Tairrie B. Murphy - My Ruin
Interview By Robin Stryker
My Ruin is an rock-and-roll infused metal band, whose sixth album “Ghosts and Good Stories” (21 August 2010 on Tiefdruck-Musik) is putting the “grrrrrrr” back in aggressive. How aggressive? Let’s just say my strapping pit-bull dives for cover when Tairrie B. Murphy’s screams come roaring from the speakers. It was my profound honour to have a frank discussion with Tairrie, a deep-thinker whose personal lyrics reflect the experiences that scar (both literally and figuratively), the issues that ignite her passion, and the power of relationships to hurt and heal.
Hello Tairrie, and welcome to Femme Metal! Please wish Mick a belated “happy birthday” from all of us.
I will wish him a happy birthday from you. (laughs)
I would love to indulge my burning fan-girl curiosity, but let’s go ahead and start with the basics. For those of our readers who may not know the background of My Ruin, would you share the twisty path that led you from being a rapper on Eazy-E’s label to being an extreme metal vocalist?
Well, it’s been a long hard road out of rap hell and it’s actually been quite a number of years. Like you said, I put out a rap album "The Power of a Woman" in 1989 on Eazy-E’s Ruthless/Comptown Records label, which was home to N.W.A. and some of the scariest guys in rap music. It was a very strange time in my life but toward the end of when I was making my second record, I happened to go to a show in Los Angeles which was a part of the Foundations Forum. I was there with my boyfriend at the time (who was in a rock band) and I saw Ice-T play it with Body Count. I knew Ice-T from the rap world and this was the first time he debuted Body Count. I thought, "My god, this speaks to me. This is really where I belong!". And something just changed in me.
You know, I’d always loved heavy music and always loved classic rock but I was straight-up into the rap world at the time ... in the gangster rap world, I guess you could say. That world sort of set me up for walking into the metal world. It’s the same male-dominated misogynistic arena and I just decided that I was going to form a band. Didn’t really know how I was going to go about it exactly but I knew I had to. Instead of delivering my second album, I went to Eazy-E and said that I wanted to do this. He didn’t really understand it; he wanted me to probably be the first big white-girl rapper out there doing that. I just kind of walked away from my contract and it was a very weird point in my life.
I started my first band Manhole and we ended up getting a deal a few years later. We released our first album "All Is Not Well" on Noise Records Germany and we ended up touring the world. Then, we got sued for our name by a band from Texas who had the same name (Manhole). They apparently owned it, so we had to change our name on our second album to Tura Satana and reissue our previous album with the new name and new cover. People think I’ve been in lots of bands but I’ve actually only been in two. Manhole and Tura Satana was actually the same band. We had to change our name on the "Relief Through Release" record. After we toured that record extensively, I felt that it wasn’t musically really what I was looking for any more. I wasn’t feeling my band members and I wasn’t there with what we were doing. I had kind of moved on in many ways (in my head) and wanted to start something new, so I left the band, dissolved the band, actually, since I started it.
I decided I wanted to start something on my own, so I created My Ruin in 1999 as sort of my moniker for what was going to be a solo project. I ended up working with several different musician friends of mine and producers. We did half of the recording in Los Angeles and half in London. I released my first album under the name My Ruin and it was called "Speak and Destroy" on Snapper Music back in 1999. Soon after touring that album I actually met Mick Murphy, who is now my husband, my partner of ten years and my guitar player. He came in and we started dating and we got involved musically. (It was the first time that’s ever happened to me.)
We wrote the record "A Prayer Under Pressure of Violent Anguish" which was My Ruin’s second release on Snapper Music and suddenly my solo project became a band. We got two other musicians to join us and we made it official. We began recording and we released a record on Century Media Records; we did a live studio album called "To Britain with Love & Bruises" in 2001; we released an EP called "The Shape of Things to Come" in 2003 followed by the album called "The Horror of Beauty" both on Century Media Records; and in 2005, we put out "The Brutal Language"on our own imprint Rovena Recordings through Undergroove UK, a record on which Mick also coincidentally wrote and played all the instruments as well. In 2008, we released "Throat Full of Heart" and our first studio DVD and later that year we released a live album called "Alive on the Other Side" with our first tour DVD. We are on our sixth full-length album and what I feel is definitely our best recording to date. We’ve done a lot and it’s been a long road and a journey.
