Classic groupie/lead guitarist the real deal
Who:
Nashville Pussy with Stink Mitt and Peter Pan Speed RockWhere:
Garfinkel’sWhen:
Monday, Nov. 10Tickets
: $15Ruyter Suys has gotten to the point in her career where to shock her audiences she’d have to appear onstage in a flowing skirt and play Carpenters cover tunes. Either that or something equally square. It’s ironic it would take the least shocking thing she could conjure up to surprise those who know and love her as the cleavage-baring, big hair tossing, red-hot guitar goddess from southern fried rock foursome Nashville Pussy.
Of course, were that to happen it would likely mean the four horsemen of the Apocalypse were right around the corner. Ruyter is a rocker, through and through. She talks like a rocker, she plays like a rocker. She even married a rocker, fellow Pussy singer/guitarist Blaine Cartwright, whom she met when he toured his band Nine Pound Hammer through the Vancouver native’s college town of Saskatoon.
Suys had just graduated from art school and was looking for more than Saskatchewan had to offer.
"I was the classic groupie and he was my ticket to ride," she says in the husky tone you’d expect from a hard-rock babe. "I was like, ‘I’m outta here, man.’"
Well, not quite the classic groupie. How many groupies end up playing guitar? And not just strumming the odd chord or two, but lead guitar for a loud, crude, sexy, high-voltage, ace of spades rock band. The one, the only, Nashville Pussy.
Her instrumental prowess and larger than life stage persona has made her the figurehead for the hardworking band she formed with Cartwright. The name Nashville Pussy should be the first indication they weren’t courting a safe mainstream pop audience. For those who missed it the first time, they hammered the point home by naming their first album Let Them Eat Pussy and have continued the trend with follow ups High as Hell and Say Something Nasty .
Unwilling to clean up their act or bow to industry suggestions in the last few years to make them more marketable as a n ü metal outfit, mainstream super-success has eluded the band.
"People with really bad, stupid ideas, we’re not very co-operative with them," says the straight-talking Cartwright. "We’ve got enough of a fan base, a cult following around the world, so I’d never want to jeopardize that by doing something stupid."
Now on third bassist, KatieLynn Campbell, Pussy has toured North America and Europe extensively over its seven year run. You can count on checking them out in every major urban centre, but also smaller towns along the way.
"It suits the band, small communities," muses Cartwright, who grew up in rural Kentucky and high-tailed it as soon as he could. "Small towns man, people need it. They need to blow off steam."
He of all people should know.
"Yeah, I’m still blowing off steam," he concurs, "that’s why I’m still doing this."
But right now Cartwright also needs to blow off some steam about his wife’s overlooked talents as a guitar player. Ruyter rocks. She rules. But she’s not political like the frontwomen in the Riot Grrl bands, and with Cartwright on guitar and vocals plus Jeremy Thompson on drums the novelty of the all-girl band is lost on Pussy.
It’s also distressing to see three top hip-hop and R&B divas on the cover of Rolling Stone’s latest Women Who Rock issue, vents Cartwright, an indication pop culture has dismissed true rock credibility entirely.
He isn’t the only one bothered by the cover and the loose definition of "women who rock."
"It pisses me off to no end," says Suys. "I can’t even properly put into words how mad that makes me. They completely miss out on all sorts of really great musicians. Nancy Wilson from Heart was my hero growing up and she’s never in there."
She knows, however, that the PR for such features is more crucial than the riffs will ever be.
"I think you have to campaign," she adds, "I’m totally let down by the people they choose."
Suys/Wilson in 2004 – it just might work. They should start selling campaign buttons at their shows, although they’d just be preaching to the choir.
There’s one area, however, that Pussy has never needed help getting noticed. The band is overtly sexual, both in lyrics and stage antics. Wanna see onstage cleavage? Check out a Pussy show.
Touring mates for the next month, the foul-mouthed Canadian gansta-rap cougar duo Stink Mitt have absolutely nothing in common with the band genre-wise, but Mitt’s song Bangin’ On My Clit, could just as easily be a Pussy title. They’re linked by their bad-girls-in-the-smoking-bathroom attitude.
But while it may seem to outsiders that the band has let the sex define them, Suys counters that it will never take over the rock ’n’ roll. Rather, the two are inseparable, she says. That’s the way rock ’n’ roll was back in the days of Elvis, that’s the way it was for later icons like David Lee Roth, and they’re just happy to continue the tradition.
With this in mind, it’s almost amusing to check out what pop chicklets du jour like Britney and Christina are doing with their images in the name of being cutting edge. Suys has been putting the sex in her music for years.
"Whatever they’re doing, they’re missing it, because they’ve managed to make sexy really clean, even though they’re trying to be as ‘dirty’ as they can be," she laughs. "It’s still kind of safe somehow."
So while Pussy fans can only dream about seeing Suys’ face in the next women who rock feature, it’s guaranteed they won’t ever see Pussy turn their gritty blast of authentic rock ’n’ roll into safe, processed pop with a stripper-chic veneer. When Suys rips into a blazing solo in her bikini top on the upcoming cross Canada tour it’s because she’s still, always and forever, equal parts groupie and guitar goddess, someone who knows what rock ’n’ roll is all about.
Check out Nashville Pussy with openers Stink Mitt, Vancouver’s gangsta-rap, trailer-clash MC duo preaching camel toe pride on Monday, Nov. 10 at Garfinkel’s. Dutch metal punks Peter Pan Speed Rock are also on the bill. Tickets are $15, available in advance from the Electric Daisy Internet Café.
