Brent Muscat Is Pretty, But What Makes Him Special? The Faster Pussycat Guitarist Answers That & More In This 1990 Interview!

Originally published in Rave-Up #18 (1990)

Interview by Devorah Ostrov

Faster Pussycat (publicity photo)

"You're pretty, but what makes you special?"

Taime Downe, an employee at Retail Slut and frontman for fledgling LA club band Faster Pussycat, hurled this rude compliment at a friend of mine as she walked down Melrose Avenue. 

When she couldn't come up with a witty retort, he smirked and sauntered off — having made his point, I guess. And thus, I began biding my time for three long years, waiting for an opportunity to interview Faster Pussycat so I could turn that question on Taime himself (and ask about their records and stuff).

Brent & Eric in ROCKbeat magazine

So, I was mildly vexed when nice guy Brent Muscat called Rave-Up HQ for this interview. But I asked him, anyway...

Q: You're pretty, but what makes you special?

"I like that question," laughs Brent, before he confidently dives in: "I think I have a good personality. I like to think I'm semi-intelligent. I have a good imagination, and I think I'm creative."

The cutie-pie guitarist also mentions that he's attracted to girls with good personalities. "Sometimes, you meet someone with a perfect body and a beautiful face," he says, "but there's nothing inside because they've never had to develop a personality."

Faster Pussycat's strong sophomore album, Wake Me When It's Over (the title of a 1960 comedic romp and a possible comment on the trials and tribulations of the recording process), was released by Elektra Records last August. Since then, the guys have been playing club dates to promote the LP, but they'll soon be embarking on a major US tour as openers for fellow LA glam/trash merchants Mötley Crüe. 

Brent is very excited about the upcoming tour, calling it the band's "first big break." Perhaps surprisingly, that comment is meant to include their support slot on Alice Cooper's 1987 (pre-"Poison") tour. 

Faster Pussycat on the cover of
Screamer magazine - May 1990

According to Brent, supporting Alice was "great for us, but it wasn't a lot of exposure. There's a big difference between playing in front of 2,000 people a night and playing in front of 30,000 people a night [the projected average audience for Mötley Crüe]. Especially when the 2,000 people are hardcore Alice Cooper fans, and they don't really care about who's opening up. I'm hoping that the Mötley Crüe crowd are gonna be a little more into us."

The group that took its moniker from a Russ Meyer's cult flick and worked especially hard at developing a bad-boy image based on (real or imagined) debauchery and depravity, also seems untroubled by any form of lyrical censorship from the record company. 

Wake Me When It's Over might be a touch more bluesy/boozy than the band's 1987 eponymous debut, but it's definitely no less sleazy. "I've got you buckled to the floorboards/Got you screaming like a pooch on a leash..." sings Taime on the LP's primly titled opening track, "Where There's a Whip There's a Way."

Elektra really didn't have a problem with their lyrics?

"There's stuff that Elektra maybe doesn't like," admits Brent, "but we were like that when they signed us. So it's like, they knew what they were getting."

Early flyer for Faster Pussycat (and the Zeros)
at the Country Club in Reseda, CA. 

"We have a really good manager," Brent adds. "He might say, 'This is a super good song. If you change this one word, maybe it can be on the radio.' Then, we have to decide if that's important to us or not."

Has it ever been important enough to them to change a song's lyrics?

"Not really," he insists.

The group has, however, received its fair share of finger-wagging from the P.M.R.C. (Parents Music Resource Center, headed-up by Tipper Gore). And while some might say the criticism is well deserved, Brent notes that Faster Pussycat fans have quickly jumped to their defense.

Wake Me When It's Over
(Elektra Records, 1989)

"I've seen a letter this girl wrote to Tipper Gore," he says. "She wrote, 'When Faster Pussycat talk about sex, it's a sexual thing. It's not a bad thing.'"

"Actually, I don't think she'd read our lyrics 'cause there's some real dirty stuff in there," he chuckles. But in general, Brent agrees with the letter writer. "It's true. When Taime sings about stuff, it's mostly from his personal experience. And a lot of the stuff that sounds nasty doesn't really mean nasty stuff."

He points to "Slip of the Tongue" as an example: "You could take that to mean something really nasty, and sometimes when we play it live, Taime will say it's about, er... [Brent pauses to giggle because he's a nice guy and has probably just realized he's telling this story to a girl] ...eating pussy. But it's really about people talking shit about each other; people talking behind your back and getting you in trouble — 'With a slip of the tongue/I'm in deep shit!'"

What about "Where There's a Whip There's a Way"? Is that an amusing metaphor too?

Faster Pussycat

"No, that's pretty straight to the point," states Brent. "But at the same time, Taime isn't telling people they should do that. It's just his little bondage fantasy. It shouldn't be taken seriously. When I first heard the lyrics to that song, I was laughing! 'Gonna sign that filly up for the rodeo...' It's just ridiculous!"

Brent's personal favorite songs on the new LP are "Pulling Weeds" and "Little Dove," both of which he co-wrote with Taime. On the latter, he employs a talk box — the weird tube-like apparatus that Peter Frampton made so irritatingly famous back in the '70s. 

Annoyingly, Brent won't tell me what he's saying into the talk box (he "prefers to leave it to your imagination"), but he acknowledges that Frampton Comes Alive was one of the first records he ever bought. Although he'd rather give Aerosmith credit for the inspiration: "Joe Perry has always used one. He plays it on 'Sweet Emotion,' but he doesn't make a big deal out of it."

