Houston’s Space Kiddettes are a Dynamic Queer Synth-Pop Duo

Recently featured in the Houston Chronicle and Houston Press, the Space Kiddettes are a rising duo to watch.

A collaboration between University of Houston alumni Trent Lira, a 25-year-old gay man, and Devin Will, a 22-year-old bisexual woman, the Space Kiddettes began working on their freshman EP, Livingspace // Headspace, in October 2015. Since releasing the five-track mini-album in 2017, Lira and Will have performed their synth-pop tunes at popular Houston nightclubs including Barbarella, Pearl Bar, and Leon Lounge.

The band’s music pays homage to ’70s and ’80s New Wave. Yazoo, Devo, Oingo Boingo, and Depeche Mode are among the Space Kiddettes’ musical influences, Will says.

Lira and Will’s attention to detail is unmatched. What sets the Space Kiddettes apart from other up-and-coming performers is their eccentricity that can be seen in every part of their work. They insert clever (and sometimes obscure) pop-culture references into each of the band’s instrumentals, live stage performances, and even their name: the group titled themselves after a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon called The Space Kidettes, but added an extra “d” to avoid copyright issues.

“There is a sense of humor that bleeds into our music,” Lira says. “People don’t always catch our references, but they seem to like what we’re doing. We’re high-energy, and the crowds we play for get into that.”

“Process Ü,” the first single from the Space Kiddette’s second EP set for release this fall, compares social anxiety to a computer that has difficulty processing information.

Will says she relates to “Process Ü,” and was more involved in the songwriting for the new EP than she was for Livingspace // Headspace.

“We’re doing things more collaboratively, and our new music will reflect that,” Will says. “Our EP will tell a full story—a nostalgic one about a young person with no car or means of leaving the suburbs. Trent and I have both experienced that.”

Aside from creating music, Lira and Will work on projects that are a part of “the Space Kiddettes’ lifestyle.” On the last Saturday of each month, they host Drag Queen Story Time at the Houston Public Library’s Freed-Montrose campus. Lira created the event and kicked it off with Will in September 2017 after he saw that drag queens were reading to children in public libraries in other cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. This month’s Drag Queen Story Time will take place at the library on August 25.

On Fridays, the Space Kiddettes upload a weekly podcast, Space Case, in which they investigate unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories, and issues that plague their personal lives.

You can also find the Space Kiddettes co-hosting Magical Girl Day (a drag convention and music showcase) on August 4 at the Park Inn Hotel and Convention Center, and performing at Circus Tour at Spruce Goose on August 28.

For more info about the Space Kiddettes, go to spacekiddettes.bandcamp.com.

This article appears in the August 2018 edition of OutSmart magazine.