Buffy The Vampire Slayer

I was lucky - I never wanted to be a rock-n’-roller. Like every kid in high school, the thought of, ’Should I start a band ?’ passed me by (well, I was in the marching band and I did fool around with the idea later in college - sadly) with the sole rationalization of, ’Well, KMFDM is doing everything I’d want to do with music, so if I can’t be better than them, why bother ?’ So, I didn’t fall ’prey’ to rock & roll. However, a woman named Cheri Lovedog did and started a band - called Lovedog - that played a zillion club shows here in Los Angeles opening for bands like X, Jane’s Addiction and Guns N’ Roses through the eighties. After Lovedog threw in the towel, she became a writer and eventually created a rock musical at the New York club CBGB called Prey for Rock & Roll that became a hit.

As you know by reading this here column, said ’hit’ became a feature film directed by long-time music supervisor Alex Steyermark (who is directing the upcoming "Memphis Three" movie starring Nick Stahl) and produced/starring actress Gina Gershon, perhaps the first actress to ever appear on the cover of Maxim and The Advocate in the same month.

The movie is currently getting a limited theatrical release across the country, starting in Los Angeles and Seattle last week and opening in San Francisco today. It will hit New York, Chicago, Austin, Boston and Philadelphia on October 17th and go across the country from there. Gershon, who sings in the movie (quite well, I might add), is touring the country with the movie fronting the band Girls Against Boys ( ! ! !) and singing songs from the movie, which were written by Lovedog (who is also reuniting her band and doing a couple of gigs). Anyway, with the movie coming out, a junket was put together at the Hotel Avalon down on Olympic (first time I’d ever been there, but then we did Elephant there yesterday - like the Standard hotels, it’s a converted ’retirement home’ and still feels a bit like one).

The first person we chatted with was Drea De Matteo who plays Tracy in the film, a burned out, drug addicted trust fund kid/bass player which De Matteo pulls off quite handedly. She was a little sick when she came in and had a self-admitted "smoker’s hack," but was quite charming and fun. The first thing we asked about was whether or not she, like all others, wanted to be a rock star when she grew up. "Yeah, I hate to admit it, but yeah," she joked. "I used to sit around and play between Joan Jett and Deborah Harry or who played Evita in the Broadway show ? Patti LuPone. (laughs) A little variety there. I used to listen to all of them with headphones on and dance around and sing, but I can’t sing. I love music more than anything in the world - probably more than film." As for what kind of music she was into now, she added, "I like everything, from classic rock to country. Anyone from the Velvet Underground to the Stones to Zeppelin, Sabbath, Neil Young."

We next asked her about the changing music scene and how that affected her taste. "It’s like film, it’s no longer about music, it’s just about videos, watching it," De Matteo suggested. "It’s not about music anymore - it’s about watching a show. It’s our culture. There are a few new bands that are exciting, but not many." As for any music she makes herself, she said, "I can play guitar a little bit, but I learned to play bass right for the movie. I wasn’t going to do the movie, so I had to learn real quick. So, I learned and I was really good at it." That said, she admitted that in the film, "Somebody else is actually playing, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t look like I know how to play. But they never show the bass player in the videos, so you don’t really see me playing very much."

One of the press folks asked her what was so great about being a rock star and she replied, "It doesn’t matter what you look like. You can be disgusting and gross and smell bad and you can play music all by yourself. With acting, you sit in front of a mirror and do a monologue - not very fun. You don’t need other people and I like that."

As for playing a strung-out and messed up character, De Matteo admitted she dug on doing that for film. "I think it’s an actor’s dream just to be able to play a character - period," she said. "My character on The Sopranos is a character with all the hair and makeup transformation and stuff like that. I prefer that than just looking like myself and acting normal." As for her look in Prey, De Matteo said that she "Wouldn’t do the movie unless they allowed me not to have hair and makeup and wardrobe because I didn’t want them to make me look like some glamorized Hollywood version of someone in a band. Once I got to know the people in hair and makeup and wardrobe, I wouldn’t have cared if they had done it, but I was very adamant about not looking too fancy and wearing cool clothes. I was the slob in the film (laughs)."

