Nashville Pussy hail from Atlanta, GA and they are far from your average band. They have a raw grit that will definitely get your heart pumping. Blaine Cartwright gives us a massive attack on vocals and guitar while his wife, Ruyter Suys, kills the guitar as well. Bonnie Buitrago masters the bass and Jeremy Thompson throws those drum beats down like a boss. The band formed in 1997 and having 18 years under the belt, they bring a lot of talent and experience that cannot be questioned. With a fun and filthy name like “Nashville Pussy”, we can’t expect less than a bit of dirt and pure sexual corruption in their lyrics to intrigue our inner lustfulness. Hell, if you think it, why not say it? Nashville Pussy surely does. These ladies and gents rock out while incorporating their southern styled background. As a music lover, I am ashamed to say that I was not extremely familiar with this band until recently. After getting the chance to listen to their music and speaking with Blaine today, I cannot express enough how awesome they are. I am honored that Blaine took the time to chat with me today to give me some of the inside scoop about the band and why they continue to do what they do. Between discussing free trips to Disney World and renovations to the Allman Brothers’ home in my hometown of Macon, I was able to decipher much of what makes Blaine and the rest of the band tick. Though they all basically grew up in the South, they grew up on “The Ramones”. The influences of “The Ramones” and the influences of “The Rolling Stones” is who Nashville Pussy builds a lot of what they do on. “The Ramones” are why Blaine says he plays music. It was a good starting point for him and a good building block but as he’s gotten older he listens to a shit load of older “Allman Brothers” and in fact, was sporting his Duane Allman shirt today as we spoke. After learning that despite the cost, they’ve opened up for “Lynyrd Skynyrd” and “ZZ Top”, I can only imagine the fun this bunch has on the road when touring.
Interview with Blaine Cartwright – Vocals and Guitar of Nashville Pussy
By: Leslie Elder Rogers
Metal Exiles: One of your biggest summers will be spent this year on the road with “Valient Thorr”. How do you think it will go over?
Blaine: I think it will go really good. We did that back in December for like two weeks and it went really well. With the rock and roll climate like it is, you have to get a couple of good bands together to get people out. In this case, I think we got it, seriously. It’ll be a fun time had by all basically. Their southerners too; from North Carolina so that helps. We get along. Basically we all drink beer and smoke weed and play rock and roll and that helps a lot; keeps things calm. Everything is calm except on the stage; on stage is where we let all our energy out. The show is gonna be good. We will make sure of that.
Metal Exiles: You have been doing Europe recently. How does the touring scene in Europe compare to America?
Blaine: Rock and roll is kind of bigger over there and we have a way bigger audience over there. It’s true for most bands and especially true for us but I’m from the states and from the south and I just don’t want to count it out. I want to do everything I can. We have two girls in the band and if rock and roll was on its’ last legs then we will go down kicking and screaming. The girls can do the kicking and I’m gonna do the screaming. We’re gonna make the most of it you know. I honestly think you can’t really get that feeling if you get that feeling that you get at a rock show if you go to a pop show or whatever; that feeling of letting go of frustration, getting that relief. Basically shows like hip-hop and shows like that people are just trying to get laid and rock and roll is the one time that even though there are a lot of sexualities and people do get laid and stuff, I think it’s almost above that. There’s something more important for people at rock and roll shows; like people may be working at crappy jobs and be frustrated and they get to go to a rock show and throw beer around and run in to people and jump around and get sweaty and let it all out. It’s kind of like a revival you know; like church is supposed to be. We’ve got a little rule…if there’s a velvet rope somewhere in the line, it’s gonna be shitty. We were playing at the Cam Films Festival a few years ago and they were taking us places, telling us we were going to be VIP, and every time they took us somewhere that had a velvet rope I was like “This is not gonna be good. I appreciate you guys letting us jump the line, but I don’t wanna jump the line at some place we don’t wanna go”. We are very out of place at any place that has a dance beat; just very out of place. We are rock and roll to the hilt. We’ll be the last band left when it comes right down to it; if it comes down to it…we will be.
Metal Exiles: You are celebrating 10 years with SPV with the release of Ten Years of Pussy. First off who had the idea to pay homage to Ted Nugent with the Cover?
