The Sirens : Detroit Trash'n'Roll Glamazons!

By Jens

The 70s before the punkrock explosion was to many a tacky wasteland of platform shoes, bizarre make-up, bellbottoms, and mullet hairdos. Sweet, Slade, T.Rex, Alice Cooper and Gary Glitter ruled the airwaves with a message that we should all party like crazies. If today's music seems mostly depressive and bleak with people taking themselves very seriously, well, then there's a grand antidote from Motor City called The Sirens. This outrageous looking girl combo is here to tell you that glamrock is well and alive, and they spiced it up a notch with punk attitude, higher volume, vintage R&B melodies and a quest for dressing up and celebrate like there's no tomorrow. Are you ready to have F-U-N? Okay, I bring you the sexiest band on the face of the earth - THE SIRENS!

LC: Gimme a run down of the current line-up, you were a 4-piece on the album but now you're five members?

Muffy: Myself (Muffy), lead singer and Glamazon Princess from outer space, Miss Shelley (the BAAAD Mutha) on bass, Double D (Deanne the Destroyer) on drums, Melody Licious on lead guitar and Baby Ruth (the rock and roll whippersnapper) on guitar as well. We also have Kelly Argyle on sax who does a few songs a set. More is more baby!

LC: The history of The Sirens? Previous bands you've played in before The Sirens?

Muffy: We started playing out in 2000, we only did one or 2 shows a year but somehow it has become pretty full blown. As far as other bands, Double D and Melody are out of control, each one of them has like, 3 bands outside of us, including The Comeons, Sunshine Doray, and Los Coronados to name a few and both of them did time in the Gore Gore Girls. Baby Ruth played with Outrageous Cherry before she joined us. Kelly is in The Afflictions from Chicago. And Miss Shelley and I were in the oh so very short lived Black Powder with the twins from the Buzzards and Mary from the Detroit Cobras. The Sirens are kind of the entrails of that band.

LC: Your selftitled debut album is my fave party record this year so far, it mostly consists of covers, why? Can we expect more original songs in the future?

Muffy: No way in hell man! It is all covers actually. There will be no songs written by us! We are not into that thing and actually intend to defy the stigma in the rock world regarding the subject in a completely unapologetic fashion! We are not even dignified enough to keep it obscure! People like Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald didn't write songs, they just had a sense for the right material and that's how we operate.

LC: The album starts with a Gary Glitter song, "I Didn't Know I Loved You (Till I Saw You Rock and Roll". Some'd say that's in poor taste with his recent pedophile charges, haha.

Muffy: Oh I don't know, Gary Glitter may be a borderline drag queen trussed up like a Christmas Turkey, but then so am I! I can't get over how ahead of his time his music was! Even if he is the Rock and Roll Rip Taylor to the naked eye.

LC: English 70s glam rock seems be a major inspiration, as well as 60s r&b?

Muffy: Yeah it is absolutely perfectly suited to us - It was a total coincidence that we ended up down that road too! Long before the band, I was obsessed with being the tallest girl in the world, walking around in giant platforms where I went even as far as Korea and Taiwan. I had to duck to get in door ways! and flashy dress is a family tradition as you may have seen in my brother, Danny from the Demoltion Doll Rods and of Gories fame. Although his clothing is significantly, how you say, more, ahem, minimal! We grew up shopping instead of going to the park. When we go to each others houses we always go straight for the closet to show each our new clothes. Our younger brother is just as bad. So you take that and add that I was already a big fan of Ziggy Stardust era Bowie and Slade and the New York Dolls but I had no idea that they were all linked in a genre. Glam never had the same nation wide impact here as it did in your parts. On top of that, we have always been just plain loud as hell and when Melody came along she already had that hard edge. I just love an awesome pop song and the rare ones that totally rock, like the glam stuff, cause me pain - the good kind! It was serendipity! But essentially we do whatever songs we like, like we love Ike and Tina Turner call and response stuff and a lot of sixties garage and we are not above throwing in a Poison song or a little Nazareth if we are so inclined.

LC: I recently saw Suzi Quatro live and she's still kickin' ass, and you do "Glycerine Queen", is she a role model of some sort?

Muffy: Suzi Quatro rules, how could she not be?! We wish she would come back to Detroit, she's from here, and do a show with us and the Paybacks! I'm just glad that girls with bands are common enough these days that you don't have to separate yourself from 'Chick Rock' to be respectable like she did, unless she just genuinely didn't like being in a girl band, which is cool, but we are here to show you what it means to rock like a girl. I think you might agree that we do not sound like sissies, but we are totally not trying to compete with guys, why would you want to anyway? We have way better fashion opportunities and can be way badder, if we wish to, without having to physically lift a boot to kick an ass.

LC: You had two producers on the album, Flaming Lips' Michael Ivins and Ghetto Recorder Jim Diamond?

Muffy: Yeah! Michael worked a nice Dr. Frankenstein on our already rough sound didn't he? We did the whole thing in less than a day. During the last record we recorded with him, an EP "Hellraiser and other Sweet Songs" out this month on Wiped Out Records in France, Baby Ruth hit him with so much feed back that her amp burst into flames! The Jim Diamond tracks were recorded for our 1st EP on Wiped Out that sold out a year or so ago but we liked them so much that we put them on the full length.

LC: After the slacker/grunge and the riot grrrls period came all these bleak crybabies like Coldplay and Radiohead, is The Sirens the group that'll put the fun back in rock'n'roll?

Muffy: Dude! Fer shiz! I'll tell you man, I personally was so sick of having to sit through boring angst ridden bands, especially during that era. I want to have fun and stomp my feet and sing along and drink a lot of beer when I go out, so that is what we try to deliver, and so far, we are finding that that is what a lot of people are looking for too. It is definitely another aspect of Glam that suits us perfectly!

LC: How important is image like platform shoes and clothes for The Sirens, your motto is 'More Is More'?

Muffy: Unlike songwriting, we are way into putting together our costumes which we produce ourselves. We have like 20 sets at this point. We do a new set almost every show, and we do all of the artwork for our records and merch ourselves as well. The whole visual aspect of a stage show is another thing we felt was sorely missing and it is a huge thing that we love to do. Understatement is not in our vocabulary! We subscribe to the thought that it is better to have bad taste than no taste at all!

LC: The Detroit scene seems to be buzzin' with fresh talent at the moment, I interviewed Scott Morgan earlier this year and he said that Detroit bands seem to be more inspired by different kinds of music from different decades compared to LA and NYC bands.

Muffy: Yeah! The variety of what goes on here is incredible! And all of the different bands go to see each other play, there isn't a lot of seperitism within the microcosm. There is a lot of multi decade inspiration flowing, I didn't know it wasn't like that everywhere else.

LC: If you could choose, what major star (dead or alive) would you like to open for, and why?

Muffy: For me it would be Slade or The Hollywood Brats for the awesome trashy party spirit.

LC: If The Sirens ruled the world what changes would be made?

Muffy: Shoes and booze would be free for all and hangovers would be legitimate medical reasons to stay home from work!

LC: What hobbies do you have besides playing rock'n'roll?

Muffy: Shopping, boozing and laying out in the sun at the pool!

LC: I checked the internet, apparently there's another band called The Sirens which seems to consist of elderly housewives, any mistaken identity problems? Haha

Muffy: Not yet!

LC: Future plans for The Sirens, musically and otherwise?

Muffy: We are hoping to cross the pond and play in Europe this Spring. And like I said, we have the new EP coming soon on Wiped Out! Thanks for interviewing us!

http://www.thesirensdetroit.com