by Niki D'Andrea and Sharon Linsenbach.
Take a little Southern Rock, throw in some relentless punk energy, top it off with a pool of spit and sweat, and you've got Nashville Pussy, an Atlanta-based rock riot that's the most intoxicating shot around. The band's high-energy, no-frills live shows and pure, raunchy records reinforce their "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" mantra. Founded by the husband and wife team of Blaine Cartwright (lead vocals/guitar) and Ruyter Suys (lead guitar), Nashville Pussy combines their classic rock influences with a rude, in-your-face punk sensibility that's as pure as the pissed-in southern snow. Having endured the switch from record label to record label (Mercury, TVT, and now Artemis) and the departure of the band's fire-breathing bassist Corey Parks, Nashville Pussy are right back on their ball-busting path to greatness. The band is just wrapping up a tour with the Reverend Horton Heat and preparing to unleash their third, full-length album, Say Something Nasty, on May 23rd. We recently had the opportunity to talk to Nashville Pussy. Blaine, Ruyter, drummer Jeremy Thompson, and new bassist KatieLynn Campbell gave us the low-down on the new record, crazy European festivals, the "Madonna rumor", and the annihilation of crappy bands.
Niki: What can you tell us about the new album, "Say Something Nasty?"
Ruyter: Basically, we've been saying that this album is going to make the last album sound like the first album. It's more rockin'. It's more AC/DC inspired, and all-around kinda more rock 'n' roll. There's some fast punk stuff on there too. It's pretty cool.
Niki: Who produced it?
Ruyter: A guy by the name of David Barrick, at a little studio in a dry county in Kentucky--Glasgow, Kentucky. It's a super cool place. It's a town of like, 16,000. There's nothing there but a Dairy Queen and an Auto Zone. There's nothing to do. We went to Wal-Mart like twice a day--whoo hoo! And there's no food. There's just nothing to do but sit in the studio the whole time and just rock. We had a bootlegger who would bring us cold beer from a local town. At the end of the night after he got off work, he'd drive by--like 20 miles--and the beer was still cold, and cheaper than you can get in the fuckin' store. And he'd bring us weed. It was fucking excellent. It was a really nice place to focus. Dave produced and engineered the whole album with us. It was just like, really mellow, fun and easy.
Sharon: How'd you hook up with Artemis Records?
Ruyter: The guy who runs the label, Danny Goldberg, his name is all over the Led Zeppelin book, Hammer of the Gods. He was like, 21 when he was Zeppelin's publicist. Twenty years after that, he was Nirvana's manager, and five years after that he was the president of Mercury Records. When our first record came out on a major label--it was bought by Mercury--Danny signed us. When Mercury Records went through their big merger, they gave him like a billion dollars relief, and he started Artemis. And he'd given us such a good contract there (at Mercury) that he wanted to take us with him, but he couldn't buy us out. So we wound up going to TVT, and TVT was okay for a little while, and then they started doing nothing, basically. So they let us go, and we called up Danny and said, "Hey, can we work for you?"
Niki: How did you hook up with your new bass player, KatieLynn?
Ruyter: With Katie? We were blessed by the gods. The gods of rock shined their glowing light on us, and there was Katie.
Katie: With a bass in one hand and a beer in the other!
Ruyter: Basically, we met her through Supergroup. She's been married to the bass player, and we were just asking if they knew anybody, because Tracy, our second bass player, quit. And we only had three weeks to find someone. We had someone flying in from L.A. to try out, and then we asked them if they knew anybody by any chance, and by the end of the night, everybody was really getting drunk, and we were like "Oh man, Katie's perfect!"
Katie: I came up like, a week later, I was there for two and a half days, went back to New Orleans, packed up all my stuff in two days, and within a week of them telling me I was in the band, we were on the road. It was all, "Wham, bam, get in the van!"
Ruyter: It was fast, yeah. She learned the whole set, plus about an hour and a half of material in five days. It was really close. Thank god. We love our Katie. She's always in a good mood. She's in a good mood in the morning! (To Katie) You're the first person I've ever met like that. I didn't know you could be like that.