Blaine: Well, that’s Ruyter, my wife, the guitar player. It’s a picture from a couple of years ago that we decided to use and it just looked like a Ted Nugent thing. We were arguing over it. We had to get this thing done really fast. It was really last minute, getting this thing together, the compilation, the songs and music and what usually takes a long time is the artwork. Once we started talking about original artwork, that’s when the argument started and the deadline was looming and we were like “let’s just get a really good live picture”. So we came up with that one. It looks great. It lets you know what’s in store for you when you see that cover and we’ve always liked that. It’s like looking at a “Lynyrd Skynyrd” album and you know what it’s gonna sound like. You know it’s gonna rock. That’s really good because you’re advertising it already. We love Ted Nugent though. I know people have some problems with his politics and whether I agree with him or not, he does kind of go on a little too much for my liking on some stuff. I wish he’d stick to music. I thought the same thing about Springsteen. I wish they’d just go back to playing music and doing a benefit here and there but they have their beliefs and they know what they’re doing. It’s really weird because they believe opposite things and they’re both idols of mine but they’re totally opposite and I’m sure they’re both totally cool guys. I just think Ted Nugent is getting a little too well known for politics and that’s his deal BUT he rocks and you can’t deny that.
Metal Exiles: With so many accolades for your last few albums how was it possible to select what you did for Ten Years?
Blaine: Well I had people who were on em’ and record labels; like about five or six people, send five songs. I was going to make a consensus. There were a couple of songs I wanted on there for sure but the rest, well, I’m not a very good judge of my own stuff. So I had everyone send their pick. I noticed everyone tended to pick the catchier songs and they were the ones we all had in common so I knew it was going to be more of a fun compilation than I thought. When I got it together, I had to get three songs so I got one song from each record to start off to be the first three songs and I sent it off to the guy who was mastering it to put them in the order they should go in. I also had the song I wanted to put at the end and I had all the rest. I usually make like twenty or thirty different versions of a compilation and burn CDs and mull over it like crazy but for some reason, the way they appeared on my last comp, I had just thrown them on there and it looked right. It looked like it was in order. That was basically it. The order and the songs pretty much fell together really well and was not near as big a chore as I thought it would be. When I do stuff like that, I try not to put too much thought into it. I try to have what I want to hear immediately; the instant thing I want to hear. It’s like making a mixed tape; what do I wanna hear next and so on. I’m really happy with it. I think it’s the best thing we’ve got. I never thought we were a band that would benefit by having a compilation out. I always thought our albums always stood by themselves and all set a mood. I didn’t think we were the kind of band that would have a compilation that would work for us but it does. This is the one CD that I would give somebody and say “hey man, you gotta check this out”. There’s some hidden gems that were are on our record that are pretty catchy that we haven’t played live and maybe got obscured and didn’t get the attention they needed. So, yeah, I’m really, really happy with it and basically it was just a consensus of everybody in the band about what songs they wanted to see on it. We could’ve even made it a hair longer but it seemed like it was about 16 songs and that was about perfect especially going that hard and fast. I’ve pretty ecstatic about the whole thing.
Metal Exiles: You included stuff you did with Danko Jones and Lemmy. What did they bring to the studio that stood out for you guys?
Blaine: Well, actually, both of them recorded at different places. When I recorded the song “I’m So High” that Danko is in, I originally wrote it kind of like a Temptations song, like they all take turns singing like the old soul songs. I needed someone to go back and forth on the vocals with me. I needed a black guy and Danko is half black so...he’s got that voice too, that deep voice and I wanted that to kind of give us a Sam and Dave type thing. He did it and didn’t even charge us any money for it and it I couldn’t believe it. He knocked it out in the studio and didn’t charge us anything. He’s a gentlemen. He’s great. As far as Lemmy, the whole plan was to get him to do those two lines that he does in the song and they were on tour and our schedules weren’t meeting up. We didn’t think we would be able to do it so he was supposed to call the studio and there was no land line. This was recorded like six years ago and there was no land line in the studio; that was the only way to record it so he called us from a cell phone from England, in a pub, surrounded by people. You couldn’t really hear him but when we remixed it for the compilation, we had a different person remix it and he pulled it up and did a little studio magic so, basically that’s Lemmy in a pub on someone else’s cell phone, doing some lines that I had to text the words to him and he was great for doing that. He’s a really good friend but it was really hard to nail him down because they’re always on the road; always.
Metal Exiles: “Motorhead” has claimed that there is no better band to open for them than you guys. What are some of the better stories from touring with Lemmy?
