There are people in this world who are larger than life, yet completely down to earth. Kitty Kowalski is one of those special individuals. She possesses a dizzying array of skills, ranging from B-movie actress to buttoned-down business executive to sex-advice columnist (to name only a few), but it's her talent for making irresistible rock & roll that brought us to her door. Kitty has a daunting persona (one suspects it's not a good thing to be on her bad side!) but the overall impression she leaves is one of warmth and graciousness and passion for the things and people she loves. We've long admired her work and we couldn't be more excited to have her visit The Cover Zone.

TCZ: Tell us about your rock & roll background – when did you first know you wanted to be in a band, and when did it actually happen?

Kitty: I always wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. No joke. I played Beatles with my sisters when I was like 4 years old. I read liner notes and memorized producers and songwriters. I sang and danced. I started playing music when I was 7 or so - piano, violin. Picked up the guitar at 10 and I was in love with David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, The Stones, Aerosmith. Then Heart came on the scene and I thought they were the best. Bought their records and learned how to play every song. I was actually an awesome guitar player between the ages of 10 and 14 because I played for hours a day. My entire family knows that Josie & The Pussycats was my favorite TV show. We used to also watch the Jackson 5 cartoon. I had dolls called the Rock Flowers that came with records. It was just an obsession. When my family fell apart and we were kinda poor and I had to start working, I clung to a stable job and paycheck. I just should have stuck with the music. I realized how far I got away from it much later in life, so I had to start all over again

TCZ: Tell us about your favorite gear – guitars, microphones, etc.

Kitty: I kinda know fuck all about gear, though I think I have about 7 guitars. I have the geeky vintage Silvertone tube amp and a mid 70s Marshall JMP 100 watt head that will rattle your fillings. I have a Mesa Boogie 4 x 12 cabinet I don't need. I use Sennheiser mikes because i hate spitting into another mike with someone else's spit all over it. It also rings like a bell. The main guitars are Gibsons - I have 3 SG's of various ages and set-ups. I have two Mosrites and a couple other weird or useless guitars. The newest one is the Hello Kitty Fender guitar my best friend got me for Christmas last year. That just rules.

TCZ: Kitty, you're the leader of a well-respected punk rock band, a freelance writer for a wide variety of different publications, a veteran indie movie actress, a freelance photographer, a show promoter (and former club owner), an accomplished businesswoman outside of rock & roll, and you recently got married! How do you manage to keep all those plates spinning?

Kitty: Ha ha. Funny you should use that metaphor, as I have likened myself to one of those plate spinners many times. And those plates do fall and break every once in a while. Jack of all trades? That's true, too. It's about focus, and even though all that stuff is hanging in the ether, I can really only do one thing at a time and do it well. I was writing a lot in Sweden. I came back to the States and focused on the marriage thing and getting my husband through the immigration process. I started to play shows with the band again, and even switched to bass to make us leaner and meaner. I need another focus though. I have a few projects I need to finish for sure. I'm working on that Brutarian comp. I have three chapters of a book. I'm plotting my next musical move - I have a concept for something new and then have been talking to a friend about an all-girl country band. I need to do something just for fun again. I need a hobby.

TCZ: Roughly seven years passed between the release of your critically acclaimed first full-length record, All Hopped Up On Goofballs (Blackout Records, 1999), and Chinese Democracy (Amp Records, 2006). Guide us through what was happening in those intervening years - did you ever lose faith that there would actually be a second album?

Kitty: No, I knew I would do it but again it was a case of life getting in the way. I never lost faith but you do run out of gas or get tired and then you re-energize and go in for another round of torment. It's like running a marathon. You do it and give it everything you have so that you can't do anything afterward, but then you recuperate and miss it and go back and punish yourself all over again.

Someone said you have your whole life to write your first album and then two years to do the second. With Goofballs coming out late 1999, it wasn't until 2000 that it was in the pipeline and we were touring. It was like we found out after the fact that it was released. We toured all 2000 and then at the end, the band fell apart because the touring was demanding and I was the last person standing. It's funny, it took me a while to realize that the band is me and I'm the only person who is going to be committed to it, especially when I can't pay anybody. I tried for the next year or two to put a "band" back together. I realized one day that a band is a kit of found parts. My guitar player Mike and I have stuck together since 2001 or so, but basically, I look at it like Chuck Berry. Whoever wants to be a Kowalski this week can play with me, but I won't get too bent out of shape about who is playing what and when. The drummer on Goofballs, Greg, has been in and out over the years, and we still play shows together. He brought in Mike Mac on bass, but they play in two other bands together. I married a drummer so he's legally bound to play with me. Ha ha. I joke that we will get down to two members and play White Stripes-style. That works, because I am the Meg White of guitarists.