Thinking back to 1993, when you first formed Manhole, I for one can’t think of any women who did scream vocals.
There weren’t really any back then, except for maybe Karen Crisis whom I was not familiar with at the time but found out about after we had released our first album.
Ah, that would be why I couldn’t think of any. Why did that particular style of singing appeal to you? And also, how did you go about teaching yourself to do those throat-shredding screams?
Well, here’s the thing… I’m not a singer; It’s not what I do. or as I like to call it – I’m a lead screamer, a violent scream vocalist. Back in the day, when I decided to put a band together, I was really sort of a babe in the woods. It’s just like when I walked into the rap world, being a white-girl rapper. I walked into this world going, "I’m not really a singer, and I’m not really sure what I’m going to do here". People like Henry Rollins (Rollins Band, Black Flag) and Phil Anselmo (Pantera) were inspirations.
Phil Anselmo really inspired me as a vocalist. I always like to tell this little story…. I went to see Pantera one time and I remember all these women were standing on the side of the stage in their little hooker outfits. Everybody was talking about who they were going to "be with" in the band. I listened to these girls talk and they all wanted to be with Phil and I didn’t want to be with him, I wanted to be him. That was the difference for me. I wanted to be on stage doing what he was doing because I admired it and I remember thinking there were really no women doing it.
You know, it was another strange place for me. I didn’t really have anyone as a role model to look at. Of course, I loved Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) and there were many women I really adored vocally but I didn’t do what they did, so they couldn’t really be role models or inspirations in that way for me. I had to find my own way. People like Robb Flynn of Machine Head, Phil Anselmo and Henry Rollins played that role. I just loved the ferocity of their vocals and the brutality. It really excited me and it was something that I wanted to make my own.
People have asked me, "How have you kept your voice like this after so many years on tour?" It’s weird because it just sort of comes to me naturally. It’s never been a forced thing -- I’ve never taken vocal lessons or listened to that lady who put out that tape "Learn to Scream" (or whatever it’s called). I think it has to come naturally. It has to come from your heart and can’t be forced. It’s got to be something that comes from within.
Over the years, I just kind of taught myself. Just like when you teach yourself how to write. You become a better lyricist and a better writer as time goes on … as you rehearse, perform and record. You just develop into your own. You can find inspiration, but you need to find yourself also instead of looking at a lot of other people and trying to completely emulate them. It’s very important to be original, to be yourself and to find your own voice.
Jumping forward to today, My Ruin is right on the eve of the worldwide release of your sixth full-length album, called "Ghosts and Good Stories" which is coming out the 21st of August 2010. You’ve described the new album as "the most honest and heartfelt" to date. What makes it that way for you?
I think we went to a different place with this album. Mick and I, before we began it, we weren’t sure that we wanted to continue our journey. You know, we’ve been through a lot of stuff over the past ten years. It’s very hard in the music industry and I don’t think a lot of people understand how hard it really is. We’re an underground rock band that doesn’t have a big management company with lots of money behind us giving us that big push and we don’t have that huge label doling out tons of dollars into promotion, ads, tour buy-ons etc. We are not playing the big festival tours and our videos are not on MTV. We’re doing it a different way.
It’s very hard to keep going sometimes. I commend bands that I see who keep going strong year after year and keep making records because I think it’s commendable. To keep your head above water, to keep going, to keep fighting the good rock fight, it’s hard. Over the years, there have been a lot of people who have tried to stop us and a lot of shit has been thrown our way. It has been a fight and sometimes an inner struggle dealing with everyone from industry people to ex- band members trying to tear the band apart. Mick and I have tried to stay strong ... we’ve stayed a team, we’ve stayed a couple through the whole thing and we are My Ruin.
After a decade in My Ruin I think I’ve sort of come full circle in a way. It no longer feels like a full-on band to me because it isn’t. It’s really just Mick and I for all intents and purposes with a rhythm section for touring. This way, there will be more fun and less drama in my opinion.
At the end of the day, I think we got very honest on this record because we had to. We had to say, "This may be our last record". It may actually be the last recording we do, we’re not sure. Right before we went in to make it, we weren’t even sure that we wanted to make another record. After our last tour of the UK in late 2008, we got married and decided that we were going to take a year off. We needed to take some time for ourselves and decide whether we really wanted to do this. I was kind of drained and really didn’t know if I had anything left in me to write. Both of us kind of felt very uncomfortable about the business and we had parted ways with our long-time bassist and friend, so our heads and hearts were in a very dark place.
