The Ruiners
Gig Seeker Pro

The Ruiners

Band Rock Punk

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


"How's That Grab Ya?"

Close your eyes when listening to How's That Grab Ya? by Detroit sleaze-rockers the Ruiners, and you're sure to see images of weirdo surfers, gray skinned zombies and pale vampires with bloody smiles cruising down Woodward Avenue in a muscle car hearse. That's because these guys have created the perfect horror movie soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist.Produced by the tres cool Jim Diamond and Mick Collins, the record has the right pedigree to fit into the current garage rock milieu. But the Ruiners are closer to new wave than anything else than the Stooges/Ramones rip-offs playing these days. It doesn't smack of nostalgia, because it reminds the listener of a time no right-thinking person could be nostalgic for. The band is reputed to have a stage show that features the destruction of small appliances onstage and throwing stuffed animals into the crowd, which seems like it would fit right in with the music. On songs like "Vampire Dating," "Ghost Pains," and "She Died," the band combines the theatrics of Alice Cooper with the prehistoric grunt of the Cramps to create a hilarious ball monster movie fun. The scariest thing might be "Detroit Surfer Boy," because the very idea of surfing in the Detroit River is, well, terrifying. It's a perfect accompaniment for fantasies of subterranean post-apocalyptic wasteland homesick blues. - Creem Magazine - By Brian J. Bowe


"Rock and ruin: Show is a wild party"

The Ruiners know rock 'n' roll.

That's rock 'n' roll -- as in the time-tested, freak-out-your-mom, forget-all-your-worries version of the stuff. The kind that's been increasingly neglected as pop culture wanders through its latest phase, with bubblegum pop on one end and tedious angst rock on the other.

The Ruiners also know Detroit, a town that likes its rock with a colorful, costumed twist. Which is exactly what the band delivers, with each over-the-top gig adding a new layer to the buzz.

"We're like a big demolition derby where Iggy, the MC5 and the Cramps are driving the cars in the Munsters' backyard," says keyboardist Lou Ruiner, who like his four bandmates has adopted the surname.

It's the kind of show where vocalist Rick Ruiner emerges from a coffin in leather pants -- which are off and afire by show's end, leaving him in a silver thong. Stuffed animals litter the stage before being tossed to -- and torn up by -- the crowd. Women dubbed the Ruinettes gyrate off to the side, while the noisily dressed band noisily roars through tunes like "Blood Sucking Lawyers" and "Please Don't Puke in My Car."

"That was like nothing I've ever seen before except for that time I was in that mental institution," wrote an online fan after a Friday show in Ann Arbor.

The band, founded in 1997 by Rick Ruiner, has built its reputation around town with unpredictably wild shows -- including a penchant for destroying small appliances on stage. Having cut its teeth at small bars like the Old Miami and Gold Dollar, the band has increasingly found itself in bigger venues, opening for established acts, and extending its reach to Ohio and Illinois.

No Ruiners' appearance is more notorious than at last year's Hamtramck Blowout, when police were called to Paycheck's Lounge during the band's set. A washer and dryer had been carted out, and a melee ensued as band and fans began violently disassembling them. No charges were filed, but the band says nine participants sought medical care for cuts and other injuries.

"Alice Cooper gets the guillotine going and everybody stands there and watches," says Rick Ruiner. "We take the show into the crowd -- throwing 20 vacuum cleaners out to smash."

There is music involved in all this -- quick, catchy punk blasts that can be found on the band's self-released CD, "Post-Apocalipstick World," and on an EP to be released in the spring.

"The songs are more like Count Chocula than 'The Exorcist,' " says Rick Ruiner. "They're intended to be fun, the soundtrack for the party."

That mind-set represents a change from the group's early days, which he describes as angrier and uglier. The band has even cut back on its onstage appliance onslaught, Ruiner says, "because it was starting to attract too many of the wrong kinds of people."

"There were more fights. I was actually doing the thing where I cut my head with a bottle," he says. "What's made the band really grow is that it's gone from being this self-contained performance art thing to an actual party. It's about having a mix of people, bringing them together in one room, and seeing what happens when you introduce different elements of shock or craziness."

There's therapy to be found amid the mayhem.

"So many people have told us they were feeling awful, then they come to the show and go nuts," says Lou Ruiner. "And then they say, 'Thanks -- I needed that so much.' "
- Detroit Free Press - By Brian McCollum


Discography

Post-Apocalipstick World (CD) 1999
Six Of The Seven Deadly Sins (CD-EP) 2001
Old Skars & Upstarts 2002 (CD-comp)
How's That Grab Ya? (CD) 2003
Friday At The Lager House (7" EP) 2004

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

The Ruiners are a 6 piece Detroit Rock-n-roll band rooted in the over-the-top musical and theatrical traditions of their oily hometown fabric. The Ruiners are notorious locally and now nationally after appearing on The Spike T.V reality series "On The Road". Recently a still unreleased song was requested by Jackass producers for use in Fuel T.V.'s extreme sports program "The Captain and Casey show". The Ruiners also made their presence known in Europe in 2004. After a Norwegian booking agent caught their magic stick show in Detroit last year, an invitation to play Gearfest in both Sweden and Norway, was granted. The band has much history locally. Members have had duties in bands ranging from the Detroit Cobras to Elvis Hitler. The Ruiners have evolved from early stints as the house band for Detroit's amateur woman's wrestling at the now infamous The Gold Dollar. At this time the shows focused on crowd driven riots and destruction of nearly everything imaginable on stage. The band became a local favorite of bikers and cross-dressers, but club owners’ dread. For this reason, The Ruiners literally set its sledgehammers down and started banging out catchy 3-minute songs by cleverly combining bubble-gum and ballsy blues glam rock into fierce and memorable rock anthems. One reviewer described the live show as a demolition derby where the cars are driven by the Cramps, Alice Cooper and Stooges in the Munsters backyard. The live shows are unforgettable. No band wants to follow the Ruiners. The band pours their bodies into every show, regardless of attendance or venue. Rick Ruiner, singer/stuntman has been known to light himself on fire with lighter fluid, ride his dirtbike inside the venue, or swing from the ceiling. Co-singer and sexy femme fatal " Renee Ruiner" shakes her fringe, sings ala go-go. The baby doll voice of this bubble-gum starlet melts hearts while paying tribute to Ronnie Ronnette and Betty Boop alike.
Bass player Liz Ruiner brings a sexy '76 era Suzi Quatro influence to the bottom end. She is slick, and tough as Joan Jett's nails. Damian Ruiner plays his flamejob drums like a Hopped up V-8, drag-racing into the heart of darkness.
No style label will quite fit this band, and nobody in attendance will leave without a song stuck in their head, a great rock-n-roll story, a smile on their face and possibly bruises on the souls of their feet.
The band has just completed a new record at Jim Diamond's Ghetto recorders.
-Dick Houston, 2005