Jucified
Meet Jucifer, stoner metal’s sexier answer to Sonny and Cher.
By Erik Fong

It’s official, ladies and gentlemen. According to a recent Playboy.com poll, Jucifer’s Amber Valentine is the second hottest woman in indie rock, right behind Neko Case. But to reduce Valentine and her bandmate/boyfriend Ed Livengood to a standard of waist measurements, cup sizes and physical hotness wouldn’t do this duo’s music any justice – not by a long shot.

Jucifer’s physical sexiness may only come in second place, but its musical sexiness is busty enough to make Russ Meyer’s ladies look pre-pubescent. Ed’s slow, methodical drumbeats throb with Amber’s bottom-heavy, sludged-out guitars powered by an endless wall of amplifiers – a sound that often draws comparisons to the Melvins. With Amber’s sultry, vulnerable, come-hither breaths of melody turning sporadically into death metal-style growls, screams and temper tantrums, Jucifer is the musical equivalent of Ron Jeremy in a properly-lit softcore porn scene: ugly and beautiful all at the same time.

The Athens, Georgia-based pair’s first album, Calling All Cars on the Vegas Strip, eeked its way around the country and into stereos everywhere – even without a label or distribution. Stronger soulmates than Captain and Tennille, more country and rock n’ roll than Donnie and Marie, more non-shitty than the White Stripes – Amber and Ed are making their way through the States with dog in tow, living in their RV and continuing to be sexy. But hey, it’s not on purpose – Amber will be the first to downplay the coincidental equation that her + tight dresses = hot. And she’s on no crusade to empower the “women in rock” movement either. She’s aware of the rarity of females playing rock music, but refuses to use her lack of a penis to further the band when there’s enough merit and talent between the two for seven seasons of American Idol. If anything, she’s on the crusade to perform without gender being an issue.

Amber was kind enough to speak with us while shopping in the almost-exhilarating state of Arizona. After the band’s current tour wraps up, Jucifer heads back to the studio in August to record an EP that should be out early next year, soon followed (in theory) by a double album. You can see Jucifer perform June 19 at the Blank Club, June 20 at the Starry Plough, or June 21 at the Pound, but until then, just move your eyes downward to learn (almost) all there is to know about Amber, including her reaction to the Playboy.com “Women of Indie Rock” poll that she didn’t even know she was going to be in.

Perfect Pitch Online: Where are you?
Amber Valentine: I’m in the parking lot of a grocery store in Casa Grande, about 75 miles west of Tucson. We had a tire blow on us and we were supposed to play in Tucson, but we couldn’t make it to our show. We just got our tire repaired today.

PP: You buy groceries when you tour?
AV: Well, up until this week we had a refrigerator, which apparently decided to stop working. We don’t have a house, we live in our RV and we tour all year long.

PP: Have any bad experiences come out of taking your dog on tour with you?
AV: No, he’s awesome. When we first got our RV, our booking agent handled another band that brought a dog, and they had mishaps. They kept leaving or losing their dog and missed a lot of shows because of it. He kept saying, “Don’t take your dog!” But our dog’s awesome. He’s like our kid, and he loves to travel, so he’s perfect in every way. And he’s very protective too – if a stranger tries to come in, he’ll bite them. [laughs]

PP: A friend of mine told me that your hometown of Athens, Georgia is “notorious for not rocking.” Is that true?
AV: I think what he probably meant was that Athens is most notorious for R.E.M. and the B-52s, and for a long time, Athens had this reputation, you know – Seattle was grunge, and Athens was jangle pop. But the actuality of Athens music, having lived there for 11 years, is that it’s always been changing, and there’s always been a great amount of diversity within the scene.

PP: What do you think about your entry in the Playboy.com “Women of Indie Rock” poll? Did Playboy contact you anyways even though you came in second?
AV: No, they did not, and I was relieved. [laughs] The only reason I would ever consider it is if they offered me so much money that I would have to consider it because of our entire future being at stake. If they made some incredible monetary offer, I’d have to think, “Am I being a dumbass to stick to my principles at the cost of paying off our RV and all of our debt and being able to possibly help our parents out?” Things like that cross my mind, but I think the actuality of it is that they’re probably offering it as a chance to publicize ourselves, which is not something that I’d ever consider doing. We talked about it and thought, well, if they offered us a colossal amount of money – and it would be us, this is me and my man and our dog and our whole life – we might have to consider it. And if we did do it, I would have Ed take the photographs, and it would be completely under control, and it would basically really shaft the magazine because there wouldn’t be anything graphic. [laughs] I don’t think it would have worked out.