Then all of a sudden, Tiefdruck-Music made an appearance and offered us a deal. Suddenly, Mick and I were just fluid ... we were just completely flowing. We were writing and everything was pouring out of us. It just came from nowhere. I have to say, it felt like a rebirth and the new album is a concept album in many ways. As usual, it’s very inspired by the religious dichotomy that I always have but there are a lot of other inspirations within it. A lot of things happened to us while we were making it, so it’s a very important album to us. Maybe our most important.
Speaking of religious dichotomy, I can’t help noticing the religious references throughout "Ghosts and Good Stories" that show much more than a passing familiarity with the Bible and Catholic liturgy. What actually is your relationship with religion? And, if you are not an adherent to a particular religion, what is the draw for you?
I don’t really know what the draw is. I think that the basic dichotomy of good-and-evil is the draw. There are many religions I’ve looked into over the years. I have always been very drawn to the Catholic religion ... certain imagery and iconography. It’s a weird fascination that I’ve had. It’s like a love-hate relationship. I’m kind of frightened by it but yet I’m very attracted to it.
The album is definitely a mix of atheist anger and Catholic guilt. I wouldn’t say that I’m a religious person. I don’t really know what I believe in these days. I know how I was brought up, I know what was forced on me as a child and I know what I rebelled against. As an adult, I’ve come into a different consciousness with my thinking. Mick and I are not religious people but I am very drawn to the stories. They’re all good stories, you know? I like to say, "The Bible is one big, good story".
My religion has always been relationships. My Ruin is my religion and it sort of always has been. I talk about the relationships with people I’ve been involved with. That’s really what I talk about when I use all the metaphors and all the dichotomy of the imagery. It’s always based back to a person. It’s always based into story form, whether I’m looking at somebody in a God-like sense or myself as a Mary Magdalene or someone as Judas. Whatever the scenario is, there are biblical characters that I always base my stories around intertwined with the people that I’ve known that I’m writing about because my stories are based on reality.
I do a side-project with Mick called The LVRS, which is our spoken-word recordings set to musical soundscapes. There are a lot of personal stories within these recordings but there is also a lot of third-person storytelling based in fictional characters which isn’t personal. My Ruin on the other hand is totally personal and all of it is based on reality.
Well then, let’s talk about some of the tracks on the album that really caught my ear and that I’ve kept going back to listen again ... "Eyes Black", "Money Shot" and "Deathknell" are the ones that spring to mind. Could you give us a run-down on what the stories are behind those songs?
Sure. "Eyes Black" is actually one of my favourite tracks on the album. I especially love this chorus as it features some of the heaviest vocals on the album. "Eyes Black" is probably one of the heaviest and most controversial songs I’ve ever written and it wasn’t necessarily meant to be that way when I first began writing it. The story behind what inspired it is that I happened to see a film directed by a man named Theo van Gogh called Submission. The film really opened my eyes and spoke to me as a woman. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been researching a lot about the Quran and various things related to Islam because a friend of mine (Rhiis Lopez) who sings for a band called Ana Kefr (which means "Infidel" in Arabic) spent some time in Egypt and shared many stories with me. There are just a lot of things that have been coming into my light that have been upsetting to me regarding the way women are treated within this religion and I’ve been very vocal about it online in my blogs and postings over the past couple of years. Anyway, I happened to come across this film called "Submission" and I read the story about the writer Theo van Gogh whose great-grandfather was the brother of Vincent van Gogh. He was brutally murdered for doing this film, right in broad daylight on the street. He had his throat slashed in Amsterdam when he was riding a bike.
The film basically is about the idea of submission... "Islam" translated is "submission". The film is about women being kept under wrap and in burqas and it targets certain verses of the Qur’an and the things that go on behind the scenes that many people are unaware of within this religion. It’s just a very intense film. I watched it one night and it really affected me. I wrote about it in my blog and couldn’t get it out of my head. I just thought, "It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken out about women’s rights". When I was in Manhole, I had a song called "Victim" where I spoke out against rape and I’ve also spoken out against domestic abuse and spoken up for women’s rights and pro-choice issues. I’ve touched on many heavy topics back in the day when I was more of an activist but it’s been a while since I’ve actually confronted such a serious subject as I am with "Eyes Black" in my lyrics.
