Wolfshead : Interviews : Tarrie B of My Ruin

So why did you form another band was there not a temptation to be Tarrie B solo artist?
No, I never really thought like that. I look at someone whose career has been similar to mine , y'know like Everlast, we were both rappers back in the old days then he did House Of Pain and I did the Manhole/Tura Satana thing and now he's back as Everlast again, if I just called myself Tarrie B - it'd be like the old days, that was my rap moniker, I know that may sound strange because it's my name but ...I wanted the project to have a title, when I left Tura Satana everyone was like - that's it, you've ruined your career now and it's just throwing it back, like being called a bitch but you can turn that into something powerful and so that was what I was trying to do, this'll be my ruin, y'know fuck you, so it's used as an empowering term

You get such a hard time in the press, people here (in Britain) seem scared of you...
That's ridiculous, people are always scared of what they don't know and I believe you have to face your fears, I fear plenty of things but that doesn't just make them negative, if you face your fears they diminish, you know people read those things, many popular rumours, they don't know me...

What's your favourite song off the new album?
Blasphemous Girl, it's sorta my trademark for this record it encompasses a lot, I use a lot of religious imagery, that's what I'm into y'know, I'm an artist as well and I just like to combine the whole love, religion, sex, violence, all those different things Blasphemous Girl, June 10th and Absolution are all about the same person but they're very different degrees of that relationship and B. Girl is the angry infernal side, you came on like a godlike character and you went against me so now I'm going against you - so that's blasphemy so to speak

Did you have a religious upbringing?
My parents were definitely religious my mother, my grandmother, when I was very small and I kinda got out of it later

it stays with you though...
..it was outta my life for a while and now I just felt kinda drawn to that whole imagery, I mean just look at my arms, I think when you have tattoos they explain a lot about who you really are. There are good things you can get out of any religion and likewise every religion has things you can't relate to, there's certain things in the Catholic religion I do believe in and things I don't, obviously I'm pro- abortion among other things, there's so many different belief systems out there, even Satanism, the Satanic Bible has bits that make perfect sense, you are always going to be able to relate to some part of any religion

Is it strange being a role model, do you see it as a pressure or an honour?
It's not a pressure, in reality I can never be a hero or a role model or whatever I'm always just gonna be myself, I make music, if even one girl today sees us and is like - I can relate to that about some of my lyrics, I will be honoured. I listen to PJ Harvey and I can relate to that, I mean she's touched me and become sort of an inspiration, in fact I'd like to be seen as a inspiration not a role model, I'm not a role model, I make mistakes, I have hang-ups, I'd like to be an inspiration to girls to do what they want to do, so they think - if she does that (not even necessarily sing or play an instrument), whatever it is, if she does that then I could do it

Who is an inspiration to you?
Chrissy Hynde, Patti Smith, right now currently Shirley Manson because she's a completely different entity and she does pop stuff but I also listen to her lyrics and think wow, I think hers are more the sexual connotations of things where as mine are more the angry connotations but I really dig hers y'know

So what else do you listen to?
When I'm getting ready for a show I listen to Machinehead to get pumped up but I'll listen to like PJ Harvey to bring me back down after, there's so many different types of music out there to hear, when I used to be a rapper I was like focused on rap it was all I listened to, Public Enemy and KRS 1 y'know and at that time I couldn't see beyond that and I missed out on so much. I look back at some stuff I like Nick Cave being one of them and I think why didn't I like this years ago, you have to have an open mind to music and try and listen to everything and learn what you like

So how come you picked Tainted Love to cover?
TL came about by accident we were in the studio and it was on the radio, I started singing along because the lyrics are so cool "I'm sorry I don't pray that way" and we all just loved it. With a cover you've got to do it so far left or so right on the money, but I'm happy that we did it, some people like it some hate it......actually today we're doing a new cover for the first time, my friend Lynne from a band called Snot who actually sang on the first Manhole record he did a duet with me, was killed in a car accident last year. I was actually in London, I missed his funeral, it was terrible he died on the same day my grandfather died the year before and it was really horrifying for me. Lynne taught me a lot about being a vocalist and to pay my respects to him we're gonna do one of his songs called Stoopid and I wanna use it as a B side. Now you have to ask me crazy questions this is all way too serious

So why don't you have any eyebrows?
I don't have any eyebrows because a couple of years ago for Halloween I decide to dress like a chola which is a female Mexican gangbanger chick from LA, they wear white wife beaters, really white makeup, no eyebrows and they tease their hair up, so I had really thick black eyebrows at the time so I took a razor and shaved them, then someone went you know they're never going to grow back right ? so I've been like this since but I like my no eye brows Y'know that's all they write about me in most magazines - she's fat, a total bitch and she's got no eyebrows

