The 2013 edition of Revolver‘s annual Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock calendar — featuring Taylor Momsen of The Pretty Reckless on its cover and exclusive pinups of 12 of the loveliest ladies in music — is available online. The calendar also packs plenty of hard-rock and heavy-metal trivia, including landmark album release dates, historic concerts, musician birthdays, and much more! Get yours now.

REVOLVER When are you planning on going into the studio?
MARIA BRINK It’s looking like we’re going into the studio, like, January 1st, or January 3rd, right after the new year. And so we’re in the heavy process of just all the pre-production, like, writing all the new songs. We’re actually gonna work with some writers this time, which we’ve never done before. It’s exciting and scary at the same time, you know? And I’m always kind of the visionary part as far as, like, the new theme and the feel. I like our album to kind of have a whole feeling to them and sometimes a loose concept that kind of goes through it. So I’m kind of trying to dig out all those artistic things in myself and lock myself in the dark.

What sort of themes are you coming up with right now?
I definitely think that this is gonna be the darkest album that we’ve ever done and I think dark in every way–like, visually, you know, the chords that we’re playing, the lyrics that I’m singing, our video. Like, I just really feel a dark vibe to the whole thing, kind of like, I don’t know–if I could explain it in colors, like crimson red and black. We’re normally kind of different. This is definitely more of the alluring, sinful side of us, I guess you could say. That’s what I’m really coming up with a lot and really kind of feeling, I guess.

When I say dark, I don’t mean like I’m depressed and sad. It’s more of a fiery thing, I think.

Is that something that you guys kind of get together and plan out or is it that just what’s coming out when you’re writing?
They kind of vibe off of, you know, they’re pretty… They’re not like I am. I’m so passionate with all of these types of things like, What’s it gonna feel like? What’s it gonna look like? They’re a little bit more loose in that area. Not that they don’t care, but they kind of leave that whole thing up to me when it comes to certain things, I guess you would say. They write songs and they… They let me be the crazy one when it comes to that stuff, I guess.

You mentioned that you were bringing in writers this time. Was it hard bringing in other people to work on songs that, I guess, are pretty personal to you?
Exactly, yeah. I can’t, no matter how much I try, I can’t sing someone else’s lyrics. Like, I’m super passionate about, you know, how I feel. If I don’t feel what I’m singing then nobody else is gonna feel it. And if I’m not passionate about it and it doesn’t move me inside and I feel that fire about it then I’m just gonna be like a singing puppet. And I just can’t do that and I can’t be that–to me, it is about art. But I’m totally open to, you know, sitting down with the things that I come up with, with the writers, and then saying we could probably come up with a better word here, or we could come up with a better line than this. ‘Cause I think challenging yourself is always good. And as long as I can have the emotion in the song and I can kind of have a concept so I feel attached to it. If someone’s just like, “You’re gonna sing this song and it’s gonna be about this and you’re gonna be…” Like, I just can’t do that.

Have you decided which writers you’re bringing in yet?
We know a few people, but nothing is, like, set in stone right now. So I’m not quite sure. I would like to work with Ben Moody–I think he’s an amazing song writer. But we’re just kind of talking and things like that right now. But nothing is actually set in stone as of yet. Our producer is Kevin Churko, who just did the Five Finger [futureusgalleryDeath Punch] album, the last two Five Finger albums, and the last two Ozzy albums. And he, himself, is actually an amazing writer as well, so he’s actually gonna be writing a little bi, too.

And are you going to be recording in Las Vegas again?
Yeah, Kevin actually opened up a new studio, called the Hideout, so this is going to be the first time we’re working in that studio with him. I’m excited, it’s a very cool, you know, writing an album–there’s nothing like it. Just everything, the music and the lyrics, it’s such a journey and it’s so artistic for me and it’s like you kind of get lost in this whole world of creating this thing that, like, is gonna be there, you know? No matter how much it sells, or when I die or whatever, it’s just something I’m kind of leaving. I don’t know, it’s a really a personable and really magical thing for me. I love it.

What have you been listening to that’s been inspiring you?
Lately I’ve been listening to just a lot of atmospheric stuff lately actually, like things that just kind of calm me and kind of let my mind open up. Like Sigur Rós, or M83, or Massive Attack–things that kind of just open my mind artistically for me personally. But, I mean, those things always influence me regardless, they kind of let me open my mind up, I guess. But, what have I gotten new? I did like the new City and Color album–that was really great. I know these are all mellow things, not what people would probably think I would… Because I love heavy stuff obviously, it’s a certain part of myself I have to express in my music and I love it and if I just did all the mellow in In This Moment I think I would be lost and I’d feel like it was missing that part. And then vice versa, I would never want to do a bunch of heavy stuff either, without the melodic and, you know, the other. So I just gotta find a healthy balance. But when I’m starting to kind of calm myself into going into the new album and kind of opening myself up, I usually listen to really atmospheric stuff.

