Category Archives: Musical Musings

Molly Harvey takes up Residents-y with Jeffrey Bützer’s Tender Prey

Molly Harvey is no stranger to costumes and identity ambiguity. As a long-time collaborator with The Residents, an avant-garde act known for performing with giant eyeball heads and other theatrics, she has spent most of her career providing theatrics for music (or is it the other way around?). After working with the Bicycle Eaters’ Jeffrey Bützer, a multi-instrumentalist who has been known to stage musical tributes to David Lynch, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Tom Waits and others, last year on the Black Mass pre-Halloween show, Harvey has found different ways to portray other people. Tonight, Bützer and Harvey return to 529 with the likes of T.T. Mahony, Johnny McGowan, Matt Steadman and others as Tender Prey, a tribute to Nick Cave that includes songs ranging from The Birthday Party to Grinderman. The show is free and also includes performances by Cave Women (playing covers of Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and the like), Ben Trickey performing a Tom Waits set, Andy DeLoach doing Leonard Cohen and puppet shows from Ninja Puppet Productions. As the unmasked Harvey prepares to sing a few Cave songs, she talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about her theatrical background and future musical ideas.

Advertising for this show prominently credits you as being from The Residents. Since the identities of the members of that band have always been obscured, is it OK for you to be revealing yourself in this manner?

No, they’re going to kill me now. I was actually always named on the records and stuff, so I was always the one non-anonymous member. I was more of a collaborator. I wear costumes when we perform, so my identity is always obscured. When I was touring with them, there wasn’t any Facebook or anything. So I could play, then walk around the venue afterwards and nobody’d know who I was. But now it’d different because people can just look on Facebook and see me.

Do you still perform with The Residents?

I perform with them when they come to town. They’re on the West Coast, so it’s kind of hard for me to leave and tour with them. So I do little things with them when they come through.

How did you get involved with The Residents?

Just by weird happenstance. I moved to San Francisco when I was 21 and just happened to meet them. I worked in a cafe that they came into and, of course, I didn’t know it was them. But I developed a friendship with the singer and little by little we revealed things about each other and I realized he was involved with the band. I had studied theater in college and had just graduated. I think one day I was like, “Hey, can you use me to do anything?”

You’ve also worked with Gwar, an equally theatrical band, though not quite in the same vein as The Residents. How’d you get involved with Gwar and what did you do for that band?

I was living in Richmond in 1989 and I think almost all of Gwar is Virginia Commonwealth University art school dropouts. They’ve been doing Gwar for 28 years, which is crazy. They did a 35 millimeter film in the early ’90s called Skulhedface that Jello Biafra was the star of. So I did a scene in that. I never performed live with them, I just did the thing in the movie.

Richmond had an amazing music scene, and still does. Because of the art school, I think Richmond just attracts certain people. Now, with certain cult bands having come out of Richmond, a lot of people actually move there to start bands.

How did you start collaborating with Jeffrey Bützer?

I met Jeffrey through [guitarist] Matt Steadman. Jeffrey was a Residents fan and I knew Matt because we worked together. I was looking for something to do and Jeffrey is kind of a mover and a shaker and always has stuff going on. I guess Matt told Jeffrey about me and Jeffrey was familiar with what I do. So we talked and we still have a lot of ideas of stuff to do, but he’s a busy guy who’s in a million bands and is always making projects. We really want to do something original together, but so far we’ve just done these shows that are covers of people we like. They’re fun and people like to go see them. Last year we did Black Mass at 529. That was a lot of PJ Harvey, Leonard Cohen and stuff like that. He has faves.

What will your role be in the Nick Cave tribute tonight?

I’ll be splitting the songs. Michael Bradley is also singing some songs and he’s got the perfect Nick Cave voice. Then I’m singing six or seven songs, then Carrie Hodge from What Happened to Your Fire, Tiger? is going to sing backup on a couple and lead on one.

