Interview with Ruyter Suys of Nashville Pussy. By: Scott Alisoglu


Did you really think that a band called Nashville Pussy was anything other than a rip snortin’ kick ass American rock n roll band? Surely you didn’t think the band played songs for Walt Disney movie soundtracks. For those of you that are not familiar with the reference, Nashville Pussy got its name from Ted Nugent’s introduction to “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” from 1978’s Double Live Gonzo - the same introduction that directed those in the audience who were wanting to get mellow to “turn around and get the fuck outta here!” In short, take a whole lot of gonzo attitude, a strong dose of AC/DC rock fury, and a pinch of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and what you end up with is a rabid bunch of road dogs called Nashville Pussy. The band has toured almost nonstop in support of its latest release, Say Something Nasty. Canadian-born lead guitarist Ruyter Suys (pronounced Rider Sighs) is one-fourth of this rock n roll machine and is also wife of lead singer/guitarist Blaine Cartwright. I spoke to an infectiously upbeat and talkative Ruyter as her and the band were leaving Atlanta to embark on yet another road trip - this time to Canada. I found that it was impossible not to smile and laugh along with Rutyer and her fun-loving outlook on life. 

You have a very interesting first and last name.
Yes [laughing]. My parents were hippies. I know my dad celebrated my birth by dropping acid, so I figured I’m pretty lucky to wind up with the name that I did get. It could be a lot worse. Where are you out of?

I’m in Kansas, but Live4Metal is based in the UK. We’ve got stuff happening on both sides of the pond.
Oh cool. Right on, we were just in London a couple of weeks ago…or a month ago I guess.

That was part of your European tour. How long were you on the road in Europe?
We were there for about three weeks. The only gig we did in the UK was in London.

Was it at The Underworld?
Yeah, exactly [laughing]. It was actually quite cool.

You are one band that I’ve heard whose name perfectly fits the style of music that you play.
Well, I’ve been constantly let down by bands that have these righteous names, then wound up sounding like the opposite of what you’d think.

You must be big fans of terrible Ted Nugent. 
Oh definitely. He’s been one of my favorite dudes since high school.

Double Live Gonzo was one of the first few albums that I bought when I was a kid.
Right on! Not many people can actually get that reference.

Have you ever heard anything from Ted regarding the band name?
Yeah, he interviewed me one time! It was fuckin’ hilarious. I mean, you’ve heard that guy talk - you can barely get him to shut up. That was the first time I’d ever actually spoken to him. Luckily, I’ve got a guitar instructional video where he talks like a combination car salesman and David Letterman, so I was prepared to listen to his diatribe. I understood what he was saying - if I had gone in there blind, I would have just been lost, man [laughing]!

So, he was impressed with your band’s name.
Yeah! He couldn’t stop saying it enough. He was very proud.

Did I also hear that you’re a fan of the Bob Seger System?
Oh, very much so! I don’t know; we’ve got a varied taste in music. The old System stuff was fantastic! 

You are married to Blaine Cartwright. What’s it like being a married couple in a touring band? Is it ever awkward for the other members?
Oh, not really. Pretty much as soon as we get on the road, we kind of stop being married. That’s what it seems like now [laughing]. Even Ted said something about that - like checking your libido. It was something about saving it for the stage. When we get behind closed doors, we’re married again. It feels real different when we’re at home, but for the most part it’s like really easy for us.

It’s obviously working because you’ve been at it for several years now.
Yeah, it’s been like six years now.
Sex is a major band topic. I’ve read that you’re able to exude a lot of sexual energy on stage and that Blaine is perfectly cool with it. Can you talk about that a bit?
It’s just your natural root of rock n roll. If you’re going to deny that, then what’s the point? You might as well be playing some completely different kind of music. He’s very encouraging to me and very confident. He enjoys it as much as anyone I think [laughing].

Have you had any major problems with meathead fans acting like assholes to yourself and/or [bass player] Katielynn?
Generally, we have pretty respectful guys in the audience. Every now and then they might get a little confused. When we were in France recently, after a show, two guys came backstage and they wanted us to sign their butts. They pulled their pants down and they had these incredibly hairy asses. Maybe we weren’t in the mood, but we were like, “no, take those hairy French asses away from us!” They apologized afterwards. They were like [in bad French accent], “we are so very sorry; we are so very confused” [laughing]. I don’t know what we do that encourages that type of  behavior [laughing]. I guess at the right moment, it might have seemed appropriate, but it just struck us as very wrong right then [laughing]. Oh man.
How long have you been on the road in support of Say Something Nasty?
On and off now, since it came out many months ago. We don’t really pay much attention to when the records come out. We just kind of go anyway because if you wait until the record company tells you to do something, you’ll wait forever! We just go on our own steam, regardless. We’ve always been like that and try to pretty much be independent of our record labels. They like that. We try to challenge them to keep up with our pace. We know where to go, where we want to go, and we try to make them keep up.

I missed the August show in Kansas City with the Reverend Horton Heat. 
We were there right around New Year’s. I think we might have been there three times in the last year. 

How well did this mix of Heat and Pussy go over with the crowds?
Oh absolutely fantastic! We went on the road with them for a while and it was really good. Almost his entire audience was like virgins to what we do and there was like the initial fear of the audience, which would be overcome by the second song, and then pretty much every one would start dancing. Plus, there are chicks in the band. The Rev’s got a lot of chicks in his audience and they would not have come and seen us on their own. Then when they see us [Ruyter and Katielyn], they’re like, holy mother fuckin’ shit! We had so many women coming up to me and Katie after the show and going, “you’re my new heroes!” It was super positive, especially for the women!

