Glen’s Rockmaggeddon: Interview With Nashville Pussy

Ruyter Sighs and Blaine Cartwright talk Nashville Pussy, the hilarious new audio book on “High As Hell”, gossip from their Grammy nomination parties, and how streaming services like Spotify destroy music. Also revealed: the ‘Dee Snider Rule’ + the Cartwright method on how to persuade a bomb lady like Ruyter to leave Canada and come down to Atlanta with him:

“He told me cigarettes would cost 2 dollars a pack and he’d fucking teach me how to drive !!”

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So, my first question is for the lady. And it would be- can you please tell me how to properly pronounce your name?

Ruyter: „Rider Sighs“. It’s kind of made up. I was named after a Dutch pirate. Michiel de Ruyter and, you know, it’s not really a first name. My father’s Dutch.

(Cat walks in front of the screen)

Ruyter: This is the real Nashville Pussy!!

What’s his name?

Ruyter: This is Oggy, he’s almost 20. He’s lived in this house longer than we have !

So, Ruyter just answered my second question. Which would have been: where did her name come from? But that’s been answered already.

Ruyter: Well, my parents were hippies, and they wanted something cool. They wanted a gender neutral name, and they liked the name. It was actually going to be Christian or Ruyter.

Ok. I think Ruyter was the better choice.

Ruyter: Yeah. But the funny thing is that I changed my name to Chris when I was in high school because I got sick of the shit that the name Ruyter was giving me. I changed my name to Chris instead of having to introduce myself like I’m some strange person, like „Hi, my name is Ruyter“. We were in the 70s, like, you’re fucked right? Instantly, people are going to make fun of you for some reason, so it must be the name, right? So, I thought „I know I’ll change the name and then I’ll fit in“. And then I changed the name and it made zero difference so I changed it back.

So, coming back to high school or even before high school, you started playing guitar at the age of eight, is that correct?

Ruyter: Yeah, probably around eight I started on piano, and then my dad had a guitar so I got sick of playing piano. Well, sick of my piano teacher. I actually locked myself in the bathroom cause I didn’t want to take piano lessons anymore. Then once he was gone, my parents rented me a bass for a couple of months. I got really bored with that, and then I just picked up my dad’s guitar and started playing.

Can you remember the first song that you played?

Ruyter: The first song that I figured out was „Walk Don’t Run“ by The Ventures. We had a record player that could play things on repeat, so I’d play it over and over and over and over. And so I learned how to play „Walk Don’t Run“ note for note, and then I learned how to play my father’s entire repertoire.

Blaine: I just put the coffee down and got a beer.

Cheers, guys !!

The same question to Blaine: can you remember the first time you picked up a guitar? Why did you do it? What was the first song you played?

Blaine: My parents got me a guitar ’cause I wanted to be like KISS, I think I was 12, 13. It was an acoustic guitar with strings like real high off the neck. My family had records but no musical instruments, so I gave up really fast on that. Then I saw Bruce Springsteen when I was in high school, I think it was 1981, and I was like, „This guy is having more fun than me.“ He’s doing everything right, he’s in control… and so I was like, „I gotta get a guitar“. I was 18 at the time.

And Ruyter always summed it up best, she always said that I was one of those guys who learned to play in college, but instead of writing sensitive Indie music, I wrote rock’n’roll tunes. Most of those guys would play college rock. When I dropped out of college after a year, I played Ramones and then someone taught me “Satisfaction”. Then I got some guitar lessons and my teacher taught me my first Chuck Berry riff.

Ruyter: … and then he stopped taking his lessons (laughs).

Blaine: I knew one Chuck Berry break, then someone taught me a three chord progression, and I was like „That’s 90 percent of the songs I listen to.“

Ruyter: Yeah. It took me 20 years to figure out that all I wanted.to do was to play those licks !

So, this question is for both of you. Can you remember the first song that you ever heard as a kid or as a teenager or whatever, the one that made you think „Wow! This is what I wanna do“?

Ruyter: Oh yeah, totally. That David Bowie song (sings)„I could fall asleep at night as a rock’n’roll star“. I was around six years old listening to that on my headset. YEAH !