Blaine: I tell you what man, if you’ve ever been backstage to most rock shows, it’s not what you think it is. It’s not as crazy as you’d think. It’s usually kind of a sterile surrounding and people are just kind of keeping to themselves or whatever but “Motorhead” is exactly what you think it is. It’s 24/7 and you know you’re on a rock and roll tour the whole time. We go out with those guys for like three to four weeks and then we come home and sleep for a month and they are still out. I don’t know of any specific instance but every day was their own version of organized chaos. Even though they get crazy, everything is built for that one hour or hour and half that they’re on stage. They just know what they’re doing. They’ve had the same crew and some of the same people for a long time and they all know each other’s habits and stuff. There is a lot of Jack Daniels going on and other things too basically and there’s bimbos like you’d think there are and stuff like that. We’ve opened up for bigger bands and you go back and there’s the band and their families’ maybe and their kids or girlfriends or business people, more calm than you’d think. Then “Motorhead” it’s just partying and slutty chicks that you don’t know how the hell they got back there and it’s just chaos man. Lemmy’s dressing room alone is serious chaos. It’s for real. They’re for real.
Metal Exiles: I see that booze, drugs and sex make up most of what you do.
Blaine: I’ve noticed that. I’m writing a new album right now and I noticed on the last record, the one that we got some of the songs from for the comp, I was like “wow, did I write that many songs about drugs”? It was great but I feel like it’s my catch phrase or something. Basically they’re like over the top, party songs. To me Nashville Pussy is rock and roll in 5th gear when everything else is 4th gear. It’s like Van Halen and they talk about partying in the early days and they’re great but there’s a lot of cliché’s involved and I try to make my own new cliché’s and make it over the top, so it’s more interesting than just “hey look at that girl over there, walking down the street…and you’re the girl I wanna meet”…stuff like that. I try to make it crazier and stuff. There’s a line about a good night for a heart attack and it’s about having Xanax wrapped in bacon and then there’s the line “let’s get it on before the drugs wear off”. That song let’s get in on “Before the Drugs Wear Off”, it says your ten months pregnant but you can’t even tell. We were arguing about it. I had the words three months pregnant but I have never had kids so I didn’t know that three months pregnant isn’t shit so it doesn’t really show, so we were arguing over how many months to put in the song and going between what would be realistic and what would be exaggerated and what actual numbers fit in the song. I was like “fuck it, ten months pregnant”. That’s Nashville Pussy’s way to do it. Screw reality. Let’s exaggerate the party tales and stuff, you know, when people tell what happened one night and everyone is trying to top each other. Those are the stories that people listen to a lot so I wanted us to have the craziest stories ever. There’s one from “Up the Dosage”, the first line is like “snortin’ cocaine while fuckin’ the soul train” and “eatin’ corn dogs while gettin’ blow jobs”. I just like stuff that sounds cool and funny and it just sounds like stuff you wanna do. It sounds like you wanna be the dude that is happening to.
Metal Exiles: With people trying to take the rebel flag away what is steaming inside you right now for new music?
Blaine: You know what? I’ve been engaging in some conversations some friends of mine who are punk rockers and they associate that with us and we haven’t used that for a long, long time. The example I brought up was that we originally got the idea to use the rebel flag about 17 years ago, from a John Waters movie; “Cry Baby”. At the very end, the finale’, the good guys, Johnny Depp wins the girl and they perform several songs in front of this giant rebel flag. It’s not trying to be ironic or anything like that. It just looks cool. Now, unfortunately, actual southern racists and easily offended Yankees have screwed that up for us. In all honesty, people are just jumping on band wagons about banning “Gone with the Wind”, and “Dukes of Hazard”. There’s a lot of people in other parts of the country that don’t understand or have never been here. They are threatened or uncomfortable or don’t see anything in it for them basically for us to even still exist. I think that if they could magically wave a wand, they’d just get rid of almost everything southern. When something bad happens, like what happened in South Carolina, it gives them a little leverage. When they talk about taking “Lynyrd Skynyrd” albums off the shelf, I get kind of upset. You know it’s probably not going to happen but it’s just the fact that people are asking for it to happen. I mean “Gone with the Wind”, I don’t really care about but whatever, and “Dukes of Hazard”, ok, but I mean, “Lynyrd