Babes in rock land

Chili Peppers drummer plays prince in teen trio's pop-music fairy tale

By Joan Anderman, Globe Correspondent, 10/29/99

It's a rock 'n' roll fairy tale come true. Three teenage girls bond over the mutual adoration of a band. They form their own group, and make it their mission to meet a member of the rock band they love. They introduce themselves at a book signing. They show up at the music store when he teaches a clinic. They invite him to dinner and, lo and behold, they actually become friends. He calls when he comes to their town. The girls give him homemade tapes. And then one day he offers to finance, and produce, an EP for the fledgling trio. Oh, yes, he'd like to play on it, too.

While he's at it, he'll manage their career. And no, everybody promises, he's not sleeping with any of them.

Oh. My. God. That pretty well sums up how the Fuzzy Pinks - Audrey Coyle, Rachel Jacobs, and LuLu Neville - still react to the astonishing fact that Chad Smith, drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is shepherding their punk-pop dreams into the waking world. ''It was so amazing ... it was the best ... oh, God, recording was so much fun ... we had the best time in the studio,'' they blurt out all at once.

We are talking, or rather gushing, about these giddy days in a downtown Boston bagel shop; curious patrons can't resist staring at this over-amped gathering of 19-year-olds in heavy black boots and thigh-high skirts. There is nonstop giggling and high-pitched finishing of each other's sentences. These three have been best friends since junior high school, and each other's only friends, they say, since attending a Pearl Jam concert at the Orpheum in 1994. ''On the way home we were, like, `We're gonna be in a band,''' Rachel recalls. ''My whole life changed after that,'' says Audrey. ''My whole life was music. And it was just, like, the three of us.''

Yelling and banging Rachel and Audrey met in seventh grade in Clinton, near Worcester, where both grew up; a mutual friend introduced them because both were rabid Red Hot Chili Peppers fans. Audrey's cousin LuLu, also a kindred musical spirit, lived in Waltham. The threesome's first incarnation as a rock 'n' roll entity was Muddy, a high school band named after the local river. ''We just kind of wrote stupid little songs and played at a friend's party once,'' says Audrey. ''It was, like, straight punk. Just yelling and banging.''

Those so-called stupid little songs were enough to catch the ear of the Chili Peppers' Smith, however, way back in 1995, when they first handed him a tape of Muddy at Guitar Center on Commonwealth Ave. ''I thought, `Yeah, this is cool. They're cute girls. They like cool bands like Mudhoney,''' Smith recalls on the phone from his Los Angeles home. ''I said I'd like to check it out. And I really thought that it really had some potential. I liked the sort of raw, unpretentious part of it.''

They came to see him again in 1996, when the Chili Peppers played in Worcester, and gave him another tape. But Muddy soon dissolved - something having to do with Rachel's ambivalence about singing. It would be two years before they saw Smith again, when the three moved to Southern California during the summer of 1998 to fulfill Rachel's lifelong dream of being in the movies. And - being Rachel, Audrey, and LuLu - they actually did it, appearing briefly in the Drew Barrymore film ''Never Been Kissed.'' ''We had just graduated from being the biggest jerks in school,'' says Rachel, who won a Drew Barrymore look-alike contest. ''I was thrown in trash cans. Teachers used to gossip about us. People thought we were heroin addicts because we had, like, green hair and didn't dress like everyone. And then we got to go play cool kids and make fun of Drew Barrymore!'' she recalls, her voice brimming with gleeful revenge.

The threesome stayed with LuLu's relatives in the San Fernando Valley, and they hung out with Smith. ''I told them if they were serious they had to get focused and write some songs,'' says Smith. ''And I told them that if they did, Jon [Cohan, a Boston musician, childhood friend of Smith's, and now co-manager of the Fuzzy Pinks] and I would consider working with them.'' But hard-pressed to find jobs, their dreams of the glamorous life dashed by the exorbitant cost of living in LA, they reluctantly returned home after a month. In retrospect, it's the best thing that could have happened.

The Seattle band Mudhoney hit the road last fall. (The mere mention of this band evokes reverent sighs from all three.) LuLu, Audrey, and Rachel - who had a little too much time on their hands - followed the Mudhoney tour from Northampton to Boston, then to Providence, to New York, and finally to Philadelphia. ''You know when the big Seattle thing happened, all their friends got famous, and Mudhoney didn't,'' reports Rachel in uncharacteristically sober tones. ''But they still play, they keep going, making music. And we realized that's what we really wanted to do.'' Suddenly Rachel felt like singing again. They started writing some heavier songs, with dark chord changes and angry words. And the Fuzzy Pinks were born.

Three-song gig They describe their sound as Sonic Youth, the Stooges, and the Pixies meshed together - a noble goal indeed, but currently the Fuzzy Pinks' sound is very much in nascent form. The band played its first live gig three weeks ago at Sky Bar in Cambridge - all of three songs. Tomorrow night the Fuzzy Pinks make their official coming out at T.T. the Bear's, opening for Krebstar and Boy Wonder.

Those same three songs were recorded for an EP in July at Fort Apache studios in Cambridge. Smith just finished mastering it in LA and plans to personally shop a development deal for the Fuzzy Pinks early next year. ''They have this raw, innocent energy,'' says Smith, who flew up the day after the Red Hot Chili Peppers played at Woodstock to produce the tracks, two of which he played drums on. The band has since taken on a full-time drummer, Amy Biz. ''They're just playing the music that's coming out of their hearts because it's all they can do,'' Smith says. ''You know, U2 started out hardly being able to play their instruments. They're so young. They'll mature as people, as writers.''

For now, the Fuzzy Pinks are following their mentor's advice to take it slow, write more songs, and rehearse every day - after work, that is. Even punk-pop dreamers have to pay the bills, especially when they've just moved into their own apartment in South Boston. LuLu and Rachel run credit checks at Lightbridge in Waltham, and Audrey works at Tax Equity Alliance as office manager and bookkeeper. Smith, meanwhile, is back on the road with his own band, finishing a European tour. Even though he doesn't have the time to be hands-on, Smith says, he's doing everything he can to guide them. ''I'm trying to keep them focused on the music, not about all of a sudden being rock stars. I would have loved to have someone do this for me,'' he says.

Smith recently accompanied the Fuzzy Pinks to their first radio show interview, with WBCN DJ Nik Carter. ''I've been in radio for 10 years, and I was shocked and delighted to hear about this,'' says Carter, who thinks it's about time another riot grrrl band came up through the ranks. ''For the drummer of one of the biggest bands in the world to guide them, to stick his reputation on the line and go into the studio with them, is huge.''

Don't they know it. ''We'd been wanting to play out but didn't have any money to even get a demo together,'' says Rachel. ''I mean, we got to record our demo at Fort Apache. With Chad Smith on drums. We are so lucky.''

This story ran on page C01 of the Boston Globe on 10/29/99. © Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.