It was The Dreaded Press’s great privilege to have a rare face-to-face talk with Tairrie B and Mick Murphy of My Ruin, just before their recent Southampton show.
Tairrie talks fast and has a lot to say, but she’s not the ferocious she-devil she has been portrayed as before – she just says what she means, regardless of what people want to think of her. Mick Murphy, meanwhile, has the mellowest Deep South accent you ever did hear – so laid back you could put a carpet on him.
We talked over a few drinks about Tairrie’s recent car accident that nearly cost her an arm, about fans who self-harm or tattoo musicians’ faces on themselves, about refusing to conform to the image the press wanted to create of My Ruin, and how MTV has sucked all the life out of modern music.
TDP: Has the tour been going well?
Tairrie B: Tour’s been going great, we’ve been having a lot of fun. It’s nice – for once I’m not sick!
TDP: I saw you play last time you were over here, you were all bunged up with a cold …
Tairrie B: Oh, I got a new thing going on now, you wanna see it? It’s quite shocking …
[removes tubular bandage from left hand to reveal reddy-purple blotches like bruising or a rash]
TDP: Whoa!
Tairrie B: Yeah – we’re not exactly sure what’s happening here! I’m having to wear gloves on stage now because the kids, they’ll grab my hands, and I’ve got this sort of rash going on. I’m going to a doctor with it tomorrow … I’ve always got something! Somebody must have dug into me or something, I don’t know. It’s kinda frightening. You can just say I have leprosy or something!
[Mick Murphy passes Tairrie a Jack Daniels and coke]
Mick Murphy: Jack takes care of leprosy!
[laughter]
TDP: D’you think the rash could be stress related?
Tairrie B: No, I’m not stressed. Actually this is the first tour I’m not stressed on at all, I’ve got probably the best band I’ve had so far in my career. My man is with me, Marcelo [drums] from Tura Satana … he’s like my brother, it’s really nice having him out here.
I’m really calm, actually! I think it’s that our shows are really intense, and sometimes I forget that the kids al;so get really intense and their fingers will dig into my hands, y’know … I just have a few war wounds. [laughs] Hopefully it won’t fall off!
TDP: How did the recordings go for Throat Full Of Heart [review]?
Tairrie B: They went great! Mick produced the album with our friend Dwayne. It was quite unlike The Brutal Language, where we were in the middle of recording the record and two of our rhythm section left and we had to make the decision whether to keep the tracks or re-record it …
Mick Murphy: We decided to re-record The Brutal Language, and I played all the instruments and produced it. And this album, I’ve just had to be a co-producer and songwriter. We were considering … I mean, Tairrie was in the accident like the night before we were supposed to go in and start recording, so the plan was already in motion, so we just delayed it a day and went in … it was weird, y’know, we were all worried about her, but she was there in spirit, we were going to see her every day, making sure she was doing OK.
TDP: Do you mind telling us about the accident, for anyone who doesn’t know?
Tairrie B: Well, the DVD that comes with Throat Full Of Heart is a story in itself. Basically, I was in a car accident the night before we were set to record, as a passenger. And a metal rod came through the window …
[Tairrie rolls up her left sleeve to the elbow to reveal a heavily scarred forearm]
… and it cut right through my arm. Took it off, almost; it was kinda hanging there. It was pretty traumatic – we thought it was a goner for a a while. I had about four surgeries, I had a skin graft – [points] that’s a bit of my leg there. And Mick nursed me back to health after I got out of the hospital and I finally decided I wanted to go back in and do the record, but I honestly didn’t know if I could. I couldn’t even move my arm – you can see on the DVD, we documented the whole thing, we’re pretty open about everything that was going on.
I wanted kids to know what it was like making the record, y’know. We’d never done that before, not to that degree. And looking back at it months later when we went to edit it, it was like “what a trip”, the whole thing. Because I was heavily sedated, on a lot of pain medication, I couldn’t move my arm, I’m in there screaming, I’ve got the whole thing bandaged, I’ve got staples in it … it’s like “oh my God!”