Skynyrd”…come on. Of course, I don’t want it on a state flag. I don’t think I ever did. I didn’t even know it was still on the state flag. I don’t know how many people sit around and pay attention to state flags but that’s been the problem. When you think it’s not about racism, then the other side will bring something up that shows to some people it sure as hell was. It’s a complex and confusing and every changing issue and it’s not as black and white as people think. I don’t know whether to back away from it or to wave it harder. I mean, you don’t wanna be an asshole, but you don’t wanna be a pussy either so it’s very confusing. It brings a lot of confusing emotions. I was raised around sports and music and my heroes are black. My heroes are James Brown and Muddy Waters. Those are my favorite musicians ever and you don’t want to piss people like that off but at the same time when it’s mostly upper-middle classed liberal white people from Connecticut who are getting mad, it doesn’t seem like it’s their business. I think we all feel the same way. It’s just hard to put into words and even harder to put into any kind of action because it’s hard to make a move or fly the flag without offending anyone. The reason we used it is because it just looks so fuckin’ cool. That’s the problem. If it was a really boring flag, we would’ve gotten rid of it a long time ago but it just looks like a pirate flag or something. In Europe it means Rockabilly and Southern Rock. It doesn’t mean anything racist at all. I understand people getting upset by it but hopefully the whole thing will blow over at some point. When you start banning stuff, it’s just kind of irreversible, and when it dies down, like this will, and things will still be banned, and that’s not ok. “Lynyrd Skynyrd” is like a hot water mark, their music is not racist at all but if you went to a concert, you’d see a flag. I’ve thought about it a lot. I think we’ve all thought about it a lot and we’re all kind of really searching for the right thing to say to smooth things over and to take up for ourselves but I think it’s impossible especially with the knee-jerk and strong reactions that it gets from certain segments of people. There are a bunch of assholes that are so fuckin’ racist who wave that flag a lot, but I know so many people that are not racist at all and they have that flag too.
Metal Exiles: Beyond “Valient Thorr”, what do you have planned to push “Ten Years of Pussy”?
Blaine: We keep on touring but we aren’t opening up for anybody right now or anything. We don’t have a double bill but we are going back to Europe. We’ve got a new manager who just took over and he inherited a bit of a mess. Basically, he inherited a nice house that needs some touch up and right now we’re cleaning the gutters of the band and trying to make sure we get back on track. I’m trying to write songs right now because the last album seemed to take like five years; we were five years between albums this last time and three before it. The last eight years, we’ve only done two more records and that’s not right. I’m trying to just keep on writing and I’m 51 years old so I want to keep on writing while I still feel it and just get as many rocks songs together as possible. Just trying to keep the train moving and hopefully fuel it with some good songs. We had a big push back in 1998-1999 and it carried on a few years after and then it settled down and we were on our own playing to the converted and the people who already knew us, but it’s basically our responsibility to get the music to you, so hopefully in the future all of this will help out. We’re planting seeds basically and ready to grow.
Band website: http://www.nashvillepussy.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NSPSY
Instagram: https://instagram.com/bashfulpuppy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nashville_pussy
Listen to “Up the Dosage” @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu3GoqAkNzE
Buy “Ten Years of Pussy” @ https://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/ten-years-of-pussy/id980363236
Interview with Blaine Cartwright – Vocals and Guitar of Nashville Pussy
By: Leslie Elder Rogers
Metal Exiles: One of your biggest summers will be spent this year on the road with “Valient Thorr”. How do you think it will go over?
Blaine: I think it will go really good. We did that back in December for like two weeks and it went really well. With the rock and roll climate like it is, you have to get a couple of good bands together to get people out. In this case, I think we got it, seriously. It’ll be a fun time had by all basically. Their southerners too; from North Carolina so that helps. We get along. Basically we all drink beer and smoke weed and play rock and roll and that helps a lot; keeps things calm. Everything is calm except on the stage; on stage is where we let all our energy out. The show is gonna be good. We will make sure of that.
Metal Exiles: You have been doing Europe recently. How does the touring scene in Europe compare to America?
