By Kimberly Chun

THE TOUGHEST LOINS for sale in the TL, sundry crack hos, psychiatric ward ejectees, and runaway grooms: those are just a few things that twirl Holy Kiss's world. Yes, it takes only the most unexpected, lovably hard-luck figures, sights, and fantastic notions to plant angelic smiles on the faces of the goth-ish Bay Area group – and that includes the imminent divorce of the threesome's vocalist-guitarist, Matty Rue Morgue, and bassist-guitarist, Dawn Hillis.

"Dawn and I are really good friends now, but we'll be in a band – forever," the pin-striped and Poe-loving Rue Morgue says, grinning fondly at Hillis and drummer-keyboardist Nick Ott from across his poached eggs at All You Knead on Haight Street. The divorce papers, in fact, finally arrived in the mail the other day. This calls for another order of home fries and heartburn.

Considering their funereal garb and dark preoccupations, Holy Kiss seem to have a lightness of spirit – and devil-may-sorta-care sense of humor – that belies their collective age of 87 (they're all between 25 and 35) and some fearsome, cacophonous blues-rock performances, shows that draw Nick Cave and Crime and the City Solution comparisons and have turned clubs like Rickshaw Stop into slightly spooked, rocked-out sock hops.

Song titles like "Mercy Train" and "A Girl in the Lake" take a lyrical and thematic page from the Bad Seeds' book of morbid murder blues, although the group's Bay Area haunts and former Tenderloin digs also show up in "Back to Colma" and the title track for their 2003 EP, The Sacred Heart of Eddy and Jones. That street-corner site – with all its pungent sights, sounds, and, (yum) smells – brings back memories of the residential hotel the group lived next to at Post and Hyde.

"You mean the crack-o-mat?" Ott deadpans.

"I like the Tenderloin. The filth of Ellis and Jones – it reminds me that I'm in a city," Rue Morgue says, smiling. He's recognized a newly released patient from the psychiatric hospital he worked at, wandering his hood. And then there was the woman who came by every night for what seemed like ages to wail, "Johnny! Where are you, Johnny? Why did you leave me, Johnny?" "She'd scream for hours," Ott says.

This cast of characters has informed Holy Kiss's songs. "Nostalgia and sentiment – I cling to a lot," Rue Morgue explains.

He and Ott first met at San Dieguito High School in Encinitas. ("It's a magical place," Rue Morgue offers ruefully. "With surfing Christians," Ott adds.)

The Holy Kiss vocalist has written most of the band's songs, filtering early blues through "crystals or whatever," he drawls. "Just to fuck with it a little bit."

"Dawn always wants to be less bluesy," notes Ott.

"I don't want to be a bar-rock band," she says sheepishly. "But with the drums and bass, it ends up being less bluesy, so it works out."

In its five-year existence, the band have issued 7-inches on Sweden's Release the Bat and GSL in the States, as well as an EP on Blood of the Young. They're currently working on their debut album, whenever they can grab studio time from friends, and they're all writing songs for a change. "I seem to have written a lot of bridges lately. I'm the bridge builder," Hillis quips.

"My dream is to play an all-piano cabaret set one day," Rue Morgue adds, "because we have this other side to us, our piano songs." Those include a Satie composition with new lyrics.

In the meantime, while the band has been trying to find and keep a fourth (female) member, including Cold War's Natalie, Holy Kiss seem to have found a balance between music and "the life." Rue Morgue and Ott divert themselves by performing as the "art-damaged" Jeweled Cats. Hillis manages a local art-house theater, where she works with recent Bay Guardian cover star Jose Rodriguez. ("Was he unbearable after the cover?" I joke. "He was unbearable before the cover!" she exclaims, laughing. "I love him," says Rue Morgue.) Ott works at Modern Times Bookstore and the San Francisco Public Library. And Rue Morgue works as a baker at Whole Foods when he isn't dreaming of his next career as a mortician.

"It's something I'm obsessed with, and they don't like ... that I'm obsessed with it," he says, gesturing with resignation toward his bandmates.

"It's just that we don't like to be overly ...," Hillis winces.

"Goth," Rue Morgue finishes her sentence for her. "But it's something I like to think about. It just reminds me that you better do something while you're here instead of sitting in front of the TV."

But surely even these lovebirds have some sort of opinion about that other musical split, between telegenic popsters Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

"Here's my take on this," says Ott, getting revved up. "They knew they were going to get divorced, and so they made the show so they could make an extra $2 million and split it evenly."

"You don't think they were ever in love?" asks Hillis, just a wee bit wistful.

"Maybe!" Ott returns. "But they're all capitalists – they're entertainers in a capitalist system, so they have to get their money's worth before they lose their entertainment value. So they do these stunts, they do these bullshit things so they can get money and live for the rest of their life on their 20 minutes of fame."

Hillis and Rue Morgue glance at each other. "We gotta do that," he says sweetly.

Holy Kiss play with Cold War, Yellow Press, and Rykarda Parasol Wed/8, Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, S.F. Call for time and price. (415) 552-7788.