PEARL SPURNS SPANDEX

PEARL SPURNS SPANDEX

PEARL E. GATES

by

Dave DiMartino

Pearl Harbor and the Explosions are fronted by lead vocalist Pearl E. Gates, a San Franciscan whose prior experience includes a stint in Leila and the Snakes, a West Coast off-shoot of the Tubes. Pearl grew up in Germany, has a Filipino mother and likes country music; naturally, she’s chosen a career in rock ’n’ roll. After their heavy local success with an independently released version of “Drivin’,” Warner Brothers picked up the band, had them re-cut the track, and currently are promoting the group’s debut LP heavily. Airplay has been strong, as have reports of the band’s live performances. At presstime the band is finishing up an American tour and readying for their first European visit. Along with Pearl, band members include guitarist Peter Bilt and the Stench brothers—bassist Hilary Stench and drummer John Stench. In Nashville, Pearl had just woken up when we spoke with her.

CREEM: With the rising popularity of female musicians and performers, do you think the role of women in rock ’n’ roll has changed, or do you think that people’s tastes have simply changed?

PEARL: I think that women are more widely accepted throughout the world as being equally as exciting, if not more exciting, than men, but I tend to think that has something to do with sexy kinds of things. Like people got attracted to, let’s say, Deborah Harry, because of what a beautiful woman she is. I think people are ready to see more. I’m not saying I agree with that, or I like that, or anything like that—I’m saying that a lot of women saw what happened to, for example, Deborah Harry, and think that it could happen to them. But that’s not at all where I’m at. CREEM: Where would you say you’re at? PEARL: I’m coming from a point where I would like to show that a woman can have as much energy as a man. I’m more for putting out what a man puts out. I like to sweat, I even like to wear men’s suits—which is what I’ve been wearing lately. I’m not at all into that spandex crap or that sexual pouting around that I see a lot of women getting into now. I’m actually pretty much against that.

CREEM: Before Pearl Harbor was formed, weren’t you a part of Leila & the Snakes? And wasn’t that the kind of thing you just described?

PEARL: That was comedy, though. And there’s a real big difference in being sexy and being a comedian. Our whole show was completely comedy; the costumes were sexy but they were also funny. And 1 also got tired of that. A lot of people came to see Leila & the Snakes just to see me in a plastic bikini, and that got real tiresome. And that’s not why I dress the way I do now, I wear men’s suits because I feel it makes everyone in the audience more comfortable. They know for sure that I’m not out there to prance around in a real sexual manner. I’m out there to give them some energy and some fun and that kind of stuff. There’s a real big difference.

CREEM: From what I’ve seen you’re' extremely attractive. Let’s say you weren’t —let’s say you had a great voice but just happened to weigh 500 pounds. Do you think you’d be equally successful?

PEARL: I doubt it, unless I had an incredible, incredible voice. Look at Etta James. She does weigh 500 pounds and she does have an incredible voice and she’s not doing nearly as well as she should be. CREEM: I’ve read that you once thought about going into country music professionally. Do you still think about it?

PEARL: Yeah, I still think about it all the time, especially being here in Nashville, it’s fantastic.

CREEM: Don’t you think the role of women in country music has pretty much been set up by the “Stand By Your Man” mentality? PEARL: Yeah, definitely it has. But if I entered that field I’d definitely want to change that around. That*s a pretty funny thing—because the men who are into country music, the country music fans, I don’t think they’d accept a person like me as well as the young people. You know, like the new wavers and all that crap. They’re pretty much open to accept whatever anyone has to offer, whereas in country music, if I went out there dressed in an Elvis Preley suit—it was like in Texas, I did, I had on my gold Elvis Presley-type suit, jumping around and doing some rockabilly numbers, and this girl came up to me after the show and said, “Well there’s some interesting conversations about you going around in the audience.” I said, “Oh yeah? Tell me about it.” She said, “Well, these guys in the back of me were having an argument about whether you were a transexual or not.” I said, “Holy shit,really? Why would they think that?” And she said, “Well these guys around here, they’ve never seen a girl look like you before, they’ve never seen punk rock.” So I said, “Wellthis wasn’t punk rock, m’dear.” But I guess I can see where they would’nt know what to think of somebody like me.

CREEM: Have you pretty much been jotted in that category across the board? PEARL: Punk rock? No, not at all—only as far as people who know absolutely zero about punk rock, or new wave. Then there was this guy in Texas, who after our show grabbed my arm and said “Jesus Christ, man, when are you guys gonna play some new wave?” I mean everybody’s idea of punk or new wave are pretty much categorized by the Ramones or that type of thing.

CREEM: I’d read a few reviews of your band that compared your band to a type of “highly energized” Jefferson Starship... PEARL: YUCCH!

CREEM: Yeah. How do you relate to that? PEARL: Not at all. No. Absolutely zero to do with the Jefferson Starship, except we both live in San Francisco. No, we’re a three-piece band, with me and everybody else having different tastes in music. Like John, our drummer, is really heavy into jazz. Hilary the bass player is real heavy into American rock; Peter, I’d say, is into British rock, and I’m into old R&B, rockabilly and country music. Each one of us has to be satisfied with the songs we write, so there’s a little bit of something that each one of us likes in the song. So in that way, I think music that we’ve come up with is really different from anyone else. I really can’t compare the sound of our album or our stage show with anybody.

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CREEM: Have there been any women in the past ^hat you’ve admired that played rock ’n’ roll?

PEARL: Tina Tuner is my absolute idol. In fact some people have said that I could be her long-lost sister. Tina Weymouth said that she thought I was Dolly Parton’s long-lost wild cousin. I like stuff like that, all right.

CREEM: How do you interact with the band? Are you the nominal leader, or are all things fairly equal?

• PEARL: Oh, it’s real democratic, the way we write—the only way I know how to write is to write lyrics, I don’t know how to write music, so if I come up with a song, I’ve got the lyrics ready and I go to rehearsal and say “Well I think this is a reggae-type song,” then I sing the lyrics I’ve written and then the band comes up with something. Or else I come to rehearsal and they’ve come up with some music that they think could be a song and ask what I think it could be. That’s how “Drivin’ ” got done. It was a real motion-type thing, and then I came up with the idea of driving and then I wrote the words. So they come up with the music—and they come up with a lot of the lyrics, too, John the drummer specifically. CREEM: Do you think your record is a fair representation of what you do?

PEARL:-Yeah, it is. It’s a pretty slick sound on the record, and I wouldn’t say that we’re a slick band live, but we try to come up with a pretty clean sound live. We do pretty much sound like that.

CREEM: Would you say that you pretty much fit in with the historical concept of the' female rock ’n’ roll person? What do you think of the Suzi Quatro, tough-bitch type image? Do you think you fit into that sort of category?

PEARL: No, I’m not at all like that; I don’t relate to any of those women at all—I’m pretty much your “regular gal” up there. I mean, I like clothes a lot, right? I amuse myself and our audience by the way I dress, and it has nothing to do with me trying to be tough like that, or sexy, or anything. See, what happens, which is really great, is that we get in front of an audience where no one has ever seen us or heard us, and as soon as I jump out, everybody starts smiling. That doesn’t mean that I’m tough, or sexy or ^anything. That means what I’m wearing is pretty damn funny, and they can’t believe it. And so they’re already amused, and we’ve already won ’em over a little bit, ’cause we made ’em smile. Then they loosen up a little bit from that, and then they’re ready for a good time, and I can’t say that some of the other women are like that. They come out with their tough bitch image, and I’m not at all a tough bitch. I’m a pretty nice gal (giggles).