Music

Taylor Momsen strikes fear in the hearts of fans

She used to be such a sweet girl. But judging by the latest video for her band, the Pretty Reckless, the devil has gotten into Taylor Momsen.

The clip for “Going To Hell” features the blond singer, all glowing eyes and skintight rubber jumpsuit, holding a snake and lying atop a pile of writhing bodies. As the guitars squeal, she snarls lyrics like “I’m going to hell” and “Getting married to the devil/You can hear the wedding bells.”

She’s come a long way from her “Gossip Girl” days: Momsen now heads up rock band the Pretty Reckless, which is going on tour.Justin Campbell/startraksphoto.com

Anyone who still thinks of her as the kid sister Jenny Humphrey from TV’s “Gossip Girl” is in for a big shock. And anyone who still thinks of her as the cute moppet from Ron Howard’s movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is in for a coronary.

Momsen has been keen to bury her child-star image ever since launching the band in 2009. After spending much of the aughts establishing herself as one of America’s hottest young actors on “Gossip Girl,” the Missouri-born girl ditched the innocent look almost overnight and arrived on the music scene sporting leather boots, Goth makeup and a rock ‘n’ roll sneer. In a conversation with Interview, she readily admitted that she shopped for new outfits at “stripper stores mainly.” At the time, she was still only 16.

Looking back, Momsen, now 20, admits it was a shift that scared onlookers but insists it wasn’t that much of a leap for her personally. “When I started the Pretty Reckless, I know there was some reaction to the way I am onstage, but the people who actually know me weren’t surprised at all,” she tells The Post. “As time goes by, people are starting to realize that I am a musician, and the person I played on TV was just a character.”

There’s definitely no turning back for Momsen, who is now fully committed to being a musician. Having established themselves as more than just a vanity project with their 2010 debut album, “Light Me Up,” the group are now embarking on an American tour (which stops at Irving Plaza on Nov. 9). Their second album, “Going To Hell,” is due in the new year. It would have arrived a lot sooner were it not for the small matter of Hurricane Sandy, which laid waste to the studio in which the band were recording last year.

“We were midway through recording the album in Water Music Studios in Hoboken,” explains the singer. “No one was expecting it to be as bad as it was, but when we got into the studio after the hurricane, it was filled with 8 feet of water and everything was covered in sludge. We lost so much equipment. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth.”

She’s come a long way from her “Gossip Girl” days: Momsen now heads up rock band the Pretty Reckless, which is going on tour.Doug Meszler/Splash News

Like any good songwriter, Momsen turned that tragedy into something positive with her ferocious new single. But a sadness remains when she remembers the fallout from the incident. “When something like that happens, it hurts your soul.”

Sandy put a huge damper on last year’s Halloween celebrations, but this year, Momsen is hoping to make up for it while on tour. “We’ll probably do something spooky that night,” she says, before revealing that it was her Halloween experiences as a kid that first bought out her dark side.

“One time when I was about 5 or 6, I went trick-or-treating with [legendary special-effects makeup artist] Rick Baker’s family. I was doing ‘The Grinch,’ and Rick did all the makeup and prosthetics for that,” Momsen recalls. “He has a mansion in California which is full of old props and prosthetics from all the horror movies he’s done, and his family go all out for Halloween.

“But after that, I tried to make my own weird little outfits,” she adds. “I wasn’t that interested in going to a store to buy costumes. I tried to make wings out of wire one year, and one time I put strange contacts in my eyes. I liked doing things like that which were a little off.”