Nashville Pussy is back with their first new studio album in 5 long years: and it just might be the album of their lives. If you haven’t heard ‘Up the Dosage’ yet make sure to add 20th January to you diaries when the album is released. It’s everything you love about Pussy but bigger, badder and better. We check in with Ruyter Suys ahead of the European Tour which kicks off in France on January 30th…
Mark: Hi, it’s Mark from The Rockpit, how’s things over there? Nice and cold?
Ruyter: How are you my dear? Just let me get my coffee and cigarettes in front of me! It’s a beautiful, sunny day here.
Mark: That’s great to hear. Wow ‘Up the Dosage’ is a fantastic album, we absolutely love it! Where did the name come from?
Ruyter: Up the dosage? I don’t know, it was like everything, we made it up! It just kind of fits, we were just trying to come up with something unique for the album title, and it was one of the titles of the songs, so, it went perfect, because it kind of suits the whole mood of the album, of us kicking it up a notch!
Mark: It was interesting to read the promo for it, because it has caused quite a lot of talk here, which I guess it was probably designed for, calling your album “your Back in Black” if you like, what was actually meant by that?
Ruyter: I think, Blaine, probably meant it, in that how prior to “Back in Black” AC/DC, were a well-established, well loved, Punk act, essentially, on a larger scale. Then when Back in Black came out, it was like they’d got their best sound yet; it was the best they’d ever been captured live, in the studio, and it was like the most distilled version of AC/DC. And I think that’s kind of what happened to us on this album, if the first album was a six pack, the next couple were a good mixer drink, this one is like a pure shot!! This is a 100% proof; it’s been distilled down to its elements! When you first hear Back in Black, it’s like, Oh, this is what AC/DC is all about! It was like they’d retained all that energy of their previous albums, even though they had a new singer, but they got it down to the core, down to its rawest elements, and that’s what we did on this one. I think that’s what he meant, but I never asked him!
Mark: Well it worked here, obviously because of the AC/DC connection, and that we love your music here too. I think you’re right, I think it’s as good as Nashville Pussy has ever sounded, it’s an amazing album.
Ruyter: Thanks so much. I should probably ask him what he meant by that, I have no idea; I’m just making it up!! That’s what I think, I didn’t realise it was going to cause that much of a sensation, that people are asking about it, like it’s a challenge, and like is that record really going to live up to that statement, and evidently it does!
Mark: It’s been a while since “From Hell to Texas”, in 2009, and we saw you here in 2010, for Blaine’s birthday tour!
Ruyter: Oh, yeah, we celebrated his birthday for a whole week that was great!
Mark; Have you been working on the material that long?
Ruyter: Well, we are always recording shit, and putting it in the bottle! We can’t stop, you know you come up with riffs, and you put them in the corner till the time when you need to go farming for great sounds that you come up with. This album, was like, I think we did, we recorded three albums in the duration between the two, we recorded a new Nine Pound Hammer album, and Blaine has a new band called The Kentucky Bridgeburners which recorded a new album called “Hail Jesus”, which is fantastic, and he toured Europe on it. Then I recorded with a band called Dick Delicious and the Tasty Testicles, and that was a full length album, and we toured on that! So, we had all these side projects, and when we finally got back in to the studio, and started writing for Nashville Pussy, I think we’d been pent up, so like, everything just burst out really quickly and really easily, it was probably the easiest pre-production and actual recording that we have ever done. We were all looking at each other going “that was really good, right?!” Everything came out really easy, and I think that’s because we were pent up, it was like taking your finger off the hose that’s been building up for four years, and BAM!!
Mark: It certainly did the trick! You have a tour coming up in Europe in February, kicking off in France, are you looking forward to getting out there again for that tour?
Ruyter: Oh, yeah, definitely. They wanted us to do a full European tour, which was going to last three and a half months, and we managed to split it up in to two legs. We’re doing some of the “fun” countries first, Spain, France, Portugal and Italy, in this leg, and then we come back and do the “really fun countries”, like Scandinavia, and hopefully we get to the UK, I’m not sure what’s been booked on the next leg. Then we are supposed to be back in Australia next year too.
Mark: That would be great! Sounds like a hell of a tour!
Ruyter: Yeah, we’re trying to do the southern most of Europe while it’s still cool up north, and then hopefully it will have calmed down a little bit, because for some strange reason, they wanted to put us up in Finland in February!! We were like aren’t there other places in the world, that we can tour in February, somewhere with a beach maybe?!! Please!!
Mark: That’s when you should be here! Even the Fins don’t like Finland in February!! One of the things we love about Nashville Pussy is the sense of humour, and there’s a lot of humour on the album as well as some wonderful songs. I actually think “Rub it to Death” is my all-time favourite Nashville Pussy song!
Ruyter: Yay!!! I wrote that one, but Blaine wrote the lyrics.
Mark: I listened to that song, and that’s when I thought that statement was true, this is your Back in Black! There’s some really cool other stuff on there as well, “Everyone’s Fault but Mine” is a great opener, and everything from “PillBilly Blues” to the sort of “Stonesier” before the drugs wear off…
Ruyter: Yeah! We’ve been known to listen to “Exile” for weeks on end!! Some of that might have seeped out! When they re- released it again, with the bonus tracks, it was like, shit, I’ve fallen in love with it all over again! It was so cool! The movie of the recording of it was incredible, I don’t know if you saw that, there were people passing out in the kitchen, and cops turning up, the recording room was real nasty, the Rolling Stones were real rock stars, or at least they were at one point!
