Chicago’s Baddest Bitch: Logan Zass

Logan Zass is a drag performer, entertainer, and all around bad bitch located out of Chicago.

A member of Berlin’s monthly show “Squad Goals,” Logan has proven herself as a successful queen in the scene. I’ve met with her to ask her about drag, makeup routines, and Chicago nightlife.

Click below to hear the podcast!

Subscribe to Windy Pictures to hear the full interview (sidebar)

—

Who is Logan Zass?

LZ:  Logan Zass is my drag personality.  My alter ego.  It started off as alter ego but it kind of just brings out who I am on the inside that.. little gay Sebastian can’t.. act like this.  I mean I could, but it would be a little ridiculous if I did.  I always say Logan is that girl.. she’s from the hood and her parents won the lottery and they move her out to the valley and she’s surrounded by nothing but her white girlfriends and they just don’t understand her but that’s just why she is who she is.  She hangs out with all the white girls, but it’s like you can take the girl out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl.

I just love the ghetto fabulousness of what Logan brings.  That’s in a nutshell of what I do, what Logan is, or who she is.  A very exaggerated personality of who I think I should be in my mind.  I just let it explode that way.

SW:  And she is awesome.  You have to come and see her perform at Squad Goals, is it?

LZ:  Squal Goals, Berlin.  I’m not in every one but I’m in most of ‘em which is every 4th Tuesday of the month at Berlin nightclub.  I also do other shows, I’ve been doing Sidetrack, I’ve been doing SyncIt, that’s kind of it.  You can really catch me at Berlin.  Berlin is my home bar.

How did you get started doing drag?

LZ: My old roommate at the time had been playing around and dabbling with makeup and drag and kinda just doing those.. we lived by like a  lesbian bar, we used to live in like Hermosa.  He decided to just hop over there in drag a few nights and stuff like that and eventually ended up kind of hosting a little karaoke night there.  And I would always go and I would dance and do karaoke and stuff. Back home, drag race would be on.  Kind of at this time, I was very against drag queens and I thought they were kind of disgusting and weird.  I didn’t know anything about them, I just knew about RuPaul and Divine.

Other than that, I didn’t know much about drag until I started watching Drag Race and seeing my roommate do it at the time.  He would always like “let’s put on heels and perform around the house,” and I was just like.. this is stupid.  But we would get drunk, drink a whole bottle of wine, and then lip sync battle it.  Do lip sync for your life like all night and then strutting our shit.

Eventually it got to the point where like “let me do your makeup” and it was like okay, he did my makeup and I looked terrible, like shit.  At the time, I was really getting into drag race, to the point where I was doing so much back history on drag, beyond drag race, so I should probably just go out and buy my own makeup.  That’s like history basically, that was it.  Went out, spent like all my money, spent maybe, dropped $1,000 on like makeup, wigs.  My friends gave me a lot of their clothes that they didn’t wear anymore and that’s it.  Watched a couple tutorials on YouTube and then she was birthed.

I must say, I thought I was gonna be like a goth queen.  I thought I was gonna be this really dark, edgy chick and that’s nothing of what I am now.  It’s probably the total opposite.  I had this big, black Lolita wig and I thought that was everything.  I thought it was like… three wigs in one, and I thought I was the shit.  But if I look at pictures now, I’m like omg that was so crusty.

SW: If you scroll back on her Instagram long enough, you can find it.

LZ: They’ll be deleted, I’m sorry.

Why do you do drag?

LZ: It kind of.. piggy backs to what I was just saying, it brings out something in me that I can’t just normally do just walking down the street or in my every day boy life at work and stuff.    I can’t just act this way.  I do drag because not only… not to get the violins out or anything, but it made me love myself a lot more as a boy.  Logan has kind of been that muscle that was… it makes you realize a lot of things.  When you put so much of this effort and time into this craft, it kinda brought it out of me.

It really made me love myself a lot more and then also… the word no doesn’t exist.   I feel like there’s some type of empowerment of being in drag.  The word no does not exist.  I can literally get away with just about anything I want when I’m in drag.  It’s this weird superhuman… Once the wig is on, that’s when I totally feel the fantasy, once that’s on, she’s here.  I’m doing it.  Seb who?  Kinda like that.