Blaine: Rock and roll is kind of bigger over there and we have a way bigger audience over there. It’s true for most bands and especially true for us but I’m from the states and from the south and I just don’t want to count it out. I want to do everything I can. We have two girls in the band and if rock and roll was on its’ last legs then we will go down kicking and screaming. The girls can do the kicking and I’m gonna do the screaming. We’re gonna make the most of it you know. I honestly think you can’t really get that feeling if you get that feeling that you get at a rock show if you go to a pop show or whatever; that feeling of letting go of frustration, getting that relief. Basically shows like hip-hop and shows like that people are just trying to get laid and rock and roll is the one time that even though there are a lot of sexualities and people do get laid and stuff, I think it’s almost above that. There’s something more important for people at rock and roll shows; like people may be working at crappy jobs and be frustrated and they get to go to a rock show and throw beer around and run in to people and jump around and get sweaty and let it all out. It’s kind of like a revival you know; like church is supposed to be. We’ve got a little rule…if there’s a velvet rope somewhere in the line, it’s gonna be shitty. We were playing at the Cam Films Festival a few years ago and they were taking us places, telling us we were going to be VIP, and every time they took us somewhere that had a velvet rope I was like “This is not gonna be good. I appreciate you guys letting us jump the line, but I don’t wanna jump the line at some place we don’t wanna go”. We are very out of place at any place that has a dance beat; just very out of place. We are rock and roll to the hilt. We’ll be the last band left when it comes right down to it; if it comes down to it…we will be.
Metal Exiles: You are celebrating 10 years with SPV with the release of Ten Years of Pussy. First off who had the idea to pay homage to Ted Nugent with the Cover?
Blaine: Well, that’s Ruyter, my wife, the guitar player. It’s a picture from a couple of years ago that we decided to use and it just looked like a Ted Nugent thing. We were arguing over it. We had to get this thing done really fast. It was really last minute, getting this thing together, the compilation, the songs and music and what usually takes a long time is the artwork. Once we started talking about original artwork, that’s when the argument started and the deadline was looming and we were like “let’s just get a really good live picture”. So we came up with that one. It looks great. It lets you know what’s in store for you when you see that cover and we’ve always liked that. It’s like looking at a “Lynyrd Skynyrd” album and you know what it’s gonna sound like. You know it’s gonna rock. That’s really good because you’re advertising it already. We love Ted Nugent though. I know people have some problems with his politics and whether I agree with him or not, he does kind of go on a little too much for my liking on some stuff. I wish he’d stick to music. I thought the same thing about Springsteen. I wish they’d just go back to playing music and doing a benefit here and there but they have their beliefs and they know what they’re doing. It’s really weird because they believe opposite things and they’re both idols of mine but they’re totally opposite and I’m sure they’re both totally cool guys. I just think Ted Nugent is getting a little too well known for politics and that’s his deal BUT he rocks and you can’t deny that.
Metal Exiles: With so many accolades for your last few albums how was it possible to select what you did for Ten Years?
Blaine: Well I had people who were on em’ and record labels; like about five or six people, send five songs. I was going to make a consensus. There were a couple of songs I wanted on there for sure but the rest, well, I’m not a very good judge of my own stuff. So I had everyone send their pick. I noticed everyone tended to pick the catchier songs and they were the ones we all had in common so I knew it was going to be more of a fun compilation than I thought. When I got it together, I had to get three songs so I got one song from each record to start off to be the first three songs and I sent it off to the guy who was mastering it to put them in the order they should go in. I also had the song I wanted to put at the end and I had all the rest. I usually make like twenty or thirty different versions of a compilation and burn CDs and mull over it like crazy but for some reason, the way they appeared on my last comp, I had just thrown them on there and it looked right. It looked like it was in order. That was basically it. The order and the songs pretty much fell together really well and was not near as big a chore as I thought it would be. When I do stuff like that, I try not to put too much thought into it. I try to have what I want to hear immediately; the instant thing I want to hear. It’s like making a mixed tape; what do I wanna hear next and so on. I’m really happy with it. I think it’s the best thing we’ve got. I never thought we were a band that would benefit by having a compilation out. I always thought our albums always stood by themselves and all set a mood. I didn’t think we were the kind of band that would have a compilation that would work for us but it does. This is the one CD that I would give somebody and say “hey man, you gotta check this out”. There’s some hidden gems that were are on our record that are pretty catchy that we haven’t played live and maybe got obscured and didn’t get the attention they needed. So, yeah, I’m really, really happy with it and basically it was just a consensus of everybody in the band about what songs they wanted to see on it. We could’ve even made it a hair longer but it seemed like it was about 16 songs and that was about perfect especially going that hard and fast. I’ve pretty ecstatic about the whole thing.
Metal Exiles: You included stuff you did with Danko Jones and Lemmy. What did they bring to the studio that stood out for you guys?
