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U.K.’s Country Teasers

by RAF KATIGBAK

The Country Teasers like it nasty. From the butt-ugly high school science class binder-doodle cover art on their latest effort, Science Hat Artistic Cube Moral Nosebleed Empire, to their distorted, dissonant yet unmistakably country sounds and infamously insane live shows (as seen on tour with Wesley Willis), there’s no doubt that the London outfit also like it rough. In fact, with album titles like Some Hole, Loose Tongues Get in Tight Places, and Postman Pak and His Lazy Black & White Cunts, this act is as rough as country gets without ending in smashed bottles and broken teeth (although the killer foot-stompin’ version of 2 Unlimited’s “No Limits” is enough to whip any boozecan into a violent frenzy). Perverted, sarcastic, lonely or just downright evil, call the Country Teasers anything you want, but whatever you do, don’t call them “alt-country.” The Mirror had a chance to catch up with singer, songwriter and head Teaser B.R. Waller at a gig in Austin, Texas, to talk “alt,” Tammy Wynette and women in short skirts.

Mirror: What’s with hating alt-country?
B.R. Waller: I don’t really like most of what’s considered alt-country. It focuses too much on that middle period in country music when it went all folksy and Nashville. I like the old traditional country and also the real decadent stuff like Tammy Wynette.

M: Decadent?
BRW: Sure, when she sings “Stand by Your Man” or any number of her songs, she’s singing from the perspective of a downtrodden woman. She’s saying, “It’s okay to be a downtrodden woman, that’s just the way it is.” I like that, it’s so melancholy.

M: So I hear you’re “putting the hate back in country”?
BRW: Well, I don’t really hate anybody, but when I was growing up I was very hateful. Behind most country music you can hear a skewed approach to the world. There’s sexism that doesn’t think it’s sexist and racism that doesn’t think it’s racist. So I adopted a sort of bigoted way of talking and singing from that whole culture of southern racism, etc. I found I could use that language to get out all the confused emotion in a hideous way. It’s very cathartic.

M: I guess you like raw.
BRW: Yeah, I can’t attempt to make anything beautiful. I try to get out of that and just go the other way, and if something beautiful comes out of that, then that’s great.

M: I hear you’re also a big tennis fan.
BRW: Not the men’s game, that’s a little too fast for me. I’m a big fan of the women’s game.

M: Why’s that?
BRW: The women’s game has more finesse and it combines athleticism with beauty and the erotic. Actually, one of our new songs is about women’s tennis.

M: Drop a lyric on me.
BRW: The passage of time is fucking me off and making me very depressed/Anna Kournikova was 13-years-old when she entered the world of sex... I mean success.

M: Hmmm. I guess I still don’t really catch the whole erotic side of tennis.
BRW: You don’t watch it enough. :

With Two Tears and DJ Ron Wildd at Casa Del Popolo on Monday, Aug. 12, 10pm, $8

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