Bützer and I have had a few conversations about The Residents and he seems to be really excited about working with someone who has also worked with such a mysteriously avant-garde band. Was there any hesitation in letting him advertise you as a member of The Residents since the rest of the band does a great job of hiding its identities?

It’s nice to have people like Jeffrey because I never really tell people that. If I get up on stage with him at one of their shows, he’ll be like, “It’s Molly Harvey from The Residents!” Sometimes I’m like, “I don’t know if you should say that.” It’s always been a weird thing because my name was out there, but my face wasn’t. But at the same time, I’m not a prominent part of The Residents and they’re always changing and working with different people all the time. On a practical level, if I want to do more stuff, that’s a thing on my resume that differentiates me from everyone else. I’m never comfortable leading into a conversation with that, but having someone like Jeffrey doing it is kind of nice because he does make things happen and he is excited about it. Even though it is a little bit of a gray area, if it can lead toward me working with cool people that I may have never otherwise known, I’m all for it.

You mentioned that you’d like to do more original music with Bützer. Have you given much thought to what kind of project you’d like to work on with him?

My background is in theater. Even though I sang as a kid, I really approach singing as an actor or performer. I’m definitely not a trained musician, but I do write and in the past two or three years random people in my life have been like, “Have you ever thought about writing songs?” Working with The Residents, I certainly wasn’t writing their material, and doing theater I was interpreting other people’s words. But I’ve been asked enough that I finally gave it a try. I have a couple of characters I’ve come up with. Everything for me is very character driven, so it would be more of a narrative about a certain character. But there are some little things brewing.

Erik Turner has a Warrant for rock ‘n’ roll and winemaking

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Best known for such late ’80s/early ’90s hard rock hits as “Heaven,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Cherry Pie,” Warrant has weathered many musical trends to continue rocking for more than 20 years. Though the band’s lineup has fluctuated over the years, and original front man Jani Lane (who had already been replaced by current singer Robert Mason) died last year, the band’s core lineup is back together and going strong. With a show tonight at Biketoberfest and tomorrow with Skid Row at The Forum Civic Center, founding guitarist Erik Turner talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about hair metal, red wine and wrestling.

Warrant and Skid Row have done a few shows together. Seems like a good pairing.

If you like Skid Row, you’ll like Warrant and if you like Warrant, you’ll like Skid Row. So it’s a great package and a great night of ’80s rock ‘n’ roll.

Did the two bands play together very often in the ’80s and early ’90s?

You know, we didn’t. I can only remember doing a couple of shows with those guys in the late ’80s/early ’90s. But in the last few years, we’ve played quite a few shows with them and we play a handful of shows with them every year. And it always goes well. Back in July of this year, Skid Row and Warrant played at Fremont Street in Las Vegas and they had their largest crowd of the summer, over 15,000 people. That was a lot of fun.

You have a couple more shows scheduled with Skid Row this weekend, as well as a performance at Biketoberfest. What’s planned after that?

We’re starting to wind down our year. We’ve played about 45 shows this year, and it’s been all types of shows from large festivals with lots of other bands to casinos and state fairs. Last weekend, we played with Trixter and Firehouse and we’ve done ten or so shows with that package. We’ve played some shows with Winger, Dokken, L.A. Guns and on and on. It’s a real mixture of touring. We go out on weekends, then we go home. We don’t just grab three bands and go on tour for three months. It doesn’t work that way for us anymore. We like to come home during the week and go out and rock ‘n’ roll on the weekends.

I understand you have another project that keeps you busy during the week.

We all have side projects, but I’ve become interested in the wine business over the last few years. I live in Temecula, California and there are about 30 wineries down here. I’ve put out three wines through South Coast Winery and I released a wine in July called Warrant, I Saw Red. “I Saw Red” was a top ten hit single for Warrant and now it’s a cabernet. In the last couple of weeks I released a syrah called Erik Turner: Rocker Red. So I work on that during the week and we’re all writing songs for a new record hopefully to come out in June of 2013. So it’s wine and music for me, but everybody’s got different stuff going on.

