by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
There’s just something dead sexy about an all-girl punk band that’s not afraid to rock out. Jacksonville has just such a band in the five-piece Rubbing Down Debbie, purveyors of hard rockin’ girl-punk.
They call themselves sultry goth punk eroto metal, and they wouldn’t be out of place in a goth club, writhing on the stage, working the whole scary/sexy woman power thing. The uniform for the band seems to involve fishnets on a regular basis. Short skirts, lots of skin and, obviously, dyed hair rounds out the look of the band. Adding a touch of something exotic, three of the band members are of mixed or Asian heritage. Bass guitarist Bug is full-blooded Vietnamese, sisters Kristina and Barbie are half Filipino.
The CD cover logo on their self-titled release is a drawing of a nude woman playing a guitar in a nearly masturbatory position. They call her their “Mona Lisa,” perhaps because it’s easy to draw all sorts of different interpretations from the picture. It can seem deliberately provocative or artistically neutral. Their website declares:
“This is her, exposed for you to admire or criticize. This is the burden she carries in her eyes- the burden of being herself and baring herself to you...”
That might well be the collective motto for the band, as they strut their musical stuff, figuratively bearing all on local Jacksonville stages.
They are who they are and they just happen to be tough punk grrls who use their music to pleasure themselves. What could be sexier? Especially if the music is actually good.
Since their promo stuff talks a lot about being sexually appealing to both men and women and since they’re an all girl band, I decided to ask if they identified themselves as a lesbian band.
“We don’t consider ourselves a lesbian band,” says lead guitarist Jessie. “We are primarily lesbians, but our singer is definitely not. Sexual preference aside, we definitely want to appeal to everyone. I think we do…We’re very seductive and erotic and we like to show ourselves off and dance…We don’t play lesbian rock, like Melissa Etheridge and stuff like that… We hope to appeal to everybody.”
The “Debbie” in Rubbing Down Debbie is Deborah Harry, from Blondie. You can hear the influence of Blondie in their music, as well as other, rawer bands, such as Hole. Jessie recounted the moment when they first came up with the name for the band.
“Our drummer Kristina had this dream one night, back when the band first formed…and she was telling me about this crazy dream she had where she was rubbing down Debbie Harry, giving her a massage, then she [Debbie] turned into this pod person and smelled like rotten eggs. She went on about this crazy dream and I was just like ‘Rubbing Down Debbie’ would be a really cool band name.”
Diminutive lead singer Barbie knows how to work her pipes in a way somewhat reminiscent of Patricia Day (of the Horror Pops) with a slight new wave influence and a whole lot of unrepressed anger. The hooks are sometimes briefly catchy and pop-like, but they always lead into some sort of rowdy metal music. A strong drumbeat, distortions and ripping guitars complete the sound.
Besides front woman Barbie, there’s Penelope (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Jessie (lead guitar, backing vocals), Kristina (drums) and Bug (bass guitar). Three of the members (Jessie, Kristina, Bug) frequently change instruments during performances for specific songs. Bug has a music degree, but the rest of the band picked up instruments growing up.
“When we all realized that we could play music and we’ve known each other for so long, we said, ‘why don’t we just play music together and be in a band,’” says Jessie.
Once the band got together in 2004, they began searching for an identity and came up with the term “sultry goth punk eroto metal.”
“It’s our self-named-genre…We couldn’t really pinpoint a specific genre, so we sat around and just decided we were going to come up with our own. Eroto-metal, I don’t know who came up with that term, but we liked it.”
You may have seen the girls rocking out at Jack Rabbits, where they’ve played quite a bit, Freebird, Thee Imperial, The Pit or French Quarter. They’ve also played Orlando, Daytona and St. Augustine. These days they’re looking to “branch out further…We’re trying to get out of town.”
You can listen to these local metal girls on myspace.com/rubbingdowndebbie. Their ten-song album was basically self-produced in 2006 when they bought some studio time from a friend in Tampa. You can buy it through cdbaby.com or on iTunes.
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