GIRLS AGAINST BOYS

Guitarist/ vocalist Scott McLoud and Alexis Fleisig's most recent incarnation was as members of Soulside, DC's most celebrated band next to Fugazi, releasing three formidable albums between '88 and '91 on their hometown's famed Dischord label, and prior to Soulside, with Chris Thompson in Lunchmeat, putting out a split 7" with Mission Impossible, Dave Grohl of Nirvana's first band. Thompson later went on to play with Ignition and Circus Lupus, both well respected DC Dischord bands. McLoud can also be traced back to Rain, in which he joined forces with GVSB's bassist/sampler, Eli Janney, who himself indulges in recording engineering and record producing, hidden behind the controls of several masterpieces, including the tremendous Shudder To Think LP of '92, 'Get Your Goat'. He also works with Pitchblende and Nation of Ulysses and co-produced GVSB's latest LP, 'Venus Luxure No.1 Baby', alongside Fugazi producing Ted Nicely, arguably America's finest hardcore producer. (Forget those North West types...This is East Coast and them lumberjacks'll never get near it!)

Well! It seems most of the Washington DC scene once rotated around these guys, and a chat with frontman Scott McLoud just prior to their last British date in London (as support to The Jesus Lizard and sold out way in advance) was on the cards, that hoarse, nicotine strained vocal power reduced in size to a cool, mellow, reflective neo-whisper, very laid back and nicotine rough as ever!

Since forming as a studio project in DC, Summer '92, GVSB have released two albums, an EP and a 7". Several European vinyl bootleg albums have already emerged and if you can get hold of these, you are definately and financially onto a winner. Between albums, they toured the States extensively with the likes of Tar, Fugazi, The Mekons and The Jesus Lizard and finally relocated to NYC last year, a move that could possibly see them being lumped together with the New York noise crowd that hails Action Swingers, Cop Shoot Cop, Unsane, Swans, Kramer and friends, etc., although the decision to go with DC producer, Ted Nicely, to record 'Venus Lux' suggests that the move away from DC is not an effort to leave that 'scene'.

"Our DC origins are more relevant because that's where we all come from and we spend a lot of time there. We've been away from DC for some time now and have become more and more detached from the scene and the people there. I havn't heard the latest music or gossip from there or anything. As far as New York noise goes, we don't have much in common with that as even when you live in New York you tend to feel like you're from somewhere else because the people are all different. A lot of the people live there but feel quite detached from it in some way or another."

In 1992, GVSB made a short four date tour of the UK as part of a larger European package, whilst still on Jeff Nelson's Adult Swim label in DC, a much smaller, more compact label than the renowned Chicago/London based Touch & Go label, GVSB's new home.

"Jeff Nelson has always been extremely faithful to Girls Against Boys. He was the one who wanted to put our stuff out when no one else was interested. We owe a lot to him. But he's a one man label, whereas on Touch & Go, there are loads of people working on your behalf, sorting out shows, dealing with the press, setting up interviews. With Jeff Nelson, he just didn't have the time to do all that for us. He couldn't set up tours like now. It was like: 'OK, Jeff. We're gonna hit the road now', before we'd go on tour and he'd be there like, 'Oh...Right...Yeah'. He did the label all on his own and as I said, was very faithful to us, but with Touch & Go...Well, it's good to be part of something bigger."

GVSB toured the States in both '92 and '93 and recently made California for the first time, enthuses McLoud:

"Well, second really, but this was the first time we got to see it. Mostly we tend to tour up and down the East Coast. We get a better reception there. We've had a good reception over here too. It's better this time than before. We tour about six weeks at a time and it's gruelling. There are times we just wanna kill each other, but we're not as bad as a lot of others. Some bands we know have had a real bad time of it. But we're close friends; we know one anothers' habits and stuff. We go back many years together and we've learned how to deal with it. But we definately wanna kill each other sometimes. It's very hard when you're living with someone twenty four hours a day non stop, in the back of a van, washing together, eating together, doing everything together. But we're OK. You can imagine what it's like on tour. Life becomes one constant gig, and there's no cure for the monotony. You have a beer at the bar and smoke cigarettes. You just drink and

smoke. But it's cool, 'cos you get to play with bands you've heard of, which is good. I think live bands are momentous."

You've been out on the road with some impressive names, such as The Jesus Lizard and Fugazi. Surely you have a few tales to tell ?

