Music blogMusic This article is more than 15 years oldNo one does rock star like Jennifer Herrema
This article is more than 15 years oldPost-Royal Trux, the trailer trash rocker has lost none of her punk fascinationI was in Paris last week to set up a Death Disco club for the end of January and, while there, I was hanging out with my mate Marie. She had just returned from London after spending a few days with Jennifer Herrema and the RTX gang, who are supporting Primal Scream on their UK tour.
I love the Parisian passion for rock'n'roll and electronic music, and was regaled with unprintable tales of the Herrema insurrection of backstage madness: kicking models out of her dressing room, abusing bands, and generally mixing cleverness, autism, and Spinal Tap rock'n'roll in her own personal circus. Throughout the week, Marie posed several convincing arguments as to why Jennifer is one of the last great rock'n'roll stars on the planet. And I have to admit, after hearing the new album JJ and the Live RATX, that Herrema is pretty good.
RTX is Herrema's own party to celebrate the aftermath of Royal Trux. From 1988 to 2000, Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema were the leaders of the Royal Trux planet: the premier underground art couple; the inseparable, scuzzed-out white trash; the drugged-up, indie Fleetwood Mac.
Royal Trux wrote a bizarre rock'n'roll history for themselves. The double album Twin Infinitives brought together influences from Albert Ayler to the Rolling Stones. In the 1990s they signed to Virgin records for over a million dollars and recorded Thank You with David Briggs. Herrema became a model for Calvin Klein and interviewed Keith Richards for Raygun; they hung out with Timothy Leary.
On the brink of superstardom, they released Sweet Sixteen (with its universally reviled cover, showing a toilet), left Virgin and went back to Drag City for three more albums, before a mutual implosion led to their split.
Questioned about the breakup, Hegarty said Royal Trux were following the "standard rock narrative" of the very bands they had set out to destroy. Bizarre. In their wake, they left a series of classic albums that were exiled from the mainstream: narcoleptic, art-damaged punk, raped FM radio classics, acoustic forays, and songs that sound influenced by a lot of drugs.
The Trux adventures were so ridiculous that Hegarty turned them into a comic book (before VH1 could do their own cartoon-like "Behind the Scenes"). After the split Hagerty became more obscure, working on solo projects and the Howling Hex. Nothing was heard of Jennifer Herrema for the next four years, but for many, she retained her fascination.
Herrema is half myth and half reality; she will discuss the joys of Wal-Mart, trailer trash and dressing in huge fur coats and black shades, but is also clever enough to exploit her image when the music stands to benefit.
She has taken a hard line against exploitation of women in rock, and has turn down numerous "Lilith Fair" type festivals. Why? Because she's a rock star, not just a woman. Critics will write essays about RTX and gender role reversals, Jennifer being the street-tough hooligan singer supported by the frail wastrels of her band, but for her, all that is a waste of time: in rock'n'roll, there is no difference between male and female. She sees separation as a position of weakness.
Royal Trux were created in the hardcore scene, amid acid, Sun Ra and Led Zeppelin bootlegs. Herrema created RTX under the spell of pinball machines, strip malls and monster truck rallies. For me, Herrema was the one who had brought the pop sense to Royal Trux, shot through a lens of glam-rock and hair-metal. Nonetheless, RTX is hair-metal in Technicolor, as if fellow-metallers Poison existed in a strange bizarro universe where AM radio metal was the latest avant-garde treat from the underground.
Royal Trux always had the riff, but RTX riffs unashamedly to the heavy-metal stadium rockers of the eighties. Those expecting irony in RTX had better back away. Herrema grew up listening to punk-rock and cock-rock; she's as much Aerosmith as she is Bad Brains.
RTX sits poised between dumb and clever, somehow managing both at the same time. If Herrema had never existed, rock'n'roll would have to invent her.
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