It was eight years ago; I don’t remember.  The stripper was on stage, and I thought she sucked.   So I’m just sittin’ there talkin’ to my friends not paying attention to her, and she gets on the floor and starts clicking her heels on the rail because I wouldn’t tip her.  She was just standing there like an impatient Long Islander.  And I’m like, “This is not gonna help you get my dollar.”

J: No.

 

B: No. (pointing at waitress) She can come over here and strip for us.

 

J: Which one?  Ask her?

 

Should we ask?

J: No, I don’t like blondes.  She’s got a nice little body though.

 

I was gonna say the pants are riding very low.

J: I’ll ask her if you want me to.

 

B: She’s got a big rack and she knows how to use it.

 

J: Should I cause some trouble?

 

I’m all for causin’ trouble.

B: I think we might get popped outta here.

 

J: Will we get popped?  Can you imagine Michael’s (referring to the band’s publicist)

 face if I got popped outta the Rainbow?

 

We can work it.  We can tell her it’s all for the guise of press research.

J: There you go.

 

See, this is for the good of the press.  It’s not, y’know, any indicative ness of her demeanor or anything. 

J: We can try.  I don’t think she’ll do it.

 

L.A. strip clubs on a scale of one to ten.

B: There’s some good ones.  I like the Sunset one.

 

J: Seventh Veil?

 

B: No.  Crazy Girls.

 

J: Hot chicks there.  Y’know what ladies?  Let me clue you in on the strip joints.  Wanna see some hot guys?  Go to a strip joint.  They’re all worked up and ready to go.  Be sure you look like a nice little bimbo when you go.

 

Worst strip clubs in the US?

J: Worst?  Kentucky.

 

What?  Are there even strippers in Kentucky?

J: Toothless.

 

B: Oh, shit, dude!

 

The scary thing is I can tell you’re not even exaggerating.

B: You don’t wanna go there.

 

J: Yeah. You don’t wanna go there, dude.

(waitress starts heading in our direction)

 

B: Here she comes.

 

Here’s your chance.

B: I think that she would slap us.

 

J: If you really want me to, I will, but if I get in trouble you guys gotta bail me out.

 

Maybe we should wait until the interview closes. 

B: It’s gonna be a long night.

 

What kind of ethnic background makes the best stripper?

J: Mediterranean or Latino.  I like ‘em dark and exotic.

 

Dark, exotic.

B: Curvy, dark hair, Italian.

 

J: Yeah, Mediterranean.

 

B: Greek…a little bit of German.

 

A little bit of German?

B: Yeah…just a little bit.  Sprechen Deutsche, man.

 

I can’t think of a German stripper, otherwise I’d think of something out of Sprockets who’s got the herky, jerky moves.

J: Oh, shit. 

 

B: I would think a mix.

 

J: Gotta have that Italian, Mediterranean look.

 

And what about what ethnic mix makes the worst stripper?

B: White girls.

 

J: Yeah, white-bred girls.  Blond, white-bred girls.

 

B: Barbie dolls are boring.

 

J: They’re boring.  I like those little Asian girls, too, with the big fake tits. 

 

B: You crack me up.

 

J: I like those girls with big fake tits.  And tattoos.

 

I love it when the strippers have tattoos.   I kinda agree with you—ninety percent of the time I hate fake tits.  I especially hate ‘em on white girls because it’s just like they feel they need them as part of their outfit. 

B: Yeah, yeah.

 

It’s just a person with low self-esteem, and it’s like screaming out on stage, “Hello.  Hi.  I have low self-esteem.”

J: I like the good, fake tits though.  I think the good, fake tits are interesting.

 

B: You know what?  On Friday night, you should go to that Crazy Girls place.  There’s a really good rack there, and my friend is a DJ there.  We should go.

 

J:  What time is it?  Oh, Friday night?

 

B: He DJs a bunch of nights there.  Wanna go do it?

 

We’ll go do it.  Absolutely.  I may have to hit an ATM first, but that’s all right.  That’ll work.

B: Fine with me. 

 

J: We have to check it out.  We’ll do Part 2.  Part 1: Rainbow…

 

Part 1: Rainbow.  Part 2: strip joint.

J: Maybe.

 

We can actually have the whole critique.  I think part of the fun of the strip joint is the critique.

B: Exactly.  My neighbor’s been teaching me stripper moves.

 

J: Oh, good god.  I gotta come to your house.

 

Are you doing the stripper moves onstage?

B: No, no no no.  I save that for that special guy.   That special somebody.