"There hasn't really been anything. In our earlier days things were much more wild: shows on the backs of trucks, in peoples' backyards, but not so much now. It's always clubs, bars, pubs, whatever: indoors. We played with Bivouac and The Mekons (in Leeds) as part of the tour that was set up for us; I think it was for the Spastics Society. That was fun to do - more hand to mouth. We do a lot of benefits in DC. It's a good feeling."

McLoud states that the whole band are very surprised at the good press they've been getting in England, which include favourable album and live reviews in the national music press, especially concerning their show at the NYC music seminar, but they remain sceptical, waiting for it all to turn around, although as McLoud says: "I hope we won't be around that long!"

At the heart of this rise in publicity lies an incredible second album, 'Venus Luxure No.1 Baby', a tense, anguished album that strikes out with gut wrenching, hoarse vocals and generous amounts of Herculean riffage, moving from a razor sharp and rhythmic 'Rockets Are Red' to the much slower yet equally intense and taught 'Satin Down' and back to the whirling fury of 'Let Me Come Back', showcasing constantly changing rhythms and pace.

"A lot of the slower stuff is written because we sink into these drones in rehearsal which are difficult to get out of because you rehearse so much. At the same time we do make a conscious effort when deciding what tracks to put on the album. You know, the fast-medium-slow thing. We do think about it."

Besides the obvious harDCore background, 'Venus Lux' reveals a variety of possible influences, although I didn't exactly have Tom Waits in mind, who McLoud states as his biggest influence.

"I like his earlier experimental stuff, like 'Swordfishtrombones'. For rhythmic stuff/hardcore, I grew up listening to A LOT! of Big Black! I really dug them! And Killing Joke too. The Fall..."

I slip in that a friend had heard 'Seven Seas' from the album and thought it was a Fall cover version:

"That's funny, because somebody else said the same thing just the other day. I really like The Fall; I always have. I really admire Mark E. Smith's style of singing. I think the music's great too, but we don't go out to intentionally rip that off or anything, it just comes out that way."

A subconscious thing?

"Yeah, I s'pose. That's a good way of putting it. I like Tom Waits' singing too, especially on his earliest stuff. The music press mentioned the Psychedelic Furs which is strange. They used to be a really good band but turned shit. But I used to listen to them a lot as I was growing up. They were a really cool band. It's weird the way people see different things in the music we play, but then that's one of the things with music. It's always open to interpretation. When I started playing guitar I was playing the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, although I left out the big guitar solos. I liked the repetitiveness of the music and that's something I built on, and try to get out in Girls Against Boys."

'Venus Lux' certainly has the Fugazi/Ted Nicely element built into its sound. Is this the result of Nicely's production job leaving its mark in the way that Albini does on all his production jobs?

"It's the DC elements, not Ted Nicely. We used to be in a band called Soulside, which was more of a defined sound than Girls Against Boys, but we do sound similar. We sounded similar from the start. As DC bands, there was a lot of Soulside/Fugazi interplay, but there's not so much interplay

now, as we've incorporated new elements. This is our first album with Ted. Eli also worked together with Ted on 'Venus Lux', and also did our earlier records himself. This is our first LP with a producer and it's strange. He'd come in and say, 'This part's weird, cut it out'. It's a long process though, and excruciating to do. Before we'd go and do it ourselves, with Eli engineering, and it'd sound fine, but an outside view is good to have. We'll be staying with Ted. He'll be doing our next album. We like the way he does things and we work well together. As a band, we're happy."

Is Eli involved with any other bands at the moment? "Oh yeah. Very much so. He works a lot with Ted Nicely; they do stuff together regularly. He produces a lot of Dischord bands. It's a natural gravitation, to behind the board in the music thing, that grows since your initial involvement with a band. You get more and more into it. He does Magnapop and other bands, not just DC bands. Monsterland he did.

What happened to his label, Sammich Records?

"I don't think Sammich is going any longer, although

I'm not too sure on this. He started it in about '86 with Amanda McKaye. They put out a lot of unestablished DC bands. Our first Soulside records were on Sammich, and Shudder To Think... mostly DC hardcore stuff. It was cool to have it in DC then. It was a lot less prominent than now, with the Dischord thing."

I'm sure we could talk Dischord all night...It's one hip label and its back catalogue is WELL WORTH a look at and some extraction from. Mind you, the same can be said of Touch & Go, who now happily boast 'Venus Lux' in theirs. This is definitely harDCore, but the fact that it's accessible to anyone with a good ear for rhythm and strength means that you should get into them and down with them before they're declared high fashion and history repeats itself on the other-side-of-the-US underground scene. Love 'em and keep quiet!