PISS ANT

Don't get mad, get pissed

At first, I was a little skeptical.  With a name like Piss Ant and a CD called "Piss Off" (released on GenXtasy Records and showing a girl in bondage gear taped up over a urinal), I knew I wasn't dealing with -- as my cubicle-mate so deftly put it -- a "classy" band.  No matter.  One quick spin in the stereo, and I was a convert.  "Piss Off" is the record you wish you could have gotten your hands on in junior high school.  Sure, it's borderline sophomoric humor wrapped in over-the-top sexual packaging.  But the sound is so raw and so earnest that it gives back to punk rock what was thieved (and consequently misshapen) by the current slew of post-punk outfits.

This week, you have no excuse not to see Piss Ant.  The self described "punk 'n' roll" band from L.A. plays at four Vegas venues in three days.  Comprised of lead singer Josi Kat, guitarist Dave Foster, bassist Amy Brandt and Jeff Duarte on drums, Piss Ant has been performing together for seven years.  And in that time, they've had chairs hurled at them, the cops called on them and wads of cash tossed at them ala strip joints.  In other words -- a good time.

Las Vegas Weekly:  I see you've done a lot of TV appearances.

Josi Kat:  A lot.  We've been very lucky with the TV stuff.

LVW:  Does it ever get in the way of performing as a band?

JK:  No, the TV is great....  What happened was, I've done a lot of B-movie stuff in the past, and somehow I finagled my way onto Playboy TV, and they wrote a whole script around the band.  It turns out it opened a lot of doors.  So from that we went to VH1.  And because of the Playboy they pretty much portrayed me as a porn star.

LVW:  Is there any truth to that?

JK:  I've never done any porn, but I guess Playboy could be considered adult.

LVW:  How is your CD selling?

JK:  We pressed a limited amount of copies ... the All Music Guide gave us a really good review.  The thing about that is that anyone who needs to look up a band, they go to that All Music Guide, and it's important to have something good on there.

LVW:  Are you recording now?

JK:  Yes, absolutely!  We're doing most of the recording ourselves and we have a home studio.  We're real independent.  We book our own shows.  We do everything.  We do our artwork; we manage our own Web site.  Everything we do by ourselves.

LVW:  Describe your typical fan.

JK:  Believe it or not, with the younger fans, it's usually girls.  Or it's usually the perverted men.  I guess there would be three:  the music enthusiast, the young girls and then the perverted men.  Those are usually the ones yelling, "Show us your tits."

-Jaime Buerger

Las Vegas Weekly Web Site: http://www.lasvegasweekly.com