Scream Club: (to Rachel Carns) Explain your eyebrows, is there a story behind them?
Rachel: I think I got stuck on that Brooke Shields thing. You know—junior high, 1983. You know—BROWS. I drew them on with Sharpie for like ten years and then I got this gross eye infection. I had to wear a patch! So I went to the Bon Marche cosmetics counter—it’s like another planet in there. Anyway the salesclerk painted lines on my arm with every eyeliner in stock and then sprayed them with a mister. The one that didn’t run, won. I’m now a proud user of Revlon Colorstay liquid liner.

What is the story with TJO [Tara Jane O’Neil], is she still in your band? How often do all three of you play shows? How does having a bassist affect your band?
Kwo [Betsy Kwo]: TJO, the busiest. We won’t be playing shows with her for the next few months ‘cause of her beautiful solo record coming out and she’s touring with that.

Rachel: Plus, she moved to Portland—we’re just letting it all air out for a bit. The Cobras started out just me and Kwo, so it doesn’t feel like something’s missing—having a bassist is like icing on the cake really. But I do love TJO to death and miss having her around all the time.

When did the romantic sparks start flying between Rachel and Betsy? Who made the first move and how?
Kwo: Rachel and I hit it off immediately. As far as romance goes, well it must have started with the long walks on the beach and moonlit conversations—then when we got wasted and made out.

What do you think about the finished Scream Club song “What You Gonna Do” featuring Rachel’s drum samples?
Kwo: Too good!

Do your lyrics tell a continuing story throughout the album, or do you write one song at a time? What are your lyrics about? In specific, what the shit is “NLYKNTRA?”
Rachel: “NLYKNTRA” are the nonsense sounds I sang in that song before I had lyrics—and then it just stuck. It sounded right. Like a curse or a summons. In fact a lot of the nonsense sounds stuck—the actual lyrics on our record are kinda sporadic. The songs seemed to call for something more guttural than words, something more... ancient.

What do you get out of making/performing/doing music and what do you hope that other people get out of your music?
Kwo: Great question. Making music is important to me for so many reasons, mostly selfish ones—it’s fucking fun! I love challenging myself and expressing myself at the same time.

Rachel: Plus touring is awesome!

Kwo: It’s my favorite thing—a totally community thing for me. I love going to every town to see all the crazy, amazing revolutionary things that are happening, meet people who are trying to do new things, change things. It’s so inspiring. The state of the world is so depressing... on tour I get to feel this huge community of freaks like me and it really makes life worth living. We’ve gotten to travel with some of our favorite bands—every tour we’ve been on has been a life changing experience.

The King Cobra: Explain your mohawks, is there a story behind them?
Scream Club: Mohawks look cool. We shaved ours off though and left only the front and the back. We are trying to popularize the “my little pony” look.

When did the romantic sparks start flying between Sarah and Cindy?
The sparks started flying immediately. We met on Cindy’s second day in town. We were both going to see Romatic Retardnation that night. We nervously slow danced to one of their songs and I asked her to come to a party with me. As far as the first move, it’s hard to say. I asked Cindy to go that party, but she was the one that leaned in for the first kiss.

Do you write the music together or do you write parts separately and bring them together?
Cindy writes all the music with a few exceptions. We did the music for “Fight” together. On our upcoming album, “Don’t Bite Your Sister,” the beats for five out of 15 of the songs were made by other artists, including Nervous of Log Hog, Don Originales, and Katastrophe.

What was it like working with so many different people on your record?
It’s inspiring to have other people’s ideas to bounce off of. Having other people sing the hooks was really cool… to hear the hooks executed by people who can really bring them to life. Plus having drum samples was fucking cool. It was like putting together a puzzle. The way the songs came together was not unpredictable because we already had an idea of what the people we asked would bring to the songs.

You played an amazing show at Le Voyeur [Olympia] a couple months ago where your backing CD didn’t work, so you got the drummer and guitar player from one of the other bands to come up and play. Sooooo incredible! That show was really amazing for us too. We really like playing with a live band, and that was really cool of Secret Cock to rock it with us. We just want to rock and if the CD player doesn’t work—on with the show! And if Secret Cock hadn’t wanted to rock, we would have rocked it acapella-style. It was really fun.

What’s up with the “Money Magnet” mantra that you sing before your shows?
We are trying to get rich. Katastrophe taught it to us. We’re not into chasing money; we prefer money to chase us. That’s our method and it totally works too. Last week we got a $100 bill. Try it for one week, it will change your life. No shit.

What do you get out of making/performing/doing music? Why do you do it?
We do it ‘cause it’s fun. You get to connect with other people, you get to meet rock stars, you get to travel, people think you’re cool, you have a platform from which to speak, you get to be creative, and be in music videos. We want people to have fun, feel less inhibited, and for queers and women especially, to realize that they can do whatever they want. We want to be the soundtrack while they build their self esteem. And for heteros, we want to let them know that Top-40 is bullshit. It’s easy to be sexist and homophobic when all you do is listen to the radio. Women are often portrayed as accessories. So we want to put ourselves out there as queer women with opinions, who are a not only smart, but a lot of fun. We want to open minds. We want little fat girls growing up with no friends to feel like there is someone who relates to them.

The King Cobra, Scream Club and the Dead Vampires play Tablet’s “Pink and Pissed” show at the Hideaway in Seattle on Wednesday, June 23. Tickets are $6.