So you must have been wondering how your music would mix with the Reverend Horton Heat’s crazy rockabilly stuff.
Yeah, we had absolutely no idea, but I think most people who come out to see Rev or come out to see us are just coming out for a good time anyway, and they obviously like music. We’re a guitar/blues-based, rock n roll band and it’s kind of hard not to suck someone into that. There’s no pretension - it’s all about shakin’ your ass. Most people react [laughing].

Are there any other bands that you’d like to go out on the road with?
Right now!? I don’t know…AC/DC!? We used to say the Rolling Stones, but we saw them the other night and they were kinda lame, but I think we’d probably still open up for them if they asked [laughing].

How have the European crowds reacted to Nashville Pussy compared to the U.S crowds?
It’s pretty universally the same. This last tour we did of Europe was just amazing though. It was the first time we had been in Spain for a couple of years and we forgot how cool that country is. That was absolutely fantastic. It was a nice reminder that there are some places in this world that have incredibly good taste in music…and real cool clothes…and like to party [laughing]

Who is your core fan base?
Man, I wish there was an answer to that. We’ve got the broadest fan base I’ve ever seen. We’ve played with Marilyn Manson and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and we are the common thread between that, and that’s all there is! I don’t know how on earth it happened but our fan base is bizarre. We’ll have parents turning their kids on to us and we’ll have kids turning their parents onto us. We got everything from convicts to brain surgeons listening to our music. Everyone’s got good taste; let’s just put I that way [laughs].

Say Something Nasty was my first exposure to the band’s music and it immediately appealed to my longing for the days of big guitar fury and old school Nugent, AC/DC, and others. Have you found that other listeners have had a similar reaction to the music?
Oh, most definitely! We started this out of that same feeling. I wanted that. We all wanted something that rocks. Blaine and I were living in Nashville and music was so fucking lame! Everyone was either really talented with no concept, or it was all concept, show and no ability. We wanted to bring big rock back to the state. This is my first band. I’ve been playing guitar since I was a kid. We didn’t know that we were going to go in a big rock direction at all - it just kind of happened once we plugged in. We got more comfortable with it. It’s such self-indulgent music. It just feels fuckin’ great. It’s about time - that’s kind of what it comes down to. We need this and, if we’re any indication, a lot of other people need this shit too.

Were there certain albums that were like your bibles?
Your basics - anything by Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, and definitely Double Live Gonzo. I was raised on that kinda of shit. …And like Slayer and Metallica - I was the only one in the band that listened to that kind of shit. Blaine listens to everything, like Funkadelic and old country, and he’s a Chuck Berry head and a Rolling Stones fiend. I turned him on to some metal and he turned me on to some good rock n roll.

I could definitely hear some early 70s-era Stones, like the sound of “Rip this Joint.”
Oh yeah. We listen to every era Stones, and we’ve been listening to Free lately. It’s like the history of rock. We don’t listen to a lot of contemporary music at all. 

Blaine’s spoken intro track on Say Something Nasty about the selling points of pussy is very in your face. You guys don’t leave a lot of room for interpretation do you?
No! [laughs loudly]…what’s the point?

Along those same lines, you are pictured on the back CD cover in red bra, inserting a red Popsicle into you mouth. Are you hoping to get some commercial spots for the product?
[Laughing], yeah! I want to do them for Orange Push-Ups in a push-up bra.

I’m assuming that this has been your strongest-selling album to date. 
Yeah, I think so. Every one of them seems to pick up a little more speed than the one previous to it.

Has promotion through Artemis Records played a big part in it?
Actually Scott, it’s the best distribution we’ve ever had so far. This time the record is out in a bunch of really square stores, whereas they used to be only in eclectic places. For our first album, you kind of had to be “in the know.” Now you can buy it [Say Something Nasty] at Sam Goody and deep in the Bible belt for the most part. I remember that for one album, Best Buy had a thing on their computer that said, “Do not order,” if you asked for it. Supposedly someone had said that they were offended by it, so it wasn’t ordered. I said, well I’m offended by Mariah Carey - she offends me from head to toe…every sensibility as a woman and as a musician, I’m offended by this bullshit. They didn’t drop Mariah Carey, but we’re in there now.

Gee, so I guess some people are offended by the name.
Oh, most definitely. But I think that people are slowly coming to terms with the fact that 50 percent of this world has one [pussy] and the other fifty percent can be one [laughs].

It sounds like Artemis Records gives you a lot of freedom to call your own shots.
Yeah, the president of the company is a spokesman for the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union], so he’s on our side as far as freedom of speech, etc. He’s definitely not one to quash are personalities, which is great.

Have you written any material for the next album?
Hell no! [laughs]. We’re waiting to get really bored before we do that.

You’re just going to keep road doggin’ for a while.
Yeah, we’re going to Canada right now and we’re going to go back to Europe for a couple of weeks. 

Do you ever get burned out from being on the road so much?
No, actually, we’re so trained, that we feel more natural out on the road than we do at home. We get kind of confused when we get home. Everyone’s sleeping patterns get fucked up and we tend to party way too much when we get home. Being on the road kind of straightens us out a little.

Will Nashville Pussy always be about down-and-dirty guitar rock and songs about wild partying, sex, and all that good stuff?
Yeah, it’s pretty safe to say that we’re probably in the tradition of just putting a new album cover on our records like AC/DC does - fifteen records that sound the same [laughs]. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Find out more about the band at http://www.nashvillepussy.com/

http://www.live4metal.com/