The Rocks Off 100: Jacqi Kil, The Bad Drugs' Screaming Bitch Creature

Welcome to the Rocks Off 100, our portrait gallery of the most compelling profiles and personalities in the far-flung Houston music community — a lot more than just musicians, but of course they’re in there too. See the entire Rocks Off 100 at this link.

Who: Since 2011, Houston has had a great little proto-punk outfit in the form of The Bad Drugs, fronted by the vocal death punch that is Jacqi Kil. You’ve got to love a woman that feels secure enough to not only admit she puked in your car, but who screams it at the top of her lungs in a hate anthem. Screaming Bitch Creature was a tremendous record full of these sorts of sentiments, and Kil consistently proves herself a force not to be trifled with.

Her career started almost by accident. She has sung since she was a teenager, and been invited here and there to contribute vocals on various friends’ recordings. The experience prompted Kil to strike out on her own, and a Craigslist ad teamed her with bandmate Ryan Kelley to birth The Bad Drugs.

Previously, she rocked the boards in The Alley Queens with Britt Harris on drums, and Porter Smith, who would go on to found The Freakouts with a similar ball of fire, Ash Kay.

Kil is, by her own admission, a loud, drunken, pissed-off bitch recovering from a drug problem. She sees her screamfest songs as a good way to filter out all the bad stuff inside her and remain a productive member of society.

It’s apparently working. The band is has a new van and is going back into the studio to follow up Screaming Bitch Creature very soon.

Home Base: Kil and Kelley now live together, and tend to come up with their best work sitting on the couch watching bad horror movies at 3 a.m. Like a lot of bands they’ve been driven away from practicing in their homes by neighbor complaints, so otherwise they’re a little nomadic at the moment.

Kil likes Super Happy Fun Land for performances, citing the club’s BYOB nature and owner Brian Arthur’s openness and honesty as the main appeals.

Good War Story: “I had a former bandmate get physically aggressive with me once,” Kil recounts. “He shoved me nearly into our drum kit. I freaked out and punched him a lot of people have audio and video of it. Crazy times…”

Music Scene Pet Peeve: “The lightly-veiled discrimination against women,” she says. “I have had so many people expect me to put out or become aggressive with me over my gender. It’s bullshit. The fact I’m not a perfect-looking girl doesn’t mean you get to fuck me.”

The story continues on the next page.

Best Show Ever You Ever Saw: “I saw the Semi Precious Weapons at Numbers two years ago,” Kil recalls. “Really small crowd. Amazing show. Got into a little scuffle and missed the end, but it was still amazing. The fight may have even enhanced my experience.”

Five Desert Island Discs:

The Heartbreakers, L.A.M.F.
The Stooges, Raw Power
The Cure, Three Imaginary Boys
Dead Boys, Young Loud and Snotty
Christian Death, Only Theatre of Pain

First Song You Fell in Love With: “When I was three I made my mom listen to the ‘Frosty the Snowman’ song all the way to Colorado in the summer in a car with no AC,” she says.

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Jef Rouner