But honestly, I think it gave this record a purpose, a new meaning … and it gave me a reason to live. I guess people try to come up with concept records all the time, but they normally fail, they’re normally kinda lame. And we never normally do that, we’ll always kinda start a record and I’ll think of a name for it, kind of get a vibe I want to talk about over the period in question.
I always try to keep it to a set time period, y’know; the last year or few years of whatever we just went through as a band, and as me, and as Mick. The accident just gave it … it was almost eerily prophetic, because we had this one song which I wrote before the accident called “Momento Mori” where I talk about death, and it goes:
“remember you’re a mortal / remember you will die / all these wounds will leak / from this prophecy I speak”
And oh my God, you know - these leaking wounds, this leaking wounded arm, pierce my arms, y’know? It was really crazy when I heard it back on the recordings, like “I wrote that lyric, how weird is that?” And then we went to re-record one of the songs which ended up becoming “Through The Wound”, which has become one of my favourites to play live, I was kind of reliving the moment, y’know? So it’s a very true-life record, without it really trying to be.
TDP: It’s pretty obvious that your material draws on personal experience in a way that a lot of other bands don’t.
Tairrie B: Well, that’s one of the things I think our fans really appreciate about this band. We’re not a huge band, but the fans we’ve got have stayed with us, they’re very loyal … like last night when we played Brighton, we played a Manhole song because Marcelo’s with us. And there was a girl who came right up to the front and she was like “one of your songs in Manhole really touched me,” y’know, talking over the mic.
I talk about things that are a part of my life, I always have done. I find it really hard to write in the third person. I mean, me and Mick, we do The Lovers stuff, our spoken word material, and to a degree most of that is personal, it’s based around my life, the sort of really personal stories I couldn’t put in My Ruin for obvious reasons.
But then there’s some of it … for instance the first The Lovers track we ever recorded was based around the murder of the Black Dahlia. I’d watched the whole documentary, and I dreamt about it, I thought about it, I dreamt about her, and I just started jotting this thing down as if were her. It came right out of me in minutes.
And I don’t usually get inspired by things like that – but it isn’t a fake thing, though. I’m very influenced by death and religion and love and relationships, and all the different aspects of it, and I like people to be able to relate to it, both guys and girls. “Made To Measure” is a song about body image, but men have that problem too, not just women. And so when I sing that song now, I say it’s not just for all the women in the house, but it’s for the men as well. And some guys have come up to me and said “you made me feel better about myself,” y’know.
TDP: Your fans are definitely attached to your message as much as your sound. Do you find that makes you feel more responsible towards them?
Tairrie B: I used to feel a little more responsible back in the day. I think that when I was in Manhole I was very political, I talked a lot about abortion rights and stuff … and I was a lot more aggressive, much more angry. I’m not as angry now – I’m confrontational, yes, but I’m not as angry as I used to be.
I’ve learned over the years how to do things, how to approach things, how to be with people, how to be on stage, and I learned it myself, nobody taught me. I’ve read interviews from back then when I went ape-shit or whatever, and it’s like “wow, no wonder they think I’m crazy”, y’know, “why did I say that?” But you learn as you go - girls say to me “how do you scream like that every night and not lose your voice?” and I just say it’s because you learn, you just train yourself over a period of time.
Mick Murphy: Also with you, it’s just the way your voice is, it’s a natural sound. You’re not just yelling your guts out …
Tairrie B: I’m not always pitch-perfect, y’know, I don’t use a vocal coach; I’m not a singer, I’m a screamer, and when I’m off a little, I’m off a little. But I think that’s the beauty of it, the kids appreciate that I’m not up there using harmonisers or vocal effects … I’m me!
Mick Murphy: That’s another thing you notice on the DVD - when you’re recording your vocal tracks just standing around, you just sound like that untreated.