 

I’ve actually got a friend who’s a stripper in Toronto and is also a folkie singer/songwriter.  I don’t know how she does it, but she strips to her folk music and is actually able to sell her CDs to all the guys who have a lap dance.  They’ll be like, “That was odd music that you danced to.  What was it?” and she’s like, “Oh, that’s my music.  My CD’s twenty dollars.”  “Oh, OK” and they buy her CD for twenty dollars.

B: Wow.

 

That’s marketing for you.

J: Have someone strip and sell our CD?  Strippers already dance to our CD (Are You Man Enough? Out on Foodchain Records.)

 

Have they?  Have you actually gone into a place and they didn’t even know that you were there and you heard people stripping to your CD?

B: No, but in Atlanta and Florida they strip to Betty Blowtorch.

 

They do strip to Betty Blowtorch?

B: That’s when you know you’ve made it.  Strippers are dancing to your music.

 

I was gonna say.  What are the ultimate things?  ‘Cuz you guys have definitely in the last 6 months…

J: Isn’t that girl…I’m sorry…Isn’t that girl that comes to see us in Nevada…wasn’t she a stripper too?

 

B: She works at a strip bar.  She wasn’t a stripper. 

 

Top 5 Stripping songs. In any order.

J: Let’s see…

 

B: Of ours?  We know Rob Zombie’s always…

 

J: Rob Zombie really?

 

B: Always. Nine Inch Nails always at a strip club. 

 

J: But I gotta say...Betty Blowtorch.  If I were a stripper, I would be dancing to AC/DC.  AC/DC has good strip songs.  Oh, yes.

 

B: Betty Blowtorch…’cuz if I was gonna do a slow one, I’d be doin’ it to “Freebird.”

 

J: “Freebird”?  Wow, dude!  No way, dude.

 

Management would hate you.  Like, eight-minute lap dances for that particular song.

B: Yeah, but the money you’d be makin’?  C’mon!  That’s a long song.

 

That’s a long ass song.

J: You know who came to our show?  The guys from UFO.

 

Really?

B: Oh yeah.

 

J: Michael Schenker…I can’t tell you…I was like a little kid.  I was so excited.  They were my favorite band when I was a kid.  I saw them at the Long Beach Arena.  I busted out my CD and I’m like, “Can you autograph my CD?”

 

Oh my goodness.

B: They were really cool.

 

J: In Phoenix, no less.

 

B: Who would’ve…who knew?

 

What the hell were they doing in Phoenix?

J: They came to see us.

 

B: They live out there.

 

Musicians end up in the strangest places.  I mean, like, where do you see yourselves ending up retiring when you’re like…you know..when you’ve done twenty years of touring Japan and the Far East?

B: Well, let’s see.  If we have, like, a lot of money?  Say if we like exploded big?

 

You became, like, the UFO of the double naughts.

B: I’d think I’d have to have a place on the beach in Los Angeles.

 

J: I’d go to Hawaii.  Aloha.

 

Get away from everything?

B: And then a little tiny place in Hawaii and then a flat in New York.

 

J: Yeah, that’s cool.  It would be good to have a place back in New York and a place in Hawaii and a place here.

 

B: Be bi-coastal.

 

Be jetsettin’ all around.  You could never get the big city life out.

J: BUT, if we didn’t make, like, a ton of money but we were making good money I would just like to go out on the road and have a lot of fun and then drop dead.

 

B: Fuck the bills.

 

J: I know, go and have a good time then drop dead.

 

B: If we flop and we don’t ever go anywhere…we make zero money?  Fuck it, I hope I die because I’d have to go get a day job at Denny’s.

 

J: Dude, if I drop dead then the rest of you will make a fortune.  If we were rollin’ along and we were doin’ good and we weren’t HUGE huge and then I had a good time and I dropped dead the rest of you guys could cash in.

 

B: Oh, shit.

 

It’d be like Courtney Love selling off Kurt’s diaries.

B: Oh, that’s…

 

It’s, like, so harsh.  Well, she’s doing it now.

B: I know.

 

It’s not rude.  It’s the truth.

B: Fuck it.  It’s wrong.

 

It’s totally wrong.  Here’s a question I gotta ask you about just the music biz stuff in general because, right now, you’re at the point where everybody’s lovin’ the record and you got a lot of labels comin’ out to see you guys – doing the label song and dance.  And as a female band—a female band that has a very overt sexuality to the music—have there been A&R guys who have been doing the music equivalent of the casting couch.

B: No.

 

J: No, everyone’s afraid of us.

 

B: I tell ya, people are scared.

 

Really?

B: Oh yes, oh yes.

 

What are they scared of?