I know you try to keep a close bond with your fans and you’ve recently relaunched your Wonderland fan site. How is that going?
Yeah, it’s Maria Brink’s Wonderland. I love it. It is a cool way for me to just kind of have this special connection, because there are so many social networks now, so I cherish our fans. ‘Cause without our fans, you know, and the economy’s down right now, they pay money to come see you, you know, so I do keep in contact with them through our social networks and let them know I appreciate them and kind of have that thing. Like, I do live chats on there with them, I do blogs every day, and do little special things this and that. So it’s kind of just like our little private community where no haters can come on there. It’s all locked and sealed.  So it’s cool though to me, it’s special and it’s kind of like our private thing.

I can imagine, as much as you want to interact with fans, sometime the haters out there just spoil the whole experience.
If I had my forum open to everybody and not just my Wonderlanders, I had that before, and there was just all these haters and they can just make up emails and they can write evil horrible things on there. And I was just like, I’m making this whole thing locked down, sealed. It’s just for like our special community. It’s great. I love it.

What do you think is the sexiest hard rock or metal song?
“You’ve Seen the Butcher” off the last Deftones album, Diamond Eyes. They’re my favorite band. I mean Chino is amazing. Yeah, for like that world of music, yeah, for sure. He’s my favorite guy singer.

What is it that makes that particular song sexy?
Ah, just everything: the beat to the song, the music, his lyrics, the way he’s singing it. I mean that’s sexy–I love it.

REVOLVER How did the SLoT form?
NOOKIE Our male singer, Cache, and guitarist, I.D., got together after a concert in 2001 or 2002. I joined the group in 2006. They said that they should do something like what they just heard, but do it better and different. They got another couple of their friends together and found a singer. So they had three guitarists, a singer, and a drummer. Cache put away his guitar onstage and has been the male voice since the beginning, but he still writes a lot of the songs along with the rest of the band, musically. The band had two songs picked up by a Russian blockbuster movie called Boomer before they even had decided on a name for the band. They had literally one day to choose a name, so they voted and decided on the SLoT.

I joined the band shortly after I moved to Moscow to study music. My vocal coach at the institute I was studying at told me that the SLoT was looking for a singer and so I tried out. They had me re-record the vocals on the album they had just released with their second singer, and it was re-released. Lots of confusing details about the band, but we’ve been pretty stable for the last five years. The band has had two drummers, three bassists, and three female lead singers since it started nine years ago. Nobody can get our name right or our roster right online. Our Japanese release this year in May even printed the wrong name for our bassist on an insert they included with the CD. For the record, our bassist’s name is Nixon and our drummer is a fan of The Big Lebowski and calls himself the Dude.

How would you describe your music?
Modern rock that consists of a mix of various genres. Electronic, clean vocals, rap, screaming vocals, heavy guitars, acoustic guitars, industrial effects, and traditional Russian melodies. Modern sound mixes various styles and pulls from various types of genres. Rock music has been moving towards pop. Pop is moving more towards rock. Hip hop is mixing with metal, think about Lil Wayne at the MTV Music Awards this year. Soon I think all the music will be without genres and we’ll just have really one popular style. Experiments with music are OK–you can stretch the boundaries of what’s possible as long as the final product is good music. That’s what really matters.

What is your goal with the band?
To make music that makes our fans think for themselves and be themselves. We don’t preach in our lyrics, we don’t tell people how to live. We show things from our own perspective and let people make their own decisions about if it’s right or wrong or some kind of example to follow. Also, we’re not trying to be in one genre like metalcore or rapcore or industrial or hip-hop rock or heavy rock or anything when we write our music. We just want to make music that we like. It’s why our record label went crazy trying to put a genre tag on our CD because it really isn’t any one genre. We’ve got songs competing against brutal death metal on the charts, and other songs that could compete with Lady Gaga or trip hop on our CD. We don’t care about tags–we just make music that we like and that sounds good to us.

What is the rock scene like in Russia?
It’s all underground. Rock almost doesn’t exist as an industry. We have lots of good bands here, and a ton of great music of course. But there’s no system to promote it here. It’s hidden away from all the big media and mainstream news and all other things like that. What they call rock music on the Billboard charts here is really folk music, and not anything close to actual rock. There’s no young bands on TV or radio, just mostly old men and old women who sing this kind of traditional Soviet music. There are a ton of pop acts, and some are really good. I know everybody has heard of t.A.T.u. as an example, but even the good pop acts are struggling in Russia–not as much as rock, but they still struggle. The SLoT has been a headliner on literally every major rock festival in Russia, and yet still we struggle for mainstream acceptance.

For example, we performed at the largest music festival in Russia a couple months back, and there they have three stages. Of course, music like ours is on the Alternative Stage. The organizers of the festival, “Nashestviye,” meaning Invasion, put on an Internet poll before the festival where they asked people “who deserves to be on the main stage?” We won the internet voting with thousands of votes. Still they refused to put us on the main stage because they don’t like the kind of music we play. So for the second year in a row, when we came onstage, literally thousands of people walked the kilometer from the main stage to the alternative stage. There must have been 10,000 people for a stage that usually has 100-300 people watching the performers. When we left, most went back to the main stage. I’m not trying to brag at all, but I want people to understand the point that even when fans show the people in control what they want, the people in control still don’t care. They aren’t interested in anything different.