It gives me a little bit of make believe but like a strong bitch.  I love that, too.  Growing up, I would love seeing very rambunctious, empowered female characters.  Especially women of color on TV.  That’s kind of what I draw a lot of my inspiration from.  As gay guys, a lot of us do that and have that little Kiki voice and I feel it looks and feels so much better when I’m in full drag.  It all adds up.  I love to perform, too.  I love to lip sync.  There’s so many reasons why I do drag.  Even as a little boy, I was playing with makeup in the bathroom for two hours, telling my mom I was taking a shit.

SW: You’ve been in there a while now!

LZ: Come out with mascara still on my face, and they’d be like “what were you doing?” Nothing!  Clocked. Playing with my moms heels and stuff in the room, dancing around.  Then quickly taking them off when I hear her coming up the steps.  I always did that.  Growing up, I always had my own music video of how I thought that song should have and I would dance around my room and act like I was in the music video.  It kind of all builds up to who I am and what we do now on stage and stuff.  How creative I can be with the look and what I want to do with it. 

How would you describe Chicago drag?  What’s the social scene like?

LZ: I think Chicago drag right now is the best it’s ever been.  It’s probably just going to continue getting better.  We have a lot of amazing queens here.  And the art form, if we’re talking about that.  I think it’s very competitive here, that’s what makes Chicago great.  There’s hundreds of queens here, you never know who you’re going to get.  There’s always new queens on the scene.  It’s a thriving city right now, it’s kind of a hot spot. So many other queens are moving here, they just want a piece of the action.

What inspires you?

LZ: Inspires me?  My drag, basically? A lot of things inspire me.  I love reality TV.  Women in reality TV, especially women of color.  Puerto Ricans, black girls, asians, whatever.  If you were crazy… you could be white too, I probably don’t care.  I love crazy bitches on reality TV.

I grew up watching the Real World, Bad Girls Club, now it’s like… still Love and Hip Hop, all these… all these women who are exploiting themselves.. giving this side of them and I think it’s really cool.  It’s a big inspiration because… it’s very entertaining and I also love a bad bitch.  People always like, “oh, I’m bad.”  No.  I love a crazy, bad bitch on TV.

Someone that truly inspired me was New York, Tiffany Pollard.  That personality is fucking amazing.  She is gold.  Whatever she does is hilarious.  Whether you love her or hate her, she’s funny as fuck.  I love that.  I think that’s really inspiring.  To still be a bad bitch but still be funny.  Growing up, one of my first CD’s I ever had was a Lil’ Kim album.  I’ve always loved that.. she’s like a drag queen to me.  She’s in pink, green wigs, stuff like that.  She caught your attention.  She was being a bad bitch, talking about sex and getting her pussy eaten out.  I was like, dammit, that’s how it’s supposed to be.

This is how it’s supposed to be for women.  I just like the empowerment.  That’s kind of what inspired me.  I think it kind of conveys in my drag, you see it’s like very.. sometimes it’s very tacky, but it’s very loud and sometimes I like to wear the ugliest thing and kind of make it cute.  It’s very urban.  People like to say banjee, but I don’t really like saying banjee.  I’ll say ghetto fab before I say banjee girl just because I feel banjee is not… a real form of a person that you would see walking down the street nowadays.  It’s very fantasy, and I’m not… fantasy isn’t what I do.

What are your future goals with drag and in life?  Life goals?

LZ: A life goal, maybe a dream right now but it’s definitely a goal.  I’d like to do drag more full time.  I would give up my day job if drag could pay the bills.  Work 5, 6 nights a week really.  Or even 4, 4 nights if I was getting good money.  That’s kind of a dream right now.  Fame would be cool if you got on drag race, that would be another cool thing.

Sometimes I think, yea… you need to do drag race, you need to do drag race…  But it’s like, am I really cut out for that show?  The more and more it gets bigger and the more and more you hear the insides of it, you’re like, I don’t really think I want to do it.  The editing and stuff, but the outcome is you get work and stuff which is what I’m talking about. I don’t know if Drag Race is a goal, but it’s definitely something in mind.