Blaine: Well, actually, both of them recorded at different places. When I recorded the song “I’m So High” that Danko is in, I originally wrote it kind of like a Temptations song, like they all take turns singing like the old soul songs. I needed someone to go back and forth on the vocals with me. I needed a black guy and Danko is half black so...he’s got that voice too, that deep voice and I wanted that to kind of give us a Sam and Dave type thing. He did it and didn’t even charge us any money for it and it I couldn’t believe it. He knocked it out in the studio and didn’t charge us anything. He’s a gentlemen. He’s great. As far as Lemmy, the whole plan was to get him to do those two lines that he does in the song and they were on tour and our schedules weren’t meeting up. We didn’t think we would be able to do it so he was supposed to call the studio and there was no land line. This was recorded like six years ago and there was no land line in the studio; that was the only way to record it so he called us from a cell phone from England, in a pub, surrounded by people. You couldn’t really hear him but when we remixed it for the compilation, we had a different person remix it and he pulled it up and did a little studio magic so, basically that’s Lemmy in a pub on someone else’s cell phone, doing some lines that I had to text the words to him and he was great for doing that. He’s a really good friend but it was really hard to nail him down because they’re always on the road; always.
Metal Exiles: “Motorhead” has claimed that there is no better band to open for them than you guys. What are some of the better stories from touring with Lemmy?
Blaine: I tell you what man, if you’ve ever been backstage to most rock shows, it’s not what you think it is. It’s not as crazy as you’d think. It’s usually kind of a sterile surrounding and people are just kind of keeping to themselves or whatever but “Motorhead” is exactly what you think it is. It’s 24/7 and you know you’re on a rock and roll tour the whole time. We go out with those guys for like three to four weeks and then we come home and sleep for a month and they are still out. I don’t know of any specific instance but every day was their own version of organized chaos. Even though they get crazy, everything is built for that one hour or hour and half that they’re on stage. They just know what they’re doing. They’ve had the same crew and some of the same people for a long time and they all know each other’s habits and stuff. There is a lot of Jack Daniels going on and other things too basically and there’s bimbos like you’d think there are and stuff like that. We’ve opened up for bigger bands and you go back and there’s the band and their families’ maybe and their kids or girlfriends or business people, more calm than you’d think. Then “Motorhead” it’s just partying and slutty chicks that you don’t know how the hell they got back there and it’s just chaos man. Lemmy’s dressing room alone is serious chaos. It’s for real. They’re for real.
Metal Exiles: I see that booze, drugs and sex make up most of what you do.
Blaine: I’ve noticed that. I’m writing a new album right now and I noticed on the last record, the one that we got some of the songs from for the comp, I was like “wow, did I write that many songs about drugs”? It was great but I feel like it’s my catch phrase or something. Basically they’re like over the top, party songs. To me Nashville Pussy is rock and roll in 5th gear when everything else is 4th gear. It’s like Van Halen and they talk about partying in the early days and they’re great but there’s a lot of cliché’s involved and I try to make my own new cliché’s and make it over the top, so it’s more interesting than just “hey look at that girl over there, walking down the street…and you’re the girl I wanna meet”…stuff like that. I try to make it crazier and stuff. There’s a line about a good night for a heart attack and it’s about having Xanax wrapped in bacon and then there’s the line “let’s get it on before the drugs wear off”. That song let’s get in on “Before the Drugs Wear Off”, it says your ten months pregnant but you can’t even tell. We were arguing about it. I had the words three months pregnant but I have never had kids so I didn’t know that three months pregnant isn’t shit so it doesn’t really show, so we were arguing over how many months to put in the song and going between what would be realistic and what would be exaggerated and what actual numbers fit in the song. I was like “fuck it, ten months pregnant”. That’s Nashville Pussy’s way to do it. Screw reality. Let’s exaggerate the party tales and stuff, you know, when people tell what happened one night and everyone is trying to top each other. Those are the stories that people listen to a lot so I wanted us to have the craziest stories ever. There’s one from “Up the Dosage”, the first line is like “snortin’ cocaine while fuckin’ the soul train” and “eatin’ corn dogs while gettin’ blow jobs”. I just like stuff that sounds cool and funny and it just sounds like stuff you wanna do. It sounds like you wanna be the dude that is happening to.
Metal Exiles: With people trying to take the rebel flag away what is steaming inside you right now for new music?
