It Girl

Welcome to the Cult of Katie Rose. Hope your liver can handle it

Comments (0) By Megan Irwin Thursday, May 25 2006

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As far as porn goes, the FTV videos are not too extreme -- for the most part, Katie plays the role of a teenage Lolita, masturbating, kissing another girl, the stuff of your typical amateur porn video. In some of her later work on the site, she gets kinkier -- there are a few scenes involving marbles, a speculum and some stockings (not necessarily all used together) -- and Katie says she actually preferred the work that was more fetish-oriented.

"A lot of people only know about the Internet stuff," she says. "I did a lot of fishnets and tights and bondage and heels. I have a letter from Larry Flynt saying I was one of his favorite fetish models. That's what I prefer to do. Everything that's portrayed as an innocent young girl was just to pay the bills."

Giulio Sciorio

Katie Rose and a model whose tattoos rival her own

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Although she says she has no regrets, her face hardens when she talks about the rumors, and she makes it very clear that she has no desire to return to the adult industry.

"People make up the craziest rumors. It's kind of expected. And I'm not saying I didn't do anything kinky or dirty, it just gets annoying. I'm always amazed when I hear new things," she says.

And for anyone who's still convinced she did the gang bang, she's got this offer: "I will give you a thousand dollars if you can show me a video or a picture of a gang bang."

She says joining Hell on Heels was what ultimately convinced her to stop making porn.

"I totally left the [porn] business because I felt like more of my energy was being focused on that than my music," she says. "They were like, 'What do you want? Is this going to interfere when we tour?' I was like, 'No. I want to do music. I want a name in music.'"

Hell on Heels did give Katie the start in music she wanted, though she is no longer with the band. Both sides are tightlipped regarding why she left, but they say they remain friends.

"We just went our separate ways. Me and Paula [Monarch] are very much the same -- we're really good friends, but we're both really strong people, and we both want to write songs," she says. "Paula knows I'm going to be happier if I'm fronting a band, and I know she's going to be happier without my fiery attitude. Plus at the time I was doing a lot of drugs, so, you know, I was hard to get along with."

Paula Monarch, who fronts the band (which is still together and going back to the studio soon), says giving Katie the boot was a tough decision, but one the band members knew they had to make.

"We were just going down different paths," she says. "This was the first record label and legit band for Katie, and the first actual tours for Katie as well. So she was excited about things that weren't important to us -- we've been there, done that. She wanted to hit every after-show party there was, and the rest of us just wanted to move on to the next town."

Still, Monarch says she respects Katie Rose and thinks of her as a little sister.

"I expected a lot of her because I could see a lot there," she says. "She has come a long way, and I'm very proud of her. She seems to have more focus and takes care of herself more -- she used to let people push her around, and there's no way she would let anyone do that now. She's awesome, and once you get to know her, she's the nicest person you could meet. I'm glad she finally got her shit together."

Katie says music is the biggest passion in her life, something she credits to her mother, who taught her to play guitar when she was 6. Still, she admits she's not the best player in the world, considering how long she's had the instrument around.

"I'm not a good guitar player, really. For as long as I've been playing, I should be way better. I should be like Jimi Hendrix, but I'm like Meg White on the drums on guitar," she says.

She's now playing with a band called the Night Shift.

The band hasn't played many shows in the three months it's been together -- Katie says she's focused mostly on getting a demo together -- but she did manage to get the band on the bill at the Clubhouse Music Venue when The Subways played in March. Not bad for a first show, and a definite indicator that despite the drama and rumors that follow her, Katie Rose is someone people listen to.

And there's no denying she's also someone who gets attention. In the past month, she's managed to get herself cast in a horror movie alongside Calico Cooper (Alice Cooper's daughter) and says she has been courted by MTV to possibly have her life taped for a new show tentatively titled Lifestyles of the Rock and Roll.