We do some TV music placement, as well. There’s a show called Duck Dynasty and they played a little bit of our song “Dirty Jack” from our Born Again album on an episode last week. So we’re dabbling in that as well.

Warrant’s style of ’80s rock appeals to many of the same people who watch professional wrestling. You mentioned your music being used in TV shows, but have you ever done wrestlers’ entrance music or anything like that?

I’m not sure if any of our music’s been used in any wrestling events. I think I might have seen something with “Cherry Pie” and some girl wrestlers, but I’m not sure. But I see the shows and they’re huge, bombastic and exciting – it looks like a rock concert. On more than one occasion I’ve thought, “I’d love to be involved with wrestling.” It just seems like a great thing to be involved with. So if there was ever an opportunity for Warrant and wrestling to work together, we’d be all over it.

Your most recent album came out last year. How will the stuff you’re working on for next year’s album compare to that album?

Last year we released Rockaholic and we shot two videos for “Life’s a Song” and “Home”. I was actually excited to see “Home” on VH1 Classic when they do Now & Then, and it’s been played a few times on Palladia. We’re proud of that record and anybody that comes out to the shows this weekend will hear two or three new songs from Rockaholic. But we mostly play the stuff everybody’s familiar with from all the singles and videos we’ve released like “Down Boys,” “Heaven,” “Sometimes She Cries,” “I Saw Red,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Cherry Pie” and some other deeper tracks from those records like “Mr. Rainmaker,” “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich” and we’ll dabble into the Dog Eat Dog CD, as well. It’s a nice mixture of mostly the classic songs everybody knows us for, then we mix in some other familiar tracks and a few new ones. It’s a nice set of rock ‘n’ roll, in my opinion.

Will you be performing any of the stuff off next year’s album?

No, we’re not ready for that yet. Those songs are still in the development stages. Next year, as things start moving along, we’ll start testing some of the new songs on live audiences. There’s a song off of Rockaholic called “Sex Ain’t Love” that we started playing live a few months before the CD came out and it was going over really well live. So we kept on playing it and we still play it.

www.warrantrocks.com

Atlanta Pride fans enjoy The Sexual Side Effects

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If you thought female grunge was dead, think again. The Sexual Side Effects put a fresh spin on the chick rock movement started by the likes of Courtney Love and Shirley Manson in the ’90s. The band’s debut EP High Maintenance features the hauntingly complex ballad “Aurora,” as well as the single “I’m In Love With A Girl (But She Used To Be A Man),” which offers a comical tone while maintaining the haunting melodies and slow, deep bass that define The Sexual Side Effects sound.

Photo by Rachel Hall.

Last Saturday, front woman Amber Taylor (read Wrestling with Pop Culture‘s previous interview with Taylor here) and her boys performed at the Atlanta Pride Festival for the second consecutive year, and their raw command of the crowd stole the show. The band’s energy radiated off the stage and the audience was enthralled by the lyrical and rhythmic perfection. When the band launched into “I’m In Love With Girl,” Taylor bounced around the stage, creating an upbeat feeling whilst strumming her guitar intensely. But that tone changed when the band performed the emotionally heavy “All She’ll Ever Hurt,” as Taylor’s softer rhythm conveyed the pain of a broken heart. To further illustrate this heartache, Taylor physically collapsed on stage while continuing to play her guitar in what seemed like a melodic daze. Witnessing the band’s interaction with its fans, it’s apparent that The SSEs make a point of maintaining a connection with their supporters. When asked how they planned to stay grounded as they continue to find success, Taylor said, “We’re all human beings, it’s all relative.”