Niki: You guys have been touring pretty much non-stop since 1996. What are some of the more memorable shows that you've played?
Ruyter: We had one show at this weird European Festival in a town called Everaux. It was the Euro Kings Festival, and there was nothing even remotely resembling us on the bill. It was all like, techno bands--you know, three stages, a big crazy festival on a peninsula surrounded by water, and it was right when they were having all these crazy storms in Europe. A bunch of trees had come crashing down and killed some people at festivals. It was kind of freaky, (this festival) was like, the day after that. It was storming, and we went out and played, and we were like, "Man, people are gonna hate us! Listen to this crap people have been listening to all day--what the hell are we doing at these festivals?" You don't know what the hell kind of audience you're gonna get--it's like, you're playing a death metal festival, then you're playing and Alanis Morrisette goes on after you, and this time Robbie Williams is going on after you, and you just don't know what the hell. And Europeans are like "Oh, you play music? We love music!" They don't give a shit, right? So we're playing this festival, and these people knew our songs, they knew the words to our songs. There were 12,000 people in the pouring-down rain, all shouting along together--"GO TO HELL!" They're French, and they knew the words! That (show) stands out, for sure.
Sharon: Is it true Madonna wanted to play bass for you guys?
Ruyter: (laughs) No. But it's a good rumor.
Katie: Yeah, I read that and I was like, "Oh, they picked me over Madonna! I'm better than Madonna!"
Ruyter: We were on National Enquirer TV one time, and we were bitching about Madonna ripping off our style. 'Cause we played Irving Plaza in New York, and then she played Irving Plaza, and you know she was at our fucking show. I don't know what the deal was, but like a week later, she's got a cowboy shirt on and she's doing the whole hip-grinding thing. It just pissed me off. And we started bitching about it enough that it got picked up by AP that Madonna's coppin' our licks and that she wanted to be in the band. It wound up being on National Enquirer TV, and they showed a picture of me in my black cowboy shirt, and then a picture of Madonna in her black cowboy shirt--it was fuckin' great! And all these people saw it. Ross the Boss from The Dictators saw it, and he called me, "I saw you on TV with Madonna!" Completely unsubstantiated--they didn't phone anybody to ask about anything, they just threw it on TV, which was great. We wouldn't let Madonna in the band. Ever.
Niki: What bands influenced you guys?
Ruyter: AC/DC.
Blaine: Motorhead.
Ruyter: Led Zeppelin. ZZ Top. I always liked classic rock bands. And a lot of obscure shit too--we listen to Funkadelic and James Brown. Soul. Dwight Yoakum. We're pretty much all over the place. We don't listen to the radio much, except for classic rock, and even then it's like, Aerosmith. We don't listen to much from the last fifteen years.
Sharon: So is there anybody out right now that you particularly care for?
Ruyter: I liked The Black Crowes when they were out.
Blaine: Overall, there's cool bands, but we know all of them. If there's a cool band, we're usually friends with them or something. But as far as getting excited about some band that's out that really kicks ass and having to get everything they have--not really. I've always liked old stuff.
Niki: What did you guys think when you were nominated for a Grammy?
Blaine: We thought it was a mistake, like, "somebody's playing a trick on us." I had to verify it through three different sources.
Niki: Jethro Tull wasn't in the running that year or something.
Blaine: It was us, Rammstein, Judas Priest, Rage Against the Machine...
Ruyter: So we thought for sure we'd win (laughs).
Jeremy: Jethro Tull beat Metallica, and then Metallica beat us. We'll have to beat Jethro Tull next.
Sharon: (to Blaine) So, you're in a movie? (Run Bonnie Run)
Blaine: Yeah. I don't know if they've released it or what. These guys who do this comedy thing on HBO called Mr. Show, Bob and Dave, they did a movie and I don't know--something went wrong somewhere. I haven't seen it yet.
Ruyter: Jeremy saw it twice.
