The opening act on what has affectionately been dubbed “the Reverend Motor Pussy Tour” has come a long way since its inception in 1996. On tour with one of the world’s most well-known bands, the Other Press caught up with Ruyter Suys and Blaine Cartwright, the charmingly vulgar husband and wife duo that is Nashville Pussy, just before their recent show at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre.
“My parent’s first house was on Burrard and Davie,” mused the Dee Snider maned guitarist Suys. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen Granville Street without trees; it’s very fucking weird.” Indeed, a lot has changed since Suys would find the power box controlling the Christmas lights that once adorned the trees on Granville and flip the switch in July. She was 12 or 13. “I went to Lord Roberts Elementary…this is definitely my stomping grounds.”
Right at home in Vancouver, the Atlanta quartet, whose name was stolen from a Ted Nugent song, is rounded out by bassist Karen Cuda and drummer Jeremy Thompson. Vocalist and guitarist Cartwright explained: “In the intro to ‘Wang Dang Sweet Poontang,’ Ted dedicates the song to all the Nashville Pussy and I just always thought that was a kind of crazy combination of words; and we were living in Nashville at the time…”
The bands moniker, however, unsurprisingly has garnered some negative attention. They were recently uninvited to play Disney’s famed House of Blues. “If it says ‘Nashville Pussy’ there, someone will complain,” reasoned Cartwright. “You know, they’re on their way to see Mickey Mouse and they see the word ‘pussy’ instead…the kids freak out. I think that’s it; it’s gotta be.”
“My personal theory is that mice are afraid of cats,” laughed Suys. “We’ve played it before; that’s the irony. And now they don’t want us? Both times we played, we did great. So I guess they don’t want to make money or something.”
Suys went on to explain that the whole stigma surrounding their name is immature. “I figure we’re evolved enough at this point that we should be over the word ‘pussy.’ It’s not about that…it’s just a word. It’s about rock and roll. And rock and sex are one in the same, so just get over it, you know?”
Nashville Pussy’s Myspace page describes their whiskey soaked, sex infused brand of rock and roll as sounding like “Lynyrd Skynyrd meets AC/DC high on speed in a
sex motel.”
“Fried Chicken and Coffee” from their debut album, 1998’s Let Them Eat Pussy was nominated for a Grammy for Best Metal Performance. “It was some kind of fluke,” Cartwright reminisced. “It was really weird. It’s like, what the fuck? We’re nominated for a Grammy? Weird. So we went. Nashville Pussy and Celine Dion...” Nashville was narrowly beaten out by Metallica. “If we’d lost to Rage Against the Machine, I would’ve been mad.”
The follow-up to 2005’s Get Some, From Hell to Texas was recorded in Willie Nelson’s home studio. “There was a great vibe there,” remembered Cartwright. “I wrote a bunch of great lyrics, staring at all these framed Willie Nelson album covers on this wall. I smoked out of Willie’s bong that he’s got in his office and had a bottle of wine and I just sat there and wrote and felt like Willie was staring at me. That was great! That was my office for about a week. Smoking a bong, listening to tunes---I’m at work man, leave me alone!”
“He sets a high bar…and we had to reach up to get the drinks,” joked Suys. “It was just far enough out of Austin that it was really tranquil. It had these beautiful rolling hills and it was just a gorgeous place to be.”
The lag between albums is due to the bands gruelling tour schedule; not to mention the member’s other commitments. “Blaine’s in a band called Nine Pound Hammer,” said Suys. “And our bass player, [Karen’s] band just broke up; Hemi Cuda. So we’re basically playing music all the time and it’s really hard to get all that stuff scheduled.”
You can’t rush a masterpiece as Cartwright explained. “I want to make sure each one’s really good before I put it out, ‘cause if it’s not, it’d bug me. If I heard a song, and I didn’t like it, then I’d go, ‘oh man, I wish we hadn’t put this shit out…I wish we’d put out something better.’ So I usually wait until I get inspired.”
Luckily, Nashville’s fifth studio album is anything but rushed, the Southern fried punkabilly is catchy as hell, showcasing Suys mastery of her SG and the tight knit unit’s comfort with their sound and each other. Toronto’s own Danko Jones even appears on the track “I’m So High.”
In August 2008, Nashville Pussy destroyed the True Metal Stage at the world’s largest metal festival, Wacken Open Air in Wacken, Germany. Suys remarkably climbed the side of the stage, and like a woman possessed she hung there, high above the crowd, guitar dangling from behind her unplugged. “I beat the kid from Airbourne to it too,” giggled Suys. “He did it later. He didn’t climb up as high. I went all the way to the fucking top! What was funny is that I made it about three quarters of the way up and then my guitar cord came unplugged and I was like, fuck it; I’m up here already, show’s over, I may as well go to the top.”
“It’s a total natural progression,” Suys says of Nashville’s intense live performance. “It’s not like ‘Ruyter, make sure you climb the thing.’ ‘What the fuck is she doing up there?’ There’s nothing conscious about what we do at all. It’s a very organic thing. I think it comes from doing this over and over again. You have to come up with new ways to entertain yourself.”
“Sometimes we don’t even have room to move,” reveals Cartwright. “We have to set up in front of Motorhead and the Rev; so climbing’s the only option.”
If Cartwright has his way, Nashville Pussy will be back across Canada by the spring. He reflected on his tour mates. “A tour this good is hard to find. I like playing big tours like this; it’s more like a rock and roll circus. A three ring circus… we’re the littlest of rings I guess, but it’s still fucking great.”
“We’re the first freakshow,” Suys added of the unbelievable rock and roll caravan.
When asked if Nashville Pussy had any plans to record with either Motorhead or the Reverend Horton Heat, there was a resounding “hell yeah!” from the hard rocking pair.
“Lemmy and I have talked about writing a song together,” revealed Cartwright. “I told him to write me a song; it just hasn’t happened yet. Lemmy was supposed to sing on the new record, but we couldn’t hook the studio thing up. I think he’d been drinking and there was no land line at the studio, so he had to call on a cell phone. We recorded it and we did every trick in the book to make it work and it just sounded like some guy on a cell phone. He was in England at the time too. We tried, but it just didn’t happen. It was funny though.”
Any hopes of a b-side? “I don’t think he was even good enough,” laughed Cartwright. “I don’t even think it exists anymore.”