Tairrie B: I enjoy it when kids scream with me, when we’re doing it together. And I want kids to know that I just stand there and do it, I don’t say “oh, put all these effects on me and make me sound growly”. It’s who I am.
But I think there’s a responsibility to some degree - I’m not going to get up there and say to kids “oh, go kill your parents” or whatever, do this, do that, “go out and cut yourself”. We used to have girls come to Tura Satana shows, and they’d literally walk into the show or signing and be pulling out razor blades and start slicing into themselves, cutting their arms up and stuff.
And they’d walk up to me with lyrics and say “oh, you sing in “Flux” that we should cut a little deeper” and I’d say, well, “cut a little deeper” means my words cutting. They lyrics are not always literal, they’re metaphorical, and you have to listen a little closer to interpret them. I’m not a cutter – I’m not Casey Chaos promoting cutting yourself. I’m promoting healing yourself, y’know? Heal the scars, don’t make ‘em.
TDP: How did you feel the first time you saw a My Ruin tattoo?
Tairrie B: Well, I’ll tell you what the freakiest thing was. The My Ruin tattoos are pretty crazy, pretty cool, I’m like “wow, awesome”. And when I was in Manhole and I used to tour with Fear Factory, I’d see kids with Fear Factory tattoos and I’d think “hey, maybe someday someone will have a Manhole tattoo”.
But I had a girl interview me when I was in Tura Satana, back in 1998 in Austin, Texas – true story – and she sat with us and said “what is the freakiest thing about being you, the weirdest thing your fans have ever done to you”, so I said I’ll tell you what freaks me out, I went over to Europe and all these girls in Glasgow came to our show with tattoos of me on them. You know, you’re gonna regret that, I’m just a girl in a band, why do you want me on you?
And it really freaked me out at first, I was just in shock, y’know? It felt weird … or they’d do that think where they ask you to sign their bodies and they they go get that signature tattooed. So I told this girl all about how much that freaked me out, went into loads of detail.
Four years later we play a show in San Diego as My Ruin, and she wrote to me on MySpace, saying “hey, remember me, I interviewed you”, said she was coming to San Diego to see us. Great, we thought, put her on the guestlist. So she takes me outdoors, removes her jacket, and she’s got her entire arm sleeved with pictures of me from Speak And Destroy. And I swear to God, I didn’t know what to do. I was like “I … I told you that freaked me out, I told you that! Your entire arm!?”
I don’t have a million tattoos, I have a few. My tattoos are very personal, and I believe that when girls have our lyrics tattooed on them, I think that’s touching, if they relate to that lyric, that’s awesome. I can understand that. But when you get someone put on you … I mean, I love Nick Cave, but I’m not going to plaster him all over my back, you know what I mean? [gestures at Mick Murphy] I wouldn’t put him on me.
TDP: Oh, come on, he’s a handsome fella …
Tairrie B: Yeah, but y’know, “who the f*ck is Mick Murphy?” [laughs] Nah, just kidding! But with tattoos, I think they’re a part of your soul, you’ll die with those. I waited a long time before I got tattoos, and I’m glad I did, because I’d have probably had some bizarre shit on me if I hadn’t!
TDP: You very rarely do interviews, right?
Tairrie B: Well, I used to do them a lot back in the day, and I felt that a lot of magazines like Kerrang would put me on the cover and do interviews with me and always try to get dirt, do photoshoots with my band and conveniently cut out all the other band members, and I didn’t want that to happen. I’m not Gwen Stefani, and I never was; I don’t like that.
People used to be like “oh, it’s all about her, she’s such an arrogant c*nt”, and I’d say no way, I wanted my band in there too. The minute I started demanding my band get some attention, nobody wanted to talk to me any more, so I just started saying no. They’d say “well, we just want you, if we can’t get you in something sexy …”, and that’s just not going to happen.
So with interviews I normally like to do email because I feel I can control it a bit better, I can say to somebody “this is what was actually written, don’t try to misquote me”, because I’ve been misquoted so many times over the years. And I realise the problems - I interviewed Henry Rollins one time, I spent four hours with him and came home to try and transcribe it and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, he was talking so fast!
