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Nashville Pussy
Raunchy band remembers its roots
by Mike Mowbray
the Carillon
For a guy who plays in a band notorious for its raucous and raunchy live shows, lead singer/guitarist Blaine Cartwright’s reasons for sticking it out seem straight forward enough. br>
“Yeah, you got bills to pay and shit, that’s a lot of it,” he says. “It’s more fun than staying home, usually, really simple shit, you know - it's kinda addictive to be on the road and all that.” Good, because Nashville Pussy’s tour schedule is at least as tough as most –– the present leg of their tour takes them from Victoria to Moncton and down to New England with 27-odd shows in 30 days.
The rambunctious quartet rolled through Regina November 18, playing The State to a somewhat modest but definitely enthusiastic crowd. The Atlanta, Georgia based group is no stranger to Regina, or to The State for that matter, having played the club in each of the past three years.
For those still uninitiated, the members of Nashville Pussy serve up a musical mix that they’ve nearly perfected over the years: hard southern rock infused with equal parts of ‘banger metal and old-school American punk –– always hard, always fast, and always all-out.
The group finds itself saddled with a reputation (well-deserved and lovingly cultivated) for embracing life’s excesses - be it sex, drugs, or rock’n’roll. “She’s Got the Drugs,” “High as Hell,” “All Fucked Up,” “You Give Drugs a Bad Name” and “Keep On Fuckin’” all are song titles on Nashville Pussy’s last three records, and they say it all.
Their solo-laden live performances are often dominated by the guitar work––and refusal to be contained by tight, binding shirts––of Vancouver’s own Ruyter Suys (who, in addition to handling lead guitar duties for the band, happens to be married to Cartwright.) True to form, her deft fingerwork tends to be accompanied by a healthy dose of beer slammed onstage and sprayed over the audience.
When asked who they would cite as the inspiration for their own musical endeavors, both Cartwright and bass player Katie-Lynn Campbell paused for about half a second, looked at each other and nodded: “The Ramones.” Cartwright went on to add, “Believe it or not, I went out and got a guitar when I saw Bruce Springsteen live. I know it doesn’t really fit, but he seemed like he was havin’ a good time and doin’ really well and I was like, hell, I should do this.”
Campbell also pointed to another key (and fairly obvious) influence: veteran UK headbangers Motorhead, apparently the music of choice as the group made their way to Regina from Edmonton. A still somewhat bleary-eyed Blaine, who had just slept through the aforementioned journey, immediately piped up, “Yeah, Motorhead. I was havin’ them crazy dreams.”
Apparently, in addition to having “them crazy dreams,” Cartwright has fond memories of the multipurpose room in the Riddell Centre, where so many visiting punk bands play. Upon mention of the “local university paper,” he was eager to share.
“I played Regina’s University at one time, it was like a big area with a stage and, like, no one was showin’ up. I played there with another band called Nine Pound Hammer about 7, no, 8 years ago with The Smalls. There weren’t that many people there,” he reminisced, ”it was a big, echoey place. We played this lunchroom with like 50 people staring at us, and kids throwin’ shit at us at one point.”
Fans of real, live rock’n’roll should thank their lucky stars that Nashville Pussy kept coming back.
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