R
emember the old saying about prophets never being recognized in their home countries? It’s bitter wisdom that easily translates to certain local music environs where bands are neither nurtured nor respected. In the case of Tiger Sex, the band was clearly hailed for their visceral presentation within the Las Vegas scene, but the members couldn’t see where their Stooges/Joan Jett/Johnny Thunders-tinged sound dovetailed with the Killers/Imagine Dragons Vegas wave rippling through the media’s consciousness.
“For a band doing this music, Vegas was kind of a dead end,” Tiger Sex vocalist Kelly TigerSex (like the Ramones) says over beers at Rake’s End. “I love Vegas, there’s a lot of good music, and California rocks. But there’s only so many places you can play over and over. Moving [to Cincinnati] gives us the opportunity to play different states and we’re meeting so many cool people.”
In order to transcend Vegas’ perceived limitations, TigerSex and guitarist Kei (pronounced like the letter) did some Internet research to find an appropriate place for their band to land. Their ultimate relocation to Cincinnati would seem to have been informed by a thoughtful examination of facts and a realization of the amazing support network that exists here for local music.
“It was kind of a guess,” TigerSex says. “We started contacting people right away, the Facebook thing, and adding anybody who had patches or whatever because we didn’t know anybody, and then contacting venues and putting our name out. We were like, ‘Let’s just go there and try it. What have we got to lose?’ ”
“We actually got gigs before we moved from Vegas,” Kei says.
One of the Cincinnati scene’s best elements is also one of the reasons that Tiger Sex hasn’t been a more consistent presence around town. The proximity to Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, Dayton, Lexington and Louisville has given Tiger Sex options beyond the array of local venues within and just beyond the city limits.
“Detroit, around Hamtramck, that area is starting to know us,” TigerSex says. “Indianapolis, we have Punk Rock Night at The Melody Inn, the Oregon Express in Dayton, in Lexington we have The Green Lantern, and in Louisville we now have a new club called Kaiju.”
“It means ‘monster’ in Japanese,” Kei notes.
Tiger Sex has been a Cincinnati band for a little more than a year and has come to appreciate the local ins and outs. While they perceive a certain lack of unity within some scene factions, they know they’re still in a discovery phase and relish the incredible opportunities available to them as a Cincinnati band.
“Personally, I think the all ages/basement scene is very good,” Kei says. “Vegas was hard for the all ages thing because of casinos.”
“It’s really cool to see how many kids support that scene,” TigerSex says. “Vegas was minimal. Here it’s kind of old school. Sometimes there’ll be a gig where 15 bands are playing, one after the other. It’s insane. And Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are beautiful, the buildings and the nature of it and everything. It’s cool.”
Although Tiger Sex coalesced in Las Vegas, its members arrived from far-flung corners of the globe. TigerSex was New Jersey born and raised, living in Florida before hitting the jewel of the desert. Kei was a native of Nagasaki, Japan, who moved to the Pacific Northwest — first Washington, then Oregon — with lofty intentions.
“I wanted to study music therapy,” Kei says. “I ended up not doing it, but I stayed.”
TigerSex met Kei through his Vegas band The Tinglerz and was a fixture at their shows, ultimately even selling merch for the band. Her animated antics at Tinglerz shows caught Kei’s attention.
“She started coming to our gigs, and you know how she dances … everyone’s watching her,” Kei says, referencing TigerSex’s adrenalized stage presence with a laugh. “We’re playing really hard and people are watching Kelly.”
“I’m a dirty dancer,” TigerSex says with a grin. “That’s what music makes me do.”
Having never played in a band, TigerSex began hanging out with Kei, making tentative steps toward writing songs and jamming through songs by The Beatles, Velvet Underground and The Runaways. At one of these sessions, Kei made a bold suggestion.
“He was like, ‘You should sing,’ ” TigerSex says. “I was like, ‘I can’t sing.’ He forced me — he knew I didn’t want to do it.”
“She was really good,” Kei says. “She can do hard, screaming, but she can actually sing. We have mid-tempo, louder songs, but she could sing quietly to the Blues.”
After forming Tiger Sex in early 2013 with bassist Paul French and drummer Chris Moon, the band attracted a loyal fan base and a fair amount of positive press. Within a year, TigerSex and Kei wondered about life beyond Las Vegas and began searching for a possible new home, briefly considering Japan as a possibility. When they settled on Cincinnati, French and Moon opted to remain behind.
Upon arrival, TigerSex and Kei canvassed the area for a drummer, having decided to pare Tiger Sex down to a bass-less trio. In relatively short order, the pair made contact with Tom Black, a Michigan-to-Portland-to-Cincinnati transplant who proved to be the perfect hammer for their musical anvil.
To date the only recorded evidence of Tiger Sex’s blistering attack is a shoestring-produced EP they made mere months before leaving Las Vegas, featuring a quartet of originals plus their uvula-rattling cover of The Stooges’ “T.V. Eye” (“That was one take, live,” Kei says) and a sweetly serene take on Ricky Nelson’s “Lonesome Town.” In addition to expanding its live profile locally, Tiger Sex is anxious to document its new configuration in an area studio at some point in the coming year.
“We’ve been busy playing but I’d like to take a couple weeks off and record,” TigerSex says. “We need to record.” ©
For show dates, music and more info on TIGER SEX, visit tigersex.info.
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2015.