We next asked her where she thought she’d be - acting or otherwise - if The Sopranos wasn’t keeping her occupied all the time and was a big hit. "It’s a two-way thing," De Matteo noted. "It’s opened a lot of doors for me in a lot of ways. It’s given me the opportunity to do a lot of things aside from acting, but as far as acting goes, if anything, it’s closed a lot of doors because people really believe I’m that character, that I talk like her, dress like her, think like her. So, that has been shut down for me to some degree. But everything else has opened up. I have a clothing business, I’m producing my own films - that kind of stuff is exciting." Naturally, we asked about said clothing store and she said, "I have a vintage clothing store in the East Village and we have a jean line. We started a lot of trends like all the rock & roll shirts with lacing and rhinestones, lightning bolt necklaces. I don’t wear any of it, but we started it. I only wore it when I made it for the first time six years ago. That stuff only got popular about a year ago."

We talked a lot more about said clothing business ("People from Sex and the City saw [one of my jewelry designs] on me and was like, ’Where’d you get that ?’ and I said, ’I had it made’ and then Sarah Jessica Parker was wearing it on Sex and the City and it became huge.") her work with Great Dane rescue programs (she has a number of Great Danes) and her desire that The Sopranos would go on forever because she knew she’d never have such a great experience in acting ever again.

Next up, we’ve got the director, Alex Steyermark and Cherri Lovedog herself, who was wearing a t-shirt advertising her upcoming Lovedog tour. The first question out of the gate addressed the fact that, yes, the movie was pretty heavy and not about the "fun" of rock & roll and how they thought audiences would respond to that. "You know, it’s been interesting to see the reaction to it, actually, at film festivals," admitted Steyermark. "The first one we were at was Sundance and were at a bunch more throughout the year including Toronto. I’m always amazed at the broad range of people who respond to it really positively. Even though it’s dark in a lot places, I think ultimately it’s inspirational. And in many ways, that’s what the film’s about - survival and not being a victim. Not letting that keep you in the victim-mode and the healing power of art and music and I’m amazed. We’ve have reactions from everyone from 18 year-old girls who would be an obvious audience for it to 71 year-old grandmothers who would normally go see Broadway shows. What they really respond to is these strong women, these strong characters, and their ability to overcome whatever comes."

Someone compared the revenge part of the film (a rapist gets "rapist" tattooed to his forehead) to a Charles Bronson film and Steyermark added, "We’ve had people cheer that." Lovedog jumped in and said, "Yeah, it’s a commentary because they don’t deal with people the way they should. You’re sending somebody out in the world and saying, ’Now, you will tell them who you are.’ Don’t even get me started. I hope somebody starts doing it like it inspires this whole vigilante women’s movement. You want to comment on it, but you can’t be on point and stand up and be like, ’The system is so bad !’ so the choice was to tell the story and take this artistic liberty. There was the group of women who would move in with a woman whose husband was abusive and wouldn’t leave because, at that time, the police wouldn’t come and make the arrest. They would just move in and there was this woman surrounded by these women so he can’t do those things. We definitely wanted to make a commentary about it without getting on a soapbox."

We asked about times in both their lives when, like in the movie, their lives hit a road bump artistically, but what got them back up and a’going. "For me, definitely, as I was at a crossroads on whether I should keep playing music or not," admitted Lovedog. "And that’s when psychic Sylvia Brown, I went to her, said, ’You have to do both,’ which made me go back and write music and do all that again. So, I was debating giving it up or not. That’s what got me to write the play initially. Sylvia’s amazing. I’m not a big psychic fan. I haven’t done that a lot in my life ever, but something about when I saw her on TV and then I went to one of her seminars and I felt really drawn to her honesty and knowledge and I just went. It changed my life. I would not have done this project if I hadn’t seen her."

Steyermark chimed in as well. "For me, I’d been working as a music supervisor/music producer for fifteen years for film and with great directors like Spike Lee, Ang Lee, Jim Sheridan and all these people - Paul Schrader, Jonathan Demme," Steyermark said. "But I had originally gone to film school and made some shorts and music videos along the way and I was getting to the point where I just had peaked as a music supervisor living in New York. I had a project that I was trying to get going that might get going, but I was starting to accept the fact that I was never actually going to get the chance to direct a feature. There are so many people in the film business who want to do that and then this project came along. I was approached to produce the music for it and I was told they were talking to first-time feature directors and I said, ’Well, if that’s the case, I want to talk to you about it.’ I think the fact that the financier, Donovan Mannato was someone who came from outside the film world, I think he was more open to the idea that I might direct it. In the film business, once you get good at something, they want to keep you there - they pigeonhole you. It’s almost considered inappropriate to want to be a director once you get good at something else. Right about the time this script came along, I was about to give up. I was like, ’I’d better just go work as a music executive at some studio or something,’ - that was the next logical step and I didn’t want to do it. The thought of it made me feel really fat and corporate. That’s not where I come from. I come from punk rock, too. So, it came at that very moment where I was about to quit."

