Liberation: Have The Toilet Boys broken up or are you all just involved in a lot of side projects?

Miss Guy: It’s never really been said. We were at a crossroads and I was really frustrated because we were not getting to the next level. We did this tour, it was an opening slot, and it was great. We were like, let’s do it and it will either lead to the next stepping stone or it will be a nice way to kind of end it on a high note.

My manager at the time was trying his hardest to make things happen after that tour and we got one shitty offer and we came home and we had just had it. It had been six years straight without any kind of a break.

We had a US tour but we ended up canceling that because we thought, let’s leave it on a good note. Then we were going to go to Japan that summer so I called Sean. Whenever there is a chance to go to Japan, for me it’s always ‘yes’. He was like, ’duuude, there’s no band and I don’t want to do this anymore’ and I was like alright, I’m going to get someone else to do it. That freaked him out. I was like ‘I’m not going to let you stop me’ so I started talking to other guitarists and then he and I had a big falling out. I think it just had to happen because we were so close for so long.

I saw a psychic before we stopped speaking and she told me that we were going to be taking a much needed break. We didn’t speak for six or seven months.

I started talking to some other musicians and it just wasn’t feeling right and I thought, well, I can’t do The Toilet Boys without Sean because he is too important to the band. It’s all fine now, I love Sean. So I don’t know if the band is broken up. I just don’t have any interest in doing it anymore unless I was opening for Kiss or Cher.

Liberation: I heard that you working on a solo project with Boy George and are going to have Amanda LePore doing backing vocals?

Miss Guy: I actually found something I’d like Amanda to do in a song but it would probably be just a couple of lines. She has a song called ‘Champagne’ and it’s really great.

Liberation: I saw her during the black out last summer. I was on a friends stoop chit chatting and all of a sudden I just saw this blond hair and these wax lips walking down the street. She was wearing this turquoise colored outfit that looked like something Cher in would have worn in ‘Mermaids’. I love her.

Miss Guy: That’s our Amanda! I Love this city. It’s really the only city that has it all.

Liberation: Do you think the East Village has changed since the days when Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch held court?

Miss Guy: Oh yeah, it’s awful now. It’s really become a ‘Sex and The City’ episode. I loved that show in the beginning and I was happy for Pat Field but before that show those people didn’t come downtown, they didn’t want to come. Once Carrie and her friends started coming downtown, that’s when the girls like them started showing up.

Liberation: The Toilet Boys are one of my favorite bands. There are very few bands I will go out and see now.

Miss Guy: Why?

Liberation: Because I am tired of seeing bands that dress like gas station attendants, looking bored onstage! I love The Strokes but they look bored and when you’re shelling out $35 a ticket…

Miss Guy: They suck live.

Liberation: Well, they just stand there! The Toilet Boys put on a SHOW! Every time I have seen you and the band live something catches fire. I saw a show at The Continental one summer and early on in the show, your pyrotechnics go off and all the sound-proof foam on the stage and walls caught fire. When you guys played with Nashville Pussy, that venue caught fire as well. You have a reputation for being a great live band.

Miss Guy: Most reviews usually say we’re better live which is cool, it makes me happy. But it’s hard to get that experience across on a record. Sometimes we’re sloppy live.

Liberation: But isn’t that the advantage of being a rock band as opposed to a pop band? I would think the audience expects rock band to be a bit rough around the edges live.

Miss Guy: There’s a fine line between showmanship and musicianship, one shouldn’t suffer because of the other. There’s a fine line between doing too much of a show that you totally suck in the music part. I just think it’s an instinct.

Liberation: But that’s the great thing about rock is that you can get away with the flawed moments. I’m a huge fan of Courtney Love.

Miss Guy: Me too.

Liberation: I saw her at the Plaid show and, technically, she sounds worse live than she does on record but I love that. It’s real emotion, it’s who she is. She’s got that barking, scratchy voice and it’s very endearing.

Miss Guy: She’s not a good singer at all but her voice is very pleasing to me. Christina Aguilera is a great singer but her voice makes me want to fucking kill.

Liberation: That’s why I’m the first in line to buy Courtney’s records because she IS rock n’ roll.

Miss Guy: She’s the last of a dying breed. I loved her last record, I think it’s so great.

Liberation: Were you at the infamous Plaid show? I saw Sean and Theo there.

Miss Guy: Yeah, I DJ’d there.

Liberation: I felt bad for her that night. I was in the front and she didn’t do anything on purpose, she didn’t throw that mic stand at anybody.

Miss Guy: No, it was an accident. I saw that from up in the DJ booth and she was swinging that mic stand around. She was doing that with her guitar too. It wasn’t like she chose someone and started attacking them. She was flailing stuff about and it accidentally happened. She got tons of press for it though.

Liberation: People are so eager to go after her and it’s unfortunate because she really invites them to do so. She’s just not a sympathetic character.

Miss Guy: If you are going to see Courtney Love and you stand up front don’t be surprised if you get nicked in the forehead. Guitars fly, mic stands fly, she drops, she’s dropping her guitar…

Liberation: It’s par for the course. If it were me, I would have just said, listen sister, let’s have lunch and call it a day. I wouldn’t sue her. I’ve been to your shows and I have had Sean soak me in Kerosene when he was doing his fire breathing routine and did I run home and file a lawsuit? No.

Miss Guy: That’s good because you wouldn’t have gotten anything. (laughs)

Liberation: I still have my kerosene soaked Gun’s N’ Roses T-Shirt tucked away in the back of my closet like Monica Lewinsky’s DNA stained GAP dress.