Brent didn't include it as a favorite, but the Faster Pussycat tune getting the most attention at the moment is "House of Pain," penned by Taime and guitarist Greg Steele. The power-ballad about a young boy's abandonment by his father is the latest track from the LP to be issued as a 45 (it follows the raucous "Poison Ivy"), and an emotional black and white video for the song (directed by Michael Bay) has been picked up by MTV.

Publicity photo from Faster Pussycat's debut album cover
L-R: Mark Michals, Brent Muscat, Greg Steele, Taime Downe, Eric Stacy

The intensity of Taime's vocals on "House of Pain" leads one to believe the song is autobiographical, which to a certain extent it is. "Taime grew up with his dad not around a lot," explains Brent. "It was just something he felt about his dad."

He emphasizes, "I think it's a really cool song because when most bands write a ballad, it's gotta be on the radio and it's gotta say, 'I love you baby... I miss you so much... I won't forget you...' Which is great, but for me, I think 'House of Pain' is cooler because it feels more real."

Brent Muscat is a ROCKbeat Metal Pinup

"Cryin' Shame," also written by the Downe/Steele team could likewise be classified as a ballad, although its gruesome storyline sets it way outside standard ballad territory.

"To me, 'Cryin' Shame' isn't a ballad," says Brent. "It's a very scary song. It's a true story. Taime and Greg read this book called Say You Love Satan." (Written by David St. Clair, the book chronicles the grisly murder of a teenager by his friends.) 

"I didn't read it," Brent continues. "I'm not really into that kind of stuff. But they were like, 'Wow!' It was really shocking to them. How could these kids kill another kid? It's kind of written from the point of view of the kid who died. What was he thinking about?"

Plagued by personal and professional problems for the last couple of years, recording a second album sometimes seemed impossible. 

"There's a lot of positive things happening to us now," states Brent with obvious relief. "But there was a period between this album and our first one where we thought we weren't going to do it. We kept thinking, 'God, why is this happening?' When we were down on our luck, something else [bad] would happen." 

Graphically portraying the band's feelings of frustration over their (hopefully) past problems is the LP's strange cover art which portrays a man screaming. But Brent refuses to tell anyone who it is or why they're screaming.

"House of Pain" b/w "Slip of the Tongue"
picture sleeve 45 released in Germany - 1989 

"Someone thought it was Jimi Hendrix," he offers. "Someone else thought it was Sly Stone. To someone, it's a guy screaming 'cause he's having an orgasm. To someone else, he's getting his fingers chopped off."

"It's anything you want it to be," Brent says with a noncommittal shrug I can see on the other end of the phone line. But there is a motive behind their madness, and it has to do with being viewed as legitimate musicians. 

"We wanted people to look at the cover and say, 'What are they doing? What does that mean?' Rather than, 'They look good, but can they play?' That's what happened with our first album. With this album, we wanted people to see that we're a serious band and listen to our music."

Which neatly brings us back around to the start of this interview. Faster Pussycat is pretty, but what makes the band special? 

"We don't take ourselves seriously," firmly states Brent. "We have fun with it. There's a million people out there who are in bands. There's a million guys who play guitar. A lot of people get carried away and think they're rock stars. I don't think I'm the greatest person in the world, just because I play guitar. Being in a band isn't so important; we remember that."

Faster Pussycat - "Just the Facts"

Will And The Kill: The Younger Sexton Brother Releases His Debut Album, And Another Austin Legend Is Launched!

Originally published in Rave-Up #14 (1988)

Interview by Devorah Ostrov

Will Sexton
Photo: Nels Israelson (from the LP Will And The Kill)

In case you don't know, 17-year-old Will Sexton is Charlie's little brother. There, that's out of the way. He's also gorgeous, smart, funny, charming, self-assured, and a helluva talented musician in his own right!

While lazing around his home in Austin, Texas, Will picked up the phone to chat about his debut album, Will And The Kill — produced by music legend Joe Ely and released on MCA Records. But first, I had some business to take care of for a certain ex-Go-Go.  

Q: First of all, who is your favorite person with the initials K.V.?

WILL (after a very long pause): Kerry Von Erich?

Q: No! Not even close. You were supposed to say, "Kathy Valentine." I told her I was going to be talking to you today.

WILL: Yeah? We wrote a song together!

Q: "Restless to Reckless."

WILL: Yeah! If you tell her I said Kerry Von Erich, I'll kill you.

Q: So, who's Kerry Von Erich?

WILL: He's a famous wrestler from Dallas. He's a real sweet guy, too.

Will And The Kill 
(MCA Records 1988)

Q: Did you know Kathy before you made this record?

WILL: Yeah, well, she's from Austin.

Q: Did you also know Joe Ely? Is he an old family friend? 

WILL: Well, pretty much. It's not as tight a unity in Austin as it was eight or nine years ago. Well, even before that. But as far as I can remember, all the bands were like a family, and we were all doing the same kind of music. It was either rockabilly or rock and roll or blues. There were none of these, you know, art or heavy metal bands around Austin. It was really a blues town.

Q: It must have been fun to work with Joe Ely since you've known him for so long.

WILL: Yeah! There was just a wild voodoo in the air when we did this record. Charlie and Ely... Jimmy Vaughn came in and played on a song. It was really fun. We definitely had a good time! I think that's the way records should be made. Too many people make records without having fun, and they get into this big generic thing.

Q: It seems like you're also trying to bring back the family atmosphere that Austin used to be known for. Like working with your friends...

WILL: Uh-huh. The record has a personal feeling to it when you listen to it. It's real personal to me. I made the record to make me happy. I didn't make it for anyone else but myself. There were times when it got frustrating. But for the most part we just had a blast!