Blaine: You know what? I’ve been engaging in some conversations some friends of mine who are punk rockers and they associate that with us and we haven’t used that for a long, long time. The example I brought up was that we originally got the idea to use the rebel flag about 17 years ago, from a John Waters movie; “Cry Baby”. At the very end, the finale’, the good guys, Johnny Depp wins the girl and they perform several songs in front of this giant rebel flag. It’s not trying to be ironic or anything like that. It just looks cool. Now, unfortunately, actual southern racists and easily offended Yankees have screwed that up for us. In all honesty, people are just jumping on band wagons about banning “Gone with the Wind”, and “Dukes of Hazard”. There’s a lot of people in other parts of the country that don’t understand or have never been here. They are threatened or uncomfortable or don’t see anything in it for them basically for us to even still exist. I think that if they could magically wave a wand, they’d just get rid of almost everything southern. When something bad happens, like what happened in South Carolina, it gives them a little leverage. When they talk about taking “Lynyrd Skynyrd” albums off the shelf, I get kind of upset. You know it’s probably not going to happen but it’s just the fact that people are asking for it to happen. I mean “Gone with the Wind”, I don’t really care about but whatever, and “Dukes of Hazard”, ok, but I mean, “Lynyrd Skynyrd”…come on. Of course, I don’t want it on a state flag. I don’t think I ever did. I didn’t even know it was still on the state flag. I don’t know how many people sit around and pay attention to state flags but that’s been the problem. When you think it’s not about racism, then the other side will bring something up that shows to some people it sure as hell was. It’s a complex and confusing and every changing issue and it’s not as black and white as people think. I don’t know whether to back away from it or to wave it harder. I mean, you don’t wanna be an asshole, but you don’t wanna be a pussy either so it’s very confusing. It brings a lot of confusing emotions. I was raised around sports and music and my heroes are black. My heroes are James Brown and Muddy Waters. Those are my favorite musicians ever and you don’t want to piss people like that off but at the same time when it’s mostly upper-middle classed liberal white people from Connecticut who are getting mad, it doesn’t seem like it’s their business. I think we all feel the same way. It’s just hard to put into words and even harder to put into any kind of action because it’s hard to make a move or fly the flag without offending anyone. The reason we used it is because it just looks so fuckin’ cool. That’s the problem. If it was a really boring flag, we would’ve gotten rid of it a long time ago but it just looks like a pirate flag or something. In Europe it means Rockabilly and Southern Rock. It doesn’t mean anything racist at all. I understand people getting upset by it but hopefully the whole thing will blow over at some point. When you start banning stuff, it’s just kind of irreversible, and when it dies down, like this will, and things will still be banned, and that’s not ok. “Lynyrd Skynyrd” is like a hot water mark, their music is not racist at all but if you went to a concert, you’d see a flag. I’ve thought about it a lot. I think we’ve all thought about it a lot and we’re all kind of really searching for the right thing to say to smooth things over and to take up for ourselves but I think it’s impossible especially with the knee-jerk and strong reactions that it gets from certain segments of people. There are a bunch of assholes that are so fuckin’ racist who wave that flag a lot, but I know so many people that are not racist at all and they have that flag too.
Metal Exiles: Beyond “Valient Thorr”, what do you have planned to push “Ten Years of Pussy”?
Blaine: We keep on touring but we aren’t opening up for anybody right now or anything. We don’t have a double bill but we are going back to Europe. We’ve got a new manager who just took over and he inherited a bit of a mess. Basically, he inherited a nice house that needs some touch up and right now we’re cleaning the gutters of the band and trying to make sure we get back on track. I’m trying to write songs right now because the last album seemed to take like five years; we were five years between albums this last time and three before it. The last eight years, we’ve only done two more records and that’s not right. I’m trying to just keep on writing and I’m 51 years old so I want to keep on writing while I still feel it and just get as many rocks songs together as possible. Just trying to keep the train moving and hopefully fuel it with some good songs. We had a big push back in 1998-1999 and it carried on a few years after and then it settled down and we were on our own playing to the converted and the people who already knew us, but it’s basically our responsibility to get the music to you, so hopefully in the future all of this will help out. We’re planting seeds basically and ready to grow.
Band website: http://www.nashvillepussy.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NSPSY
Instagram: https://instagram.com/bashfulpuppy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nashville_pussy
Listen to “Up the Dosage” @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu3GoqAkNzE
Buy “Ten Years of Pussy” @ https://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/ten-years-of-pussy/id980363236