Cherish Alexander of The Painkillers

Driving on Holy Gasoline

"I've got to get the power, to go 300 miles an hour." - Rogue Male

Setting My Back on Fire
9.22.01 - 2 PM

Blue skies, new Fu Manchu record, smooth running Concorde. I'm boxed in the middle slot of a four lane highway, but everybody's zipping along at a cool 70 mph. It's a chain smoking afternoon, and I flick my Marlboro out the window with cinematic attitude. I, of course, don't notice it boomerang back into the car, as I'm transfixed with the way my mean machine swallows the broken white lines, my head swimming in the usual sea of carnality, my own personal Caligula running rampant with sex-rock fantasies in my head. As I sail past the garishly painted fuel silos 10 miles out of the city, I notice a knot of heat spreading around my lower back. Checking the rear view mirror, I'm horrified to see smoke billowing from behind my shoulders. That's never a good sign. The uncomfortable heat quickly turns to a painful burning. I desperately look around the car for something liquid to douse the fire, but the coffee cup is empty. I say 'fuck' about 50 times in ten seconds. Desperate, I screech across the other two lanes without looking. I hear cars squealing around me, but I've got my own problems. I get over to the breakdown lane and slam on the brakes. I jump out of the car and rub my back on the hood like an itchy dog on a carpet. When I'm sure my back is no longer in flames, I look at the car seat. It's a fucking mess, a nightmare of melted plastic and pitted styrofoam, blackened and utterly ruined. Good thing it's not my car. About 15 minutes later I finally roll into the Mercedes dealership, where I was bringing the car, a loaner. The customer's been waiting for it for an hour. When I hand the keys over to Maria, the mawkish customer service woman, I turn around and ask her to look at the back of my shirt. It's a black Scissorfight long sleeve, with a rampaging truck on the back that screams 'Go Cave!' on the license plate. I figure it must be full of holes. I figure the skin underneath must be blistered, and that I probably need to go to the hospital or something. 'How's my shirt look?' I ask her. 'Does it look alright?' "Jes", she tells me. She's got a Spanish accent, you see. "It looks fine." 'Right on', I say. 'You probably need to get that thing cleaned before you give it to the customer', I tell her, pointing to the car. 'It's a real pit in there.' I walk out of the lot and into the sunshine. As the garage door rolls down, I can hear her screaming behind me, but it just really doesn't feel like my problem. 

A couple of weeks later, and I'm on the subway, when some bleary eyed headbanger comes up to me and gives me a thumbs-up. "Cool shirt, man", he says. "Yeah", I answer, "and best of all, it's fireproof."