So how did you get the other members of My Ruin?
I asked my old drummer Marcello from Tura Satana back which is funny because he's one of the reasons I left the band but the situation's changed, I always really respected him as a musician. Melanie is my guitar player she wrote four of the songs on the record and Megan the bass player I'd seen in other bands and thought she was cool and Lance was from Mammal Surrender, he's the other guitarist and Todd from the Dead Girls is on keyboards, it's a bunch of people from other bands in LA, I don't know if it will stay the same every time I come out but as long as I can we'll keep it this way

Have you thought of just doing spoken word?
I've done a bit in LA like coffee houses and stuff and I did enjoy it, I like Lydia Lunch and a lot of people in that genre but spoken word is even more naked than anything, it's scary enough being on stage, I have horrifying stage fright as it is, I'm fine when I'm there but it's the process of getting to the stage, I find spoken word a little scary for me, I test it out on my friends all the time and they're always like - you can't get up and say that what is wrong with you? (laughs).....but my spoken word is a lot different than my music actually There's a band called The Golden Palomina's that do weird hypnotic stuff very trippy shit and maybe someday I'd like to get together with them. My lyrics sound odd to me without the music, the music drives the lyrics home. I went to see Rollins and I'd written this kinda poem -12 reasons why I haven't seen Rollins doing spoken word - 1. I didn't have money 2. I had a show to play 3. My friends wouldn't go with me 4. Too far away, all that , so finally I get to see him and I'm all excited, I watch the whole show avidly, there must have been 500 kids in the audience all with black rimmed glasses and it was the worst spoken word I'd ever seen and I ran home and wrote 12 reasons why I never want to see Rollins doing spoken word again - 1. His pants were way too tight 2. He kept saying how he wasn't one of those LA people then all he did was name drop. I actually really like Rollins but at points he gets a little too preachy. For me personally though...I dunno I really enjoy the whole music thing too much, it's the metal chick in me, loud noise......I'm still doing my book, I've been working on it for ages it's tentatively called "God wants a piece of my ass - the photo journal of a blasphemous girl" and a lot of it is going to be shown on our web site, the art and poetry and tour journals www.my ruin.com It's very cathartic for me to be writing a woman's perspective of the industry, a lot of my art will be incorporated it's very personal to me, I'm excited about the whole thing

How come you're constantly videoing what you do?
We're going to release it at some stage, we did two videos for Terror and June 10th with Paul Harris photographer from Kerrang, they're his first videos but I think they'll be cool and footage of the making of the record and backstage stuff, the kids, the shows, the problem so far is that I'm always the one with the video camera and so I'm never on the video so now I'm like - this sucks, I wanna be on this, so this guy who's a film student is gonna come out and film us

So what's the most extreme thing that's happened to you on tour?
We had some really young girls come to a show and their arms were all cut up and that really upset me, because they thought it was something I wanted to see and they cut victim in their arm, I'm so not into that, it's the whole Marilyn Manson thing he promotes that, to me self mutilation is so.... it's weird because I suppose when I'm on-stage I self mutilate myself, because I throw myself around so much, I'll come off covered in bruises and people say "why do you do that" and I say " because it feels good when I do it, I feel a strength from it" but I can't imagine cutting myself,.....and these girls came to me showing me their arms with my name carved in and I'm just like ...I want to bandage you up and sit down and talk to you. I can't condone that, it really freaks me out, don't do that to yourselves. People get band names tattooed on themselves- do not do that, we had a few with Tura Satana on them, it's flattering on one side but what do you say to them.....

You don't think the band are a part of their life so it does mean something to them, y'know their interpretation of the words to them, or whatever..
It's a fine line, I guess, on my arms I've got "mi ruiena" which is Spanish for My Ruin but it's part of all this, a sort of a love, hate and truth thing here and love conquers all and here it says nothing is sacred - my ruin, but I wasn't gonna have like - Manhole across my stomach. Back home I see so many bands with their logo's tattooed on their arms in case people don't recognise them already.....I don't see Nick Cave with his name tattooed across him, in fact he should just have one that says - god, on him

How come you've never done a Nick Cave cover?
I've thought about it, the lyrics to "do you love me" are very me, you can listen to that music and it puts you in a mindset, it's like you can picture it, I'd like to be able to do that, have somebody hear a song and be like - I can feel this song, I can envision it ....that's the cool thing about listening to music, you take it and interpret it to your own meaning, you can never really understand what the artist meant without them defining it to you....

What do you think of British bands at the moment you took Breed 77 out on tour?
Yeah I like them and you can't really go wrong with cute boys who take their shirts off and sweat a lot on stage, there's three girls in our band now, I gotta do something to keep the women happy, we've taken Will Haven and Psycore out before and they're all cool bands too. Hey I'm like the NWA song- still talking shit and I gotta go now..