L.A. WITCH – Intervista ad Irita

Hello girls, first I listened to your record, Octubre, and I was enchanted, to use a word from witches …, reminded me a lot of the sound of the Hole and Courtney Love, what were your first records listened to?
I definitely listened to Hole’s “Live Through This” when I was in middle school! My mom liked the Beatles and stuff like the Mamas and the Papas. I only had a few cassette tapes but I would listen to them over and over until they literally fell apart. Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, Radiohead “Pablo Honey”, New Order “Substance” and Metallica “Ride the Lightning.”
 
How you met and how you decided to start a musical career?
Sade and I started the band together, I met Ellie when our original drummer moved to New York City. Sade and Ellie has been in a band together in high school. I had never intended to start a career in music, I just wanted to play music and hang out with my best friends. Gradually people started to take notice, and things just started happening – we were offered shows, then festivals, then tours. Now it’s hard to imagine life any other way. We’re so grateful for the experiences we’ve had.
 
How do you find the American music scene now?
It’s hard to say since we’ve been touring in Europe so often. I think it’s cool that even though the US is so spread out and so divided in what seems like everything these days, there’s pockets of people in different cities that are just like you. They listen to the same music, or have the same influences, even though they may live in a small town in North Carolina and we’re born and raised in metropolitan LA.
 
Yours is music that seems to sink into the seminal scene of punk, far from the pop tones that are in fashion now, how are your songs born?
Sade will come in with a bare bones structure of a song, some lyrics, and we’ll all work on building the song together. Ellie and I come up with our own parts.
 
I found BB’s Momma particularly exciting, arpeggios, drummin ‘, fascinating voice, even ballads are part of your repertoire?
There’s a few great ones in there. My personal favorite is “Baby in Blue Jeans”.
 
Heart of darkness introduces special sounds, almost from southern rock, is it a wrong impression?
Our producer, Gregg Foreman (Mr. Pharmacist) played slide guitar on the track so it definitely had a western feel. It’s very Gun Club “Mother of Earth”, which is one of my favorite songs of all time.
 
There are many references to cars, from the cover of L.A. Witch to your photographs, to tracks like Drive your car, great song, you love cars and you like to go fast?
When you live in LA, cars are inevitably a part of your life. Everyone in LA drives, it’s a really spread out city with no good public transportation system. My favorite thing in the world to do is cruise around and blast music in the car with the windows rolled down. It feels liberating.
 
The Octubre buyers will surely appreciate the cover, did you want to hit the imagination or how did this choice come about?
We our this album together in less than a month. We pretty much gave Julien Langendorff, a Paris-based artist, our songs and some inspiration images and let him make whatever he felt like worked for the artwork. He chose the imagery and we really felt like it worked well with the songs.
 
What do you like to listen to in your spare time?
We listen to so much music on a daily basis. My tastes have definitely broadened so much, you can only listen to certain genres for so long and we’ve been touring for years. Lately I’ve been listening to John Maus, and stuff like Sanford Clark, Hasil Adkins, Jody Reynolds, Charlie Feathers.
 
Are you coming to Italy with Uncle Acid, three good reasons to invite fans to come and see you?
Well they definitely don’t wanna miss Uncle Acid, they’re so great live and their new album Wasteland is super sick. We’re usually at merch after the show, so come by and say hi!
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