Jeremy: I laughed both times.
Blaine: I have no idea when it's coming out, probably in about six months or so.
Sharon: Do you want to do anything more, movie-wise?
Blaine: If I get paid as well for doing a half an hour of work like that. I got 500 bucks for just saying like, five lines.
Ruyter: He basically played himself. It was almost a cameo, except they gave him a (character) name.
Blaine: Yeah, I didn't do shit. I didn't do anything, I just ran out and screamed.
Ruyter: Yeah, he just screamed like a fucking maniac, and they were like, "Oh, that was great!" They thought (the rest of the band) were extras when we came on, because they were casting all these people to look like rednecks. They had to make everybody else look like rednecks, like "Okay, we'll take you and put this shirt on you, and now you're a redneck!" So we came on, and they asked, "Are you guys extras?" We said no, and they said, "You're not here for the redneck role?" (laughs)
Niki: What's everyone's drink of choice?
Jeremy: I'm never drinking again (with beer in hand).
Blaine: Dr. Pepper.
Katie: I like Miller High Life, Jim Beam, and Kamikaze shots.
Jeremy: I've learned to appreciate all the forms of alcohol and alcoholism.
Ruyter: I like a triple shot mochachino.
Niki: If you had the power to wipe any three musical acts off the face of the Earth and bring three more back to life, who would you choose?
Blaine: The ones I don't like already broke up, like I hate Smashing Pumpkins. And I hate Rage Against the Machine with a fucking passion. I saw this thing in Vegas, and they put all these revolutionaries on their little posters, like Angela Davis and Che Guevarra--they're a bunch of middle-class, suburban, fucking California guys, yelling about capitalism and shit. Gimme a fuckin' break.
Katie: I would get rid of Creed. (everyone in the room roars with agreement)
Blaine: Creed's so bad they're not even fun to hate. I want 'em gone. If I hear them on the radio, it doesn't make me mad, it makes me want to puke.
Jeremy: I wanna see Led Zeppelin back.
Blaine: Skynyrd. The original Lynyrd Skynyrd should come back to life. And also the imposters--the imposters that robots are playing like they're Aerosmith--should be wiped out, and we should get the original guys back from the 70s. The same thing with the Stones.
Jeremy: Just give 'em some beer and some drugs.
Niki: Yeah, they lost that heroin edge.
Blaine: Yeah. Whatever pod creature's playing Mick Jagger right now should go too.
Ruyter: His album sold 900 copies in England. His latest solo album.
Blaine: The first week. That's really bad. I think when (the new album) gets released, we're gonna fucking beat that.
Sharon: Would you guys want to be like, arena rock stars?
Blaine: If the arenas were full, yeah. That'd be great. We played arenas with Marilyn Manson. I gotta admit it was very fucking cool. We had between 5 and 15 thousand people a night coming to see us and going fucking crazy. It was great. Arenas sound really weird, though. That's the only thing.
Ruyter: But we could get used to it.
Niki: You guys did the "Tattoo the Earth" tour too. How was that?
Blaine: The shows were alright. A bunch of kids that don't normally get to see us got to see us. But we played during the day, for half an hour.
Ruyter: We were the only chicks on the tour, which made us stand out like sore thumbs. We were the only band that had like, a four-string bass, and the only band that played regular tuning. We were just totally so different from every fuckin' band on there. Us and Slayer were the rock 'n' roll bands. Everyone else was like the angst-boy band metal.
Katie: All of the other boys had on more makeup than you.
Ruyter: (laughs) Yeah! They totally had on more makeup than me. Hatebreed, Mudvayne, and all that shit. Guys with hair extensions--it's like, whoa man, you're working hard for this shit. But it was pretty good. We had a good time hanging out with Slayer.
Niki: So, what "words of wisdom" do you have for the nation?
Blaine: Keep on fuckin'!
Jeremy: Buy our record.
Ruyter: Keep on fucking buying our records.
Katie: Buy our record and fuck to it.
Posted by Alex Zander at November 1, 2003 12:00 AM