Q: You've changed your whole band since the record came out. Were they studio musicians who didn't want to tour?

Will and the Kill open for
Lords of the New Church at the
Cave Club in Austin, Texas - July 1987

WILL: Well, I was looking for something and I wasn't getting it. So, I got a new band that makes me feel like I want to feel on stage. 

Q: So, you just fired the old group?

WILL (laughing): Well... you know, there's a bunch of politics behind it. But all that matters is that I got a new band that sounds tighter than ever, and I'm happy. Things are working out the way I want them to.

Q: I've heard that you and Charlie used to be in a band together. Is that true?

WILL: Well, kind of, when we were kids.

Q: What were you called?

WILL: Los Dos Dudes... The Two Dudes.

Q: How cool! Did you write your own songs back then?

WILL: Nah... we just did old blues standards. 

Q: You guys were playing old blues standards when you were kids? Were you playing them well?

WILL (laughing): Well... certain blues standards aren't too hard. But back then, we were just getting it together. We started playing with the Vaughan brothers, the Thunderbirds, and Double Trouble.

Q: Are your influences mostly blues? Do you listen to any current rock bands?

WILL: I really like the old guys, going back to "Hound Dog" Taylor, Magic Sam, and a lot of blues guitar players. But I especially love "Hound Dog" Taylor; he had this disgusting tone that was beautiful! I like ZZ Top and the Rolling Stones. And I love Slash from Guns N' Roses; he's a great guitar player!

      

Q: Your taste in music is so different from what most people your age listen to. Maybe it's because you're from Texas, but most teenagers just know what they see on MTV.

Will and the Kill
(MCA publicity photo)

WILL: Well, y'know... Most of the stuff that's being made and marketed in the world is, uhmm... starting to upset me a little bit. I mean, people need to get down to basic drums and rockin' rhythm guitars — the stuff Keith Richards will be doing for as long as he lives. This techno stuff is a waste of time. It has no personality.

Q: Do a lot of people compare your music to what Charlie's doing?

WILL: I get a lot of people saying, "Oh, you're so much truer to the whatever..." The music I'm playing right now isn't too different from what Charlie was doing three years ago. A lot of my stuff... I learned a lot from watching Charlie's previous bands. He had some great bands, and his band now is great! Charlie's just one of those kinda guys who always sounds good no matter what style he plays in, y'know.

Q: Did you learn any lessons watching Charlie's rise to stardom?

WILL: Well, I think you have to plan it correctly and think about where you want to end up in the years to come, rather than just being Mr. Big this year and a wash-out tomorrow. As long as I can pay my rent, I'm fine. I don't need to have no giant mansion.

Will Sexton - at the Stone in SF
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Q: So, you're doing this because you genuinely love the music.

WILL: Yeah! That's why I was shocked that people really appreciated the record when it came out. I really didn't expect that.

Q: Well, it's a great album!

WILL: I didn't think it would be this big. I just kinda did it, y'know. When me and Joe were writing songs for the record, we didn't think, "Oh, we can do this and make it a hit song." 

Q: I wonder about some of your lyrics. There's some risqué innuendos...

WILL: Are there? Uh-oh. You should hear the versions that I had before they [MCA Records] made me edit the lyrics!

Q: Did you have to do a lot of editing?

WILL: Haha! Sometimes!

Q: Can you give me an example?

WILL: It's a song to be saved until I make enough money where I can say whatever I want. I'm gonna be making a lot more records, and they're just gonna get filthier and filthier. When I play live, I do some X-rated versions of the songs. "Rocks in My Pillow" has got some really low-down lyrics, but I can't say them to a girl. When I'm on stage, and you're not looking...

Q: I imagine a lot of girls come to your shows!

WILL: We're not a teenybopper band or anything, so we get all kinds. I think that my band can appeal to anyone from 15 to 40-year-olds. Which is real important because you gotta have... As long as you've got soul and you've got feeling, and you put it into your music, people of all ages will like it. If you do that heavy metal and techno nonsense with no soul, then that ain't gonna go anywhere.

Charlie & Will Sexton 
Photo: Todd V. Wolfson 

Q: Do you have any advice for other kids who want to play guitar?

WILL: My advice is to buy some Hendrix records and stuff like that before you start listening to Ying Yang Mom's Mang. I mean, listen to where it all came from because you can't learn... Like, I think Eddie Van Halen is incredible, but I think it would be a sin for someone to learn to play guitar from Eddie Van Halen because he learned from the greats. He really studied and really knows his roots.

Q: Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time...

WILL: It's a good day to do interviews. I'm in a great mood today! For three years, I did interviews with people that didn't even know what I sounded like or nothing. So, I was getting annoyed. 

Silver Jet Discuss "Pull Me Up ... Drag Me Down" & What They Learned From Touring With Cheap Trick!

Originally published in Teenage Kicks #2 (Fall 1997)

Interview by Devorah Ostrov

Silver Jet
(from the CD booklet)

Some people have called Silver Jet "the Cheap Trick of the '90s" (well, Jason from Dura Delinquent did). 

And it's not without reason. As evidenced by the dozen tracks on their Virgin Records debut Pull Me Up ... Drag Me Down, Silver Jet deliver tight, bright, hard pop tunes akin to the Trickster's initial efforts. At the same time, their catchy lyrics focus on girls, insecurity, girls, other people in bands, girls, loneliness, and mostly — girls!

It began in the '80s.

