It used to be that on Sunday nights, the rockers in this city were all in some stage of the dope, guns, and fucking in the streets process, but that all came to a screeching halt last year when MTV’s older, slightly hipper brother VH1 launched ‘Bands on the Run’, a weekly pseudo-reality show wherein 4 bands are plucked from local obscurity and sent on a rolling, nationwide battle of the bands, rife with alcohol abuse, bickering, and sabotage. An actual song got in there once in awhile too, but not very often. 3 of those 4 bands will most likely slink off back to obscurity, mentioned only in bouts of drunken hipster derision and trivia. And then there’s Harlow, who stuck out like a sore thumb slathered in Urban Decay nail polish. Four chicks that were all about the Rock, grinding out a neo-dissonant Sabbath dirge laced with soaring indie-melodies, bravely attempting to take the high road and play it straight, despite the episodes of lightweight depravity and low budget espionage the other bands gleefully indulged in. They didn’t win, of course, but that hardly matters. Harlow weren’t tv monkeys in the first place. Although they don’t regret their VH1experience, Harlow is quick to note that beyond the camera’s range, they’re a trench crawling rock and roll band, looking to build up a street rep though sweat, muscle, powerchords, and purple lipstick. Nothing illustrates this point more than their location on Earth when I call Rayshelle, their guitarist. "Right now, we’re leaving Witchita, and we’re heading to Lawrence ", she tells me. Unless you’re tending to amber waves of grain, there’s only three things you could possibly be doing in Kansas- getting lost, going quietly, hopelessly insane, or touring in a rock band, building up a rabid following with the heart-landers. "It’s Kansas", she sighs. We’ve got drama going on." You can almost see her eyes roll over the phone.

Rayshelle is Harlow’s dark horse, the icy metal queen, prone to shadows and terse statements. At least, she was on television. On the phone, she’s all optimism and enthusiasm, happy to be getting back to the business of the rock and the roll, her brooding tv persona all but gone. Still, she remains every black metal blasphemer’s ‘cool chick’ fantasy; eyes hidden behind dark bug-shades, a beer in her hand, her dark obsessions sported proudly on her chest. She will probably be best remembered for causing the first, and surely last, sighting of an Entombed t-shirt on VH1. "That’s so funny. I’m wearing my Entombed t-shirt right now. It’s my ‘I don’t give a fuck shirt’." With her Norwegian and Brazilian background, it’s no wonder that she represents the extreme metal contingency in Harlow’s alterna-stew. "I grew up in Florida, and I was this little trouble maker, runaway kid in Ft Lauderdale", she tells me. " I would read Hit Parader, Circus, Creem, and I would dream of going to Los Angeles. So when I was 16, I took a greyhound to LA, and started working at this rock and roll store selling leather pants, shit like that. Eventually, I met someone who worked at Century Media records, which, at the time was a death metal label. And he was like, ‘Hey, do you want to be an intern ?’ So I interned for 8 months and got a job there, and eventually, 6 years later, I was their top publicist, working for bands like Mayhem and Emperor. So yeah, I’ve got a lot of experience in that scene." Harlow is Rayshelle’s first band, and although they rock more than they crush, grind, or slay, she doesn’t see herself donning any corpsepaint soon. "Amanda taught me how to play guitar like 4 months before we did the show. She was teaching me, and then the show gave me this intense push to get it together, and then immediately after we went and started recording and writing new songs. On the new album, I wrote one of the songs, it’s the first song so far that I’ve written by myself. And it’s just been incredible, I mean I never had ‘girlfriends before’, and these are my girls, so no, I can’t stray. It’s kind of like having a wonderful boyfriend that you just have to keep, regardless if he dresses funny." She laughs. "I don’t impose my extreme metal interests on them. I know it’s not for everybody, and sometimes I don’t want to share that stuff, it’s for me. I’m into the Stooges and PJ Harvey and Queens of the Stoneage as well, so whatever they choose, they turn me onto music, and I’m into it."

The band has been going full throttle since ‘Bands on the Run’ aired. "The show was filmed a year ago. We went into the studio in January, and we recorded until August. We took a break in September, and now we’re out touring. We’re only 6 days into a two and a half month tour." You know that new, shiny, black Harlow van on tv? Well, that was all a ruse. There is no Harlow van in real life. "They took it back." Rayshelle sadly reports. "If they offered that as one of the prizes, we probably would have tried harder to win." With the profits from a two week trial run just prior to this current campaign, the band managed to put money down on a Winnebego, and that’s what you’ll see pulling up to the curb in Cambridge. 30 feet of snarly girl power. "There’s 7 of us in here, so it’s cramped, and it’s dirty, but that’s rock." Although it might have been simpler to milk the show’s popularity for backers, Harlow have decided to remain a do-it-yourself operation. "If we took anything right off the bat, we would’ve gotten raped. I mean, we know what’s going on, we’re not stupid. We have to work harder and bring our worth up, and once we’re stronger, once we’re completely together, than we’ll start hearing out deals", Rayshelle explains. "I think we have to, to retain any kind of respect from the people that might be laughing at us otherwise. If we just jump on the band wagon and immediately take what we can get right now, I don’t think we’d last. I think we’d all become jaded or pompous a bit too quick. So right now, I think we need to suffer, and pay our dues, and work hard, and bring some worth and respect to the Harlow name." She still wants to suffer. You just can’t take the black metal out of this tv star.