Show & Tell - S&T chats with Ruyter Suys of Nashville Pussy

RUYTER SUYS of NASHVILLE PUSSY
06.14.02

People often come to me and they say, "Hey, Scott? What's the deal with Nashville Pussy?"

So I tell them, "Well, I'll tell ya. Nashville Pussy is pure rock-n-roll... Hard jammin', beer-spittin', guitar-crunchin' rock n roll."

NP puts on the kind of live show where it's not required you know the songs to have a good time; the kind of live show that feels more like a party than a performance.

Front man Blane Cartwright, eyes nearly closed (I'm sure he's probably just tired), keeps the show moving with an occasional anecdote ("drugs are bad because they can turn an asshole... into a SUPERASSHOLE!!!"), a short story, a little beer shower for the front row.

Wife, bandmate and badass guitarist Ruyter Suys (pronounced rider sighs) maintains the tempo. She's everything you want in a guitarist; she can play, she can move, she can perform fellatio on a beer bottle. (Okay, so maybe the beer bottle fellating isn't something you usually look for in a guitarist, you get my point.)

Rounding out and providing the foundation for the foursome are newcomer KatieLynn Campbell (replacing Tracey Almazon who'd previously replaced Corey Parks) on bass and drummer Jeremy Thompson.

We caught up with Ruyter somewhere between Houston and Dallas.

Ruyter: Hey!

S&T: How you doing?

R: Good, I'm in the van now. [laughs]

S&T: You got time for me now or do you want to do this later?

R: No, this is perfect. As perfect as it gets.

S&T: OK, cool. Thanks for taking the time out, first of all.

R: No problem at all. Where is this for?

S&T: It's for Show & Tell Online? We publish in a couple of different magazines but we also have an online, internet magazine where we do CD reviews, interviews and photo galleries and stuff – actually we have two great photo galleries for you guys, both from [New York's] Irving Plaza.

R: Oh cool, right on. Hey, do you know if it's linked up to our site?

S&T: I don't think it is. Should I email them?

R: Yeah, most definitely. There's a thing on the front page [of the Nashville Pussy home page] that says, "Web page designed by," I think it's called "Groovy Fortune." Her name is Beth – our webmistress is Beth and she's very cool, very accommodating.

S&T: Great. You deal directly with her?

R: Oh yeah. She's super cool and actually we're going to see her tomorrow.

S&T: That's cool. Where are you guys now?

R: We're in Dallas – or, no – Houston right now, and we go to Dallas and then Austin and we're doing a video there, and then we go to Albuquerque, and then we go to the west coast, and then we go to Canada….

S&T: What song are you doing a video for?

R: [We're doing] a "super-fucking-cheap, we-got-a-friend-with-a-video-camera" video for "Say Something Nasty."

S&T: So do you expect that to be played anywhere or are you just doing a video?

R: Well, every time we've done one so far, we get it played pretty much everywhere except for America.

S&T: [laughs] Right!

R: [laughing] For some reason they don't want to show them.

S&T: It's not just you, they just don't like to play rock-n-roll videos.

R: [laughing] No, I think it has something to do with Pussy!

S&T: Yeah, there's that as well. So I'll email some links over to Beth. We also have somebody doing a review of "Say Something Nasty…"

R: Somebody who likes us?

S&T: Yes, a lot of people like you!

R: [laughing] I know, but every now and then we get somebody really uptight – very, very, very, very rarely – but we prefer people with a sense of humor.

S&T: Actually, the couple of people that I spoke to before I ever heard you guys, that were fans of yours, were diehard fans.

R: Right on! Yeah, we got a bunch of fans in – where are you in Jersey?

S&T: We're in Montclair.

R: Montclair, where is that?

S&T: It's like fourteen miles due west of New York City.

R: Oh, OK. Yeah, we got lots of fans in Jersey, and for some reason we're a fan of New Jersey. [laughing] I think it's a Bruce Springsteen thing.

S&T: It's just we're a down-and-dirty state, maybe.

R: Do you know that store called Vintage Vinyl?

S&T: Yeh.