Everytime I think of a woman in a burqa, I think of a woman’s face and beauty hidden, all you see are her beautiful dark eyes – her eyes black. That’s all that she is reduced to being made to feel like a second class citizen so, needless to say, it really affected me and I needed to speak on this subject. There are so many women that are being kept under wraps within this world of submission, within this religion, who are dying to get out. They have no rights, they have no voice, they have nothing. It just is a very emotional song for me.
Of course, the track "Money Shot" is most definitely not about women who are wrapped in layers and layers of clothing.
No. "Money Shot" is the absolute opposite. The funny thing about both of these songs is that they are the extremes of each other. "Money Shot" actually was written about something else completely, a whole different subject when Mick first gave me the initial demo of the music. I recorded and rewrote my lyrics a few times but just wasn’t feeling it for some reason. Then one night, this whole idea came to me. I guess it came to me because I’m tired of the way women portray themselves and sell themselves out. You’ve got Revolver magazine – the biggest rock magazine in America – which puts out these "Hottest Chicks in Metal" issues and gets off on portraying women as total sex objects rather than musicians. Meanwhile, they constantly focus on the talent of all the men in these bands. How are the women supposed to be taken seriously when they all look like Victoria’s Secret models, half-dressed in lingerie, with the magazine asking them bullshit questions and basically promoting them as half-naked hookers?
I’m sorry but I’ve been in this business too long and I’ve fought too hard to be taken seriously. To me, it just sets us back so many years ... these images of tits and tats and ass and everyone wanting to be the next big rock star. So "Money Shot" is kind of a middle-finger to that whole thing, it’s like, "get ready to shoot yourself". Shoot yourself in the foot because you posed for another photo and you’re just going to be another hooker in metal who has nothing to say. You’ve got people running you with your managers and other band members telling you what to do. You’re all portraying yourself as these strong women. But, in reality, you’re not. There’s nothing strong about you.
To me, this is the image that they are sending to the young women of today: "All you need to do is show your tits and ass, and you’re gonna get by". That’s what it takes to be a chick in metal now. That’s weak and it’s why I don’t support many women in metal. I don’t find many of them interesting, I don’t find many of them talented and I don’t find many of them intelligent. So, I have a really hard time with that.
I understand that this is Femme Metal and we’re talking about a site that supports women in rock but I’ll take PJ Harvey and Juliette Lewis over some of these hookers I see in rock today. And that’s just my opinion. I hate to say it like that but I’m kind of old-school about it. I think it’s time women have respect for themselves. If you keep saying "it’s okay to treat me that way" then you’re going to be treated that way. I think Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy decided she didn’t want to be treated a certain way in Revolver, so they didn’t want to cover her band any more. She didn’t want to be portrayed as one of the hottest chicks in metal. Neither do I. I’d rather be the coldest chick in metal, you know? I’m the coldest chick in metal, so fuck that. I think it’s a little bit more interesting.
Then we go to the song that ends the album, "Deathknell" which slows things down and has a gloomy doomy vibe to it.
It’s one of my favourite songs on the album, actually. In a way, it kind of reminds me of a song on our last album called, "Through the Wound". I had gotten in a car accident the night before recording our last album "Throat Full of Heart" and nearly had my arm torn off. I went through a bunch of surgeries. It was insane. It kind of inspired the whole theme of our album and "Deathknell" reminds me of this other track musically and lyrically because it’s a very epic and emotionally intense song. It also reminds me of The LVRS stuff that Mick and I record because it’s got the spoken-word element. It’s my song to my husband. I guess you could say – how do I put this exactly? – It’s my love song, but it’s also our anthem.
"Deathknell" goes with the cover of the album. The cover of the album is an old photograph of my great-grandparents from around 1910 sitting in front of their house which I came across just last year. When I saw the photograph, it just spoke to me like it could almost be the ghosts of me and Mick sitting in front of our home. The word deathknell means something that heralds a death or destruction, pending doom or omen. It’s very dark and the lyrics of the song illustrate the idea of entering that house, walking into the door and going through the rooms. It tells the story of Mick and I and our ten years together in this house that we built of rock and blood and sweat and tears. It’s one of my favourite tracks on the album because it’s very different. I think it is the perfect album closer as well.
