BW&BK; scribe Aaron Small recently sat down with NASHVILLE PUSSY lead guitarist Ruyter Suys for a private one-on-one chat to discuss the band’s forthcoming album – due in the fall – via SPV Records. This marks the fifth studio foray for Nashville Pussy, but their first trip to country music legend Willie Nelson’s recording studio in Texas.

“We learned that anybody who ever meets Willie Nelson, gets high with Willie Nelson. So yes, we got high with Willie Nelson,” admits an overjoyed Ruyter. “It was very cool. It was the very last thing that happened. We’d already recorded the album. We were doing a photo shoot in Willie’s ghost town called Luck. It’s two streets of old-time buildings. There’s a saloon, a prison, a dry goods store and city hall. Then there’s his world headquarters, which is his hang out pad. It’s got a big screen TV, a poker table, a bar and a bunch of his curios from his whole life. While we were doing our photo shoot, we saw this pickup truck pull up into the headquarters and it was Willie Nelson. So we went in to say thank you and he asks, ‘Y’all smoke?’ Hell fucking yeah! And those of us who don’t are starting now. It was so cool. It felt like if we were catholic and the Pope had laid his hands on us. It was like he bequeathed something to us.”

Although the locale was new, Nashville Pussy retained the services of producer Daniel Rey (MISFITS, RAMONES, ENTOMBED) who helmed their last album, 2005’s Get Some. According to Ruyter, “Daniel helps us out with a lot of arrangements, and he’s the vocal king. He’s really good at getting the best performance out of Blaine (Cartwright, vocalist/rhythm guitarist) and he makes him sound like fucking ALICE COOPER! It sounds so amazing. It’s the southern rock album that Alice Cooper never made – that’s what the new album sounds like. It’s got a real ‘70s sound to it. We tried a bunch of shit we’ve never done before… there’s a bunch of crazy background vocals. We’ve allowed Karen (Cuda, bassist) and I to be girls – we’re singing. Usually we’re just barking out AC/DC style gang vocals. It’s really addictive when you hear it. We’re really into SLADE and STATUS QUO. I think we actually managed to emulate a little bit of that shit this time. We’ve got a song that sounds like ZZ TOP meets LED ZEPPELIN, Jeremy (Thompson, drummer) and I wrote that together. It just came out of nowhere.”

Nashville Pussy opts for the old school when it comes to recording techniques. In fact, they recorded to tape, rather than going digital. “The only time we ever didn’t record to tape was the last record. That was the first time we’ve ever done digital. So this was like back to normal – but it was better than ever ‘cause it was big, fat fucking two-inch tape. It’s really spacious and it doesn’t have all that compression bullshit that you get for your fucking Ipod. It’s designed for real fucking speakers. It’s going to kick ass. It’s fatter than we’ve ever sounded. It’s a really wide sound, just beautiful. It was the perfect combination; we recorded to tape and then they download it all to digital, pick out the best parts and put it back onto tape. It’s really cool. It felt so much better to do that. There’s something very comforting about tape.”

As far as the title for the new Nashville Pussy album goes… “I think we’re going to call it, To Hell From Texas, or From Hell To Texas – one of the two. To Hell From Texas sounds like a love letter, we don’t know which one yet? We had a lot of awesome names bandied around like Let’s Not Just Get Drunk And Talk About It, Let’s Smoke Crack And Do It. Another one was, A Little Rape Goes A Long Way. These are things we say to our record company so they’ll just shut up when we finally give them the title. You’ve got to scare them first.”

The band recorded 12 originals for the new release. “Yeah, usually we include covers and this time we didn’t even tease it. We had a couple of ideas that we never got around to ‘cause we kept writing songs. This time I wrote some songs, which is a whole new ballgame. I’ve never written a song before in my life. I mean, I wrote stuff when I was a kid, but I’ve never written stuff as Nashville Pussy. It just came out and it rocked. It was completely accidental. I was jamming on ‘Ain’t Your Business’ and everyone thought it kicked ass, so it became a song. Usually, I’m the kind of person who would not be a member of a club that would have me. So it was like, if I can write it, it can’t be that good. I’m the first one to discount what I play and other people say it rocks – yeah, whatever. As long as I have enough of a cheering squad, then I realize what I’m doing totally rocks and I should stop being such a bitch. Evidently I write shit all the time and I don’t realize it ‘cause I just fucking throw it out instantly.”

Some of the other song titles include: “We’ve got one called ‘I’m So High’, another is ‘Speed Machine’ – I love that fucking song! It’s our DEEP PURPLE song; it’s got a nice low rumble to it. We’ve got a song called ‘The Late Great USA’ and there’s a song called ‘Lazy Jesus’, which is going to be a hit in playgrounds all around the world. It’s like a sing-along for children. It’s insane. I think it’s going to be our new hit,” laughs Ruyter. “Karen’s Dad is a preacher, so this is going to put us into whatever level of hell we’ve missed out on. In the end, it’s all very respectful. But you know everyone’s going to take it the wrong way. If you listen really closely, we’re actually very pious. But if you just listen to the superficiality, then you know we’re going to hell. It depends how much attention St. Peter pays to this shit, whether we’re getting in or going down – but we’re prepared for either.”

In her blog, Ruyter said that’s Blaine’s lyrics were making the rest of the group crack up – “Oh fuck yeah! He managed to put the word shit three times in one sentence. There’s a line in ‘I’m So High’ that goes, I’m so high… I’m going to take a shit on the moon. It’s fucking retarded! We never heard this until we were recording. We’re really trying to concentrate and the vocals are making us go, oh my fucking god! Are you out of your fucking mind? I can’t wait ‘til we get to play this song live and everyone’s going to sing along. He’s really gone beyond himself on this record. He had the wall of Willie – a wall of Willie Nelson records that were all framed, stuff we’ve never seen before. He said it kept him honest writing his lyrics, it made him tell the truth.”

Prior to the album’s release, Nashville Pussy will issue their second live DVD. “We recorded the show at The Key Club in Hollywood. It was the night that we had David Hasselhoff (Baywatch, Knight Rider) in the audience and Lemmy (MOTORHEAD) backstage. It was spectacular. This dude who’s a porno editor - so he knows how to cut stuff really well – edited it. He knows how to go for the money shot! There’s a bunch of cool footage of backstage shit. We played with Pete Wells from ROSE TATTOO, right before he died, in Melbourne (Australia). He came up and played ‘Nice Boys’ with us, which was completely phenomenal. We didn’t practice it or anything. Our introduction was, ‘You guys know who this is!’ He came up on stage and everyone went fucking nuts. He went over to my Marshall and he rolled all the fucking knobs to ten. So that’s on there and our song that was on The Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, that I don’t think anyone has seen ‘cause it was subsequently moved from the original title song to somewhere in the movie. So the original animation that goes with it is on the DVD. Then there’s Lemmy interviewing us, which is great. A bunch of snippets of us when we’re not so wasted that we can’t allow it on film; stuff we can still show our parents.”