I want to be clear. I would never endorse judging a person by their ringtone or answer tone. For those who've never had the pleasure, an answer tone is just like a ringtone, only the person calling hears it instead of the customary dialing noise. I've seen a lot of good people go down the stupid ringtone or answer tone path. To say they're all morons would be underappreciating the bizarre phenomenon.

That said, when you call Nashville Pussy guitarist and leader Blaine Cartwright - if you're like me, as the band winds its way through the Colorado mountains on yet another tour - you hear Larry the Cable Guy, apparently wrought with diarrhea, imploring someone to, "Pick up the phone! Oh lord! I gotta poop! Git-r-done!"

Just sayin'.  Facts are facts.

But what, really, would you expect from Nashville Pussy? This is a band that took its name from a Ted Nugent track, the opening to "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" on the Double Live Gonzo record. This is a band that has released underground classic punk/Southern metal records like Let Them Eat Pussy, High As Hell, Say Something Nasty and Get Some.

This is a band built on only a handful of elements, the most predominant ones being whiskey, sweat, sex and fire.

Nashville Pussy, by design, is your oily, stoned, horny, high school brother's favorite rock band.

Believe it or not, it's a brilliant premise.

"The band that drinks together, stays together," says Nashville Pussy guitarist Ruyter Suys (pronounced Rider Sighs), Cartwright's wife. In its current form the band is rounded out by drummer Jeremy Thompson and bassist Karen Cuda, with original drummer Adam Neal and bassist Corey Parks having long been out of the Nashville Pussy mix - an understandable development for a band approaching 15 years of service.

Nashville Pussy pulls into Tacoma in familiar fashion; regarded as one of the hardest working bands around, they've got a relatively new record, 2009's From Hell To Texas, to offer, plus about a gazillion drunken rock shows under their collective belt. Road warriors since the beginning, and perhaps too American for their own good, Nashville Pussy has enjoyed an impressive global following since the band's inception, from Australia to Europe to Japan, but that fanaticism - while still measurable - has brewed mainly underground in the states. After spending three years perfecting and recording From Hell To Texas, working in Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studio, no less, and then enduring the failure of their label, SPV (Motorhead, Scorpions), Nashville Pussy was more than ready to hit the open American road - even if that meant playing clubs packed with hundreds of people instead of overseas venues packed with thousands.

"We do love touring America," explains Suys, who's as manic by phone as she comes off on stage. "It's definitely different than playing Australia or something. But we just want to play the music for everyone."

"(What the band accomplished with From Hell To Texas went) Far beyond our expectations," continues Suys. "We never know what we're going to get. Usually Blaine writes all the stuff, and it's punk. Then we turn the punk into arena rock. This time, we did a bunch of jamming - which we never do. I think Blaine did it on purpose. We went to the jam space without anything planned out, and we just started fucking around. I think a little more of our influences are showing because of it." 

Fitting, really, that a bunch of rowdy rockers, "just fucking around," would create a record like From Hell To Texas, not to mention a band like Nashville Pussy. In the beginning, after all, rock ‘n' roll was built on "just fucking around." It was a youthful and wild expression, far less concerned with portraying itself as an art form - or anything other than a loud, fast and primal release.

That's exactly what Nashville Pussy delivers. Call it rudimentary if you want, but it's still just as vital.

Nashville Pussy

Parental Advisory Tour with Green Jelly and Psychostick
Friday, May 14, 9 p.m., $15-$20
Hell's Kitchen, 928 Pacific Ave., Tacoma
253.759.6003