The SSEs strive to create a sound that is simultaneously familiar and fresh. Taylor’s lyrics remind me of the depth of Edgar Allan Poe, reaching into your soul and creating a longing emotion. Amber’s charisma and charm is captivating, and the band’s talent is unstoppable. Their carefree attitude and touching emotion reaches into fans like a breath of fresh air after being submerged in a generic pool of simplicity. If this is any indication of what’s to come, the world should be happy about what these Sexual Side Effects have to offer.

www.thesexualsideeffects.com

John 5 shreds with Rob Zombie on the Twins of Evil tour

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Though he received his first big jolt of recognition when he became Marilyn Manson‘s guitarist in 1998, for the past seven years John 5‘s shredding skills have been utilized as part of Rob Zombie‘s band. So when Manson and Zombie take to the stage tonight at the Desert Uprising festival in Phoenix for the first night of the Twins of Evil tour, it will be especially exciting for 5 given his history with both bands. Having released his latest solo CD God Told Me To a few months ago, 5 also contributed some guitar work for Zombie’s recent remix album Mondo Sex Head. Before taking the stage for the Twins of Evil tour, 5 talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about the tour, the next Zombie album and other upcoming projects.

Rob Zombie’s recent remix CD featured some of his older material remixed by several of today’s top DJs and electronic musicians. But you also contributed some guitar work to the album. Which songs did you work on?

John 5 (left) is part of the gruesome twosome on the Twins of Evil tour (photo by Rick Fagan)

That’s right. There’s a lot going on right now. The remix CD just came out, we just finished up the new Zombie record, we’re doing the The Lords of Salem movie and the Twins of Evil tour is starting. A couple of DJs got a hold of me and said, “Hey, would you mind putting this, that and the other thing on there?” And I said, “Absolutely. It’ll be fun.” And for Jonathan Davis’ J Devil remix I did a little work and it came out really great. I love that album. It was a lot of fun and it’s cool to hear the songs remixed that way. I did some stuff on “Thunder Kiss” and “Superbeast.”

You mentioned the new Rob Zombie record. What can you say about that at this point?

I’m not sure when it comes out, but I just listened to the whole record and it is an aggressive, in-your-face record. I’ve been a fan of White Zombie and Rob Zombie since long before I was in the band, and from a fan’s outlook when listening to this record I hear a lot of the live, raw aggressiveness of White Zombie. A lot of artists say, “This is our best record and blah blah blah blah blah,” but I really am super excited about this and I think people are really going to enjoy it. It’s still very early and Rob is definitely going to come up with something great for the title of the record. These are really great songs and people are going to dig it. I’m looking forward to playing these songs live.

This will be your first record since your former Marilyn Manson bandmate Ginger Fish joined Zombie’s band. How involved was he in the recording process?

I’ve known Ginger forever and when we go in to record, I bring guitars and some pedals and this and that. Ginger came to the studio, I swear to God, with a semi full of drums and mics. I thought he was moving in or something. It was crazy all the stuff he brought. I was like, “What is going on here? He’s just playing drums!” But he’s great and he did a phenomenal job. That’s another great thing about the record is that it’s so alive with his crazy energy.

It’s been a few years since you and Ginger played in the same band together. What has it been like playing with him again?

John 5 (right) is a musical and visual presence in Rob Zombie's band (photo by Rick Fagan)

I always kept in touch with Ginger, so it’s been like jamming with an old friend. It worked before and it just seemed to fit perfect. I told Rob that Ginger would be perfect because I had played with him before, he’s loyal and he’s a great drummer. And it’s been working perfect. He’s been in the band for a little while, we’ve done a few tours with him and now we’ve done a record with him. It really is a perfect fit. Now we’re doing this tour together and it’s really going to be a lot of fun. It’s going to be a huge show and what better thing to do around Halloween time than go see Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie?

That’s a pairing a lot of people have been wanting to see since the late ’90s. But now with the added dynamic of yours and Ginger’s history with both bands just makes it that much more interesting.

It’s going to be exciting, to say the least. A lot of people are going to really enjoy it and it’s such a perfect time of year for it.

Both bands are known for putting on huge stage shows. Have the two bands been communicating about coordinating their shows or will there be a bit of one-upsmanship going on during the tour?

