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from RIP magazine, May 1992
[I've known Inger since 1985. Perhaps I shouldn't reveal that, because it dates us both. She is a dear, dear friend of mine, and this is one of those rare instances where a tight friendship didn't get in the way of a great story. I'm actually the one who told Geffen A&R rep Tom Zutaut about Inger; in fact I made the introductions at a Christmas party held by the now-defunct Chrysalis Records — a party that Vicky Hamilton and I crashed religiously year after year. (That was about our only religion, as far as I can remember.) If I could have looked inside a crystal ball at the time, I think I would have kept Zutaut as far away from Inger as possible. I do have a few Inger stories that will never see the light of day unless she gives me permission. Just so you know.]
This isn't just another Hollywood rags-to-record-deal story, with the requisite tales of devastation and abuse. Hollywood didn't rip the guts out of the Nymphs; it was the other way around: The Nymphs gave — and are still giving — Hollywood a massive dose of its own un-reality check. And you know what, this town can't take it. For some reason the absurd world that is Tinseltown can't face having its own absurdity stretched and twisted.
Perhaps that's why everyone at the Geffen/ DGC offices was treating Nymphs vocalist Inger Lorre like a maniac of out-of-control proportions. Either I was being told, in hushed tones, that she needed someone to take care of her, or I was receiving loud phone calls to let me know that she had pissed on her A&R person's desk, or was being shipped off to a mental institution, or whatever. I couldn't believe that the record industry, which prides itself on high-profile controversy, was having such conniptions over one unruly young girl. I've known Inger in short, but intense spurts over a six-year period, and while she's definitely a wild, untamed spirit, she's also in relative control of her faculties. You'd think that after several generations of temperamental artists, Inger would be taken in stride. But I guess people never learn.
The funny thing is, few people ever mention the other four Nymphs. In their own, lower-profile way, they're just as intense as Inger — after all, the whole quintet signed their record contract in blood. That's one of the things I talked about with guitarist jet and drummer Alex Kirst over a DGC expense-account dinner.
"We didn't actually sign the signatures in blood," jet informed me. "After we signed, we all put blood on every contract. There's five or six different versions of it, and there's blood splatterings on every single version."
"We got a memo back from, I think it was Norman Beil [a Geffen lawyer]," Alex added, "saying, 'After the grief we went through on this contract, it should be our blood, not theirs,' because our lawyer just killed him, just dragged him through the shit. It was beautiful!" He laughed cynically.
"We also made a deal with each other at the time, because the band is given to such emotional extremes," jet related, "that no matter what happens, we'd stay with each other for five years. It's real easy in the Nymphs to want to say no to it, because we really do clash a lot, but we know that somehow it works and what we do is effective. So we said, 'The five of us for five years. That's the deal.' You can't leave or be thrown out till then, unless you die. That's the only way to get out of the clause."
"So far everybody's attempted suicide," Alex interjected.
I think he was only half-joking. There are few bands that care as deeply about their music as the Nymphs, and it shows in the power of their self-titled debut. Stories of alienation, self-destruction and paranoia come crashing through unrelenting walls of guitars and primal, heart-pounding rhythms. The Nymphs are bleakness personified. Jet told me, however, that the music is the easy part.
"You know, it's strange," he mused. "We really don't get along, but for some reason, we don't argue that much when we write. I don't know why, because we argue about anything else!"
"Parking space?" Alex grinned. "We're in a fight!"
"What time to rehearse?" jet adds. "We'll literally break the band up because we can't agree. What kind of beer to get at rehearsal — we'll almost certainly be at fists for that."
And Inger doesn't get any special treatment from her bandmates. "Really, sometimes I think, it surprises us when we discover she is a girl," jet admitted, "because she's just another guy. We yell at her, and we beat her up as much as anyone else in the band."
A few weeks later, when I was hanging out with Inger after a late-night photo session, she confirmed this. "Oh yeah, I've been in fistfights with both those two!" she laughed.