Like some black windowed hearse sluicing through a midnight gangland of neon maniacs, The American Plague (www.plagueusa.com) is all about sleazy late night thrills hung on a skeleton of grease rock. There is a palpable sense of Blue Velvet styled decadence at work here, the sultry crooning of a man with a tail backed up by his Satanic Mechanics. Glenn Danzig and Johnny Thunders on the set of a Mexican snuff film? Pretty close, yeah.
Sticky Sweet-demo (www.stickysweet.co.uk ) Folks these days seem to only remember the cheekbones and blue leather trousers of glam's glory years in the cocaine decade, but here's the part they always forget : Hanoi Rocks were better than the Rolling Stones. And Dogs D'Amour were the closest thing to soul music that a bunch of drunken sleaze hounds were ever going to get. Sticky Sweet remember. If Rocky Shades had a few illegitimate kids, and believe me, he did; well then, they'd be in this band. SS play raunchy glitter with the kind of infectiously catchy pop hooks that weaken the knees of the crazy beautiful girls and they do it with enough macho swagger to rattle the electric cages of the hardcore sinners as well. Sure, they dress like Twisted Sister melting in a vat of crayons, but just picture the Trash Brats with a 17 year old Vince Neil on vocals, and tell me these cats don't have the right fucking idea. Stellar. Hipsters'll tell you, being completely out of it is one of the best ways to stay in the game, and Black Lipstick know it. On the new "The Four Kingdoms of Black Lipstick" they out- swagger those pussies in the Strokes, and they're probably not even trying. They sound vaguely like the Velvet Underground showing no mercy to Motown Junk from the empty end of an absynthe bottle. There's a rubber legged Stones vibe stumbling around, an air of fake fur sleazy ambience, there are expensive drugs and cheap sex here. This, brothers and sisters, is rock and roll at it's peak of bloodshot bad intentions. Black Lipstick are a bunch of shady motherfuckers looking for a kiss. (www.peekaboorecords.com) Fear of Dolls (www.fearofdolls.com) sound, at times, like Luddites smashing away at the machinery of oppression. At other times, they sound like gossamer winged angels smoking crack at a Greyhound bus station. Goth pop, industrial slink, and a Velvetsy drone all merge 
into a Bat Cave styled Romanesque Orgy of punked out death rock, the kind of thing I bet Nick Cave likes to fuck to. El Destructo (www.eldestructo.com) actually have the gall and fortitude to play hardcore punk in the 21st century. Not that pseudo- metal Hare Krishna fighting music they call hardcore these days, but the thrashy, ramshackle 80's variety that sounds like a gang of cartoon bikers ripping through a shopping mall. El Destructo are also low budget media kingpins with a whole arsenal of products and big ideas, including a rather entertaining little punk-serial killer movie and a line of clothing that's both slutty and functional. An El Destructo micro-brewery can't be far behind. Straight outta Stockholm, Wild Cat Sleezy (www.darkface.pp.se/~darkwing/english.php - and no, I didn't spell their name wrong, they did) attempt to breathe some life back into the wheezing carcass of melodic hard rock, circa 1987. With hammer of God power chords, anthemic, fist raising choruses, and a handful of old Guns n' Roses and Skid Row records, they are drunken freedom fighters from Planet Excess, and they not only want your women, they want them dressed in spandex and high on mescaline. New album on the way. Let's hope it's in a gatefold sleeve, so you can hide your weed in it's spine. Long gone Stiv's reluctant darkness burns brightly in the Pocket Rockets, (info@thepocketrockets.com ). On their new single, 'Look in the Mirror' they manage to wrap sultry neo-voodoobilly riffs around Duran Duran bass lines to create a sort of Italian Japan, or maybe a sexy Smithereens, if you can imagine such a thing. This song has got to be in heavy rotation on Lucifer's jukebox. Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space, and the only thing left alive out here is Superroach, (www.superroach.de). "Stoner's Broadcast Station" is a sprawling, clanging surge of hi-test desert rock , all Kyuss groove and spaceman lament, with monolithic riffage burrowing holes in the baking sands and splattering drums that shake all over the druggy epic transmissions like there's a dog fighter on their tail. These Germanic heavyweights have close cousins in Swedish groove kings Dozer, only without that band's sunny optimism-Superroach is too busy getting sucked into black holes and spit out in crazy new universes. Lucky Hell Drivers have a name that suggests a Japanese cartoon rock band, fun loving wrench monkeys that turn into pink metal robots when Godzilla's on a rampage. What they actually are is a primal junglebilly sweat machine, a greaser Mummies at the dragstrip, waving the checkered flag in a halter top and a Frankenstein mask. The highlight has got to be their theme song, which sounds like a hillbilly Banana Splits in a cockfight with Toronto's old kings of the two man devil blues Deja Voodoo. Lucky Hell Drivers strip rock and roll right to the bone. TON 'Say...Ton' (pounds2k@hotmail.com)- It took me awhile to get the clever title, but the music encased within punched me in the nuts immediately. These cats play heavy assed M.E.T.A.L. music, thick and ropy, churning like lubricated machines ripped from their moorings and rolling down main street, eating cars. At times, TON are almost neo-doom in their slugging delivery, but for the most part, TON play redneck power music for muscle cars and the suicidal freaks that drive them. Aeraby (www.aeraby.com) - nightmare driven alternarock blessed with the dramatic, blues metal caterwauling of the punk Janis Joplin, Germaine Appel. This 4 tracker slips around the 'alternative' spectrum, with stoner pop on top to a deep bottom of Sabbathy sludge crawling around the edges. Shadowy rock and roll from NYC that seems intent on painting indie rock the deepest shades of black. Dragons- "Rock and Roll Kamikaze"- I remember comparing the ancient Dragon's tune 'Loaded', from the Junk records comp "Going After Pussy" to Aussie raunch demon's The Fun Things' seminal 'Savage' single, much to the horror of the uber hipsters of the day, who rightly consider that two minute superflash of leather and adrenaline a pristine classic of rock and roll Armeggedon. Well, the fucking chickens have come to roost, as the Dragon's have named their new album after that very song. And with the bar raised so high, they come out swinging. After dabbling in the melodic roots rock of the Replacements on their last album, 'Rock Like Fuck', and confusing the hell out of the werewolves and Vikings that greedily wallowed in their earlier records in the process, Los Dragons have stripped things back down to the essence of sin, savagery, and punkified razor riffage that defines them. Although they still haven't quite captured their live intensity on record- and that shit will shred your nerves for days, believe me-'Kamikaze' is a welcome return to the raunchy Danger Rock of yore, and thank God, because this band practically invented a genre that a million other bands are copping without an ounce of the wit, venom, or class that the Dragons so effortlessly exude like the true believers that they are. This is the real deal, citizens. Less Than Zero - (magikalmachine@hotmail.com) Picture the scene, if you will. Big Ben is bonging away in the background. A disoriented, Nyquil-soggy Terrorvision attempts talking comic-books with a reflective Andrew Eldritch, but ends up weeping into his shoulder, struck numb by the beauty of the Sly and the Family Stone ballad on the radio. LTZ defy genre tags because they encompass it all in a pungent stew of big pop ideas, big rock guitars, and a vast canvas on which to paint the many shades of their post-punk bluster and gutter melancholia. And they're clever bastards, as well, naming their songs things like 'Shh... it tastes better when it looks like you", which has got to mean something cryptic and witty, right?

