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NASHVILL
Story: Juliett Rowe
“I started playing [guitar] when I was about eight,” Ruyter Suys remembers. “I started playing piano
when I was a little kid, and the piano got taken away from the house, so I turned to one of my dad’s
guitars and I’ve been jamming ever since. I took a break for a little while and went to university. I
thought that playing music was irresponsible, and then I met Blaine, and he’s like, ‘You’re a way
better guitar player than you are anything else.’” Ruyter Suys (pronounced Rider Sighs), lead guitarist
for southern fried rock outfit Nashville Pussy, never thought much about playing in a band until
she met Blaine Cartwright and the two formed Nashville Pussy seven years ago. Blaine
(vocals, rhythm guitar) and Ruyter, are joined by Katielyn Campbell on bass, and Jeremy Thompson
on drums, and the Atlanta based quartet will be heading out this month on a southeast
tour in support of last year’s Say Something Nasty (Artemis). Ruyter and Blaine are in Austin for
a show with Blaine’s other band, 9 Pound Hammer, a rousing cow-punk act that’s been doing
cow-punk, since way before cow-punk was cool. (“It’s like the Ramones with Johnny Cash
vocals over it,” Blaine says.)
Growing up in Vancouver, Ruyter’s parents were supportive and encouraged her to play. “Well
growing up I was kind of a classic guitar geek, Zeppelin and Hendrix, and all the stuff that you’re
supposed to learn at the time,” Ruyter says. “I wound up getting into the blues, which is a
stepping stone. It wasn’t until I met Blaine that I started listening to the punk rock. He came
from the opposite school pretty much. He’d never listened to Ted Nugent really, or a lot of
Zeppelin or Hendrix. But I had never listened to the Ramones, and I most certainly had never
listened to Johnny Cash or Lynyrd Skynyrd.” Those disparate musical influences would help
create a sound that Nashville Pussy would take to new levels in a Motorhead meets Aerosmith
in a back alley kind of way. Blaine’s alcohol fueled vocals and Ruyter’s charismatic guitar
playing anchor Nashville Pussy’s sound as a band that easily shares stages with a rockabilly
band one tour, and a stoner rock band the next.
Rag: The band has this image of ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’. Do you ever feel trapped by
that, like you’re just ready to move on?
Ruyter: People have some strange ideas about us, so yeah sometimes it can be a little–it’s not
restricting for us or anything like that, but we’ll get on the phone with some DJ or something like
that, and he’s expecting us to just like give him phone sex. [laughs]. So they might be a little let
down. But then at the same time we’ll talk to other people, depending on the day of the week,
I don’t prepare, obviously, for interviews. I don’t know when I’m going to be in the mood to start
saying all the wrong shit. We’ll get people coming to shows [who think] that we’re going to
jump off stage and fuck everyone in the audience. There was a rumor for a while that we lit our
genitals on fire. [laughs].
Rag: Before I ever saw you live I had heard that, and this was when Corey [Parks] was in the
band, was that you two would make out on stage, and then of course the fire breathing.
Ruyter: We’ve made out with chics in the audience...and there’s nothing stopping us now.
[laughs] If someone’s a good kisser, I ain’t going to say no. But at the same time, you can’t
prepare for something like that. That ain’t rock and roll.
Sometime late this summer Nashville Pussy will be heading into the studio to begin work on a
new album. “Basically me and Blaine–I don’t know what you’d call it–we’re gleaning. We’re
driving around crazy places in America and getting inspiration from our brethren. [laughs] A
couple of days ago we did two lane roads down from Kentucky to Austin. We went and saw the
Stax, which is an old soul label from Memphis. We went to their museum, which was awesome.
We didn’t know they had it, we just kind of accidentally found it in Memphis. We wound
up going to the Crossroads, the famous Crossroads where you can sell your soul to the devil
at the right time. We drove through there...and we just kind of went on this little miniature blues
hunt, and seeing some interesting people, and writing down inspirations from crazy places
we’ve traveled to and stuff like that. We’ve been doing a lot of jamming and stuff.”