Venus in Furs: ‘We’re there to tantalize’
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Venus in Furs albums now come in assorted colors.
There was “Red” in 2011, “Blue” in 2015, and now the industrial rock band moves into thesecondary color realm with “Green.” Why green? “Just the next color of the rainbow, I suppose,” says Michael T. Nolan, who founded Venus in Furs back in ’91 as just two guys and a sampler.
Taking its name from a Velvet Underground song based on an old German novella, the dark-edged Pittsburgh band was responding to the industrial wave created by Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Front 242 and others, with “a splash of The Cure and Depeche Mode,” he says.
“There were the keyboard bands and the rock bands. I always thought it would be really cool if you took The Cult and you took Depeche Mode and threw them in a blender. That’s the mentality I’ve always had. I love that rigid Kraftwerk-y sound, but I also love the fact that it rocks really hard. I wanted to be a cool rock that has cool electronics, and it hasn’t changed a whole lot from the beginning to now.”
“Green” rocks with that kind of menace while throwing in the usual splashes of eroticism that go with him having a day With: Kat De Lac, Hot Pink Satan and Horus Maze. Where: Cattivo, Lawrenceville. When: 10 p.m. Friday. Admission: $5; www.cattivopgh.com. job as the DJ at Cheerleaders strip club and his wife being a Smokin’ Betties burlesque dancer. In an era fraught with sexual taboos, he’s not backing down.
“Even though people on the surface want to be repressed sexually, they’re not!” he says. “It’s slightly more taboo, and that’s fine. We’re very bawdy, but we’re not dirty. We’re entertainers up there. We’re there to tantalize and show you something bigger than life. I want you to see dancing girls, and I want to be in this ridiculous outfit with a fez on my head. I want there to be sparks flying. I mean, the Stones are sexually charged. If you don’t have a little of that, why are you doingit in the first place?”
The visual element doesn’t end there. Back in the day, Venus in Furs had a painter working live on stage. For the release show, the band will use the film projections by Brian Cottington of the Atrocity Exhibition.
The album was recorded in the thirdfloor studio of Mr. Nolan’s Brookline home — “I’m that creepy, weird guy who’s always making too much noise upstairs” — with a loose band arrangement.
“It was everybody and their brother who happened to be in the house. If you were around, you played on the record. It was fun that way.”
He does vocals and programming and is joined in the core band by Robbie (Venus) Frabotta (visual noise/synthesizers), Drew Brown (drums), Ron Brown and Peter Guellard, of Mace (guitars), and dancers Lita D’Vargas and Gigi Coudray.
Along with the 10 industrial-strength originals, there’s a snarling cover of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.”
“I like to have a little something that harkens backwards,” he says. “The Beatles were a huge influence on me in my youth. I don’t know how many times I listened to ‘Sgt. Pepper’ beginning to end, dissecting it in my brain: ‘How did they do that? WHY would they do that?’ It was a nice homage to show more of my past, plus I did that for my wife for her birthday.”
Her name in the Smokin’ Betties is Lucy —Lucy LaBam.