Killing the Pain with a Girl Called Cherish

There were times when 'mainstream' rock wasn't all about fractured sub-genres of increasingly ugly music, bastard hybrids of whining suburban malaise, faux urban aggression, and whatever the fuck it is that created Sum 41. Recently, I've noticed tinges of regret at FM rock's demise from some of the cats in the trenches, the ultra hipsters who normally wouldn't cop to liking such retro fare. The Super Rockers in Lamont, for example, like to psyche themselves up for a gig by blasting Foreigner's 'Juke Box Hero' in their van. Half the bands in town are doing ZZ Top covers, without a trace of irony. My own run in with the cock eyed glory of AOR came one day while I was waiting in the car for that fat mongoloid prince Denver, who was in the supermarket buying pop tarts or frosted donuts or something. His radio was tuned to the classic rock station, which was dutifully pumping out a steady stream of out dated abbreviations- CCR, BTO, AC/DC. Songs so overly familiar that I barely even noticed them. And then the opening riffs of Pat Benatar's 'Heartbreaker' came on, all electric sexual urgency and high gloss radio rock. By the high pitched trill of it's manic pre-chorus - 'You're the right kind of sinner, to unleash my inner fantasies...' I was enthralled, caught up in one of the most perfect of power pop moments. And it was no guilty pleasure, brothers and sisters, it was just great rock and roll, regardless of it's status in the imaginary pantheon of cool. When I first heard the Painkiller's curiously packaged (more on that later) new single, 'Goodbye', I felt the same sort of thrill, as if I was dropped suddenly into an arena full of hungry hearts, the wall of sound on the stage so massive it threatened to swallow us all, the careful construction of an anthem for desperate times like these that soothed the soul and enflamed passions all at once. A fucking great song, in other words. In a different era, you could just click on your radio to any given rocker frequency and the Painkillers would surely be on deck, but the great unwashed are still too busy with their clown masks and their fake punk rock to notice. Undaunted, the band carry on, sculpting a sound that I just can't add stoner, sleaze, punk, or metal to when describing it. They simply do their thing, baby, and it's a stone groove. 

Goodbye to whoever I was before

One sunny afternoon in September, I switched the work owned Nextel from it's two-way radio mode to the forbidden phone line and called Los Angeles, the city the Painkillers call home. Cherish Alexander, the band's principal song writer and lead singer, answered. Cherish looks like an exceptionally pretty biker chick, and she sings with an amazingly rich and soaring voice, one of the strongest in rock. Her speaking voice, however, is a completely different story. " I know, a lot of people say that", she says in her soft spoken, soothing, pre-school teacher's voice. "Especially since I have this really strong singing voice. It's a real contradiction. I guess I should start talking like this." She drops her voice down to a chain smoking Telly Savales tone, before erupting in laughter. It's pretty obvious I'm not going to get a typical blood, sex, and bullet holes interview out of her, so I scratch the usual back alley fist fighting questions and settle in for a civilized discussion. Right after I badger her about her very Hollywood name, that is. "It's my real name", she assures me. " I guess I just had hippie parents." The Painkillers are a fleshed out version Cherish's many years in the garage, surrounded by notebooks filled with scribbled lyrics and battered guitars, writing song after song, looking for the perfect prescription. With the band's forthcoming album, "Alcohol May Intensify the Effect" she may have finally found it, but it's been many years in the making. "I've been writing and playing piano since I was 7 years old", she beams. She spent her school years refining her craft, dragging her parents to recitals, fairly addicted to music. Right after high school, she got her first break. "When I was 19, I made two records for RCA that never got released." These early recordings were the nucleus of the band's sound, but it was a frustrating time for the young songwriter. "It was pop music", she says simply, when describing the initial album. "I made the first record and RCA went through some changes, dropped a lot of people. They liked two of the songs on the first album, so they kept me, and I did a second one that was more alternative sounding. And then we just parted ways." Although disappointed , Cherish looks at her brush with a major label as a learning experience. "Looking back, I think I always had a lot of hope, I don't think I was devastated at all by the records not getting released. At the time, I was still looking for myself, and I was molded into something that really wasn't me, so in the end, it was good that we both moved on." She did, however, get to enjoy one of those rarest of record industry perks- a salary. She didn't opt for the classic Urge Overkill 'Soap operas and champagne at noon' lifestyle, though. "No, I didn't get to watch much TV. I was doing a lot of writing, I had a publishing deal with Warner/Chapel, and I was writing with a ton of really prominent people. But you know, there was some hanging out, and spending money", she concedes, " but I was just really trying to find the direction I wanted to go in." Soon after, she settled into what would soon become the Painkillers. "Oh, Gosh." That's about as racy as Cherish's language gets, by the way. "We started the band 5 years ago in a garage with a 4 track. I was sharing a house with three other girls, and they let me have the garage so I just locked myself in there and screamed." When the screaming stopped, she found herself with a vast catalog of songs and some dedicated musicians. "When we started out, we were a lot more 'Grrrr', you know, just rocking out", she says when describing the progression of the band's sound. " Nowadays, I don't want to say that we're polished, but we're more aware of what we are." Elaborating, she says, "I think over time it's become more distinct. Less garage band sounding, but I think it's always been the same premise- heavy guitars, distortion, some ballads as well. We just got a review where this woman called us 'emotionally charged rock'. I thought that was perfect for describing us." As for the band name, "It took a while to find a name that really described the band in it's entirety. I think 'Painkillers' does that, because a lot of the songs have to do with healing, and things like that." Other names were kicked around, of course, but you won't get them from Cherish. "I don't know if I want to tell you that", she laughs. "Really, I don't even think I remember." Although she remains the focal point of the band, Cherish says that the band is a democracy, and the best of friends. "Everybody's the boss in this band. We're all pretty mellow, there's no big egos or anything. I don't think we've ever had any fights at all." Ever? "Well, we have little arguments here and there, but we always get through them. We've always had an open door policy, like 'If you wake up tomorrow and you don't want to do this anymore, than you don't have to', but so far, everybody's stayed. We're all really dedicated to this band."

