Here are three facts that the Bitch gang want to get across:

• They are not defunct.

• They are selling hard rock records, not an S&M service.

• Their latest record is called The Bitch Is Back.

Got it? Now you know more about Bitch, the rock band, than most people. Sorting the facts from the rumors about her band is something Betsy, their petite lead singer/vocalist, has been contending with since the first leather-clad, whip-bearing publicity shots of the group were unleashed on the public. Those photos, and the band’s past albums, Be My Slave and Damnation Alley, helped create Bitch’s serious image problem.

“There were people,” says Betsy quietly, shaking her head, “who knew who I was, but not that I was in a band. They thought I was some bondage babe who was going to come over to their apartment and beat the shit out of them while their wife was at work. I always felt like writing back to say, ‘By the way, we’re a band.’ ”