Chelsea Girls covering Wasted Space

November 12, 2009 by Jordan Healy 

They’re like a non-stop, all-rock, live jukebox of awesomeness.

The Chelsea Girls, featuring a smoking hot all-girl lineup of rock vets, are coming to Wasted Space tonight with rock’s greatest hits in tow. Playing only covers of their favorite rock songs, their agenda is simple: melt faces.

Here’s drummer Samantha Maloney on the creation of the band, playing covers and a very special UNLV Van Halen tune.

Rebel Yell: How did the band come together?

Samantha Maloney: I knew Corey [Parks, bassist] from when she was in Nashville Pussy and I was in Hole. I knew Allison [Robertson, guitar] from being in the rock community as the guitar player of The Donnas. So the three of us knew each other.

Corey called me one day and said she had seen this band, Camp Freddy, which is a bunch of guy musicians in [Los Angeles] from all famous bands that just play a bunch of covers. She was like, “Why don’t we do that? Me and you. A rad bunch of girls to do this with.”

So I said we have to get Allison from The Donnas because she’s just a shredding guitarist, and smoking hot too, you know, which isn’t bad on the eyes. I called Allison and she was totally in.

Then we needed to look for a singer and Allison suggested her friend Tuesdae, this awesome girl who DJs around LA, New York and Monaco. We went to see her with this little metal band and they played Heart’s “Barracuda” and Corey and I looked at each other and said, “Done. That’s the girl for us.”

So that was easy as that. We just got together and started writing a list of songs that we’d like to play. We had our first show in February in LA, and an executive from a label was at the show and he wanted to sign us then and there and I said no, I don’t want a record deal. I just want to play music and be in a cover band. We didn’t want to play originals. We just wanted to play other people’s songs. We wanted to play the best songs we never wrote. That’s the objective.

RY: When it comes to picking the cover songs, what is the process?

SM: It’s funny, but we were driving back from Vegas, we had just played a show with Motorhead, actually they cancelled an hour before we were supposed to go on stage, but we were driving back from Vegas a couple weeks ago [and] Me and Corey were going back and forth, yelling at each other over what would be the best song, the new best cover song to play.

Allison and Tuesdae put their two cents in, but it was everybody fighting over what would be the best song. I try to placate the audience, whereas Corey wants to play what she wants to play.

So it’s a combination of what’s gonna get us excited to play and what the audience is going to want to hear.

I don’t want to play a cover that’s a rare B‑side and no one knows. With that you might as well just write your own song if that’s the case. So it’s hard. Corey will want to play KISS songs from the 1970s and I’ll want to play KISS songs from the 1980s. We all love each other, but the process is funny. Sometimes someone will say, ‘alright I’ll play this if you play that.’ So, that’s how it goes.

RY: When you approach covers, do you play them note‑for‑note or do you prefer to put your own spin on them?

SM: That’s the part that’s challenging about being in this band. There’s no room for interpretation when it comes to a cover song. We’ve chosen to play the songs as they are. So it’s actually really difficult for Allison to be playing some songs that have two guitar parts, written for two guitars and she’s just one guitar.

Sometimes that limits us to what songs we can play. It’s all about whether Tuesdae can sing the song or not because some songs sound amazing in her vocal range and some songs she can’t pull off. She’s so amazing anyway, we’ve just been so blessed. She has a four‑octave range, she’s a trained opera singer and went to Juilliard, but she’s a metal lover at heart. Her heart’s with Danzig and Dio.

RY: Which of the covers are most exciting for you to play live?

SM: I don’t know. We do a bunch of different songs. We’ve covered everything from Madonna’s “Burning Up” to RATT’s “Lay It Down” with RATT. We’ve played AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds” with Billy Duffy of The Cult. We played Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” with Lemmy. Playing with other artists on their songs is always so much fun. Any Van Halen, everything we play I love. I can’t complain.

RY: Is there a plan on releasing an album at any point?

SM: I don’t know. If it makes sense, we’ll do it. Right now, we’re just focused on our live act and making sure that everybody knows we’re out there. When they see Chelsea Girls, they know that they’re going to have a blast and the time of their life for an hour or two. They can just, you know the KISS song, “rock and roll all night and party every day.” Yeah, something like that.

RY: Well, that’s all the questions I have for you, but is there anything you’d like to add?

SM: I was thinking that if we ever get to play UNLV, we’ll play Van Halen’s “Running With the Devil,” but we’ll change the lyrics to “Running With the Rebels.”

ON THE WEB: Chelsea Girls on MySpace: www.myspace.com/chelseagirlsrock