Sacramento punk band's Westboro Baptist Church sex video goes viral, leads to ‘first of its kind' local porn company

What happens when the most notorious religious organization in America, known for picketing U.S. soldiers’ funerals and even Sacramento’s Jewish Heritage Festival, collides with this city’s sleaziest, raunchiest punk-rock group?

You get the viral porn video of the year and a new, blossoming Sacramento-based porn-production company, apparently.

Or at least that’s what happened this October, when local four-piece Get Shot! uploaded a porno it videotaped in front of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Within hours, the clip—featuring the group’s bassist, who calls herself Laura Lush, masturbating on a beach towel atop a spread of grass in front of a Westboro sign that reads “Fag marriage dooms nation”—drew millions of views. And the ire of Westboro leader Fred Phelps on Twitter.

“We were actually trying to orchestrate a lesbian orgy on Westboro Baptist’s lawn,” explained Get Shot! frontman J.P. Hunter, who founded the band in Sacto in 2007.

This ambitious plan for contentious titillation didn’t pan out: The three other women involved in the indulgence, including an unnamed prominent adult entertainer, got cold feet at the last minute. But that didn’t deter the band.

“’We’re not leaving Topeka empty-handed,’” bassist Lush insisted, according to Hunter.

So, on September 30, the singer drove his bassist to Westboro, in the heart of the state’s capital.

The now-famous video shows her naked, prancing onto a kelly-green, carefully manicured lawn with the church in the background. There’s a banner on its facade that reads “godhatesamerica.com.” Lush throws down a towel, as if having a picnic, and then proceeds to give herself a hand.

Hunter filmed the stunt. “The mailman was laughing his ass off the whole time she was doing it,” he recalled of a nearby observer.

After about five minutes, the duo hopped in their van “and got the hell out of there,” Hunter said.

“We did see a bunch of police at a coffee shop down the street.”

They sped off toward Colorado, seven-and-a-half hours away, fearful of reprisal the entire escape. Hunter sat in the backseat, editing the video.

“By morning, it was all over Gawker and [The Huffington] Post,” he said.

The clip, clocking in at 2 minutes, 8 seconds, was immediately picked up by other media outlets as well, such as BuzzFeed, the BBC and even The New York Times.

“And then, through that deal, we actually just got signed” to a porn company, Hunter shared.

Until now, local media has overlooked the band’s shenanigans. (“We haven’t had anyone locally call us yet, but honestly Sacramento has always ignored us,” Hunter said.)

Lush asserts that what she did was more than just a sex act. “The Phelps family and Westboro Baptist Church are ridiculous and do nothing except spread hate,” she wrote on the band’s Facebook page, explaining why she did what she did. “As a bisexual woman and the bass player of a ridiculous punk band, I wanted to spread my legs and cause controversy.”

SN&R wrote about Get Shot! in February 2012, just days after it was banned (temporarily) by Facebook for posting sexually suggestive pictures. The occasion was a gig in Midtown just before Valentine’s Day; Hunter wore only Superman underwear, sang about penises and even invited the crowd to a lingerie party at his home that weekend.

That’s Get Shot!’s game: Rock ’n’ roll meets sexual freedom. Or punk porn, have you.

“We’ve kind of been on a mission of debauchery for a couple of years, and I’m perfecting my talents of being sleazy and being an entertainer,” Hunter explained.

Since then, the group’s launched www.getshotgirls.com, a locally based, not-safe-for-work porn site. It has also toured extensively, including gigs at strip clubs in Portland, Ore., and a “red-state tour” earlier this May, when Hunter first scouted out Westboro’s headquarters in Kansas.

But when it returned to Topeka in September, the band staked out the church grounds. There was an 8-foot-high rod-iron fence, undercover and armed security guards, and a lot of cameras. But the group wasn’t deterred.

“No one likes Westboro,” Hunter said. “They’re a family of about 50 people at a church. Even the other religious organizations hate them.” He said that someone even firebombed the church years ago, but the guy only got 30 days in jail for a misdemeanor.

So, when his Westboro video went online earlier this month, Get Shot! received a wealth of new fans and interest. “We’ve had over 1.7 million views in the past week-and-a-half,” Hunter told SN&R last week.

The video eventually caught the eye of Monarchy Distribution, one of the world’s leading porn distributors based out of Los Angeles (it distributes content for Hustler, according to Hunter). Founder Mike Kulich said he’s close to inking Get Shot! soon.

“I have never signed a band in my entire porn career,” Kulich told SN&R. “But I’ve never seen a band that’s ballsy enough to shoot a porno on the lawn of the Westboro Baptist Church.”

He hopes to release a double-disc video with Get Shot! in January; one DVD will be a porn video, the other will be the band’s album.

Monarchy, who typically partners with porn creators on the Internet and sells their work to adult stores throughout the country, boasts a staff of 30 in Sherman Oaks. Kulich wouldn’t discuss money, saying only that it’s a “fairly big company.”

The reason he intends to ink Get Shot! is because Hunter and Co. are, he said, true professionals. They use model releases and the right paperwork, and operate like a real porn outfit. “They’re actually a legit production company,” Kulich said. “They actually know what they’re doing in terms of legality.”

And now, Get Shot! will soon launch a “full-scale porn-production company based out of Sacramento, the first of its kind,” according to Hunter.

Most of the content will appear at www.getshotgirls.com, the group’s existing porn website that is free—for now—and is already filled with a “couple-thousand pictures and videos.”

Hunter said that, despite this newfound success and viral fame, it’s still about sharing a punk message to the masses. “We promote sexual freedom; we’re pro-gay.”

He also still is out there promoting the band, which will tour Europe and Australia next year. “Our next local show is at PowerHouse Pub on December 4,” he plugged.