We talked a lot more about the music business today and piracy issues (Lovedog loves the idea of musicians moving their own work and having the record companies fall, by the way as you might have imagined) and then moved on.

Finally, we have Gina Gershon, the sexy star of the film who plays the tattooed lead singer of the band, Jacki. I’d never met Gershon before, but I certainly liked her in Face/Off and Bound and have always thought she was a good actress. In Prey, she’s the rock for the rest of the characters and as a producer, had a similar job behind the camera as the money came, the money went, and the money came back a second time on the road to getting the film made.

We started out chatting with her about singing in the movie, "I worked my ass off on this," laughed Gershon. "I almost unstudied singing to do this because I’m a trained singer and I did this after seven months on Broadway [S.J.R. Note : She was playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret], which is a different sort of singing. It’s quote-unquote more legitimate. You have to pronounce things more so you can hear words. Rock & roll is a different kind of singing, so I just threw everything out the window, though I protected my voice and all that. I’ve been a singer and I love rock & roll and I’ve been doing it my whole life - maybe not in public, but the great thing about rock & roll is it’s whatever you want to do. There’s certainly a style to this and I sang more gravellier than I would sing, but I didn’t really think about it too much. I just thought about the song and what I wanted to do with it." Someone made the comment that it ’wasn’t the Dixie Chicks’ to which Gershon responded, "No, when I used to sing, I wanted to be a country singer. The only thing I had to do was take the twang out of my voice sometimes, so I had to watch that."

We asked her if she lived the ’rock and roll’ lifestyle being a big Hollywood sleb, to which Gershon said, "Well, I certainly like to sleep and I like the hours of a rock and roller a lot more than actors. I like staying up late and I like getting up late and sometimes in movies you have to get up early, which I don’t love so much. The thing I like about music a lot, what I really love - and I’m going on tour with this and playing a lot of my own songs as well - when you’re acting, you’re acting and you’re in a character and when you’re doing music, it’s a lot more honest. You are who you are. It’s funny because sometimes an actor has gone out to an event - and maybe I don’t dress like the girl next door or maybe I don’t act like a typical actress, I don’t know, whatever that means and I’ve gotten flak for it. But you do that as a musician and everything thinks it’s great. So, I definitely like the musician side of the tabloids."

As for rock icons Gershon had, she said, "There’s a lot of people I listen to all the time. It varies. Elvis Costello has always been one of my favorites. I love Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix. Right now I’m listening to some weird woman I found in Romania that I’m obsessed with and I’m trying to track down her other music. My range is pretty broad. Ray Charles. I’m in love with Ray Charles."

We next asked if Gershon thought people would be surprised by how serious Prey was if they went in expecting a light "rock" movie. "I don’t have any objectivity, so you guys would probably be better able to answer that," she said. "When all of a sudden it turns, I think people are surprised, which I think is good. It’s not just a fun rock & roll movie. I think it starts off kind of gritty and groovy and then it goes into real life and it does make certain statements and observations about life that I thought were important - that moved me and meant something to me."

As Gershon is a producer on this, we asked her about the challenges involved in bopping back and forth on both sides of the camera. "Yeah, I’ve never produced a movie in my life," Gershon reported. "It was very challenging. I only produced it because I had no choice. At a certain point, if I didn’t step in as a producer, it wouldn’t have been made and I brought on a crew of people to help me do that. For this movie was really important to me to stay authentic and not turn into a cheesy rock and roll film. I have too much respect for musicians and what they go through to do all the cliches and all that stuff. So, it was nice to have some creative control. I was really pretty obsessive about who I wanted in the film and the look I wanted in the film and how I wanted it shot, so it was nice. But then as an actor sometimes I was like, ’I need another take !’ and then the producer hat says, ’No, you don’t have time ! We need to move on !’ More often than not, my producer side would win. So, sometimes I see certain scenes and go, ’Oh, God, I should’ve been more of an actor at that minute !’ But what can you do ? It’s a low-budget film, so there are compromises to be made."

And that’s the junket for Prey for Rock & Roll. As mentioned earlier, this unrated film is coming out from MAC Releasing (if you’re in L.A., it’s currently over at the Sunset 5 alongside Party Monster and American Splendor) slowly but surely across the country. Look for the next "Tales From the Junket Circuit" to be either Elephant or Good Boy ! with Texas Chainsaw waiting in the wings.