's face looking over at me and Garci kind of just going... what is you you want to live downtown and like yes like I just always knew that is really my probably my first musical memory

I really think that song is like a bat signal for little queer boys when they hear those keywords downtown lights are bright queer boys of any generation when they hear that song they're like that's that's me I want to do that and I can imagine there's many mums like yours looking at their child with a side eye being like what's going on here

Right.

Well, who have I created? What is happening? And it turned out to be very prophetic

and accurate.

And tell me about when, like, as you were growing a bit older through childhood, how else were you discovering music? How and where were you absorbing music from?

I remember when 45s were a big thing and I started getting my own money like in birthday cards or doing little chores around the house and my mom and I would go shopping.