The only thing I’m sure of is Rob Zombie has always had such a massive show, but this tour is going to be even bigger. Our show is going to be so big and mammoth that people are going to be holding their heads and saying, “I can’t believe what I just saw.”

You also mentioned the The Lords of Salem movie. Are you involved with that in some way?

Yeah, I did the music score for the movie. It was a challenge to score a movie, especially a Rob Zombie movie. I used a lot of weird things to create the sounds like violin bows, banging on the guitar, quarters on the strings and all sorts of weird instruments. I’m really proud of how this music came out. It was one of the most challenging things I’ve done in a long time.

Was Zombie involved in the recording process at all?

John 5 (second from right) and Ginger Fish (right) reunite in more than one way on the Twins of Evil tour (photo by Rick Fagan)

Rob was actually directing, editing and talking to me about the score. We did a couple of pieces together and the guy’s a genius. I sit back and think about how he makes hit records and he does these movies, but for my birthday he painted me the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The guy can do everything. The painting is amazing, he does music, movies, but you know what? I can beat him at air hockey. That’s what I can beat him at. We played air hockey at the movie and I beat him, so I’ve got that going for me.

You also released a new solo album a few months ago, which is probably your most ambitious solo effort to date. For those who haven’t heard it, what would you like to say about that album?

I really can’t believe how well it’s doing. People enjoy when I put out this instrumental music because they never know what they’re going to get. They’re kind of like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. But with God Told Me To, there’s a DVD that goes with the record and Rob Zombie painted the cover. I’ve gotten a lot of love from that record and I appreciate that. And it really takes you on a journey, that’s for sure.

www.john-5.com

www.robzombie.com

Boobs, blood and the Butcher Babies

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What’s not to like about the Butcher Babies? There are boobs, there’s blood, and the band’s brand of horror metal is about as heavy as metal gets. Sure, a majority of the attention is intentionally directed at the blood-spattered and nipple-taped front women (former Playboy TV personality Carla Harvey and statuesque model/actress Heidi Shepherd), but the Butcher Babies are not just about the boobs. Instead, that’s almost like an insidious setup to lure listeners in before the macabre musical onslaught of Harvey, Shepherd, Henry Flury (guitar), Jason Klein (bass) and Chrissy Warner (drums) shrieks and shreds your ears into submission. Though they admittedly revel in the shock value of it all, there’s a little bit more to the band’s songs of serial killing and torture tactics. The video for “Mr. Slowdeath” from the band’s self-titled (huh huh, I said “tit”) EP plays out like a mini horror film, and the Harvey-penned Butcher Babies comic book further’s the band’s creepy concept. Just off Otep‘s Destroy to Create Tour with One-Eyed Doll and Arcanium, the Butcher Babies return to their Sunset Strip slaying grounds tonight for a show with Fozzy and Picture Me Broken at The Roxy Theatre tonight. Then the band heads out on a West Coast tour in November with Gemini Syndrome and Dr. Acula. In the meantime, here’s a recent interview Wrestling with Pop Culture did with the Butcher Babies.

Carla and Heidi met while working for Playboy TV, and the rest of you guys have played in bands like Amen and Scars of Tomorrow. But how did the five of you come together to create the Butcher Babies?

Shepherd: Carla and I played in a punk/metal cover band years ago, and Chris actually used to come to those shows, and Henry had gone to a couple, too. But we all didn’t know each other. Carla and I quit that band and wanted to do something heavy and original together. So we took what we liked, which was each other and nipple tape, and formed the band.

Looks like Heidi Shepherd (left) and Carla Harvey (right) need a ride. Would you pick up these hitchhikers?

So it was a pretty organic process of forming the band?

Harvey: It turned out that way, but it wasn’t at first. We went through a lot of band members at first and we just couldn’t find the right core group of guys. But when we just looked in our own backyard and realized they were right there, it got a lot easier.

Warner: I was spying on her!