So, no wonder people get confused, and I felt a bit for people because I’m a fast talker. But on this tour we’ve been very picky about who we want to talk with, and I definitely don’t give a shit about talking to big magazines that just want fluff and don’t really care.
I’ll be honest with you, people review our shit and there’ll be parts that they get and parts that they just don’t.
Mick Murphy: Or people try to insult you but actually say something cool, or they’re trying to be nice and they say something insulting … [laughs]
Tairrie B: What was the Rob Zombie thing?
Mick Murphy: [high pitched voice] “This band sucks, they sound like a Mötörhead with a pissed-off Rob Zombie’s little sister …”
Tairrie B: Yeah! And I was like, that’s supposed to be an insult? OK … [laughs] But people write stuff comparing we to other women in rock, y’know, the whole ‘hottest chicks in metal’ kind of crap, these girls who get their tits out in all the magazines, and I just laugh at it now. I’m not on stage being a model.
TDP: Well, it’s never been an easy situation for women in rock, has it? You’re just product, meat on the shelf … do you feel that, because you’ve always refused to be that, that’s why you get treated the way you do?
Tairrie B: Well, it works two different ways. I either get totally ignored, or they’re really scared of me. [laughs] There’s no in between! It’s all “f*ck her, we don’t want to deal with her because she won’t do this or that” …
Mick Murphy: People get their egos bruised when they expect you to be all like “yes please, we’ll do whatever you want us to do…” And we’re not like that, we’re gonna do what we want to do. We’ve been that way for a long time. That’s probably why we’re not a gigantic band, because we don’t really care about all that. We care about making great albums, reaching people that care about it and understand it.
Tairrie B: I mean, when I look at Nick Cave, or P J Harvey, or Henry Rollins – people that I respect – I look at how they do it. I read interviews, and I read things they say, and I feel like … when you stand for something, you’ll fall for anything, y’know what I mean? And I think I stand for a lot, as a woman and as a person.
I used to feel like I owed everybody everything; every night after a show I’d think OK, I have to get out there and sign every little bit of paper, even if I get sick, even if it means I get a cold. I’d be saying “I have to do it”, and everyone else would be saying “you don’t have to do it” … and I’d do it, and get sick as a dog, and then my whole tour is down.
Now I’m older, I’ve done it all, I went through hell and back, I’m here, and the kids need to respect that and understand that they can’t always be needy. It’s like the song “Religiosity”:
“you come to me with open arms, still needing / have lamb, will martyr; have lamb, will slaughter”
Everyone’s always needing, always needing – well, guess what, I’m needing a little bit! You know, this is what I do, and I believe in it, and if you believe in it too, great, believe in it! But don’t f*cking bleed it dry, you know?
Mick Murphy: You’ve always tried to be in touch and accessible, and sometimes that’s a good thing, but sometimes it’s a bad thing. Sometimes things start off great and end up turning bad – you just never really know. So we’re a bit more reserved now, as we’re getting older and more experienced. My main concern is that we put on a great show.
Tairrie B: Yup. At the end of the day, the main concern is that we give those kids their money’s worth when we get on that stage. And that means I can’t go hang out with everybody, I need to rest, recuperate … I don’t think people realise, really. It’s not like being a musician where you walk up there and start playing! I’m not a singer, a singer can warm up; I just walk up there cold and start going “raaaarrgh!” And you have to come down from that, and when you come off stage people will say “hey, come out with us”, and it’s like …
Mick Murphy: … hey, we just did fifteen songs!
Tairrie B: Right! And now I have the whole arm thing to deal with as well, so it’s a bit difficult. I mean I’ve got medicine with me, but I want to know I can do without it. I don’t want to come off stage and pop three Vicodin so I can have a night out. I want to be able to say “you know what, I don’t need it, I’m going to get through it”. Get through the pain, go on to the next day.