Miss Guy: (laughs)

Liberation: Is there anyone new on the scene, any band say like in the past six months to a year that you’d say ‘you really have to listen to these people’.

Miss Guy: The new Franz Ferdinand album. The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, I really like them because they’re doing something a little different. I like The White Stripes too but they’re really not that new.

Liberation: Do you think The White Stripes have a future? Do you think they can keep going?

Miss Guy: I think they’re the only ones who have a future out of this new wave of rock.

Liberation: I think out of all of them The White Stripes are going to be the ones that come out on top.

Miss Guy: They’re true artists. To me The Strokes are just like a boy band put together the same way 'N Sync is. I really like The White Stripes, seeing them live I get a thrill and a feeling that it’s something great. The Stokes, I mean, I just can’t think of another band that are more boring live, when I saw them I was like ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’

Liberation: When the labels hear you and see you, what is their response?

Miss Guy: I’m just starting to get my new music out now and I’m doing it differently than I did it with The Toilet Boys. With The Toilet Boys they either liked us or hated us. A lot of the people were into the music but not necessarily into my image, or vice versa. Labels are full of shit, they really don’t know what they want.

Liberation: Do bands really need labels anymore other than just to have someone shell out the cash?

Miss Guy: It’s important. It costs a lot of money to make a record, it costs the label a lot to promote the record, it costs a lot to tour. It’s definitely different than it was but you do need a label to get you out there unless don’t care about doing it on a big level. If you wanted to do it on a smaller level, you can always go with an Independent. You need that financial backing and all you can do is hope you made the right decision with the label because they’re all pretty scummy, even the Independents aren’t as cool as they were 10 or 15 years ago.

In the music business, the artists are the only ones who aren’t protected. The music industry is like the way Hollywood used to be in the golden era where a studio owns it. People like Marilyn Monroe and Olivia Dehavilland helped to break down that studio system and allowed people like Sharon Stone and Tom Cruise to make millions of dollars. I think that’s what needs to happen in the music industry. I think you should be free to make a record with a label the same way an actor makes a movie with a studio. It’s slavery and everybody gets reimbursed for everything except the artist. It’s really tough and that’s why the record industry is failing because they’re not being cool and they’re not being flexible and changing, and growing.

Liberation: They’re hurting right now aren’t they?

Miss Guy: Oh yeah. And the only way bands can make money these days is to tour.

Liberation: That’s why bands like Garbage and U2 tour for two, two and a half years at a time. I’m a huge Garbage fan. Shirley is always writing on her website about how grueling the non stop touring can be. That’s why Sharon Osbourne signed that deal with MTV because Ozzy would have to tour until he was dust in a grave to keep enough of a lifestyle going. The only way he was making money was to constantly be touring. The man is 250 years old, he’s basically a walking vat of red wine and vicodin and he’s still getting up there.

Miss Guy: She’s so smart, though I wish she would just stop it though because it’s become such a joke. It’s hard to take him seriously on stage. The Black Sabbath stuff is dark and evil and scary to some people so for him to be the Archie Bunker of this generation is embarrassing. I always thought Ozzy was so cool and I’m sure he’s a great guy. Having seen that show a couple of times I thought it’s not funny, it’s sad and embarrassing. You’re laughing at the fact that he’s a fucking old, shaking fool.

Liberation: What would you tell some 19 year old that is coming to New York to be a rock star?

Miss Guy: Just go for it, do what you love. I was warned from Jesse from D-Generation about corporate record labels and I still got signed to a shitty label and had a really bad experience. If I could warn someone I’d say watch out for those guys at record labels because they’re sharks!

Liberation: Is there anything that you wish someone had said to you, some little pearl of wisdom that you wish you had known then?

Miss Guy: I moved here when I was 18 and came from a home where I had people telling me what to do and how to live and how to be. So I don’t have any regrets and I don’t think there’s anything that anyone could have told me that…

Liberation: Oh, I’m not suggesting you should have any regrets, I’m just saying is there anything you wish that someone could have shed some light on that took you awhile to see?

Miss Guy: This isn’t anything that someone could have said to me because like I said I was 18 and I would have been like, ‘fuck you’ because I wanted to fuck off for a while and I did fuck off for a while. The only thing in retrospect that I would have done differently is that I wish I would have gotten serious quicker with music. I was meeting people, I was going to the Cat Club, which nobody went to the Cat Club except for the metal dudes. I just wasn’t meeting anybody that was into what I was into so it took until 95, 96, when I met Sean and those guys to click with people musically and to be on the same page. It all happened the way it was supposed to but I wish I started a little bit sooner.

Liberation: It’s so easy to get lost in the whole scene.

Miss Guy: I wanted to fuck off and go out and drink and go out every night.

Liberation: In retrospect, do you think that’s part of the whole journey that you’re on?

Miss Guy: Yeah, I think so. I know I have always wanted a band ever since I was a child but I didn’t know how I was going to do it and I was insecure. I was really happy for a number of years just to dress up and go out and be treated like a star. I never had to pay for anything and that was a big thrill to me coming from a small town in San Diego where you had to drive forever to somewhere fun and then pay. It was great, I was 18 and drinking for free every night of the week and going where I wanted to go and great parties, hanging out with celebrities. That was fun but that wore off.

Liberation: So when you got here, you were really thinking, ‘I’m going to form a band one day’?

Miss Guy: Yeah! I was thinking of that part.

Liberation: I think that’s the big misconception when you’re 20 is that you have all of the time in the world, and then 30 hits!

Miss Guy: I’ll let you know when I reach 30!

Liberation: I’ll let you know when I reach 25!

On The Web | www.toiletboys.com

Photos: Evan Sung