It’s a fabulous ending to the album! Is your house of rock and blood and sweat and tears now a more peaceful place than it was in late 2008, when you guys were thinking of hanging it up musically?
It’s never really peaceful. That’s the thing about the music industry; I don’t think anyone really has true peace within this business because it’s always so up and down. There are many highs and lows and sometimes the lows outweigh the highs unfortunately. We’ve put a lot of records out, we’ve done a lot and we do a lot of do-it-yourself. (We’re very DIY at My Ruin HQ.) I don’t think you can ever be truly peaceful. I’m peaceful in my relationship, I’m peaceful in myself. But, in the field of music that I’m in, I don’t think that I’ll ever be peaceful.
Even the song "Long Dark Night" ... which is another one of my personal favourites on the album because it talks about my long dark night of losing my muse, of not knowing if I still have my gift. Of not knowing what I’m going to write about this time. Questioning how I was going to do this again and did I still feel this, love this and want to continue? There were a lot of questions that I needed to ask myself before I was able to make this last record.
It was a long dark night ... inspired by the book Saint John of the Cross ... the long dark night of him losing his religion and losing his faith and wondering if he could get it back or was it gone forever. That was my long dark night and it went on for a few nights. So, there is really a feel to this record that is very emotional and very vulnerable to me.
You mentioned earlier that some of the tracks, like (for example) “Deathknell,” incorporate the spoken-word sound of your side-project The LVRS. Obviously, there is a huge contrast between the spoken-word work that you do that has this nice, warm, liquid sound and the brutal howling that one typically thinks of with My Ruin. Why did you decide to combine the two styles?
I’ve always kind of combined the two over the years. Even back to the first My Ruin record, one of the first songs that My Ruin ever recorded was a song called "Terror" which was a spoken-word song. I had done a bit of spoken-word in Tura Satana on a hidden track on our album "Relief Through Release". Some guys from London who were a producer team had taken it and put music to it and they brought it to me to check out one evening after a show and I thought it was really cool. I had never really thought about putting spoken words to music.
A year later, I contacted those guys and asked them to re-record it with me as the opening track and introduction to "Speak and Destroy" which was my debut album for My Ruin. I’ve recorded various spoken-word pieces over the year in My Ruin, here and there from intros to outros to random parts in songs. I really began to fall in love with the concept of spoken word stories set to music, so in 2003 Mick and I decided to self release our first full album called "The Murder of Miss Hollywood" under the name The LVRS because we thought it would be fun to write and record an entire album of stories and do a few things we couldn’t do in My Ruin. In 2004 we released our 2nd spoken word album via our website called The Secret Life of Lola Burns, then in 2006 we released an official album on our Rovena Recordings imprint via Undergroove UK called "Death Has Become Her" featuring tracks taken from two previous albums with a couple new ones and this month we just released our latest album for The LVRS called "Lady Speaks The Bruise" which is available online only at www.thelvrs.bandcamp.com
I think the combination of spoken-word set to music is really interesting. More so than just someone talking dry. I think having a musical track underneath the voice brings a depth and otherworldly feel to the stories. I’ve noticed some other people in bands starting to pick up on it and do it now as well, but I think the way we do our recordings is very unique and we have our own style and vibe. It’s definitely something I feel and love to record but I’m not sure if I will ever want to perform it live. As I said before, I’m not really a singer, I’m a speaker. I talk and I scream and sometimes a whisper can be more terrifying than a scream. I think it’s a nice little dichotomy to go from the heavy-breathing, speaking kind of intense heaviness of spoken-word to the gut-wrenching, confrontational howls. The dichotomy is in me as a woman and as a musician.
Are you ever tempted to throttle back on your message (either in your music or your blog) just to avoid alienating fans or critics? For example, I truly never expected to hear anyone in the music industry criticize the Obama administration. I didn’t think such a thing was even possible.
Really?!? Well I don’t fucking like the man, I have no respect for him, I don’t think he should be our president and I don’t think he was ready to be our president. A lot of people have written me and said, "Wow, you’re coming after this man. You’re saying all these things and that’s pretty intense, Tairrie."