Blaine: Oh, man. I lucked out with my great aunt and my great uncle, Uncle Bob and Aunt Leela. They had a record store in Henderson, Kentucky. It was only half an hour from where I lived and we’d go visit them, so I grew up in a record store. Some of my earliest memories were there. But I think the first thing that got me was, my dad had a record, “Great Balls of Fire“, and it was 1 minute, 53 seconds. I’d never seen a song that short before, so I put it on. I’d never heard it before, and I freaked out. Wow !!

So I pictured myself taking this record back to school in 3^rd grade and putting it on, and all my friends dancing, and all the girls dancing, and I’d be popular just for having this record!

Blaine, it’s obvious when you listen to Nashville Pussy or Nine Pound Hammer that you’re a country fan. Have you ever considered putting out a country record à la Must’ve Been High (Supersuckers)?

Blaine: Oh man, I don’t know. I’m not that good a country singer and he (Eddie Spaghetti) has got that voice. Trust me, I’ve recorded a couple of country songs and everything was great until I started to sing. You know, your voice is your voice.

Do you guys have any special warm-ups before a show, any guitar or special vocal warm-ups, or do you just drink ?

Blaine: Two good shots of Jack Daniels for my voice, and the rest of the band have sympathy shots with me. Sometimes I’ll do some humming just so I don’t burn out my voice, but it’s mostly Jack Daniels.

Ruyter: We don’t pray or anything (laughs). We’ve seen bands discuss what they did wrong the night before, right before they hit the stage. That’s comedic as hell. I didn’t see anybody go out there happy, except for the guy who was running the show. So no, not really. We like to be left alone just before a show, that’s about it.

How did you guys meet?

Blaine: She was at a Nine Pound Hammer show in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan…

Ruyter: …and we were both wearing Motörhead shirts, true story!

And you were just like: I like this chick?

Blaine: Yeah. Everyone liked that chick ! I was the only one who had the balls to go up to her.

Ruyter: I got walked home by both him and the lead singer of Nine Pound Hammer. Come on Kentucky boys, hah !!

So how did you persuade her to leave Canada and come down to Atlanta?

Ruyter: He told me cigarettes would cost 2 dollars a pack and he’d fucking teach me how to drive !!

According to Wikipedia, you’re a great tractor driver, so when was the last time you were on one and what were you doing ?

Ruyter: I can drive a tractor, no problem. But it’s been many years. I was probably harvesting wheat, driving a combine for less than minimum wage. Driving around in circles for 14 hours a day at about nine miles an hour. It was actually great practice for being in a rock band, now we’re just driving in larger circles (laughs).

So Ruyter, did you always want to be a lead guitar player or was that just something that happened?

Ruyter: It kinda happened, but I think I always wanted it. I just didn’t know it was feasible because I thought you had to be either a singer-songwriter, or it had to be the whole thing like I had to be Stevie Ray Vaughan or something like that. And then once Nashville Pussy started evolving, I became a lead guitar player. I didn’t start off as a lead guitar player because for some reason I thought that I needed more practice. Then Blaine showed me that I didn’t (laughs)

Blaine: She never knew that she was so good.

Ruyter: Musically, we came from very different ends of the spectrum. I always thought that I wasn’t good enough. And the first time that he hit a chord he was was like, „Fuck, I’m doing this on stage.“

Blaine: Yeah. With Nine Pound Hammer, we formed a band and we’d play songs like “Louie. Louie”, “Hang On Sloopy”, or “Wild Thing” for hours with no leads, just playing the rhythm. I came from punk rock and she was kind of perfectionist.

Ruyter: I came from the Zeppelin school of “you gotta learn a lot more and do it right“.

Ruyter, correct me if I’m wrong, but when I listen to your guitar playing, I hear Skynyrd and I hear AC/DC. Is that about it or are there any more influences in your lead guitar playing?

Ruyter: Definitely more. Those are obvious, but I don’t really go out of my way to emulate either. Jimmy Page is probably my hero, and Neil Young is another huge hero.

Is that because he’s Canadian or because you like him?

Ruyter: Well, he’s the king of the D chord. He can play like one note and make you cry (sings:) BA DA BA DA BAMMM !!!!

I’m not a huge Neil Young fan myself and someone asked me recently what I think about Neil Young’s guitar playing, and you’re probably gonna hate me and hang up after this. But I said that I’ve heard better guitar players playing “Stairway to Heaven“ in a guitar store.