Lead singer/guitarist Luke Tierney was going to Santa Barbara High and fronting a glam/punk outfit called Lost Kittenz. He loved the New York Dolls and Jetboy. He was also known to venture down to Los Angeles whenever Guns N' Roses played.

Meanwhile, recent Chicago transplant, Jeff Gross, was also attending Santa Barbara High. And he was playing bass with the decidedly darker, female-fronted Under the Weather, which he describes as "kind of like Siouxie and the Banshees meet Killing Joke."

My autographed copy of Pull Me Up ... Drag Me Down

The two future bandmates weren't yet acquainted. "I knew about Luke's band," says Jeff, "and he knew about mine. But we had never met."

Neither of their groups went anywhere. But during a series of break-ups and realignments, Luke and Jeff finally met up, and the nucleus of Silver Jet formed about four years ago. 

With the addition of a temporary second guitarist and a part-time drummer, they entered Rick Parker's studio to work on their first demo tape. And this is where Grant Conway came in. 

London-born Grant moved to California when his father came over to open Island Record's LA office. Needless to say, Grant grew up surrounded by rock 'n' roll. He can, for instance, nonchalantly toss out Nigel Olsson's name, not just as an influence but as a teacher: "He introduced me to drums at an early age, like two or three. He used to live with us. His drums were set up in the garage."

Grant was working as a recording engineer at Parker's studio when he met the members of Silver Jet — their demo was his first project. And getting him to join the group was easy. "Our drummer was also playing with Rick [Parker]," says Jeff. "So, our band wasn't his main band. We were interested in finding a steady drummer. Grant knew that, and he liked our music."

Luke Tierney
(from the CD booklet)

With their drummer issue sorted, the guys carried on as a four-piece. But the revolving door of second guitarists got tiresome.

"We kept trying out other guitar players," emphasizes Grant. "When we'd play a show, we'd borrow a guitar player, either someone we were trying out or a friend from another band." 

"It was holding us back," agrees Luke. "So, we decided to go with what we had."

Trimmed down to a dynamic threesome, Silver Jet spent the next three-and-a-half years gigging around Los Angeles. "Waves of interest would come and go," recalls Jeff.

At one point, they came close to signing a deal with E Pluribus Unum, the indie label co-founded by Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz. 

"Adam was coming to every one of our shows," notes Luke. "He was going out of his way. He was leaving rehearsals early to come and see us. He was bringing his friends to see us."

Although they decided not to go with Duritz, his interest motivated them to hire a manager. "Things took off from there," says Luke. "We got a bunch of offers, and Virgin seemed like the best one." (They claim never to have played an intentional showcase; supposedly, Virgin didn't even see the group live prior to signing them.)

Before they released Pull Me Up ... Drag Me Down, Silver Jet issued a limited edition, four-song vinyl EP. "A novelty thing," as Luke calls it, which featured the sardonic "Plastiqa": "Collagen plastic silicone/Feel so real/But got a mind of their own/Soon they'll be making girls/Out of styrofoam..."

"The Boys" - acrylic on canvas
painting by Luke Tierney
(from the CD booklet)

The EP also included the optimistic "Meant to Be" ("It was meant to be this way/I just wanna sing every day...") plus demo versions of David Bowie's "Star" and the terrific Tierney-penned "Kid" — which once contained the perfect line: "She probably dates a future KROQ star." 

"KROQ" was later changed to the generic "indie rock star" over concerns that should "Kid" become a single, every radio station would want to fill in their own call letters. A great gimmick! But "it wasn't the route we wanted to go," states Luke.

All the songs from the EP, save the Bowie cover, made the transition to Pull Me Up ... Drag Me Down. 

Co-produced by the band and Tim Palmer (best known for his work with alt-rock outfits like the Cure, Sponge, and the Mission, as well as Bowie's Tin Machine), the CD is well-crafted, bursting with energy and propelled by memorable hooks at every turn. The group wanted to work with Palmer because of personal and professional reasons. 

"I was really into the Tin Machine record," says Jeff. "I thought that was a really exciting turn for Bowie, and I thought the production was cool — real aggressive, y'know. Plus, Tim had been a friend of ours for a number of years. He came and checked out the band a bunch of times; he'd seen us grow over different eras. So, when it came time to make the record, we felt comfortable that he knew what we wanted to accomplish. We didn't want to stray too far from what we do live. We didn't want a lot of production. We just wanted to capture the band in its simplest form."

Silver Jet
(from the CD booklet)

The record company bio states that Palmer told them to choose four "focus words" during the recording sessions. They picked "big, dry, youthful, and fun." While the last two adjectives are self-explanatory (and very well represented), perhaps "big" and "dry" could use some clarification.

"Dry in a production sense," explains Jeff (laughing at my allusion to soggy vinyl). "Dry in the sense of not sounding too reverby — like Back In Black is big and dry. We wanted it to sound big, but we didn't want it to sound big by using a lot of reverb."

As Silver Jet's main songwriter, Luke's lyrics tend to focus on clever boy-meets or sometimes doesn't-meet-girl themes, like "That Call" ("He's calling her/He's not so sure/He tries to stall/He's making that call...") and the hapless hero of "Kid" ("Sitting there with my jaw on the floor/Like a kid at a high school dance/Maybe she'd dig me if I was Thurston Moore...") 

Dogstar and Silver Jet at the Fillmore
San Francisco - August 1, 1997

"Most of this record was written right at the end of, and the whole time after, the break-up of a really long relationship," allows Luke. "So everything was new, and that was sort of my inspiration lyrically."