J: They’re scared of us.

 

B: They’re scared of us.  They’re not man enough.

 

J: Exactly.

 

What do they think is gonna happen?

B: They think that I’m gonna bite their dick off.  It could happen.

 

J: No.  We would never do that.

 

You’d nibble.

J: A little love tap.  Arrgh…Arrrgh.

 

B: A little love tap?  Oh, man!

 

Would you even want to do that to an A&R guy?  I mean, are there even any good lookin’ A&R guys?

B: I don’t know.  I never meet the A&R guys.  I don’t think they come down to our shows

 

You don’t think so at all?

B: No.

 

I mean, the fact that you’ve been able to go and sell out rooms in LA…

J: Not that we don’t love the label we have, because we love ‘em, but…

 

B: They don’t…they don’t…I don’t think so.  Girls have it different.  It’s like…on a fan level, fans love us.

 

J: And we appreciate that.

 

B: And on a people level, people are really diggin’ the record.  But those label people would be too scared to take someone like us on because they think that we’re too sexual.

 

And this is a bad thing how?

B: And that’s a bad thing.  It’s like…

 

J: On a major [label] it’s a bad thing.

 

B: If you’re a girl…

 

Like Britney Spears is not too sexual?

B: Yeah, but see, Britney Spears..

 

J: She only sings pop, and we don’t sing pop and that’s the difference.

 

B: They still don’t take girl hard rock bands seriously.  If you’re a pop band it’s different, but if you’re a hard rock girl band…

 

J: It’s still like uuuuuuuuuhhh….what are you all doin’?

 

B: You girls shouldn’t be doin’ that.  Go home and start breedin’.  Y’know…go ‘head and be barefoot and pregnant.

 

J: It’s too bad, but it seems like major labels don’t wanna take a chance or are afraid of it or whatever.

 

B: Even radio.  Radio won’t put girl rock bands on.

 

Well, radio has quotas regarding female musicians.  They stick it in their computer to basically say, “OK, no two female musicians back to back.”

J: Right.  Exactly.

 

B: But they don’t say that about guys.  It’s ridiculous.  I don’t get it.

 

They don’t say that…it makes no sense either.  My bottom line on everything has always been…everything’s just gotta come down to the songs.

B: Exactly.

 

I’ve always heard stories about some band that has a great album and then the next album doesn’t work and everybody says, “Oh, well, the band didn’t want to do press or the band didn’t want to do this” and it’s like no, the band wrote shitty songs.

B: Probably because they had two months to do it, whereas they had a whole lifetime to write their first record.  Then they tour for a year and a half and come home and hear, “OK, you have two months to write a new record.”  That’s the unfair thing for those bands.

 

Well, the labels are all unfair.  It’s actually…I guess, it’s somewhat interesting that the only person who seems to be standing up to the labels right now is Courtney Love.  She is a woman who’s actually going out and saying, “I’m gonna sue you guys and you can’t buy me off.”  She’s not allowing herself to be bought out of her contract like everybody else has.  I mean, do you admire her for doing that or do you still…

B: Well, it all depends on what the contract says.  The only thing that is strange about that is, from my experience from being on contract, is there is a certain time period you have to do a record and I don’t think she did a record in that certain time period.

 

She did.  They rejected it.

B: Well, then they didn’t want it.  I mean, that’s their choice.

 

Well, is that their choice or shouldn’t it be somewhat her choice?

J: Well, if they rejected it, then she gave them what she gave them and that’s too bad.  Fuck them.

 

B: Because usually it’s like a six record deal but it usually comes with options.  Of course it’s gonna have the option.  Because if they reject it…

 

J: But that’s the thing where it gets kinda nutty where it’s like, “Here’s my record.”  The label rejects it, but you’ve given ‘em your material.  I mean, are you writing…if they want it to be and sound a certain way, why’d you sign me for?  This is me; this is my band; this is our product.  You’re gonna support it or you’re not.  If you choose not to support it, then they should get off our back.

 

You look at the early stuff that Hole did and it’s completely uncommercial, so I would expect her to come up with uncommercial music from time to time.  I would not expect her to come up with little polished pop songs like “Malibu”.

B: Well, yeah.  The first record was the real record because she wrote that record.  The second record Kurt wrote.  The third record the Smashing Pumpkins guy wrote.

 

Billy Corgan, yep.

B: So, it’s like…if she’s left to her own devices and having to write her own shit again…

 

J: It’s gonna sound like the first record.

 

B: It’s probably gonna definitely not sound like either one of those bands.

 

Right.