Shepherd: Yeah, peeping Chris over here. It was interesting because we did go through a couple of members and we just couldn’t find people that had the right vision or that had the same vision as us. Finally, the second we stepped in a room together, it was really apparent that we all had the same exact vision. And it all took off from there.

The band obviously has a strong visual presence. How did the whole blood-and-boobs thing manifest itself?

Harvey: Every band has an identity and we all are fans of horror films. So putting on some blood just added to our show and it felt kind of natural, especially with our music because it’s dark, heavy, groovy thrash metal.

Shepherd: We write about a lot of things that give you nightmares, things that scare you like serial killers, monsters and things like that. So it definitely fits in with that realm. With the nipple tape, Carla and I and the whole band are big fans of Wendy O. Williams. She was the first female to really go balls out – or tits out, if you will – in heavy metal. So we really appreciate that she paved the way for females like Otep and ourselves to really explore everything we wanted to do. So it’s more of an ode to the late Wendy O. Williams.

Klein: Chris has some nipple tape on right now. I haven’t been able to get it to stick. I tried once, but I have too much chest hair.

Harvey: Heidi had that same problem, but we got that taken care of.

Klein: Yeah, she ate up the razor so it wasn’t sharp enough for me to use.

How involved are each of you in writing the songs? Is it more of a band effort or are certain members more involved in coming up with the songs?

Even when not covered in blood, the Butcher Babies are intriguingly menacing

Harvey: We all sit in a room and write together. It’s very important to us that our songs represent each member, so we are very hands on.

Shepherd: Musically and lyrically everyone puts a hand in the cookie jar. So it’s a very collective process where we all feel free and comfortable to get very creative with each other. Every person here is very talented at writing lyrics and music, so why not use them all to their full potential?

Harvey: It also makes everybody, when they’re performing, feel like the song is coming from them. If we had one member writing everything, we’d be up there performing, but not really feeling it.

You have an EP out, but when will there be a full-length album?

Shepherd: We are always writing, but we’re looking to have our full-length out early next year. We definitely have enough songs for it, it’s just about finding which songs we want to really represent ourselves with. The EP took a long time because we’re always evolving and we wanted to really put out something that we felt was 100 percent worthwhile.

Carla, you also have a comic book out. Tell me a little about that.

Harvey: You can get it at Deepcutproductions.net and it adds a bit of mythology to our band. People seem to love it and I get emails every day about how much people like it. I wrote it, so it’s just really fun to see it come to life. We worked with an artist named Anthony Winn, who works for Stan Lee, which is amazing because Heidi and I have gotten to pal around with Stan Lee a little bit.

And you’re working on a novel?

Harvey: Yeah, I’ve written a novel that I hope will be out at the beginning of next year. And I have another comic book coming out. We’re all very creative people. Our main focus is the band, but I’ve loved writing since I was a kid and I’m able to use my band as a platform to get my other material out to people. I’m so thankful for that.

I doubt many people would hesitate at helping Heidi Shepherd (left) and Carla Harvey (right) get cleaned up (photo by the Psyco Boys)

Shepherd: We all have careers besides the Butcher Babies. Butcher Babies is our main squeeze and it’s all of our dream that’s coming true. But we all have other gifts and talents.

Klein: I’m a stripper and that’s kind of paying for our fuel.

Flury: I’m a rodeo clown and that also helps pay for gas.

Shepherd: I’m a Justin Bieber impersonator and I’m really good at looking like a 40-year-old lesbian.

Warner: So those are your other jobs? My other job is riding your mom!

You get paid for that? But back to the book. What’s the novel about?

Harvey: It’s about loneliness and the breakdown of the American family. That’s all I want to say about it right now, but I’ve had a lot of interest in it and I’m really proud of it. I know it sounds funny talking about such serious things when we wear nipple tape on stage.

So what else do you all actually do outside of the band?