Maybe that explains why the hesitant "Kid" is followed by the arrogant "Free to Roam" ("I don't need a woman I can call my own/I just need a girl that can take me home..."). However, Luke insists that "as far as the order of songs, we were trying to keep a theme going musically more so than lyrically."

There's also the mocking sarcasm of "Master Plan," which is about "people who can't ever stick to one band," and a three-minute bout of lonely introspection simply called "Pain" ("I wanna help you/But can't you see/I'm helpless too...").

"Mostly, anything that sounds really depressed is probably me writing in the first person about someone else," reflects Luke. '"Pain" is about an experience I've had more than once, of being asked for change and literally not having any. And then getting hassled about it. I wanna feel bad, but it's like, what can I do? I feel like saying, "'Just be glad you're not in as much debt as I am!'"

In promotion of the album, the band filmed a video for "Plastiqa" (featuring a "cryptic mannequin theme"), which is airing on regional video shows. But so far, MTV is ignoring it. For the most part, Silver Jet is playing live — often and everywhere.

There were special appearances with the Presidents of the United States of America and Dramarama (members of both groups are Silver Jet fans), not to mention last year's support slot on several dates with Cheap Trick.

Jeff Gross
(from the CD booklet)

"That was a dream come true," enthuses Luke. "Although I don't know how effective it was for us as far as getting new fans. I think Cheap Trick's fans liked us 'cause they knew we really liked Cheap Trick. But they have a following that's like... it's people who already have all the records they need, and most of them are Cheap Trick records!"

Did they pick up any handy tips from the old pros?

"I definitely learned some things here and there on that tour," nods Grant mysteriously.

"They taught me that you can't just mope when things aren't going perfectly," remarks Luke. "Those guys go out and just floor their audience every night. They're insane live! And they never stop. No griping. They just keep going."

"And we learned to shop as much as possible," interjects Jeff. "Tom Petersson hits every music store and buys a new bass; picks up a couple of suits..."

This year, you might have seen Silver Jet at one of the 48 (!) cross-country shows they played with Keanu Reeves' Dogstar. I caught up with them at the tail end of the tour — gig #46 at the Fillmore, with just Palo Alto and Los Angeles left to go. 

Grant Conway
(from the CD booklet)

Luke comments that the tour has gone "really well." He adds that "there's been a few shows where it hasn't been totally packed, but those have been the exception. A lot of the shows were sold out!"

Finally, I wonder, are they sick of all the Cheap Trick comparisons?

"No," smiles Luke. "I love Cheap Trick, so that's fine. I'm sick of comparisons in general, but there's really no way to describe a band on paper. You have to come up with something tangible, so comparisons are inevitable. But it's all right. That's one of the comparisons I like, let's put it that way."

* * *

L-R: Grant, Luke & Jeff
(Virgin Records publicity pic)

On a side note: Silver Jet handled most of the CD artwork themselves! Luke designed the cover, which Grant photographed. In addition, Grant and Jeff took several other photos used in the booklet, and the caricature of the group on the back cover is an acrylic on canvas painting by Luke titled "The Boys."

The Lords of the New Church: I Catch Up With Stiv & Nicky During The Group's 1983 US Tour

Originally published in Rave-Up #6 (1983)

Interviews by Devorah Ostrov

Stiv fronting the Lords of the New Church - 1984
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

One afternoon in 1981, I was hanging out at Stiv's London flat, chatting with a mutual friend. I hadn't been there for long when Stiv and his girlfriend Stacy (Anastasia Maisonneuve) ran upstairs from doing their laundry. At the top of the stairs, Stiv proudly announced that he'd formed a new group called The Lords of the New Church. "Great name!" I exclaimed. But I wondered, "Will it fit on a badge?"

Two years later, the Lords were touring the States for the second time in promotion of their eponymous debut LP on I.R.S. Records. The morning after their show at the Old Waldorf, I interviewed Nicky and Stiv at the hotel.  

Nicky Turner on Portobello Road - 1984
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Part One: Nicky Turner (Lords' drummer/former Barracudas' drummer)

Q: Remember when you told me that Stiv and Brain were going to play at Le Kilt as a surprise? But then it fell through...

Nicky: Oh, yeah!

Q: Was that supposed to be the first Lords of the New Church show?

Nicky: No, that was when I first met Stiv. He was going to do a show with Brian, Glen Matlock, and Terry Chimes. He just never got anything together. They probably could've played about three songs.

Q: Is that when they asked you to join the band?

Nicky: Yeah! I was playing with the Barracudas that night, and I saw Stiv afterwards. He said, "You should come down and play with us." I said, "Great!" And then the French thing came up at the same time. We did one rehearsal and I said, "Let's do it" — free champagne, trip to Paris first class, all expenses paid.

Q: Were there any hard feelings when you left the Barracudas?

Nicky: Jeremy was a bit upset. He asked me to hang on in the hope that something might happen. But...

Q: Could you tell that the band was going to be successful from the beginning?

"Live for Today" 45 promo material
(I.R.S. Records 1983)

Nicky: I knew it would be big. And I know it's going to be much bigger. When we first got together, we had like three or four numbers and two of those were covers. In Paris, we did "Just Like Me" by Paul Revere and the Raiders. We did "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night," a song from Stiv's Disconnected album, and "Girls Girls Girls" [the B-side of the "Open Your Eyes" single]. And that was it. But it just felt so good!

Q: How quickly did things progress after that first show?

Nicky: It took us about six months after that French gig to actually start playing properly. We did lots of support gigs in London; lots of little gigs with ten people. After we did the album, things started moving a little bit. We did an English tour, the first half of which was totally disastrous because the album hadn't come out, and no one came to see us at all.