I feel the same way about the music industry as I feel about politics. I hate them both. I live in Hollywood, which is the most liberal city in the world. Mick is from Knoxville, Tennessee and I’m from Los Angeles. Two totally different spectrums but we think alike in our politics and beliefs. We see things for the way they are in reality, not through the rose coloured glasses our current administration would like to have us all believing. I think that, as I get older, I have begun to look at things in a different way. I have many liberal feelings – for instance I’m definitely pro-choice and pro gay marriage – and there are certain things that I will never change my opinions about. But having said that, I’m also someone who cares about the defence of our country, I care about protecting our great nation that so many men and women have put their lives on the line to defend over time. I want somebody in charge of our country that I believe feels the same way. I want a leader not an apologizer and certainly not someone who cannot make a decision when it’s necessary to do so. I don’t feel his agenda is my agenda and I don’t feel that he was ready to be president and that has become painfully obvious from his actions during these first months in office. I feel that the bias left "Hollywood" media hyped him up and helped to create this God-like image of Obama being our big saviour. They helped to get him elected and they are now seeing the effects of the monster they created. He is a narcissistic egomanic and a thug who cannot take any criticism whatsoever and I for one have a big problem with it him and many of the things he has done and is trying to do to our country. I am not a fan of big Government nor and I a fan of "Hollywood" in any way, shape or form. I live here but I don’t really feel that I belong here mentally. It’s where I grew up but it’s not where I plan to live for the rest of my life.
It’s hard for me to talk about politics. I’m not going to make this interview all about politics or bashing Obama because My Ruin is not a political band. But at the same time, I’ve seen other bands come out and just disrespect and still attack George Bush and he’s not even in office anymore. I’m not a huge fan of Bush either but I do believe he wanted to protect and defend our nation after the reality of 9/11 and I do not believe Obama sees terrorism as a real threat nor do any of the people he surrounds himself with such as Holder, Pelosi or Reid. They are all a big mess who have their heads up their collective asses. I usually try not to mix my music with my politics because I really hate it when other bands do this and build their whole lame careers off it. But I’ve been paying attention a lot more than I ever have, these past few years and I guess I’ve been opening my eyes and truly realizing that there are a lot of people out there in this big ugly world who hate us and who want to take away our rights and destroy our country because of our freedoms and we definitely don’t need our government being part of that or condoning it.
That’s how I feel. I’m not afraid to speak out against certain things but I don’t use my band as my platform to be like "I’m anti-Obama, I hate Obama, My Ruin hates Obama!". Those are just my personal beliefs, which I openly post on my personal blog that have nothing to do with the My Ruin website or lyrical message in our music. I still have a mind and can speak my own truth. Blasphemous girl, that’s what I do. I guess I’m being blasphemous if I’m coming against a guy that everyone loves but I said it and I own it. Hopefully in 2012 we will see a real change and not just another candidate filled with empty promises and bullshit.
Getting back to the album, Mick wrote and played all the instruments on "Ghosts and Good Stories". It sounds as if, unlike "The Brutal Language" it actually was the plan from the beginning that this album would be just you and Mick. Did that decision change how My Ruin approached writing and recording the album ... was there more pressure, less pressure?
I think it was less pressure. Mick has always been the main song writer and musical director in My Ruin. Although we’ve had other people here and there who have been in the band, most of them did not contribute much (or at all) to our writing. I think that it is a lot easier for him in general to just write the songs, record and demo them and change what he wants. Rather than having to deal with other people contributing a million random ideas that aren’t really working or that we don’t really feel or whatever. Mick and I work really well together. Over the years, we’ve developed a special chemistry with each other where, if there is something he does that I don’t necessarily feel, he’ll put it to his side-project Neanderthal (which is his metal instrumental recordings that he also writes and records solo with all the instruments) or we’ll just change it up and rework it. He is very easy to work with. We know each other in such a way now that we know what works and what doesn’t. He knows my voice and I know his music which I think helps to make it a whole lot easier on both of us actually.
Watching the 25-minute video that Mick made in the studio really shows Mick shine and showcases his talents as an artist. I mean I know I was there at the time – but actually watching it as a short-film and looking at the footage, I've gotta say, he’s an incredible musician and one who is sadly very underrated. Being in a female-fronted band, a lot of the times the woman gets all the credit. It often becomes all about the chick (or chicks if there are more than one). I’ve always tried to fight against that stereotype for years because I just find it tired. This was especially annoying to me when we had two women in the band before on bass and drums. I hated the whole idea of the girl band thing. It really made me uncomfortable on many levels because of how people viewed us especially when we had a rad guy who was basically the best musician in the band and the main writer/producer and he was going virtually ignored because of the whole chick factor. It really upset me. I think Mick has really come into his own over the years and getting rid of the girls was the best thing we ever did for the band musically speaking. It actually forced Mick to step up and take more of a lead role and now everything feels very equal, and I think he is being viewed in a much more serious light/ different light as not only our guitarist on the record but also our bassist, drummer, co-producer and video editor.