Ruyter: I think the thing I like about Jimmy Page and Neil Young is that they both take radical chances and neither of them are very consistent. But what both of them do, and this is like my goal as a guitar player, is that they dig themselves into holes, musical holes, and still get themselves back out. You can hear it live sometimes with Led Zeppelin, where you’re like, „Oh, Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?“. He’ll go somewhere where you think, „Oh no, that’s a bad idea,“ and then he comes back and it’s like- fuck yeah! ou know, I never wanted to just memorize shit. I wanted to do what my gut felt like.

And and you do it very, very well.

Ruyter: Thank you kind, Sir !

Blaine, one of my favorite Nashville Pussy lyrics is from the song “Lazy Jesus“:

„I got real clean feet and this bad ass crown
But it don’t mean crap back in my hometown
They weren’t even there when I rose from the dead
‘Cause you saw your shadow and you went back to bed“

Is that a lyric that somehow refers to your life? Did you have a religious upbringing or were you just trying to offend ?

Ruyter: A little of both.

Blaine: I was trying to make myself laugh out loud. I did have a religious upbringing; we went to church often. The Southern Baptist Convention, it was a conglomeration of churches. I think my mom still teaches Sunday school. She would always take us to the rich church, even though we weren’t rich, so that we could hang around with the rich folks and not the hillbillies we lived by.

Ruyter: We’re gonna make you some better friends (laughs).

Blaine: It just didn’t work out for me.

How do your parents feel about you doing what you do these days?

Blaine: They were relieved. It just took so long to get going. Especially back then, when you were in your mid-20s and didn’t have a steady job and future, you were over the hill. But as soon as we started making money, they didn’t care.

Ruyter: They stopped giving him applications to work at the gas station

Blaine:: And once we got nominated for a Grammy.

Ruyter: That shut them up !

So, how was the food at the after Grammy party?

Ruyter: Oh man !

Blaine: Fuck, it was so good ! I was just talking about this because of the audio history we’re bringing out. After the Grammys we went with Tom Zutaut and our manager/producer Kurt Bloch. We were trying to find the right party to go to. In the meantime, we’re going to the party where everyone’s invited that’s been to the Grammys. There weren’t a lot of artists there, the only artists there were us and Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens, but it was like the best party. They had BR549, which is an amazing country band, playing in one room, and The Bar-Kays playing in another room, one of the best funk bands of all time. They backed so many people up, Isaac Hayes and shit.

Ruyter: It was sooo bad it was good !!

Blaine: They had fried quail, it was so fuckin’ good, I’ve been trying to get quail ever since. My grandfather used to go hunt quail, they’re tiny little birds so you gotta eat a lot of them. We went to a couple of other parties afterwards. They were more upscale, more celebrities, but less food and less fun, less music playing.

Ruyter: Every other party we went to had less everything. But again, this is actually something we are talking about on this really cool audio history that we have just released, something like an audiobook about High as Hell. It’s fucking hilarious, man.

Did you feel like pariahs at the Grammy parties? Did you feel like -We’re just a bunch of fucking punks and what are we doing here amid all these celebrities?

Ruyter: We were almost the only goddamn rock band in the place. Everyone else is wearing tuxedos and shit: what the fuck man, it’s time to shine, why the fuck are ya’ll dressed as a banker?

Blaine: We went to this BMG party and there was this one place upstairs. Corey, being how she is, goes up to Tone Loc, who then got us upstairs, thinking well, this is the place where they’ll be doing cocaine, smoking weed and have the good shit. And then it was the most polite thing. In one corner there was Marilyn Manson talking to Beck, and they’re all talking business. I’m like “Wow, don’t these people ever stop?“.

Ruyter: We didn’t feel like pariahs though.

Blaine: Scott Weiland from The Stone Temple Pilots jumped over the fence drunker than shit because he wanted to crash the BMG party. He couldn’t get in and he was on the outs back then and he was going crazy, seriously fuckin’ crazy.

Ruyter: He was so crazy you didn’t wanna fucking talk to him, like if you looked at him wrong he’d just punch you.

Blaine: Yeah, he was fucking drunk. He was nice to me though; he said „I love that song, “Go Motherfucker Go”. As a singer I can tell you got that one note and stay with it for the whole fuckin song“.

We played together in Bochum a few years ago, and it was a lot of fun. You let us drink your Vodka !! I remember that you didn’t do a classic soundcheck and that Blaine basically sound-checked for everyone. Is that a normal thing and if so, why ?