Q: No one knew who you were?

Nicky: Not really. We tried to play it down because we wanted it to be a new band and stand up on its own. That's why we just put our surnames on the album, to try and keep it as low-key as possible. We didn't want people to have any preconceptions about the music. We weren't the new Dead Boys or the new Damned or whatever.

Q: I want to ask you about the change in music and style from the Barracudas to the Lords. Which is the real you?

The Lords outside the York Hotel in SF - 1982
L-R: Stiv fiddling with a camera, Dave pointing,
Brian talking to Nicky & Nicky reacting.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Nicky: The real me? A namby-pamby pop star or an out-and-out revolutionary? I don't know. I've forgotten what the Barracudas were like.

Q: I have photos. I can refresh your memory.

Nicky: No! No! I'd rather you didn't, actually. 

Q: I've heard that the band will be recording a new album soon.

Nicky: We're starting recording on April 26. It'll be out in June, I should think. Then we'll be back here again for about three months or so.

Nicky with the Barracudas - Dingwalls 1981
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Q: Three months? Wow!

Nicky: We have to do it. This is our "main market," as they say. We're not big in England at all; it's all Culture Club and very fashionable bands over there. We haven't played in England in the last nine or ten months. We've only played in Europe and over here. We'll get out there at some point, I suppose. With the next album, we'll play some more gigs there.

Q: Have you guys written anything for the next album yet?

Nicky: Uh... You know how lazy we are. We've got that song "Black Girl White Girl," which we played at the end last night. And we've got "Live for Today," which we did with Todd Rundgren. That's about it.

The phone rings and I excuse myself. As I reach the door, Nicky calls out...

Nicky: I was acting the real pop star the last time we were here, wasn't I? Drinks and drugs and debauchery...

Q: Are you behaving any better this time around?

Nicky: Noooo! Haha!

★ ★ ★

The Lords of the New Church outside the York Hotel in SF - 1982
L-R: Brian, Stiv, Nicky & Dave
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Part Two: Stiv Bator (Lords' frontman/former Dead Boys' and Wanderers' frontman)

Stiv: I ain't in too great of shape. [He pulls up his sleeve to display his swollen arm.] I've got to get it drained out, but that's what the end of tours are for.

Q: Yesterday, you asked me about Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan in San Francisco, and you and Stacy had a Wiccan wedding last year... Are you into black magic as well as white magic?

Stiv: I'm into studying the occult, all different forms. Not necessarily for practice, but you know... The wedding... It predates Judaism and Christianity in England. It's the way people used to get married around the time of the Druids. I read about the ceremony and really liked it. It seemed more natural. For instance, the Druids — or the "Wiccans" — before they cut a limb off a tree, they'd say, "As I take from you, you'll take from me someday." They were a culture that was in tune with the Earth's magic.

   We got married inside a five-candled pentagram with salt around it. And it was blessed by a sword. Everybody was kind of scared when they first saw it, but after they heard the words that we said... which were: "Join us as soul mates for eternity." The wedding lasts for a year and a day. If you want to continue, you just say the vows again.

Stiv (with Brian James) - 1986
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Stiv excuses himself to run down the street for breakfast. He returns a few minutes later with a Hostess cupcake and a carton of milk.

Q: Tell me about the political stance of the Lords. This seems to be a new development for you lyrically.

Stiv: We got political... Well, it first started when I was living in the desert in about '79. I was staying with a bunch of different bands when I first came out to LA — Pure Hell, Cheetah and me, Levi, and Angie Bowie... It's a weird combination! We were living right near the Spawn Ranch in the Mojave Desert, and I did a lot of acid sitting in the desert, thinking... I started putting down a lot of ideas. I was reading [The Book of] Revelation. 

   The politics, though... It's like when you're living in the eye of a hurricane, you don't see the damage. When I went to England, I could finally see what America was doing to the world; the effect it was having. From being outside it and being so close to Europe, and Russia's influence... So, this album is more or less blatant. I had all those chances to say something and never did. I thought this time — if it's my last time — I'm going to say it.

Q: This certainly isn't your last album, though.

Stiv: No! But just in case there's a born-again Hinckley in the crowd, you know.

Q: It almost happened in San Diego. I heard someone shot you with a BB gun.

Stiv: Yeah, close but no cigar.

The Lords open for The Police
at The Golden Summernight concert
 in Germany - September 18, 1983

Q: What happened when the Lords played at the Old Waldorf last time? A lot of your fans were disappointed afterwards.

Stiv: Yeah... I was drunk off my ass. I kept missing the mike; I couldn't find it. In fact, that's the only thing I really remember onstage from the last time — walking around trying to look for the mike.

Q: I know you're still working on material for the second album, but Todd Rundgren produced "Live for Today"...

Stiv: Tell you what... Turn off your tape recorder for a second, and I'll play you "Live for Today."

He pops a cassette into a Boombox and plays me the Lords' toughened-up cover of the Grassroots 1967 folk-pop tune (originally called "Let's Live for Today"). When the tape finishes, Stiv picks up the conversation.

Stiv: After we finish the album, we're doing some dates in Germany. We were supposed to do Australia with the Police, but that fell through.

Q: How can you possibly play to the same audience as the Police?

Stiv: We did it in Gateshead, England. We won over most of the audience; they liked it. It's all like leather... We bring out their dirty dreams or something. I'm sort of the Anti-Sting!

