These five women have taken music more than twenty years old and resurrected the middle finger with which it was written, and not simply by regurgitating the songs we all know and love note for note. No, they didn't stop there. I've heard and witnessed it over and over again. They do AC/DC better than AC/DC does AC/DC. And although any one of these girls will give you a reason why that isn't true, take it from someone out in the audience: they just plain kick ass with as much, possibly more, ferocity as their testosterone laden inspiration. And because it is now five women shoving it down your throat, the message takes on a whole new meaning in more ways than one.

They are about to tour the west coast of these United States, and if you have ever liked AC/DC for even a moment, it would be a crime to rock 'n' roll not to see Hell's Belles. So grab a bunch or your friends, have some drinks, and prepare to jump around and be amazed. They will play your favorite AC/DC song like you have never heard it played before.

What was the impetus behind this, why an AC/DC cover band?

Om Johari: About three years ago Amy came up with this idea. She was sitting in her office at American Music and the song "Touch Too Much" came on, and she thought that it would make a great song for an all-girl AC/DC cover band because of the lyrics. She thought she would call the band Venus with Arms because it's part of the lyric in the song. "She had the face of an angle smiling with sin / her body a Venus with arms."

She set the wheels in motion and tried to get some people to play. I knew she was this kick-ass guitar player and I asked her is she wanted to start a girl punk rock band. Amy said, "Let me think about it," and came back a couple of days later and said, "How would you instead like to be in an all-girl AC/DC cover band?" I was like, "That's fuckin' rad! Yeah! What do we need to do?" So Amy called a couple of friends that didn't come through, then we got word from the Bad Apples that Sylvia was a huge AC/DC fan, so we asked her. I had just seen this new cool band called Hafacat and thought we should try to snag that bass player [Heather]. Heather knew a drummer, and that's how we got Laura from Puyallup.

When Amy told someone the name, they mistook it for Anus with Arms, so a friend suggested Hell's Bells, and we took it further by adding "E" to Bells. Hence, Hell's Belles. In June we started getting practices together and in July we had our first show at the OK Hotel.

So are you all into it?

Hell's Belles: Hell yeah!

How seriously are you all taking the band?

Amy Stolzenbach: You saw our practice.

Laura Derig: I have a black eye. What else do you need to know?

Amy: I think we're all taking it pretty seriously.

Laura: Why do it and leave any holes for anyone to say: "They're good except for they missed this part and they didn't do that part right."

Heather Madden: I think that a lot of our audience is going to be more analytical and skeptical just knowing that we are females. So if we're on it every show, all the time, then they can't do anything but have a good time.

Amy: Hopefully after the first song, that skeptical part leaves.

Do you all play in other bands?

Amy: I do and Heather does.

Are you musicians taking on AC/DC or obsessive fans taking on AC/DC?

[Some banter starts about the AC/DC episode of VH1's Fan Club.]

Amy: We are musicians who like AC/DC a lot. I think the people who are on that Fan Club show are more obsessed with a rare piece of vinyl.

Did you have any idea when you started this that it was going to take off like the rocket that it has?

Hell's Belles: No! Absolutely not!

You went from no one knowing about it, to almost everyone knowing about it.

Amy: People would ask me what I'm up to and I'd tell them I was starting this all-girl AC/DC cover band. They would say, "Oh, that's you. I've heard about that." And this was like six weeks before our first show. We hadn't even learned a whole set yet.

Heather: My friend was walking down the street and overheard two bums talking about Hell's Belles.

Laura: I'll tell you honestly, every show we play I'm nervous that no one will show up. Even though we have shows that are completely sold out, I still get nervous that people aren't going to show up or aren't going to enjoy themselves.

How do you walk away from those shows?

Laura: I feel really good. I just hope that everybody in the band had a good time and that everyone in the audience had a good time.

Heather: We are really lucky. I've been in bands that you were lucky if you could get a weekend gig.

[Looking up at the gig calendar on the wall of their practice space, I notice that their for the next three months the band is booked to play at least once per week.]

Sylvia Wiedemann: Well it's easy for us, because it's not like it's a whole new band that is being presented. When we go to another town and play the audience already knows the music that they are going to hear.

All the time in conversation I hear people say that you are actually better than AC/DC.

Amy: We were just talking about that. People do say that.

Om: They're on crack.

Amy: Most people have seen AC/DC, but they have seen them in a huge coliseum. If they saw AC/DC in a club, they would think that show was better than the one they saw in Key Arena.

Amy, when you thought about how the band would work, was it always: "I'm going to be the Angus character!"

Hell's Belles: Oh Yeah!

Amy: Well, it was my idea.