Mark: That would be one of those albums where you would want to be a fly on the wall to listen to, and see how it all came together, they were crazy times! What are some of your favourites to play live off the album?
Ruyter: Well, you already named them, “Everybody’s Fault but Mine”, is fucking great, that song gets everyone moving, in a real kind of sexual groove, especially the women, I love playing that and watching the audience, when I open my eyes during that song, I’m always very pleased! That one and “Rub it to Death”, they are so much fun to play. We also do “Up the Dosage”, but I don’t know what else we’re going to do, on this next tour, but we’ll find out soon!
Mark: I suppose it’s hard when you’ve got such a great back catalogue of songs to pick what to do on tour.
Ruyter: I’m probably the worst in the band ‘cause I’ll play anything from any era! I never want to cut songs out; I want to keep at it!
Mark: Have you read many of the reviews of the album, and are you pleased with the feedback?
Ruyter: Yeah, so far it’s been really positive; a lot of people are saying this is an album that is going to introduce Nashville Pussy to Pussy virgins! For some reason this album is a great introduction to us! Someone told us we were going to get nominated for best new band at the Grammy’s!
Mark: It is great when people say things like that, because then you know you’ve hit the nail on the head!
Ruyter: Yeah, And now with ‘Pussy Riot’ in the news maybe they’ll say our fucking name on radio now, for fucks sake!!
Mark: Have you got any dates in Russia?
Ruyter: We don’t! We had gigs booked there a few times, but for some strange reason, they always fall through! But, it’s always been on the books, I’ve always wanted to go there. Russia and Hawaii have always been sacrificial lambs for our tours, for some strange reason!! We get Greece and Turkey, and every time we are coming to Australia, we get booked in Hawaii, and it always falls through! It’s our fucking albatross, really!!
Mark; Taking it right back to your earliest memories of music, what was it that made you decide to pick up a guitar?
Ruyter: Oh, man! I knew I wanted to be a rock star when I was about six years old! I blame David Bowie and his Spiders from Mars! That album made me dress up as Ziggy Stardust at school for Halloween, I thought everyone would know who I was, they were all dressed up as witches, gypsies, princesses and shit like that, but they were like what the hell are you?!! I had my orange jumpsuit, with glitter swirls all over it, and my hair done up in like a red shock!!
Mark: So, are you a big Mick Ronson fan?
Ruyter: Yes, I love Mick Ronson, very much so! My parents took me to go see him, when I was eight years old that was my first concert.
Mark: Wow! That is a great first concert! Now you’ve probably already answered this one, but, if you could have been a fly on the wall for the recording of any album, at any point in time, what would it have been for you and why?
Ruyter: It’s got to be something like Zeppelin, and, or Iggy Pop, “Fun house”, that would have been cool to be there for!
Mark: That would’ve been crazy, I think!
Ruyter: Yeah, I’m a huge Iggy pop fan, and that album is such a weird work! I would also have to say “Back in Black”, as I heard the recording of that was just hell! I heard they went through a lot of shit, I think they recorded it in Bermuda, and the bell on that was the church bell. It was recorded at Compass studios, and we were actually booked to record there at one point, and when we looked into it, not only was it beautiful, so you are completely distracted all the time, but the vines are crawling with all sorts of snakes and spiders and all sorts of shit!! It would be terrifying! I think through the recording you’d worry you were going to be eaten alive by all sorts of shit, crawling on the ground!!! But, I wouldn’t have minded being there for that!
Mark: Sounds great!! Finally, what is the meaning of life?
Ruyter: I don’t know! How about love?
Mark: That’s a good one, I like that!
Ruyter: That falls in to the category of sex, drugs and rock and roll!!
Mark: Yeah, let’s put it there anyway! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us this morning and hopefully we’ll see you back in Australia soon. If not, good luck with the album, it’s fantastic, and we gave it rave reviews here on the site, take care, bye.
Ruyter: Yeah, thank you. The more you play it, the better the chance of us coming down there! It was my pleasure, bye bye.
UP THE DOSAGE IS OUT JANUARY 20th 2014
Tour Dates:
30.01. F-Vaureal – Le Forum
31.01. F-Strasbourg – La Laiterie
01.02. F-Dunkerque – Les 4 Ecluses
03.02. F-Paris – La Machine du Moulin Rouge
04.02. F-Caen – Le Cargo
06.02. F-Brest – La Carene
07.02. F-St. Nazaire – Le VIP
08.02. F-Bordeaux – Barbey Rock School
09.02. F-Toulouse – Connexion Live
11.02. E-Bilbao – Kafe Antzoki
12.02. E-Santiago de Compostela – Capitol
13.02. E-Madrid – Arena
14.02. PT-Lisbon – Santiago Alquimista
15.02. E-Sevilla – Fanatic
16.02. E-Barcelona – Razzmatazz 3
17.02. F-Montpellier – Secret Place
19.02. F-Lyon – Ninkasi Kao
20.02. CH-Geneva – L`Usine
21.02. CH-Zurich – Bogen F
22.02. I-Milan – Lo Fi Club
23.02. I-Bologna – Freakout Club
24.02. I-Roma – Traffic Live
More dates will be announced soon