We don’t tour a lot, so when we tour it’s special for us. When we come over here, we hope the kids appreciate it, because it takes a lot to come over here and we do it all ourselves – we do our merch, our records, everything, and we want kids to know that just because you see us in a magazine here and there, no one’s throwing money at us!
TDP: Why do you think it is that you’re so much more popular here in the UK?
Tairrie B: Because we’ve never had anybody behind us in the States. Never.
Mick Murphy: Well, there are areas in the States where we’ve rolled up before and had incredible shows, so there are people who do know the band. But it’s just so much more vast – there’s a lot more space between cities. And a lot of people don’t seem to be that interested in seeking out new things, they want to see the big-budget commercial for it, they want to have it spoon-fed to them. And that’s OK, whatever, but we’re not swimming in the mainstream. So touring in the States is expensive, and we don’t do it very often.
Tairrie B: When we were on Century Media we got asked to play Ozzfest, they offered to buy us on. And we refused it, and they thought we were crazy, but I didn’t want to pay 75 grand to Sharon Osbourne just so she can buy some Gucci shoes! For the privilege of playing at 10am in the morning, with the sun beating down on my sunburned face … to me that’s not rock and roll, at 10am in the morning. I don’t give a shit, I’d rather do this; we’re in control of our destiny on this, and maybe it’s a smaller crowd, but you know what? I much prefer a packed small room where it’s all blood sweat and tears …
Mick Murphy: We have a blast over here.
Tairrie B: Yeah, we do. I love it here.
Mick Murphy: A lot of American bands can’t come over here and do this. We’re lucky.
TDP: And vice versa, too.
Mick Murphy: Oh yeah, there are some awesome underground English heavy rock bands that rarely come over there.
Tairrie B: And we’ve brought a lot of them on tour with us, bands we really enjoy. We’ve made a lot of friends over here.
TDP: Can you name a few favourite support bands?
Tairrie B: Well, I love Orange Goblin. Barabas are good, too. There’s all sorts of bands … Panic Cell, our tour manager Luke Bell’s band, we’d love to tour with Panic Cell. And we’ve got Die So Fluid [live review] now, and they’re really great.
Mick Murphy: Yeah, been really impressed with them.
Tairrie B: It’s been cool, y’know. Over the years we’ve always tried to help certain bands and bring them out with us, and I’ve always done that with a lot of women in rock, and I’ve always been shit on for doing it, and it kinda sucks. So I was a little leery about doing a female-fronted band again, but I really enjoy them, they’re very cool.
Mick Murphy: And they’re very musical – they’re only a power trio, but every piece is great.
TDP: OK, just to finish off – let’s imagine the impossible happens, and you get made king and queen of the world for a day. What’s your first decree?
Mick Murphy: I say live and let live … and anyone that’s not down for that, we take ‘em outside and shoot ‘em! [laughs]
Tairrie B: Oh my God! That was the Southern red-neck Mick Murphy speaking! Now the California girl is gonna tell her version …
Mick Murphy: That was with a nod and a wink, there, you know …
Tairrie B: The first thing I would do would be to destroy MTV. I would take it off the air and destroy it completely. It has ruined music, it has ruined the minds of kids, it’s ruined the fascination of music that … when I grew up, you weren’t accessible to certain things, so when bands came to your town or you saw them in the magazines there was kind of a different, almost magical feeling to it. Now it’s just a f*cking whore-fest on every level.
Mick Murphy: MTV has ruined many great bands.
TDP: If it’s any compensation, I think at the moment MTV are quite happily destroying themselves.
Mick Murphy: Yeah, for sure. In America now, MTV is just a bunch of bad reality shows encouraging people to be stupid.
TDP: Well, I’d better leave you to get ready for the show. This has been a great interview, thanks very much for your time – good luck with the album and the tour!
[Don't forget to check out The Dreaded Press review of My Ruin's live set, and the review of the latest album, Throat Full Of Heart!]
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Posted in Interviews |
Tags: metal, rock, Southern metal