Blaine: Well, it takes the girls in the band a lot longer to get ready and I’m good at estimating the monitor sound.

Ruyter: He’s also really good at setting the tones on the amps.

Blaine: Sometimes I’d go to our bass player, I’d walk over and turn the bass down a bit, „Hey look over there“ then I’d turn it down a bit. We all just have snare up front and not much vocals. I mean it’s not Crosby, Stills and Nash, you know. No one’s gonna see a Nashville Pussy show and think „Wow, those harmonies were dead on tonight!“ There’s so much other stuff going on that’s more exciting.

Ruyter: He’s just really good at that stuff. If I was gonna be in Alice Cooper’s band I’d hire him as my guitar tech !

Blaine: I mean there’s only 4 dials on the fucking thing so …

Do you guys enjoy listening to your own music?

Blaine: If it’s on, yeah. But I don’t just sit around listening to it. If I’m searching for a set-list or something, I’ll go on Spotify and I’ll think, „Yeah that thing is good.“

Ruyter: I remember being in a bar or something and this song came on and I was thinking „That’s good, who the fuck is playing on that?“ and it was me (laughs) . Fuck yeah !!

You just mentioned Spotify. How has that changed your lives as musicians, the whole Spotify thing, streaming and shit?

Ruyter: You have to make the budgetary adjustment of making like one tenth of your regular income.

Blaine: For the fans it’s great, but it’s killed music to a certain degree. People have always blamed something, like taping or Napster or whatever, but the only thing that has really taken a bite is Spotify and streaming services. In England recently Madonna and Bruce Springsteen both had a number one record, but between the two I think they only sold like 18,000 records. Our second album sold over 50,000 copies, and that was seen as a failure at the time. Today you sell 20.000 hard copies and you got a number one.

As far as publishing is concerned, it takes a million plays on Spotify to get around $197. The most popular singer at the minute, Billie Eilish, had like a billion streams and I was like: „Congratulations, you made $25,000.“ That’s why a lot of people are using a lot of other avenues like doing commercials on TV. It sucks, you used to be able to make money just by playing music.

(Ruyter laughs heartedly)

Do you also notice when you guys are on tour, that people come to the merch table to say „Hi, that was a great show, I’m gonna put you on my Spotify playlist and then walk away without buying a LP or CD“?

Ruyter: For sure. Or they check the prices and then go online to check the price with delivery to their home so they don’t have to carry it around with them all night.

That’s something I don’t understand, because if you go to a rock’n’roll show you want to bring something home with you, a t-shirt or a record, and then every time you wear that t-shirt or put on that record on you remember that night when you bought it. Buying shit online kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me.

Blaine: I agree, at least vinyl is making a comeback, even if it’s kind of expensive. But at least you got something there.

Ruyter: I want to hold it in my hand. You don’t have that with mp3s and Spotify and that shit ! With Pleased to Eat You, I designed all and worked my ass off on it, with the liner notes and all that you know, and we did so many interviews. But not one person asked about the artwork and then I realised that they all had got a digital fucking copy so they didn’t even see that shit.

That’s a real shame, but I guess that’s how things are today, unfortunately. You guys have covered quite a few songs from bands like Molly Hatchet, Ace Frehley, Circle Jerks… Is there a particular song that you guys found was the most fun to cover ?

Blaine: If you can find it it’s that Twisted Sister song “The Kids Are Back “, it just sounds so cool, the solo is great… When Twisted Sister recorded that song it was in the 80s and metal had a weird sound to it, so we just did a rock’n’roll version of that and I like that a lot.

Ruyter: JJ French even complimented me on the solos, which was great. It’s on a compilation album called Twisted Forever, just a bunch of bands covering Twisted Sister, and we’re right after Motörhead, which is cool !! I Love Dee Snider, and not just ’cause we got the same hairstyle- that guy is the shit!

Blaine: We played with those guys with Nine Pound Hammer in Spain and since then we’ve had a thing called the ‘Dee Snider Rule’. So when we showed up in Spain they had lost all their luggage and so had we, you know. We met them at the lost luggage counter and Dee was like „Hey man, I don’t trust airlines. I’ve got everything I need for my gig in my backpack“. Since then we have that rule, you know. If instruments get lost you can get them somewhere else, but I can’t get my red, white and blue jacket or my cowboy hat replaced. So that kind of thing what you need for a gig should always be in your backpack when you fly. Dee Snider Rule, man !!!