R: I think it's in New Brunswick.

S&T: That's south of us.

R: Yeah, well they kick ass. They're like massive Pussy fans. There's even a guy there, he saves AC/DC anything for me, so when I come home from tour he dangles it in front of me and if I can carry it, I'm like, "OK!" [laughs]

S&T: What do you think it is? Everyone I know who's a fan of yours, they're diehard fans. There doesn't seem to be any in-between with you.

R: I think part of has to with our name preventing us from becoming that popular. To love us, which isn't really easy to do, you have to kind of become a defender of it. It's an underdog thing, I think, because the name prevents us from becoming wildly popular. [laughs]

S&T: And you laugh.

R: Oh yeah. I mean, we made it as far as the Grammys so far. And that's just the first step. Next time we'll go back and win, ‘cause Metallica sucks now, so we can't possibly get beat again. [laughs] But if you can get to the Grammys with this name, then I don't think there's really much holding us back, except for the occasional uptight individual. [laughs]

S&T: I didn't see that one [Grammy show] – did they actually announce it [the band's name, on national TV]?

R: We weren't on the televised part but they did announce it, yeah.

S&T: That's excellent.

R: Yeah, it's fucking great. And in fact, there was even talk of a conspiracy, because supposedly the Heavy Metal Performance category was supposed to be announced [on TV, in between commercial breaks], but people told us they didn't do it because of the name "Pussy," and blah blah blah. Whatever. I don't know. I would assume it was probably because they were uptight, I don't know if a little conspiracy was involved there, but….

S&T: Right. That's nuts.

R: I think it was probably a record year for the most punks watching the Grammys, trying to see whether or not we got it. We were on E! TV and a couple of other things like that, but we were not for the Grammys at all. Like, once we lost, they scoot you way to the back section, behind the producer's kids and shit like that.

S&T: Yeah, they take you down, like, "Here, you gotta go through this tunnel, we'll take you back out this way."

R: Pretty much, yeah. It was funny.

S&T: Just a couple quick questions, and I'll let you go. This is your third or fourth record label, right? You had Mercury, and Artemis…

R: Yeah. It's actually our fourth in three albums.

S&T: Why so much jumping around? Is it a support thing, or you can't find the right people? Are you going to settle in with this one?

R: I don't know! I mean, so far they're [Artemis] working out great. But pretty much every record label has a honeymoon period where everything is fabulous. I don't know what happens. I think they have trouble figuring us out or something like that. But so far these guys [at Artemis] have a really good sense of humor, which is an excellent approach.

When we were on Mercury it was really good. They really knew what they were doing. But then the head of the company got paid to leave and he was the guy who signed us. You know, it's really a matter of who's on your side. We were considered Danny Goldberg's "project," and once he was asked to leave there was not the support for us which is really unfortunate ‘cause there's a bunch of cool, old metal-heads there who totally were just anxious to get back into doing something rock. They'd been doing Hanson and Vanessa Williams and shit like that, so they were like, "Oh my God, this is great!" Like, KISS was the most rock thing they had, and then us, so they were excited as hell, and they'd be phoning all their buddies from the ‘80s, saying, "Guess what! I got a band again!"

It was great to begin with, and then we got caught up in the whole giant, financial merger [between Seagram and PolyGram, which created Universal Music Group. – ed.], which has so little to do with music. So it's really frustrating to try and understand why it happens. In the end, it was a very good relationship – they let us go, which wasn't a bad thing. But, you know, we would've loved to have stayed [with Mercury].

S&T: Right. Well, you know, that's the state of music today. It's just the way things work, and most of the time it winds up being about money and numbers and pushing [product] and stuff. I would imagine that labels have a tough time figuring out how to promote you guys.

R: Yeah, which is really funny, because we've played with everyone from, like, Lynyrd Skynyrd to Slayer. And Motörhead and Marilyn-fucking-Manson. We can open up for anybody. We can open for Hank [Williams] Jr. or Hank [Williams] III. [laughs] You know what I mean? Or he can open up for us, but we can play with anybody. We've never had any problem winning over a crowd, ever.