So anyway, I was distracted and put all my energy into finding bandmates and all this, when I finally realized I am the only person that will be writing the songs, so I should focus on that and then find some people to teach the songs and play them. Otherwise, I was just teaching new people the same material. It was like Kowalski Karaoke.

TCZ: Despite the extended interval between the two records, they're connected by the consistently exceptional quality of the original songwriting. Did you always feel that you had a solid vision of what you wanted the new record to sound like?

Kitty: I definitely wanted to be less tied to "The Kowalski" formula. I wanted almost every song to be different from the other one. I listen to all kinds of stuff and I wanted that to come through. The later songs in that writing period are more diverse. "Birthday" and "Depression Overdrive" are closer to Goofballs, and "Oh Dee Dee" and "Matter of Time" were the later songs, as was Mr. Wrong, which I just wanted to be a hard rocker. I think I also had to be more comfortable with the fact that we are not a punk band, but a rock band. In the Goofballs days, we would be on punk rock shows and I always felt out of place, and most kids didn't know what to make of us. They wanted the formula. But overall both me and our fans are older so I just had to get comfortable with making music and not worrying about what bands we would fit with.

TCZ: Of course we have to ask – how did you arrive at this particular title for your new release?

Kitty: We had a few titles. One was "Full Metal Jackass". Awesome parody title, but then we started to overthink it and I was worried that people would think the music was metal. Then I thought of "Please Hear Rock 'n Roll Hot" which was a caption from a Japanese music magazine. It had that "Engrish" vibe I just love. Then in going through the writing, recording, getting a band, having two different bands play on the record, recording it over two years and all this crap, I was just like, "This record is like fucking Chinese Democracy!", the Guns 'n Roses album that's been in the works for 11 years or so. So, we didn't title the album as a dis to G 'n R, I actually love those guys, but more like this grueling process of being in a band, trying to keep it together, and getting a record done.

TCZ: Musically most of your songs are full-tilt rockers, but you often address serious subject matter in your lyrics. Pulling off that combination seems to be difficult for many songwriters – does it come naturally to you, or do you have to work at fitting your lyrics into the sound you want the band to have?

Kitty: I have always had the kind of sensibility to take something awful and make it funny. It's called survival. Ha ha. It's probably a defense mechanism, but as they say, comedy is tragedy plus time. I never wanted to be blatantly anything - political, social, "important", whatever. Who wants to be preached to. The music is the most important thing ever. If you don't have a good hook, who cares if you are singing the cure for cancer. For me, it's all about the melody, but I have hundreds of pieces of paper with thoughts, ideas, poem-like structures that become songs. Road To Barstow is from a journal I kept on a road trip I went on the night of my father's funeral. I would never say anything like, "this is a song about..." If someone gets something out of it, great. I just want people to rock out. I can tell them where it came from but I don't want people to think of my dead father, I want them to make it their own.

TCZ: You clearly have a strong affinity with The Ramones – two songs on Chinese Democracy are dedicated to them, one to Dee Dee and the other to Joey. Can you talk a little bit about the influence they've had on you and your music?

Kitty: I think all you have to do is get the It's Alive DVD and watch the gig from The Rainbow in 1977. "Ramones-style punk" is almost a genre unto it's own. Where would the Queers be without The Ramones? Me either, but it's harder to remember back to the late 70s when everything was Chicago and Foghat or whatever, and then to see this band live and feel like you were standing on the runway of JFK with the Concorde landing on your head. They just stripped all the bullshit away, all the over-indulgent musicianship, the wanky solos, mystical talk of wizards and far away lands, overwrought lyrics, the intellectualization of rock and roll. They had energy, melody and a show, and some of the most brilliant simple-minded lyrics ever. Do you know how hard it is to have something smart and make it sound like a caveman said it so everyone can relate? There was nothing obtuse in there.

TCZ: Chinese Democracy contains one heartbreakingly beautiful ballad, Matter Of Time. Can you explain how you came to write that song?

Kitty: Everyone knows an accident waiting to happen. It's like someone comes into your life and you know not to get attached to them because they will never see a ripe old age. That was about someone in particular but it applies to a lot of people I have met or intersected with over my life. Cranford Nix was a funny, smart, beautiful, talented songwriter and he just was in love with dope and the lifestyle. He couldn't give it up because he had so intertwined the dope with his identity. He got out of rehab one time and I was yelling at him about how he wasn't serious about quitting, he was just taking a break because if he gave up the drugs, he thought he wouldn't be Cranford anymore. He laughed in my face, which made me more mad. I was yelling, "It's not funny! I'm fucking serious!", he said he was laughing because he knew I was right. He knew. I knew. I said my piece. So, again, the song comes from something specific but it would be about anyone who is on that path.

