Nashville Pussy are heading to Australia and lead guitarist Ruyter Suys certainly doesn’t mince her words.
“Fuck, we're looking forward to [touring Australia] more than anything,” Ruyter says. “It's been seven goddamn years and that's too long. Every time we go there we promise ourselves we're not going to wait this long before we come back.
“It's a special place and going to Brisbane is kind of a high point, believe it or not. We have a lot of really fun times there.”
Ruyter is particularly excited to introduce their newest members, bassist Bonnie Buitrago and drummer Ben Thomas, to Australian audiences as well as our culture, of which both she and husband/ bandmate Blaine Cartwright have become quite fond. “We're dying to show Bonnie and Ben, our virgins,” Ruyter says.
“They've never gotten to experience anything of Aussie culture other than watching ‘Chopper’ and ‘Mad Max’, so this is going to be exciting for them. We've been telling them the koalas are huge and the kangaroos are tiny and the beer is really not potent,” she adds with a laugh.
When Nashville Pussy arrive in May, Ruyter says they’ll be playing songs from across their discography in a setlist to satisfy long-time fans and newcomers alike. “I think it's going to be pretty close to a best of; we're definitely not leaning on any one album.
“I think it's a pretty good retrospective and if you’ve never seen us before you will not be dissatisfied. It's a good cross section of what we've done and what we do.
“Some of our songs we can't not play, so it'll be a fucking full-on rock & roll show from beginning to end; whiskey soaked as you would like it, beer and whiskey-fuelled. There's something in the water in Australia that we all share the same influences, let's say. We get along quite well down there.”
As lead guitarist for the group, Ruyter says there’s nothing she likes to see more when she’s playing on stage than a crowd leaving their hang-ups at the door and really letting loose. “Just people headbanging and dancing and not staring,” she says.
“It usually takes a few songs before people realise we're just a straight-up rock band and then they go 'oh it's cool, I can let my hair down'.
“It's a real no-poser zone. It's really sweaty, good old-fashioned pub rock, no pretence. Leave your good clothes at home; don’t bring your fancy girlfriend, bring your fun girlfriend; and don't bring your fancy boyfriend, bring your fun boyfriend,” she laughs.
The Nashville Pussy-Australian connection goes deeper than a love of booze-drenched pub rock to when Ruyter once played guitar live with Aussie rockers Cosmic Psychos. “I'll tell you a little-known fact: I was an honorary member of Cosmic Psychos one year when we were on tour with them,” she says.
“They had flown all the way from Australia to New York City without their guitar player; they're meant to be a three-piece and there's only two of them. They had a guitar and the guitar is so worn out that pretty much anyone could play it and sound like them.
“I knew the entire first album beginning to end. So we got up on stage, played the first song and we ended up playing the whole album. Then I changed my clothes and got up on stage to play with Nashville Pussy, it was awesome.”
Nashville Pussy Shows
Sat 6 May - Barwon Club (Geelong)Sun 7 May - Cherry Rock Festival (Melbourne)
Tue 9 May - The Gov w/ Brant Bjork (Adelaide)
Wed 10 May - Northcote Social Club (Melbourne)
Fri 12 May - Bald Faced Stag (Sydney)
Sat 13 May - Crowbar (Brisbane)
