Southern fired

Nashville Pussy burn, baby, burn

by John O'Neill

Nashville Pussy are a band on the cusp. It's only a matter of time -- weeks, perhaps less -- until they become the biggest thing to hit America since tuberculosis. In the summer of '96, when attention was focused on Atlanta and getting Richard Jewel to squawk about that bag of nails, nobody noticed the second Great Explosion emanating just up the road in Athens, where two guys and two gals were welding the arena-rock sound of Ted Nugent and Angus Young to the chassis of should-have-been-giants the Nomads and Monomen who had driven headfirst into the phone pole on the road to commercial success. Fueled by fried food, coffee, and speed, the juggernaut called Nashville Pussy were beginning a two-year odyssey that would (by blowing minds one gig at a time) eventually result in their becoming the rightful heirs to the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band moniker. Skipping right over the next-big-thing status generally reserved for the indie-whiner of the moment and most any band from England with Dutch Boy haircuts and a raging drug problem, the New Delinquents epitomized every virtue of great rock and roll -- unbridled power, subtle malevolence, overt sexuality, reckless abandon -- and distilled it to a tongue-wagging perfection. They are here, at the right hour, in a world full of antiseptic music and sagging industry sales to save our souls. And everyone wants a piece of them.

So, when bass player Corey Parks finally calls during a much-needed cigarette break from outside of a music store somewhere in Georgia, it is a quick and noisy chat. Parks is pleasant if rushed as there's plenty going on in Nashville Pussy's world with yet another tour on the immediate horizon (they hit Sir Morgan's Cove on July 21st), and their debut album, Let Them Eat Pussy (Amphetamine Reptile), being picked up by Mercury for re-release. There's no rest for the wicked, and Nashville Pussy are indeed just that.

"We've been on the road for 14 weeks, and we've only had two weeks off," says Parks who, besides holding down bass duties, spits fire at live shows and sports a lovely Harley-Davidson eagle tattoo just south of her navel in which "Harley-Davidson" has been replaced by a far more meaningful "Eat Me."

"We're takin' Blaine (singer Blaine Cartwright) to the airport today. He's going to New York to help punch-up the album, make it sharper," she says. "He's remixing it with this guy who's worked with Zeppelin, and it will be re-released on September first. We're buying new equipment, lights, stuff for the live show."

Nashville Pussy, whose name is taken from Ted Nugent's intro to "Wang Dang, Sweet Poontang" from Double Live Gonzo, have made their reputation and name by their incendiary live shows that feature the guitar histrionics of Ruyter Suys (Cartwright's wife), the glass gargling rasp of Carwright, and the subsonic rhythm section of Parks and drummer Jeremy Thompson. Conjuring up the long-forgotten power-riffing proto-metal laid down by the Dictators and Motorhead as well as bowing deeply to the sleaze-raunch of old-fashioned, three-chord garage rock, Nashville Pussy create a sound that is big, ugly, and dying to punch you right between the eyes. It's no-nonsense, and it's right on time in all its impudent glory.

"Music sucks today," says Parks. "Everyone's into looking down into their tennis shoes singin' about how they can't get laid. Bands like that have no business being on stage with us. We're into reaching kids who go and see AC/DC 50 times. We're about kickin' ass!"

Riding high on the word-of-mouth underground buzz and three impossible-to-find singles, the band went to Seattle's fabled Egg Studio to work with Fastbacks' guru Kurt Bloch, who's work with the Devil Dogs and Supersnazz (Saturday Night Fever and Superstupid respectively, two of the decade's better rock-and-roll albums), which made him the obvious choice to try and capture Nashville's wild live sound.

"[The album] was recorded and mixed in five days," Parks relates. "It was all done in two takes, and it sounds like we're in your living room. Us moving to a major, these idiots think kids give a shit about who produces an album! They wanted us to use a bigger producer, but we'll use Kurt again."

With 12 songs clocking in at 28 minutes, and titles like "Five Minutes To Live," "Go Motherfucker Go," "Somebody Shoot Me," and a lascivious take on Smokey Robinson's "First I Look at the Purse," Let Them Eat Pussy is a nifty, tongue-in-cheek romp through the trailer park. But they are much more than a band with a schtick.

"We're entertainers, and the fans are the one and only reason for our success. Otherwise, we'd be home practicing in the attic, smokin' weed, and eatin' fried food. I'm havin' a fuckin' blast, that's for sure."