After years of making a name for herself as an independent musician and nightlife personality in New York City, Queenie Sateen found herself at a crossroads. Having just split up with her wife and bandmate of a decade, she decided to make a change. Having always been a performer, she headed for Los Angeles to apply those skills in a new medium, and take her shot at a career in porn.
“I’m not going to say it was overnight, because it’s not that simple — but it basically was!” she remembers. “I got an agent and moved out to LA, all within a month.”
The learning curve she experienced was equally rapid.
“When I entered porn, I really had no idea what a great porn performance even was,” Sateen admits. “I did not study the craft at all. I wanted to cut my teeth and figure it out through experience. In a year and a half I’ve gone from not knowing anything to feeling super confident in myself as a porn performer.”
With her new job came a multitude of other changes.
“The ways I’ve grown since I moved out to LA and started in porn are innumerable,” she reflects. “Having been married for almost a decade, with my whole life and career wrapped around that relationship, being on my own in a new city with a new career taught me so much about myself.”
One thing she learned, after years of being accustomed to direct creative control over anything she released, on her own or with her band Sateen, was how to be a part of others’ creative visions for various brands and studios.
“I have sponged so much valuable firsthand experience about production and acting!” Sateen declares. “Now I am just itching to parlay all I’ve learned into my own creative vision.”
As a multifaceted artist with musical chops, she has sought to express herself via porn in a uniquely “Queenie Sateen” manner, which is why she kept her stage name from her music career.
“I always want to be viewed as the same artist, and porn is just a new medium,” she explains. “I think it’s always been important for me to just be myself: a girl who hails from a rich queer nightlife, music and fashion subculture in NYC. I came to represent! I think in our industry it’s not always about individualism. Fundamentally, our job is catering to what men want to jerk it to; it can be easy to lose yourself in all that. I wanted to work as much as I could, but also never lose myself. I couldn’t help writing music.”
One of the key milestones in her success has been signing with Spiegler Girls. Sateen praises Mark Spiegler as an icon and a straight shooter, not to mention a great agent.
“I’m super happy being a Spiegler Girl, and it feels like a good fit to me because I love working,” she shares. “I’m proud to be on his roster amongst lots of amazing performers, bombshells and legends.”
Shooting with so many studios and fellow talent, Sateen has developed a few close confidantes and favorite collaborators, both inside the industry and out.
“I still work with the gays that I have kept in my life since I was hosting queer nightlife events in New York and touring the nation with my band,” she explains. “Though in this industry, Arabelle Raphael is one of my best friends and favorite collaborators. I met her years ago, before I got into porn. But when I decided I wanted to move to LA, she let me live in her house.
“She is an incredible performer who has been in the industry for over 12 years, and she’s been there for me, to give me advice and cheer me on,” she states. “We both love Jacques Demy movies, ‘Sex and the City’ and listen to Thai funk from the ’70s. It’s so nice to have a friend, collaborator and confidante you can shoot the shit with about art, music, fashion, interior decor and life, who also knows what it is like to be in this industry.”
As for bringing to life her particular brand and visual style, which blends glam, grit and a touch of vintage, Sateen cites among her inspirations nightlife, style and performance icons Susanne Bartsch and Amanda Lepore, as well as Cher.
“Consistency is key and so is expression,” she says. “I will have black hair on my head until my dying day, whether it’s in the shape of a dick, or 80 inches down my back. Other than that, I’m just being me. It’s not carefully crafted; it is ingrained in me.
“I still have the same vintage clothes in my closet that I’ve had for a decade,” she adds. “I try to surround myself with imagery that inspires me. I prefer to scroll through my feed and see Vogue scans from 2003 or stills from a Fellini movie. Beauty feeds me. I can’t really describe my aesthetic or style, because I really feel like a chameleon and the way I present myself changes all the time. I’m just into the fantasy! Full fantasy, baby!”
That attitude well suits her work on this past year’s multi-XBIZ-Award-winning Vixen Media Group feature “Influence: Vanna Bardot,” for which she not only performed onscreen, but also created original music.
“Mike Miller asked me offhand if I would be interested in writing a theme song for a showcase, and of course the idea excited me and I said, ‘Yes!’” she recalls.
After not hearing anything else for a couple of months, she got a call from Mike Moz, the other Vixen Media Group honcho, nine days before production began. Having to write and record the song in a week proved a challenge, but one she was up for.
“I asked as many questions as I could about the film and decided I wanted to write a slow, sexy song, a Bond song,” she says. “The next day, I woke up and it poured out of me. I was strumming these chords on my guitar and I figured out the verses and chorus. I called my good friend George Lewis Jr. aka Twin Shadow, and he was down to produce it on short notice.
“He is an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist, and he helped fill in blanks, and absolutely nailed the sonic vibe I was going for,” Sateen remembers. “We recorded, finished writing and mixed the song all in one evening. I can write a song and sing it, but production is not my forte. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to make the song ‘Under My Influence’ what it was, which is something I am truly proud of.”
Another style that dovetails nicely with Sateen’s overall vibe and aesthetic is XBIZ Performer of the Year Seth Gamble’s “cinemacore” filmmaking, which he employs as a director for brands like Wicked and his very own LucidFlix. She also got to make music for him, in more ways than one.
“Seth told me his vision about making porn taking place across the decades, and I was super excited because I am someone who watches Turner Classic Movies all day long,” she says. “Obviously, when he told me he wanted me to write music for it, that was a cherry on top. It was my first time working with Seth as my director, and it was truly a dream. He is meticulous and exacting with his vision, which is a quality I not only respect and admire, but really hope for in a director.”
She wrote an original 1930s-style medley with one classic song thrown in. She found singing in that style to be a fun challenge, and working with Gamble to be a meeting of the minds, like they were truly making art together, which excited her. She says she wants more of that in her life.
This past year also brought an opportunity to write and perform a song for a Ricky Greenwood-directed Dorcel feature, for which she also did all of the wardrobe. And of course, she did all this while also starring in so many scenes that she has lost count.
“The amount I’ve squirted could probably fill up a wading pool!” she says. “I’ve fucked with passion, I’ve gotten to act. I really love acting, I really love fucking and I’m really proud that I’ve been able to bring who I am as a musical artist into this career. That is probably the thing I am most proud of.”
With her prolific work schedule, Sateen says, the real trick will be finding a way to set aside enough time to write a solo album and release a Sateen album, while also shooting porn.
“I want my cake and to eat it too,” she says. “I believe you can fully be in porn and also have a career in another industry simultaneously. That’s really what I want to do.”
As a relative newcomer, Sateen remembers being absolutely in shock when her name was called as XBIZ Best New Performer.
“I didn’t prepare anything, so I just said, ‘I’m just a weird bitch from New York City!’” she laughs. “I was shaking! I’d gotten so used to being an underdog from the queer underbelly of New York that I’d never even dreamed of winning any awards.
“So many incredible performers were nominated, so being recognized alongside so many people I respect was amazing,” she adds. “I’m honored and I’m elated. I really do feel like I’ve worked my ass off, though, and it feels really good to be recognized for that.”
For 2024 and beyond, Sateen plans to keep working, keep exploring and never stop creating. This year, she wants to take as many bookings as she can in the porn world and hopefully build her catalog of music.
“Sateen has a full-length record coming out this year,” she notes. “I would also like to make a solo record and keep writing. In the coming years, it’s my dream to direct, write, score and produce my own movie. I just want to keep pushing the boundaries of what being a porn star and being an artist means. To me porn is art. It’s one and the same.”