Did Nashville pussy take a conscious decision to always have half of the band as ladies, or is that just something that happened ?

Ruyter: Basically we started that way and we stuck with that, it’s just a nice dynamic. There was a short period where we had Eddie Spaghetti playing bass, it was a Canadian tour where Karen (Cuda) had a family emergency and had to go home, and that definitely changed the dynamic on stage. I didn’t have to compete to be a woman (laughs) I was still that spaz on stage but it was a different kind of spaz !

Blaine: I remember Eddie saying that he noticed a lot of people had got in position in front of the stage to watch the bass player, and then he came on and plugged in and they were all like „Ahhh, what the fuck“.

Okay, so Ruyter. I’ve never seen you play another guitar apart from an SG. What made you fall in love with SGS? And do you actually play any other guitars, on the records and stuff ?

Ruyter: I do, but mostly it’s SG’s. I’ve also got a Telecaster. One of my first electric guitars was a Tele- I love the twang of a Tele. But The SG kind of formed my style, I don’t think I really knew what kind of lead or electric guitar player I was until I got that SG.

Blaine: It’s also great to have 2 different guitars. I’m playing a Les Paul and the SG jumps out over that because it has this kind of percussive sound, so that works out real good.

Ruyter: I used to play (Les Paul) Goldtops. I think we had 4 of them, but they were finicky little bitches. Every day we had to try out all 4 to see which one was in the mood to be played, like one day the one would play great and the next day not, but then the other one would play good but then the next day not. They had their own fuckin’ personalities, which changed every day depending on the fuckin’ moisture in the air or whatever.

Okay. We’re heading off towards the end. I got a couple of more questions. How are you guys dealing with the train wreck that is 2020?

Ruyter: This is what I do (proudly holds up homegrown tomatoes). I made these, my first harvest !! They’re so fuckin’ delicious man !!

Blaine: We’re doing better than a lot of people, we got a nice house and we can hang out, I’ve been writing a lot of Nine Pound Hammer stuff. We lucked out man, we have a nice home and this is the longest period we’ve ever been able to hang out there.

Ruyter: I’ve watched so much Netflix that I’m moving on to the alternative language stuff.

Sounds like you guys are enjoying the time or can you not wait to get back on the road again?

Ruyter: I’m enjoying the shit out of it, but I really miss travelling.

Blaine: Our drinking has gone way down since this shit started. Kind of just what the doctor ordered. You know, we would be playing festivals in nowhere, we’d go on at 4 in the afternoon and afterwards there’s nothing else to do except open a bottle of Jack and hang out in a field and watch the other bands.

Ruyter: It’s always hard to explain to your doctor that you have to drink for work (laughs). But honestly, I think it’s kinda cool being forced to stay home because when we go back out on the road next year we’re going to be so hungry to play again, it’s gonna be awesome !

Alright, I got two questions left and I think they’re pretty difficult. So if you could only listen to three riffs for the rest of your life, what would they be, Blaine?

Blaine: Rolling Stones, “Bitch” (sings the riff)

Ruyter: “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (sings the riff)

Blaine: “God Save The Queen” – that one fucked my life up, sent me on a lot of different trajectories.

Ruyter: The first thing that I thought of was “Hells Bells“ (sings the riff)

Blaine: I’ll probably be the only person to say this, but I like the guitar riff to “Born to Run” . It’s just so good !!

Ruyter: “Hocus Pocus” by Focus !!

All right. So one last question for you guys. I mean, it’s kind of similar to the last one. If you could play guitar or write a song was anybody alive or dead who would it be and why?

Blaine: It would be fun to try to write a song with Keith, and as far as playing guitar goes, it would have to be The Stones. I’d wanna be Keith Richards !!

Ruyter: I dunno about songwriting but I would love to play guitar for Iggy Pop, Adam and The Ants and yeah, Alice Cooper.

So guys, that was that, thanks so much !

Ruyter: Yeah, we´re looking forward to editing your novel !!!

It’s been an honour and a pleasure !

Ruyter: Take care man !

Blaine: See ya !!

Interview by Glen Clarke

(nashvillepussy.com)