Inger certainly doesn't look like the type to resort to brawls. She's slender to the point of fragility and has a face like a China doll. But she has an iron will, and perhaps that's why so many people have a problem with her. Hollywood likes to take things at face value, and Inger is all-too willing to reflect back the underlying ugliness. With fire in her eyes, she told me, "People are like, 'Inger, you're an attractive girl, you've got a great record deal, your band's doing wonderful. Why do you have to go up there and bitch?' They think we're complaining. I'm just trying to make a point and to open people's minds to different ideas."
Inger's approach doesn't always sit well, however. When she was a teen, she was an artist in addition to being a hardcore punker, and she went to the prestigious Pratt Institute. She lasted only three weeks.
"Back then I was very into swastikas as a shock medium," she explained. "I had them painted beautifully. I was trying to turn a real negative symbol into a positive symbol, and people weren't understanding. I mean, the swastika was a Native American symbol first, do you know that? But it was backwards, and it wasn't turned on its side like a diamond. It was more like a flat square. I had pink ones and purple and green ones and butterfly ones — all these ways. It was my art statement, trying to de-swastika a swastika, trying to de-negatize something that's totally negative. But I guess that's taking on the world, 'cause that's a pretty hard thing to de-negatize."
Such an understatement can only come from someone whose life is given to extremes. Like many exceptionally creative people, Inger was misunderstood by her family. Instead of knuckling under to the pressure, she rebelled in any way possible. At the age of eleven she refused to go to school for weeks because she had decided to be a rock star. As an adolescent she shaved her head to emulate her punk idols. Naturally, trouble came her way. At a very young age she was raped when she was hitchhiking.
"This crazy guy picked me up," she recalled with a shiver. "It was, ohhh, awful, awful, a bad scene. He had a gun and a knife. I was like, 'Why are you doing this? I think you should stop. I think girls could like you.' And he was like, 'You think they could?' and he stopped right in the middle." With a shake of her head, she continued. "You just have to deal with them as humans. These people haven't been treated like humans. A normal, healthy person doesn't rape." Many women would be ashamed to admit to such an incident, but Inger never saw the good in that. "No one talks about it, and it should be talked about. If you keep it in you, it's just a giant sore. It's going to fester and get a lot worse."
Although Inger claims that this incident hasn't negatively affected her attitude towards men, it's clear that it, along with many other blows she's suffered, seriously troubles her. Several of her friends have committed suicide, and her ex-fiancé, Sea Hags bassist Chris Schlosshardt, OD'd last year. Put that together with the many delays suffered during the making of the Nymphs record, and it's no wonder Inger had her own addiction problem. She went into rehab in the middle of working on the album. Later, when it was time to recut the vocals on "Sad and Damned," the two-sidedness of the record industry really hit home.
"I had one version before," she remembered. "I was wasted on the tape. When I went back, [the label] says that's the one they're going to put on the record. I said, 'No, you're not. I don't want to turn on the radio and hear myself totally wasted out of my mind. It's disgusting!' So I did one straight, and it was all-powerful, and they go, 'The other one had more of a vibe.' I was so tempted to just go, 'You liked the other one better? Fine. I'm just gonna go in the bathroom and use drugs, so you get what you want.' It was terrible! They were telling me to clean up, send me to a place, and then when I came back clean, they tell me they liked my singing better when I was screwed up! Now what kind of message is that sending me?"
Nevertheless, she found a way to resolve the conflict. "I tapped into the 'heroin consciousness,' which is a term that Patti Smith coined. I put myself in a head space — 'Okay, I'm gonna remember what it felt like... I'm... there.' It's like Zen. You get yourself there and, all of a sudden, you feel that euphoria. I sang it that way, and they liked it. You know, if I wasn't a strong person, I could easily go, 'I guess I'm a better singer on drugs.'"
But is Inger strong enough to fight an industry whose attitude is business first, artistry later; that likes its women to keep their cleavage open and their mouths shut? She has the support of her bandmates, but the pressure has taken a toll on them too — Alex grows ever more sarcastic, jet hides his sensitivity underneath his dry wit, bassist Cliff D. has his own problems, and even normally cheerful guitarist Sam Merrick experiences moments of gloom. Maybe it's too much for this young quintet to handle, but the Nymphs are prepared to do battle with Hollywood's phoniness and facades even if they have to fight to the death. And they just may have to.
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