I think I’d be a good character on that show.  But yea, if we’re talking about that, I’d like to do drag more full time.  I love it that much to kind of just… would love to travel with it, so.  If that could be my goal, dream, wish, it would be that. Try to make it full time.

What’s a typical night look like in drag?

LZ: Of performing or just going out?

SW: In general.

LZ: Something about me I guess that… if you guys are listening, that probably don’t know about me, I also just love going out in drag and just partying in drag, too.  I love being just a socialite.  I don’t always… people say it’s crazy and absurd to go out in drag just to go hang out but I love it.  I love doing that stuff.  Sometimes you do the gig and I’m getting off work and I’m rushing like that, sometimes you gotta be up in the morning for that.  But obviously if I’m going out on a Friday night, that means I’m getting shitfaced and I’m gonna have fun and I’m just gonna be a pretty drag queen at the bar.  So that’s a normal night, to answer the question.

A normal night, I’m gonna answer it based off what I love to do which is going out and hanging out with my friends and stuff.  So a normal night, me and my roommate Joon (Joonage a Trois) we get into drag, sit around, listen to music, do a look, get your little streetwear going on.  Act like a little street girl going just to the bar.

Little mini skirt, a cute little jacket.  Nice shake & go wig, a cute shake & go wig.  It’s not cheap though, okay.  It’s not no crazy updo or anything like that.  Just something cute and wavy and flowy.  Get your big clunking heels on, big 7inch heels. Sit around, take a bunch of shots, smoke some hookah.  Shoot the shit for about two hours in your makeup.  Take some pictures, stumble over to the bar.  Talk to some people, hang out.  And that’s it.  And then mingle.

I think that’s like a normal night.  After that, get some food and sit here sometimes we pass out on each other sometimes we still talk or we just go to bed.  Sometimes we don’t even come home together, sometimes we kinda like do our own thing after that.  That’s kinda like a normal night.  A normal night of Logan Zass.  If I invite you to hangout, that’s probably what we’re going to do.  You’re gonna come to my place, we’re gonna pregame, and then we’re gonna go to the bar.

What is dating like being a drag queen?

LZ: That was a big thing for me, actually, now that you ask that.  It was a big red flag when I first started doing drag.  I was like, I don’t know if I want to do drag because I still like getting dick.  I would do my research, and be like most drag queens back then.  Before drag race, drag queens were undesirable. Now, I think drag hasn’t really hindered anything.  I think the more and more drag becomes popular, it hasn’t really affected my dating life really.  I’ve never had a guy come over and think that my place is disgusting because I have makeup and drag around.  It opens the door for conversation and to talk about it.

Have guys on Grindr definitely stopped talking to me because they found out I was a drag queen?  Yes, of course that’s happened.  I don’t think anybody really cares and I don’t think that’s really affected it.  It has spiced things up, being a drag queen and playing around with… I call it the Pussy Power.  How much can you really get away?  Who are you… talking to guys on Tinder, switching your profile over to, putting your drag photos.  Using that and seeing how far you can get.  Obviously I put it out there that I’m not a real girl, I put it out there that I’m a crossdresser.  It’s really cool to see how many of these guys don’t care and are still interested and still on it.

SW: You mentioned it before, but if people are wanting to come and see you, which they should be because you are a sickening performer.. where can they find you?

LZ: If you don’t just see me galloping around on a Friday or Saturday night at Berlin or just walking down Belmont Avenue trying to get some tacos or grilled cheese sandwich at Cheesies, you can find me at Berlin every 4th Tuesday of the month at Squad Goals, and then I’m sprinkled throughout.  To keep up with me, all my social media handles are LoganZass, It’s nice and simple.  I’m working on getting a Twitter, so we’ll figure it out when I get there.  Everything else, Facebook and Instagram is where you can keep up with everything I’m doing.

SW: Thank you for meeting with me, talking about drag.

LZ: Thank you for having me.

SW: Any last minute thoughts or things you wanna get in?

LZ: Last minute thoughts?  No.  Just eat my Zass, that’s all I have to say.  New catch phrase.

—

Follow Logan on Instagram & Facebook to see what she’s up to!

Subscribe to Windy Pictures below to hear the full interview.

For another interview with Windy Pictures, try local yoga instructor Michael George.