S&T: I see you guys as throwbacks.

R: It's like Classic Rock for today. [laughs]

S&T: That's really what it feels like. It's just blood and guts rock-n-roll, to me anyway. ‘Cause again, I didn't really know that much about you ‘til the first show I saw you play live, and it was like, "Holy shit!" I didn't know any of the music, I didn't know any of the songs, and it totally didn't matter. And I thought, "Wow. I really haven't been to a show like this, where it just doesn't matter if you know the songs."

R: Yeah, well that's the whole point. [laughs] You did perfectly. So you were a virgin when you came and saw us.

S&T: Yeah, it was my first time, I was a virgin.

R: Well good for you.

S&T: But then, you came back around the next time, and I blew off another concert just to make sure I'd come and see you guys again.

R: Right on!

S&T: I don't think I'll miss a show, honest to God. I think you guys are just amazing live. And we see so many live shows, we cover so much music, that… a band that still just plays rock-and-roll and kicks ass – we love that. That's just a good time.

R: We definitely excel on stage. No doubt about that. That's the majority of… we tour, like, incessantly. We're calling ourselves the "Hardest Working Band in Showbiz," and I think it's true.

S&T: So can you maintain this kind of pace? Ten years from now, are you still having beer poured on you on stage?

R: No! [laughs] Probably! Hell man, Angus [Young of AC/DC] is still flashing his ass! I have a feeling I'll be doing that too. It's like, I don't know, it's just become part of it now. Fuck it.

S&T: Yeah, and you know what? You'd disappoint [if your stage show mellowed].

R: Plus, I think [beer]'s good for my skin! [laughs]

S&T: [laughing] I'm going to do a new article – I'm going to call it "Beauty Tips from Ruyter."

R: Yeah, no doubt. It's like, "You need lots of beer in your hair…."

S&T: [still laughing] That's excellent. So, you guys are on the road so much, can you just take us through a typical day?

R: Yeah, here's a typical day right now – it's fucking raining and we're in a traffic jam in Houston! [laughs]

S&T: Yeah, that's it, huh?

R: Our typical day is, like, stay up as late as absolutely possible, I guess we crashed [last night] at about 6 or 7 a.m., slept and lied to the [hotel] housekeepers, "We're leaving, we promise," you know, and then push it ‘til, like, one [p.m.] and then usually hit a couple of traffic jams before we get to the club [in the next town]. And then, we're the kings of sound-check, man, we can sound-check in about three seconds. [laughs] We've got it down to an art, and it doesn't matter what language, either. We can do it in French, we can do it in German, we can do it – we know exactly what we want, whether the stage is 200 feet wide or 20 feet wide, we've got it down. And we do the world's fastest sound-check, and then some us like to take a nap, ‘cause we haven't slept…. [laughs] And we can't eat before a show, otherwise we'll puke. And then, of course, kick-ass gig, and then, uh, party!

S&T: And then do it over again.

R: Yep, do it over again.

S&T: Now, how's [new bass player] KatieLynn [Campbell] settling in?

R: KatieLynn is settling in just fine.

S&T: The first time I saw you guys, I guess she was just brand new, and the last time I saw you when you came around to Irving Plaza just a couple of weeks ago, she was different – more settled in, and kind of…

R: Yeah, I think she got some better shoes.

S&T: Is that what it was?

R: [laughing] She did!

S&T: Now, are you guys going to be like Spinal Tap and keep shipping out bass players?

R: Hopefully fucking not! We can't be compared to Spinal Tap ‘cause nobody's exploded on stage yet, as much as we try! If KatieLynn explodes on stage, then somebody can refer to us as Spinal Tap-esque. But until then, we're just a fucking rock band! [laughs]

S&T: I have one more question for you, because I didn't know if this was bullshit or if this was for real – did you actually have a grant to do sculpture?

R: Oh yeah, definitely.