Shepherd: I do commercials for television and that’s a lot of fun. I’ve been in television my entire life and I was a radio DJ on morning shows for a long time. Eventually I would like to get back into radio, but Butcher Babies is the center of my attention now.

Flury: I’m a graphic artist.

Warner: Me? What job? This is the only one I’ve got. Drums, baby. That’s my life.

www.butcherbabiesofficial.com

“¡Uno!” mas pop punk album from Green Day

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You’d think it would be hard for Green Day to top it’s last two rock operas, 2004’s American Idiot and 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown. But, nope, the one-time underground punk band looks to top those grandiose efforts with yet another ambitious project, a trilogy of albums and eventual box set) beginning with ¡Uno! (¡Dos! is scheduled to be released in November and ¡Tré! comes out in January).

¡Uno! sees the band returning to the its punk rock roots while also expanding into other sonic realms. But not in the same way it has on the last two albums, which maintained the band’s punchy stylings while venturing into more elaborate structuring reminiscent of The Who and Queen. This time around, Green Day takes a simpler approach that ends up sounding more like Cheap Trick-style pop than the edgier Buzzcocks/Sex Pistols stylings of earlier releases. But Green Day’s music has always been catchy, so it was probably pretty easy to step away from the concept albums and get back to recording fast-paced pop songs (which is probably why the band was able to produce three albums in such a short period of time).

“Nuclear Family” has the sarcasm and staccato of something off the band’s 2000 Warning release while “Let Yourself Go” has an anthemic AC/DC quality. “Kill the DJ” has a touch of Jet/Franz Ferdniand-like garage rock as well as a catchy ’80s dance vibe. “Sweet 16,” like a few other songs here, is basically a pop rock ballad, which actually suits Green Day’s subversive sneer (especially since there still seems to be an underlying middle finger that binds the entire album).

If ¡Uno! is any indication of what ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! will have to offer (they are meant to be one cohesive work, after all), then Green Day has plenty more pop punk where all this came from. But don’t let the simplicity fool you. The last two albums may have been presented as three structured acts, but composing three entire albums can’t be any easier (thought it sounds like it’s just as fun).

www.greenday.com

Susan SurfTone still making waves in the surf rock scene

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For almost 30 years, Susan SurfTone has been quite comfortable being a woman in the mostly-man’s world of surf rock. But even before she made a career out of strumming jangly riffs and garage-y instrumentals, SurfTone was kicking ass as a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, where her training included squaring off against male opponents in the boxing ring. After releasing her first solo album Shore last year, SurfTone has been instrumental (pun intended) in unifying the surf scene in her new hometown of Portland, Ore., most notably with the recent compilation PDX A G0-Go: Making Waves Up North. Featuring contributions from bands such as the Surf Weasels, the Outer Space Heaters and, of course, SurfTone herself, PDX A Go-Go can also be credited for the newest addition to SurfTone’s live show: go-go dancer and PDX A Go-Go cover model Seana Steele. “I saw her dancing with the Surf Weasels and I guess you could say I stole her away from them,” says SurfTone. “They’re on the comp with us, so they weren’t too mad about it. Actually, they’re drummer’s playing with us now, so I guess I raided them.” Already working on a new album for release early next year, SurfTone and her band embark on a brief West Coast tour beginning tonight and concluding Saturday with a performance at the L.A. Derby Dolls roller derby bout. Before hitting the road, SurfTone and Steele talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about PDX A Go-Go, FBI sparring and general badassery.

How did the PDX A Go-Go compilation come about?

SurfTone: I hadn’t played live in Portland in about six years, but right after Shore came out I started getting some gigs and realized there were some really good surf bands in Portland. They had a steady crowd of people coming to the gigs and I thought it would be good to document that with a compilation CD because I don’t think there has been a compilation CD that had anything to do with Portland surf bands. I thought it was a new thing to do and it also helped solidify the relationships between the bands. Now we’re all friends and it’s a virtual love fest up here.

You’re doing a few West Coast shows this week. Do you have any plans to continue touring and maybe taking some of these bands on the road with you?

