Punk Powerhouses Alice Bag and Kid Congo Powers Bring Their New Project Juanita & Juan to the Clock-Out Lounge

"I'm gonna brush my teeth with gasoline, to get your taste out of my mouth," punk rock icon Alice Bag croons over psychedelic guitar fuzz and trippy keys on the song "Aftertaste." Singing of a burned romance, she's out for revenge. "I'm gonna set your clothes on fire, I'm gonna fumigate my house."

The song is off Jungle Cruise, a new album put out by Juanita & Juan, a duo featuring Bag and fellow punk-rock legend Kid Congo Powers. The band is a recent endeavor for the longtime friends and musicians, who have been instrumental in shaping punk rock since the late 1970s — Bag with The Bags and her solo projects and activism and Powers with The Gun Club, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cramps, and his own band, Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds.

Despite the credentials, Juanita & Juan isn't a strictly punk-rock project. Rather, the band plays "loud lounge" music aka a mix of punk, rock, tropicalia, psychedelia, and whatever else the two are interested in exploring. With Bag on the keyboard and Powers on the guitar, they both take turns crooning about love, war, and David Bowie, their voices wrapping around one another. And they are bringing their version of lounge music to the Clock-Out Lounge on April 22.

The two first crossed paths in 1977 in Los Angeles at a time when the nascent punk scene was just beginning to kick all the way off.

"There were so few punks in the early days and we kind of looked a little weird to the outside, unrefined eye," Bag remembered. "I feel like we stuck together for one thing, for safety and not only the feeling of community. We tended to travel in packs."

"Yeah — safety in numbers, definitely," Powers added, noting the diversity of L.A.'s punk scene back then. "We were at all the same concerts, all the same parties, we were all having the common cause of punk — this punk explosion. Because that's what it seemed like, an explosion of music, fashion — or anti-fashion — and the individuality of different people."

An early artifact of their friendship was an uncredited appearance on '70s sitcom C.P.O. Sharkey, starring Don Rickles as a naval recruitment officer in California. One particular episode focused on the then-novel punk movement, and producers — to their credit — wanted real-life punks to populate their club scene. Needing easy, quick cash, both Powers and Bag signed up as extras for the show where their one job was to dance and thrash to a fictional club called The Pits (where The Dickies played a fake concert for the show), dressed respectively in a hot pink blazer and long black vest.

"Most of us were barely employed and probably starving, eating Top Ramen all the time," said Powers. "So it was nice to get paid just for being yourself."

"It was maybe one of the first scenes of punk rock in a prime-time sitcom," Bag said. "Hats off to them for wanting some authenticity!"

Fast forwarding nearly five decades, television brought the two of them together once again. But this time as a house band at an outdoor restaurant on the Mexico-set Peacock dark comedy, The Resort. Instead of rocking out a punk show, the duo came together to write a floaty, laid-back Spanish-language lounge song with Bag on the keyboard and Powers on guitar. Though their scene together was quick, it sparked something deeper.

"We had so much fun doing and also making the song, we thought, 'Why don't we do something more like this?' Because it's very different for us," Powers reflected.

Thus birthed Juanita & Juan, their "loud lounge" project. Powers coined the term to reflect the loud, punk scene they both emerged from and, unlike lounge music, their music isn't simply regulated to the background — it's front and center. Or if "lounge could drop acid," as Powers put it. Taking inspiration from L.A. lounge duo Marty & Elayne (known for their kooky covers of popular songs), Juanita & Juan pull from their own experiences in music and life and dress them in a mix of tropicalia, cumbia, pop, and noisy melodies.

This personal touch is apparent in songs like "DBWMGWD," which stands for "David Bowie Was My Gateway Drug," a tribute to Ziggy Stardust himself. Bag sings about how weird she was in school ("I gave off the scent of weird/The other kids would not come near") and how David Bowie's music felt like salvation ("The alien saved the alienated.") Powers and Bags go in and out singing about the Thin White Duke over a funky, otherworldly synth.

"When Ziggy Stardust came out and the whole idea of David Bowie being an alien and being bisexual or pan, was, to me, a revelation in rock music," Powers remembered. "To have this androgynous alien who admitted their sexuality at the time I was coming out or not even out … that was the ticket for so many people."

"An important part of David Bowie in my life was realizing that there was such a thing as being bisexual. I felt like I had to choose when I was growing up. I'm like, 'Wait, I have feelings for girls, and I'm attracted to both genders.' I felt confused," Bag added. "When I read an interview with David Bowie where he talked about being bisexual, my mind was just blown. It's like, 'Oh, I can have both!'"

As integral as their personal lives are to Juanita & Juan, Bag and Powers wanted to explicitly express their politics in the project as well. Written in the midst of the assault on Gaza, "Put Your Weapons Down" is an anti-war anthem calling for a ceasefire now. Over a seedy guitar line, Powers sings real low, "Look at all the devastation: anger, grief, pain/Trouble, hopes turn to rubble — insane." While the song reflects the horrors going on now, Bag and Powers wrote it to be applicable to any conflict, at any time.

"If there's war, it's always the time to be anti-war," Powers said. "We also say 'Put down our weapons' because we are complicit as a nation."

Although politics and fighting back are the focus of their other projects, both Bag and Powers hope this duo can offer a bit of relief for those seeking love and hope.

"Juanita & Juan is like, we're in for the long haul. This is going to be a long battle," said Bag. "We need to take time to enjoy each other's company, to feel community, to feel like we're here for each other. We feel the fear, we feel the anger and the frustration, yes, but today we're here to celebrate and heal each other."

Juanita & Juan are playing at the Clock-Out Lounge on April 22 with Graveyard of the Pacific and Lushy on opening duties. Get tickets over on the Clock-Out Lounge's website.