* You can read my other interviews with Stiv here:

Stiv Bators: Two Extraordinarily Candid Interviews

The Dead Boys: Brand New Band, Same Old Stiv

Lords Of The New Church: Hanging Out On Portobello

Talking To CJ Pretzel From The Drags About "Dragsploitation...Now" Wasn't A Drag At All!

Originally posted in Teenage Kicks #1

By Devorah Ostrov

L-R: CJ, Lorca & Keith
From the back cover of Dragsploitation...Now!
Photos: Nick Tauro

The Drags — most people assume the name has to do with drag racing but as guitarist/lead "singer" (their quote marks, not mine!) CJ Pretzel points out, there's (at least) a quadruple entendre: "You have the cigarette thing, the cross-dressing thing, the racing thing, and the bummer thing."

In fact, the group chose its moniker with ambiguity in mind. "We liked the looseness of it," says CJ. "It's sort of solidified now, but in the beginning, people didn't know if we would come out in dresses, or what."

Estrus Records advert for
Dragsploitation...Now!

Formed in 1993 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the band centers around the threesome of...

CJ Stritzel/Pretzel: Originally from Arizona, he formed the group when he got tired of waiting for something to present itself. "After a while, I realized that I just had to do it myself," he states.

Lorca Wood: Originally from Oklahoma, this feisty onetime cellist was a novice bass player when she joined the band.

Keith Herrera: Described as "old school" New Mexico, in 1994 the drummer issued the Drags' earliest 45 on Resin Records, an indie label he co-founded with a friend.

The group's latest release is a fun-packed, eight-song 10-inch record called Dragsploitation...Now! (Estrus Records). Also highly recommended: the "Tales From Estrus" compilation EP featuring the Drags' cover of Crime's "Baby You're so Repulsive" and the Drags/PeeChees split 45 on G.I. Productions.

Teenage Kicks: Has the band always been a three-piece?

CJ: No, for a while we had two guitar players, but Robbie moved to Atlanta a few years ago. And there's been a couple of other side Drags — our friend Ray was a Drag, and this guy Tom was a Drag for a little while. But it's been pretty much just the three of us. There was a point where we really wanted a fourth person, but no one's come along who was ready, willing and able. Now, I kind of like it as three.

Teenage Kicks: Were you in any bands before the Drags?

Meet The Drags
Estrus Records promo postcard

CJ: No, this is pretty much my first band; I'd never sang before. And this is definitely Lorca's first and only rock 'n' roll band. She didn't even play the bass before we started; she played the cello as a kid. But we kinda wanted someone who couldn't play because a couple of us already sorta could. And I was trying really hard not to play guitar that well — or just to play it differently. I was trying to do things that sounded cooler. Not really anything that would freak out other guitar players, but just to be uglier. So, that was our idea at first, to have somebody that couldn't play bass, to add that certain spice to it.

Teenage Kicks: And what about Keith?

CJ: Keith just kind of came along. We lost our drummer, and we had a whole summer of just sitting around. I played the drums for a while just to keep it going. And then Keith presented himself, and we jumped at it.

Teenage Kicks: Do you guys consider yourselves a punk band?

CJ: Definitely! I mean... I dunno how to explain why. We do everything ourselves; nobody's gonna do it for us. And we're not making a shitload of money. We just do what we do. And I think that's as good an encapsulation of punk rock as any.

Teenage Kicks: Do you have a big following around Albuquerque?

CJ: It ebbs and flows. Sometimes it seems like we're doing really well. Sometimes it seems like no one gives a shit.

Gas Huffer, Clawhammer & the Drags at the Whisky
(Poster art by Chris Cooper aka "Coop")

Teenage Kicks: Is there a scene in Albuquerque?

CJ: Yeah, there's some bands that are really good. And there's a couple of places to play. That's all you need, really. But there's not enough bands so that you can go out every weekend and see a different combination of bands. The plan now is to make a record and be gone as much as we can. I don't wanna play there every two weeks.

Teenage Kicks: How did you hook up with Estrus Records?

Dragsploitation...Now!
(Estrus Records 1995)

CJ: We sent them our first record [the "I Like to Die" 45]. We'd seen the Estrus ads; they had great little monsters and stuff in them. And we thought they looked really cool. We were always stealing the stuff from their ads to make our flyers. So we figured, let's send 'em a record! So, we sent them a test pressing with a postcard from this breakfast restaurant.

   This restaurant... it's like a whole city block and it's in a barn. It's called the Frontier Restaurant. We discovered that they had these postcards with their Frontier Sweet Roll on them, which is their claim to fame. So, we wrote on the back of the postcard: "We just made this record!" I don't know what we expected; if we expected to get signed, or what. But they called us back and said, "We wanna sell the record." A good chunk of that first pressing was sold through the Estrus mail-order catalog. And then we went on tour through that. So, we were kind of halfway connected with Estrus even before we were signed. And when we got back, they offered to put out a record if we made one. 

Teenage Kicks: I know the Drags have played on some Estrus-package shows. Is that something the label tries to set up regularly?

Comic book version of the Drags included
in the "Tales From Estrus" Vol. 3 compilation EP

CJ: I don't know about regularly... We've done it a few times. We flew out to Chicago and played with Impala, the Lord High Fixers, the Mono Men, and the Insomniacs. And we've done it out here with the Mono Men and the Trashwomen a couple of times. But it's not like it happens all over. You've probably got an inflated idea of how much it happens, 'cause it happens here a lot. But it doesn't happen as much everywhere else.