Knowing that "Ghosts and Good Stories" would be just the two of us simplified everything. We went in knowing how we were doing it, rather than being thrown into it out of the blue like on our previous album,"The Brutal Language", when we had two band members quit on us in the middle of recording the album, leaving us both wondering how we were going to finish it. I remember thinking "What the hell are we going to do now ?" and that’s when Mick let me know he would be re-recording it and playing all of the instruments. It kind of blew my mind. I really had no idea he was capable of doing that. This time, we knew what we were doing and we were well prepared. We went in with a plan and a whole idea of what we wanted to accomplish. We have a great co-producer in Josh Lynch, who is fantastic. He and Mick have been friends for years. They used to work together many years ago at a studio in Hollywood. Josh is an awesome, creative, talented guy. Together, I think they made a great team and they brought the best out in me and the music. I’m very happy about the way everything turned out on the album. Mick and Josh will also be producing the band Ana Kefr together in the fall for their second album.
Considering that you typically were not a big fan of the record labels and preferred the do-it-yourself ethic for releasing albums, why did My Ruin sign with Tiefdruck-Music?
Believe me, do-it-yourself is not do it yourself. Sometimes you have to rely on more than a few people from distribution companies and publicists to booking agents and everything above, beyond and in between that goes on behind the scenes. While we can do so much for ourselves, there is that point where you have to rely upon other people to do the jobs they were hired to do. With our last couple of records, we just felt like it wasn’t being done right again. Making a record is like giving birth and you are forced to put your trust into people you don’t really know to take care of your baby and hope they do the right thing. 9 times out of 10 they don’t and it sucks. You then have to start the whole process over again with your next record and all you can do each time is hope things will be different. We’ve made some really great records and we’ve done some great tours and we’ve gotten no support from people who told us that they were going to support us. All the bullshit excuses, lies and laziness you have to deal with begin to wear you down after a while. There is only so much that you can do sometimes before it’s really out of our hands and control. For most people behind the scenes and at labels, the music business is a 9-to-5 job and pay check but for most musicians the business of music is our life and a 24/7 career and commitment which costs us more money than we make. We don't trust any label. We've come to release that everyone has an agenda and everyone lies.
Mona Miluski the freelance press, officer Tiefdruck hired to work our album is just amazing. She’s unlike any press girl that we’ve worked with ever or any guy for that matter. She is a go-getter, she’s strong and I really respect her as a woman in rock. She is also a singer in her own band, (A Million Miles) so she plays heavy music, she digs heavy music, and she “gets” My Ruin. We’ve got nothing but good things to say about her and we’re happy she is on our team.
Mick’s collection of guitars is just sick! If the house were on fire, which one do you think he would grab first?
I gotta just say ... he might grab them all. I might be left in the house, fighting my way out of the smoke and flames while he carries the guitars out the door (laughs). He’s got quite a collection, and he’s very proud of those guitars. But if he had to pick one, I think it would be his Gibson RD!
Tairrie, thank you for your candid glimpse behind the music of My Ruin and also the lives of you and Mick, and, of course, our thanks to Mona Miluski at Tiefdruck-Musik. Do you have any last words for your fans at Femme Metal?
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. It was my pleasure. I guess my last words would be, if you want to join a band or if you want to start a band or if you want to begin a career in music, I think you have to come in with an open heart but you also have to come in with open ears and open eyes. You have to know what’s going on and what you’re getting into. It’s not glamorous by any means. Rock & roll is dirty and can be filthy behind the scenes. Come in smart and try to never dumb yourself down for anyone. You live and you learn, but try to make good decisions. Always be honest about your art and stand in the truth of who you are as an artist. Respect yourself first and others will respect you. I read this great quote recently that goes "In Hollywood, success is like being pregnant. Everyone congratulates you but nobody knows how many times you’ve been f**ked". I feel the exact same way about the music industry.
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