We released our ballad “Mirrors” about a year and a half ago in Russia. It’s not like America where there’s thousands of radio stations that are all important in all the major cities. In Russia, you have only really two main cities and everything else is really spread out, small towns and such. But when this single came out we got the biggest radio station network in Moscow and St. Petersburg to play it. At that time, they were doing their charts based on Internet voting, really a democratic way to decide. We had the No. 1 song in Russia. A few weeks later, the program director of that station got fired and immediately our music was off the station and they eliminated the voting system the same week. If anybody wonders why we made an English-language CD, here is your answer.

Tell us about the band’s latest release?
Break the Code is 15 of the SLoT’s best songs from the last nine years and four studio albums. We hooked up with an American poet from California who wanted to write our lyrics in English and, of course, we agreed. What most people wouldn’t ever know about the CD is that the first eight songs we recorded for Break the Code were produced by [futureusgallerythe poet] from the U.S. while we were in Moscow, and it was done entirely over Skype.

The Russian version of “Time to Go” was about a guy hanging out a beach trying to hit on girls, and the new version is a song about a girl who tells her guy to fuck off. And the new lyrics suit the music perfectly, just in a different way. Also, the reaction we’ve gotten at home has been interesting. A lot of our Russian fans aren’t excited about the new release, and, big shock, they tell us the Russian songs sound better. They make comments online that they don’t want us to do anything in English. They’re afraid we’re going to abandon them and not make more music for them that they can understand. It’s never going to happen. We’re always going to make music in our native language. But there’s no reason to be like the Russian music industry and hide ourselves from the rest of the world.

Where did the name Nookie come from?
Wow, I never get this question. If I told you it was from Limp Bizkit’s song, would you believe me? For me, it wasn’t just because I liked the song, it was because of what this word represents. Why does there have to be so much guilt with sex? Why does having sex have to mean that you have some expectation of something more like commitment or marriage or whatever? Do we react that way to a hug or a kiss or a handshake? Aren’t they personal, too? I think it’s not necessary to have so much stress because you want to have some fun with somebody. Nookie is a fun way to say what we all know it really means, and that’s how I think about it: It should just be fun and without any serious consequences or head trips afterward.

Who are your biggest musical heroes and why?
My biggest musical hero is Kurt Cobain. Nobody changed rock music more than he did since the Beatles. He didn’t know how to lie, and he died too soon.  As far as bands that are modern and current, really no heroes, but I really [futureusgalleryIn This Moment frontwoman] Maria Brink’s voice–her screams are awesome.

What are your favorite hard-rock and metal albums?
Mechanical Animals by Marilyn Manson is a part of the big puzzle of my life’s emotional outlook. It focuses on personal doom and the irrelevance of people in the world.

The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance always makes me feel better when I listen to it. To me, it sounds like some kind of black cabaret–it’s my way of understanding it, like, a dark brothel. I imagine it just like in the video for The Black Parade, where all these freaks are traveling back from a funeral, or maybe on their way to one.

You’ll Pay for the Whole Seat, but You’ll Only Need the Edge by Animal Alpha because Agnete’s vocals are amazing and their music is dark, and she is just insane live.

What is the sexiest hard-rock or metal song and why?
Limp Bizkit’s “Nookie.” We play it a lot as a cover song in our concerts, not all the time, but often enough. I feel like I’m flirting with all the guys in the crowd when I hear “I did it all the for the Nookie.” I just imagine what everybody is thinking when they sing it back to me from the crowd, and it’s like I’m making love to a thousand people at one time, with all the consequences.

Step One: “Like” Revolver on Facebook
Step Two: Strike a pose in front of our cover
Step Three: Load that photo up to our Facebook page
Step Four: “Tag” Revolver and yourself (you can do this when you get home if you want)
Step Five: Check our Facebook page for the winner’s name

See you there!

The party takes place on Saturday, October 15, beginning at 11 P.M., at the House of Blues inside Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. For more details, click the flyer.

For ticketing info, click here.

Brink, who will also be performing with In This Moment on the cruise, spoke of her joy at being asked to perform vocals on the 10-minute opus “Suite Sister Mary”: ““I am so excited and grateful for this amazing opportunity to sing with Queensrÿche on the upcoming ShipRocked cruise! All of us in the band are huge Queensrÿche fans, and Geoff Tate is one of the best lead singers in the business. Getting to sing ‘Suite Sister Mary’ off the original Mindcrime album is a huge honor. This is going to be a cruise to remember!”

Queensrÿche frontman Geoff Tate also expressed his anticipation for the band’s second stint upon the cruise. “We’ve always enjoyed performing for our fans in intimate settings and the forthcoming ShipRocked cruise will certainly be one of those occasions. We’re calling this one, ‘Mutiny on the Mindcrime.‘

ShipRocked sets sail from Fort Lauderdale, FL, on November 14, stopping in the Mexican ports of Costa Maya and Cozumel, before returning on November 19.

If you haven’t done so already, you can get a hold of Revolver‘s Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock issue, featuring Maria Brink, by clicking here. You can also pick up the 2012 Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock calendar with a spread featuring Brink here.