TCZ: There have been a few different Kowalskis over the years – can you give us a thumbnail description of each of your current band mates, and the strengths each brings to the group?

Kitty: The first real line-up I remember is me, Addie Kaiser, Paul Richard and Moon Doggie Hughes. Oddly enough, Paul was there all the way through Goofballs' release and Greg played with me and Addie forever. He's the longest standing Kowalski in terms of hours put in. As for the Current Kowalskis, Mike is just awesome. I met him when he was playing in the Vacant Lot and I plotted stealing him for a long time. Then once we did the Manges recording sessions in 2001 and called him to do some tracks that I found out his band was kind of done, so he was stealable. It wasn't until about 2003 or so that Greg came back and brought his bass player Mike from Sux with him. Oddly enough, Sux is Greg, Mike Mac, and Paul and Jack from the Goofballs lineup. Mike Mac is super solid and him and Greg has been playing together forever so they are really locked in as a rhythm section. I love my band. As everyone gets older and has financial responsibilities, kids and gets sick of late nights and getting $100 to split, they start to fall out. Mike Mac and Greg can't really tour, so we default to Mike on guitar, me on bass and Peter, AKA Mr. Kitty Kowalski on drums.

TCZ: You recently returned to the U.S. after an extended stay working in Sweden. What was the craziest experience you had living amongst the Swedes?

Kitty: Where do I begin. I think the most surreal thing was the ferry to Finland. People do this just to get drunk. You get out into the water and duty free opens and people go nuts. They drink and pass out on the decks. You leave at 5 pm and get to Helsinki at 10 am. Some people just drink all day and then get back on the Ferry at 5 and do it all over again. Booze is so expensive in Sweden this is how some of these folks get their kicks. There are also these bands and shows, just like a real cruise ship, and people ballroom dance. They waltz. It's really trippy if you are not Scandinavian and not drunk.

It's not just this one crazy thing, though taking off their clothes and jumping in the river in the middle of the summer is pretty funny. It is a completely different lifestyle and mentality altogether. Stockholm is the greenest city on the planet, no joke, and if you remember Sweden is the land of Ikea, you get used to the fact that everything is DiY. There is no food delivery. You bag your own groceries and pay for the bags. You recycle everything. Homes come without lighting fixtures. No one will wear shoes in someone's home. I think you've never experienced Sweden until you go there for Midsommar, when the sun never sets, so everyone drinks themselves stupid for 24 hours. And if you smack your kid in the subway, the cops will have you in cuffs in seconds. A medical procedure I had over there took three hours and cost me $500, whereas over here they would have dragged it out to a three week process and it would have cost $5000. I came back and I could not get used to the waste and disregard for the environment and the shitty social services we have.

TCZ: We listed some of your many hats earlier in the interview - what has been your favorite non-musical gig?

Kitty: Photography is my favorite. I've been doing that since age 8 or so as well. I like being behind the camera. I'm not a "performer". I don't need attention like that. I make music because it is a compulsion. I love playing but I don't really think about the "performance" part of it, aside from dressing up. I'd rather take pictures. And not of people, of things. Especially defunct things. There is a story there, and they will probably be lost soon so I like to capture them.

TCZ: What's the one thing you haven't yet accomplished in your musical life that you'd most like to achieve in the future?

Kitty: Maybe the country band. Learn pedal steel guitar. I have another musical concept that I full expect to draw death threats. That would be an achievement, Music is too safe. Everyone is afraid to express dangerous ideas nowadays. "Bush sucks!" Who cares. Anyone who doesn't know that already has been brainwashed. When the Crucifucks talked about Jesus being "just another faggot at just another mass" or whatever, that's what I'm talking about.

TCZ: What's up next for Kitty & The Kowalskis? We've heard rumors of a possible U.S. tour.

Kitty: Not with the price of fuel. Who knows, maybe if I lose my job. Mike can't do it. I need to find someone without a family or without a job. I need a 16 year old kid.

TCZ: Anything else you'd like to say to your fans? Can you promise us we won't have to wait seven years for the next album?!

Kitty: I can't promise that it won't be another 7 years for a Kowalskis album, but it will probably be sooner for one of the other projects. I still got a few in me.

Interview by Mike Ramsey © The Cover Zone November 2007