By contrast, Parks adds with a laugh, she and Pussy guitarist Ruyter Suys "were the chicks who had our first orgasms when we were ten. We like showing off our tits and being sexy and turning people on. We're all woman, darlin'."
Or in Parks's case, a woman and a half. Standing a full 6-foot-3, the statuesque femme fatale, whose brother Cherokee plays basketball for the Minnesota Timberwolves, is a walking, talking rock-and-roll wet dream: She's built like Ursula Andress, dresses like Sonny Barger and curses like a merchant marine. More important, she plays the bass with more sweat and fury than an entire battalion of Bad Religion wannabes. Suys, Pussy's voluptuous guitar virtuoso, is damn near as striking. Blessed with a cocksure sneer and a sensuous strawberry-blond mane, she would be right at home in the pages of Penthouse--or, for that matter, Soldier of Fortune.
The rest of Nashville Pussy consists of guitarist/vocalist/chief songwriter Blaine Cartwright, once the prime instigator behind the now-defunct hillbilly army Nine-Pound Hammer, and drummer/former Phantom Creep Jeremy Thompson. It's not sexist to note that these dudes are considerably less attractive than their bandmates; on that point, most men and women would agree. But the pair are every bit as colorful as their comely cohorts: Cartwright exhibits the shabby backwoods charm of a monster-truck enthusiast, while Thompson looks as if he should be working as a doorman at Shotgun Willie's. Together the four make up the motleyest pack of sleaze-rock rabble to come down the pike since Guns N' Roses.
The comparisons to Axl and company end there, however, because Nashville Pussy rocks on a greasy, amplified level all its own. Sporting the tasteful title Let Them Eat Pussy, the band's new long-player for the Amphetamine Reptile imprint is a thirty-minute hard-on of a record that opens with a figurative shotgun blast called "Snake Eyes" and doesn't let up until the feedback-soaked finale. In between, listeners are treated to a barrage of souped-up power chords, felonious guitar assaults and lazy, drunken parables that might make even Little Richard shed a tear.
Since its release, the disc has drawn numerous comparisons to the works of metal legends Motsrhead--probably because it sounds like a Motsrhead record. But Parks claims that the band draws inspiration from a far wider range of sources. In her words, "We listen to whatever cooks. Everything from Ike and Tina Turner to the Devil Dogs to Tom Jones and Funkadelic's Maggot Brain. And, of course, everything by AC/DC, all the time."
The members of Nashville Pussy also hold a special place in their breasts for the Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent. They named their band for a line from Nugent's Double Live Gonzo!, and they've made "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" a regular part of their live set. Recently the Nuge (whose classic Westword profile, "Ted's World," ran on July 27, 1994) reciprocated by showering the bandmembers with adulation while interviewing them for a piece in CMJ. He even went so far as to dub Parks "a breeding machine," a remark that left her feeling mighty satisfied. "I'd say that's a pretty accurate assessment," she notes. "That guy is a fucking nut."
The Pussies also share Nugent's obsessive lust for touring. During their first year together they played more than 200 shows, and the number has grown steadily ever since. Lately they've gotten the biggest jolt out of all-ages gigs, at which Ruyter and Parks enjoy letting the adolescent masses witness everything from fire-breathing to mid-song tongue baths. Working horny teenage males into a lather is one of Parks's favorite pastimes. "Playing all this cock rock, I'm starting to get in touch with the masculine side of my personality," she confesses. "Lately I've been liking them real young and real pretty. I actually kissed this fourteen-year-old boy in Little Rock, Arkansas, on our last tour. He followed me around all night long--he looked like he was about eight years old, and he came up to my belly button. So I invited him out to our van and asked him if he wanted to kiss me. And I laid a big, juicy one on him.
"I think I scared him a little bit," she concedes. "I asked him if he wanted to go back inside, and he was like, 'Yeah.' But I bet I'll be branded in his mind for eternity."
Antics like this one bring to mind the stadium acts of old. Parks says that's precisely the point. "We're proud of the fact that we play in a rock-and-roll band," she explains. "I think people take that too lightly these days. There's no sexy, dangerous rock stars. No Steven Tylers and Joe Perrys. No Jimmy Pages and Robert Plants.
"I think people are dying for that shit," she continues. "It's like going to the movies or something. For an hour you get to watch us and fantasize and have a good time. We don't have a hidden agenda--we don't even fucking vote. We're just a good time rock-and-roll band."
Nashville Pussy, with Gaunt and the LaDonnas. 9 p.m. Wednesday, May 27, 15th Street Tavern, 623 15th Street, $8, 572-0822.