SurfTone: I hadn’t planned on taking any of those bands out with me. Sometimes day jobs get in the way. But we’re thinking of doing another European tour in 2013. I’ve done four European tours, the first of which was in ’96. Then I did some more tours there between 1996 and 2001 and I haven’t been back since. So I think it might be time.

One of this week’s tour dates is at a L.A. Derby Dolls bout. I’d imagine Susan SurfTone and roller derby will complement each other nicely.

SurfTone: The Derby Dolls seemed like a good gig. My dad was a baseball player, so I guess I just kind of like sports.

Before you were a badass surf guitarist, you were in the FBI and did some boxing. What was it like being that kind of badass before getting into music?

Paul Barrall, Avory Gray, Susan SurfTone, Seana Steele and Dan Ferguson (photo by Jeff Wong)

SurfTone: Some people say I’m a badass, but I don’t know if I believe them. I’m afraid of spiders, so I don’t know what badass is afraid of spiders. But I went into the FBI right after law school. We went to Quantico, Va. to the FBI Academy for training and part of the training was boxing. My father had shown me how to box because I’m an only child and, like I said, my dad was a baseball player, he was good at football and he was pretty much a natural sportsman, so I learned how to play everything. He taught me how to box and I was one of the few women who really knew how to do it. My fight partner was the smallest guy in the class and I always felt really bad for him because I could always give him a pretty good go-round and all the other guys in the class would make fun of him if I decked him, which happened a few times. He got me good a few times, too. I learned what it felt like to have your head snapped back, that’s for sure. We also had a guy who had been a Golden Gloves champ in our class and we had this one woman who wasn’t very popular. The day before I had to fight her, he came to me and gave me some lessons so I could go out and make short work of her, which I did. So that was kind of fun.

How long were you in the FBI and how did you go from that to fronting a surf band?

SurfTone: I was in just short of three years. I quit because I wanted to play music. I was working in New York City and I really wanted to put a band together and start playing in the clubs. I asked them if they had a problem with it and they said they did, so I had to quit. I was 28 at the time and it was either do music or not do music, and I decided I wanted to do music. So I left the Bureau and started a band and 30 years later, here we are.

Did you ever consider pursuing fighting since you seemed to be pretty good at it?

SurfTone: Oh, God no. Back at that time, women didn’t box. This is all new. I think I’d be too small for it anyway. I’m not all that big, so I think I’d probably get knocked on my ass by a good female boxer.

Maybe you’d have a fighting chance in wrestling.

SurfTone: No. I’d get pinned, believe me.

Seana, how do you fit in with the band? Do you rehearse with them before going on stage or do you just go with the flow of the music?

Susan SurfTone by the "Shore" (photo by Robbie McClaran)

Steele: I normally do one rehearsal so I can become familiar with the set and have practice doing it live. But overall I just do freeform dancing. That’s kind of the spirit of go-go dancing is just letting go and having fun. Susan and I are also working on bringing a fusion of fashion and music because I’m also a model. We recently did a photo shoot for the artwork for the next album, so I’m assisting in creating that amalgam.

You mentioned your recording schedule a little earlier. Do you have any idea when the new album might be out?

SurfTone: We’re recording it the first week of February and if all goes well, I would expect to see it sometime in April. I think I’ve got two more songs to finish writing for the new record. Then I go through the process of re-demoing that to have clear versions of them in the studio. Seanna’s walking in Portland Fashion Week for one of the designers and will be walking to one of the songs off Shore.

Steele: That’s on October 11 and Nelli Millard is the designer.

SurfTone: Nelli’s Russian, and part of what I did when I was in the FBI was I worked in New York and I was in the foreign counterintelligence unit. I chased KGB agents around New York City and just kind of kept an eye on them to make sure they weren’t doing anything they shouldn’t be doing. So I keep making these jokes about Nelli being a Russian designer.

For more information, go to www.susansurftone.com.