S&T: To go to college? To go…

R: No, no, I was already a university graduate in bronze casting, I'd been working in foundries, and I'd finally learned to speak the fucking language you need to speak to get a God-damned grant, and yeah, it was like five grand or something like that. But unfortunately, the money came in, we're sitting there, I was supposed to be working on this project – and then I met Blaine [Cartwright, Nashville Pussy singer and guitar player, and now Ruyter's husband of nine years]! [laughs] And he was like, "Hey, I'm going to Europe," and I'm like, "Hey, can I come too?" [laughs]

S&T: "I've got five grand."

R: Yeah, exactly! So, like, I chased him and his old band, Nine Pound Hammer, all around Europe with a knapsack, and then we wound up getting married within, I don't know, three months of meeting. And I can definitely thank the Canadian government for helping to finance some of that. [laughs]

S&T: Oh, that's hysterical.

R: I actually wound up doing a show for the money, and it got banned!! [laughs] It didn't even make it up on the walls because of overt nudity. Whatever – I tried. I sent in the pictures and said, "Hey, check it out, I did my work." It's not my fault that the gallery refused to hang it.

S&T: Is that [sculpture] something you actually miss, or was it just a passing thing – you did it and now it's time to move on?

R: That was my career of choice for a while. There are probably twenty life-size sculptures across North America that have my fingerprints in them, and there's a couple in London and stuff that I worked on. I was doing that when I met Blaine, and guitar playing was just an after-thought. I've been playing since I was a kid, and I figured the responsible thing to do was go to school. [laughs] And he was like, "You are a way better guitar player than you are an artist." And I was like, "What?!" ‘cause I had achieved minor celebrity status living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan as a sculptor and I had put on a bunch of my own shows and everybody knew me as an artist, and he was the first person to put me down, but he also tried to build me up at the same time, so I was like, "Really? Huh. OK, cool." I kind of thought I'd continue with clay and sculpture, and when his band broke up me and him had been jamming together anyway, so we had a bunch of songs that we'd figured out and it was just kind of natural to start a band with him. Plus I didn't have to deal with him leaving [to tour] for three months at a time, and shit like that, which is not a lot of fun. I used to drive a tractor, too.

S&T: What's that?

R: I also used to drive a tractor.

S&T: Really? Any other hidden skills that we need to know about?

R: Um, tractor driving is the one I'm probably most proud of. I'm waiting for the million-dollar video budget, ‘cause I totally want to drive a tractor with a corn-header on it through a mall or something like that. That's my goal one day.

S&T: Do you guys have a concept for this video you're working on or are you just going to shoot live stuff?

R: Yeah, the concept is, there's a female roller-derby, roller-ball organization in Austin, Texas, and they're all super-hot. They have awesome names like Rhinestone Cowgirls and Putas del Fuego, which means like, Fire Bitches or Fire Whores, and the Holy Rollers are supposed to be the hottest ones of them all. Anyway, as far as I can tell, it's going to be like an underground roller-derby match and we're the entertainment within it. There should be a lot of hot chicks and violence! [laughs]

S&T: That's cool. Now, is the record company [Artemis] putting that together?

R: Hell no! We're doing it. [laughs]

S&T: How am I going to get a copy? I live in the United States – I'll never see it.

R: I think they'll probably wind up helping to distribute it, so just bug the hell out of them. We've learned, even when we were on Mercury, if you want to get something done, you have to do it yourself. Unless they're throwing themselves in front of you, like, "You've got to do this!" Our pace tends to be a couple of months ahead of the record company, regardless. [laughs] So we were like, "Hey, we're making a video," and they were, like, "Oh! Uh, uh, ah…" And then we're like, "Hey, the video's done," and they're like, "Oh, OK, uh, can we have it?" [laughs]

S&T: Yeah exactly. "Thanks, we didn't spend any money on this, but we really appreciate it."

R: [laughing] But hell, it's the way we've learned to work ‘cause it's been consistent with every single label we've been on. They're always a little behind us. If they can keep up, we'll stick with Artemis.

S&T: Sounds good. That wraps it for me.

R: OK, it was nice talking to you!

S&T: Thank you so much, Ruyter, I appreciate it.

R: Say "Hi" to Jersey!

S&T: [laughing] I will.

interview by scott sisti