Tomorrow, I swear I'll be different

"I'm dead inside, but still alive, and my soul, it bleeds internally, thirsting for a sip of your smile." These are part of the lyrics to 'Goodbye', and indicative of the kind of gut wrenching, soul searching, bare- all themes the Painkillers explore. I ask Cherish if her lyrics are auto-biographical. "Umm..yeah." She describes the process in simple terms.
"It's all subconscious, it's a flow of ideas. Some of them are stories from my life, I keep a journal. I write down my dreams, too." And she dreams a lot. "We've got two albums out, but we have about 85 songs recorded", she says. It's remarkable that such honest, raw emotions would come out of a band from Los Angeles, a town known for pre-fabrication and rampant copy-catting. "People are so out for themselves in LA", she sighs. "Everybody in LA is something, right? An singer, an actor, producer, director." Our heroine, however, finds no need to add slash marks to her occupation. "No, I'm a full-on musician." That doesn't mean the Painkillers are averse to the odd television appearance, however. "We've had some songs on that TV show, 'The Crow'. That was a great success for the band because that show has some really die-hard fans." But is Miss Alexander a fan of the goth-by-numbers fantasy herself ? "Me? Well, I guess I am now", she laughs. Besides the Crow and other soundtrack appearances, the band are putting final touches to the new album. In the meantime, they've been promoting themselves with an amazing press package. It comes in a white first aid kit, and contains, among other things, a pill bottle filled with candy, a sticker that boldly advertises 'Free Drugs', and (ahem) rubber gloves. "We just wanted to do something different", she explains. "We got a bunch of medical magazines and pieced it all together." The Painkillers are a band that pays attention to the details, including the glam star image. Cherish sums the band's look up in one word : "leather." All part of the plan. Still, the band is both blessed and cursed with a sound that's unique enough to keep them out of any genre ghettos, which can be lonely on the streets of Los Angeles. "Nothing shocks people in LA, they're pretty receptive to all different kinds of music, you just have to find the people that you connect with", Cherish tells me. "The fans that we do have are really dedicated, I mean they're at every show, but you're right, we crafted our sound to be very unique, and that can be a problem, because people, especially record company people, are always looking for a certain kind of sound, the next Britany Spears, or whatever. Unfortunately, that's just the way the business is."

The Painkillers remain unconcerned about being the next anything, however, and plan on releasing the next album on their own. 'Alcohol May Intensify the Effect' should be out by year's end. You can rob your local pharmacy for it, or you can do it the easy way, and get it directly from the band at www.thepainkillers.com. Either way, the Painkillers prove, once again, that rock and roll is the best drug of all.

Next issue: Sex, drugs and Jesus Christ with Kim from Dollhouse Salon. You'll probably get to see her naked. Also, I get that moonfaced, rat eyed freak Denver fired, but he gets revenge almost instantly.