B: Y’know…as much as she’d like to probably channel in the Kurt Cobain’s talent.

 

J: Fuckin’ A, dude!

 

As much as a lot of us…all of us would.

J: Y’know…it’s like… he’s not here anymore to help you out, so…

 

Exactly.

B: The first record was, to me, like a total rip off of Babes In Toyland.

 

It completely was.

J: It’s just unfortunate that all we have to really talk about is Courtney because they don’t really give…there’s a lot of other really good female bands around but you just…very difficult.  It’s kind of a double edge sword.  Sometime it’s your advantage, but most of the time it’s not to your advantage.

 

Speaking of…I think that you guys have actually been helping out—not in a carrying the flag sense, but you guys actually have been helping a new wave of female musicians to actually go out there.  Y’know, the fact that things like the Warped tour actually have a stage devoted just to female musicians.

B: But did you see that stage?

 

It was small…it was tiny.

J: But there wasn’t even just all female bands on it.  It was mixed.  I mean, we’ve tried to say, ” Hey, let’s get a bunch of girl bands and do our own tour.”  Not Lilith Fair because Lilith Fair was like girl singers.  Like, let’s get a bunch of girl bands and do something.  And it’s been the most difficult thing because no booker…nobody wants to touch it and it’s kind of unfortunate, really.

 

B: And then a lot of the girl bands at the time, which was two years ago, didn’t wanna do it.

 

Really?

J: Yes, some of the bigger bands were scared.  They don’t wanna play on the same bill, or…

 

What are they scared of?

B: They’re scared of competition because there’s not enough of ‘em, and the thing is, they’re still kinda like novelty, or they’re still not getting the recognition so there’s that competition thing.  A lot of them are scared of each other.

 

J: There’s only so much space available for girl bands.  There’s only so much radio play.  There’s only so many slots on the Warped Tour.  There’s only so much, and it makes it really unfortunate because it kinda makes you compete when you don’t want to.  We don’t want to.  We do our thing.  They do their thing.  Bands that sound totally different are suddenly put in the same category just because they’re female.  It’s really unfortunate that it can’t be more of an even playing field.  When you know that the Warped Tour is only gonna take like one female band and there’s, y’know, five of you, suddenly those five bands aren’t so  happy with each other anymore.  But they’re taking ten all guy bands and those guys are all like, “Dude, let’s all…y’know, I’ll share a bus with you.  Let’s all go together.”  But with the girls, it’s like “Mrowr.  I gotta fight for my one slot, and now I’m fighting my friend for this one slot.”  It’s really unfortunate it has to be that way.  Even the Ladies’ Lounge.  I think it’s a great idea, but the stage is real small and they still had a bunch of guy bands on there too.  Y’know, what’s up with that?  The Warped Tour was great to us, and I wanna make that clear.  Kevin Lyman and those guys were really, really great to us.  They bumped us up, and we had a great time.  We hope that next year we can do more, but it is kinda unfortunate that on a lot of festivals there’s only gonna be one or two slots for the girl bands, which makes it tough.

 

I think the part that’s just a shame is the fact that the stage is a big step forward in a sense.  It  shouldn’t be.  That should be the very basic minimum, instead of being looked at as being a step forward.

B: And maybe next year they’ll have a stage with a good sound system because it made those girl bands sound like shit. 

 

J: They didn’t have monitors.  It was kinda difficult.

 

B: It was, once again, kinda unfair that you have this girl stage, which is cool they finally did that because a few years ago we were begging to be on that tour.  We were gonna do it for free.  Y’know, there’s no girl bands…not even a girl singer on that tour, and we were like, “Just give us a week,” and they were like “No.”  So, it was nice and refreshing to see that there was a girl’s lounge, and they had the little stage and everything, but on the same note it’s girl bands and they always get picked on.  “Girls can’t play.  Girls can’t do this.”  And then they sound like shit because they have a P.A. that’s worse than our practice P.A. So it’s unfair because then they’re like “Oh, see? Girl bands sound like shit.”

 

J: There was a particular band, that I won’t name, but we saw on the Ladies’ Lounge and then we played with them at a club and saw them at a club and it was just like, “Goddamn! What a difference! They fuckin’ rocked!”

 

In front of a good P.A. and…

J: They sounded amazing in this place, but they sounded like shit on the Warped Tour.  It was so fucked up because had they had a real stage and a sound system…

 

It would’ve been a whole different thing.

J: People would’ve been like, “Holy shit! This fuckin’ band rocks!”  Y’know?

 

For more on the bad-ass bitches known as Betty Blowtorch visit www.bettyblowtorch.com