   Dave [Crider, Estrus owner] was talking about going down to Texas and doing a show, but it hasn't happened yet. He was actually talking about buying a bus, and we'd all travel together — like the old soul revues. Each of us would play two songs and haul ass off the stage!

Teenage Kicks: Is the trash/sleaze culture something you guys are heavily into?

CJ: No, not especially. That's something that's sort of been put on us. It wasn't really about Rat Fink, or whatever. I have an appreciation for stuff like that, but it wasn't why we did it. I just wanted to have a rock band, you know.

   And the stuff we've done, like "Elongated Man" — it was a joke! This guy told us about Elongated Man, and we didn't believe it. Like I said, we're not really experts. But we ended up calling the song "Elongated Man" just because we thought it was a cool title. Since then, people have said, "Wow! You named it after Elongated Man. He's so rad!" But I still wouldn't recognize Elongated Man from... whoever!

Teenage Kicks: All the songs on the album are simply credited to "The Drags." How does the songwriting actually work?

CJ: We do it kind of collaboratively. I come in with something, and we mess around with it. And then I kind of scream until I find two or three words that go good together. And then we try to figure out what the song is about from there. 

The Drags 
(back cover of Can't Stop Rock And Roll - Estrus Records 1997)

Teenage Kicks: How did the split 45 with the PeeChees doing a Drags' song and vice versa come about?

CJ: Somebody sent us a letter asking to do a single. And we said, "Yeah!" before we thought about if we had any songs. 'Cause we write songs kind of slow. We called the PeeChees about something else and they said, "We just got this letter to do some single..." And they didn't know what song they were gonna do either. I dunno... It wasn't the most original idea on Earth, but we decided to do each other's songs. And when we presented the idea to the label, they said, "That's weird." 'Cause that's what they were thinking about doing.

"Tales From Estrus" Vol. 3 
featuring the Lord High Fixers, Impala & the Drags

Teenage Kicks: Do you purposely try to get a lo-fi sound with your recordings?

CJ: Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't. There's been times when we wanted to add a little extra heat to it, so we did that. And sometimes it sounds really good, and sometimes we've been burned on it. And there's been times when we thought it sounded a little high-tech in the studio, but once we got the record, it sounded really neat. And there's other times where we thought it sounded really neat in the studio, but when we got the record back, it was a little grosser than we'd intended.  

Teenage Kicks: I've heard that the "Anxiety" single [the A-side of the group's recent 3-song 45 on Empty Records, which also features "Elongated Man" and a cover of "Flying Saucer Rock and Roll"] was recorded on the spur of the moment. Is that true?

CJ: We did that completely on the fly. We did it the day after Garage Shock [95]. Our van broke down, and we were sitting in some hotel. Blake [owner of Empty Records] had talked to us the night before about wanting to do a single sometime. Usually, that's like the rock equivalent of "let's do lunch." So, we called him up the next day and said, "If you can get a studio, we're gonna be in town." And we had a single recorded within 24 hours of when he asked us to do it!

Poster for Garage Shock 95 with the Makers,
Supersnazz & the Drags (to name a few)

Teenage Kicks: Are you inspired by other vocalists?

CJ: I have been since I started. But when I first started, I was mostly inspired by fear. Just straight-up fear. I figured, "I need to do this because no one's gonna do it for me." And it horrified me. I was in the bathroom for the whole night before we played our first show. It was such a horrifying experience. Since then... There's people whose singing I really enjoy, and I think you can be inspired by other people's singing. But you've got your own equipment. There's not really much I can do to sound like other people.

Teenage Kicks: I want to ask about the stories behind a couple of the songs on Dragsploitation...Now! One of my favorites is "My Girlfriend's in the F.B.I."

CJ: That was probably the quickest song I've ever written. It just kind of came to me when I was driving around one day. What was the word that I heard? Usually, that's the way it happens. I'll hear a word somewhere, and I'll start running with it when I'm driving around in my car. My car doesn't have a radio, so I have to keep myself entertained. So, I was driving around and it just came to me. I had it written by the time I got home. All I had to do was figure out how to play what was going on in my head.

Teenage Kicks: What about "Teenage Invasion"?

Mono Men & the Drags at Kilowatt in SF

CJ: Same deal. I just thought it was a really great title. I just thought "invasion" was a great word! That's actually the fourth incarnation of "Teenage Invasion." You know, there's the old philosophical question: If you change the head and you change the handle, do you still have the same axe? It used to have a different verse, but we thought the chorus was cool. So, we changed the verse. Then, we thought the chorus wasn't so cool. So, we changed the chorus, etc., etc. 

Teenage Kicks: The new "Tales From Estrus" compilation EP, (which includes the Drags' cover of Crime's "Baby You're so Repulsive") comes with a comic book featuring all the bands. How does it feel to be depicted in comic book form?

CJ: Oh, that was so cool! Dave told us that was going to happen, but it didn't really sink in at the time. But once we got the comic books back, it was really great! Although, for the record, I don't wear Converses. They make me look like I have duck feet.

Teenage Kicks: Why did you choose to cover "Baby You're so Repulsive" on the EP?

CJ: It was just kind of a neat song. I think one of Keith's friends had the record. We hadn't really heard of Crime. I mean, I knew that "Hotwire My Heart" was theirs — the song that Sonic Youth did. But that was about it.

Teenage Kicks: Have you heard anything back from Crime?

CJ: No, but you know, all our songs are ripped off from something else anyway. We keep expecting to hear from a whole lot of people. Haha!

★ ★ ★

Here's a link to the track "My Girlfriend's in the F.B.I." from Dragsploitation...Now.