PP: So you weren’t even informed about the contest before it went up on the site?
AV: I didn’t know about it until it was happening. My publicist said, “Playboy wants to write something about you, and it’s going to be cool, and they’re not asking you to do anything compromising.” And I thought, okay, I don’t particularly like that magazine, but I don’t like a lot of magazines anyways. So once I found out it was a contest, I was like, oh my god... [laughs] It was kind of embarrassing, and at the same time you have a competitive spirit, so you’re like, “I hope I win, but I don’t want to win because I don’t want them to ask me to be naked in their magazine!” It was a very conflicting feeling, and the weirdest thing about it was how much people knew about it and were into it. We’ve been in a lot of magazines with a similar level of readership and we’ve had our pictures in them – and this [contest] was online, I don’t think it was even in print. About an hour after I found out this was on the Playboy web site, I started getting emails and phone calls. It was crazy, Ed and I talked about it, and it’s kind of sad that this might be the most recognition that we’ve gotten – based on how hot I am rather than the music or what kind of person I am.

PP: That’s what society’s come to.
AV: It’s true. If I had known it was going to be a contest, I wouldn’t have been a part of it. A writer had wanted to pitch a story about us [to Playboy] many years ago, at a time when we really could’ve used publicity. It was the first time that somebody wanted to write about us in a major magazine. I didn’t feel very comfortable doing something with them; I just think the consequences of marketing sex in the way that it’s marketed a lot in the U.S. are just negative and unhealthy for both genders. There’s just so much about this whole fantasy sex arena that’s dehumanizing, and it makes people have a harder time actually having relationships with each other. From what I’ve seen in my life, I think it’s definitely something that hurts people’s abilities to communicate with each other, and it just encourages people to objectify themselves and each other more.

PP: How did the writer respond?
AV: I told him I didn’t like the magazine, and he said, “There are a lot of magazines with bad politics behind them, and you can’t refuse to do any publicity,” so I just said yeah, well, I’ll think about it. And then he got in touch with me again and said, “They want your measurements and they want a picture to see how hot you are.” It can’t just be a band that he’s writing about that he thinks is good. So at that point, I just said screw that, I’m not doing it. It’s a very strange thing to be confronted with.

PP: Indeed. Well, let me confront you with this: What’s the worst pickup line you’ve ever heard?
AV: “I really wanna do you.” [laughs]

PP: Ah, that’s a classy one. Any more unique or creative lines that stick out in your head? I’m all out of material.
AV: A couple of times we’ve gotten invitations go to back to someone’s place – with implications. People are pretty brave sometimes. There was one place we played, it was a gay and lesbian loft party. It was a lot of fun, but girls kept trying to get me to go in the bathroom with them to make out. And they were mostly topless and it was a little unnerving, you know, not being a lesbian. [laughs] The type of person I am, I’m not a wild and crazy, take-your-top-off-and-have-group-sex kind of individual.

PP: Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever heard your own music playing?
AV: The strangest time that I heard it was after we’d put out our first album on our own. We didn’t have a label, and we didn’t really have distribution, but we had promoted it to college radio so it was known, and people had heard it, but it was very hard to get. We were watching the Prevue Channel and it was playing the end of one of our songs in the background. It was very strange. And a couple of times, people have let me know that it’s been played on airplanes.

PP: Would you rather teach Britney Spears how to sing or teach Christina Aguilera how to dress?
AV: I think they’ve both done fine without any help from me. [laughs] I think both of those girls have worked really hard for what they have, and if anyone wants to bitch about them they should bitch about the society that rewards corporate celebrity hype rather than rewarding art. But it’s always been that way, when you look back at the ‘40s and ‘50s, Elvis wasn’t doing much of anything other than shaking his ass and singing other people’s songs and looking good. It’s dominated pop music culture, so if we get a reprieve from it once in a while it’s almost like a mistake.

PP: It’s Saturday night and you’re not on tour. Where are you most likely to be found?
AV: It depends on what part of the country we’re in and whether we have any money. If we’re close to family and friends we’ll hang out with them. If we have money we’ll be at a nice campground somewhere; if we don’t, we’ll be at a truck stop. [laughs]

PP: Give me three tips to saving money while on the road.
AV: If you can buy groceries instead of eating out, then do that. Buy your own beer from the store if they’re not giving you free beer at the club. And… live in your touring vehicle.

Purchase Jucifer's latest album, I Name You Destroyer, through Amazon.com.