Damn the Witch Siren is comprised of Bobbi Kitten and Z Wolf. The electro-pop duo hail from Columbus, Ohio and are headed down to Cincinnati to play The Drinkery on Friday with Local Favorites Black Signal! We sat down with Bobbi Kitten prior to the show.
Tell us about the formation of Damn the Witch Siren…
When Z Wolf and I met it was strange magic. I was in a blues rock band with a bunch of misogynists, feeling uninspired, and everything in my life was screaming for something new. I glimpsed his face on the cover of a local magazine and he just had this wild sparkle in his eyes paired with an otherworldly energy and I was like, “This guy is my people and I want to be in a band with him.” He was in another local band called the Town Monster that was almost like circus music meets metal meets art rock. I became such a huge fan and I said to myself, "I’m going to find him, make him fall madly in love with me, and we shall make great art.”
The day after we met I was sending Z some demos and asked him to produce my solo work. Literally two hours after sending him the rough demos with just me and an acoustic guitar, he emailed me my tracks back with some “embellishments” and I was listening to fully fleshed out tracks with string arrangements and orchestral synth pads and timpanis! I was tickled to death! It was instantaneous and enigmatic and we have been on this musical journey ever since.
What exactly is Witch Rock?
Whatever you put into your cauldron. A lot of people call our brand electro-pop which feels inadequate and most articles about us writers often say that they don’t know how to classify our sound. I think it’s because we don’t ever put hard lines around the music that we are making so there’s a lot of different influences and genres that you can hear in our songs- pop, electronic, glam rock, nintendo samples, industrial, trip-hop, hip-hop, etc… Witch Rock is a less a genre and more of a religion to us. A religion of love, freedom, feminism, equality, sex, spirituality, not being confined by labels, letting your siren song be heard, and letting your inner beast out. I also like to define it as balancing of white and black magick.
When seeing Damn the Witch Siren live, what can one expect?
Loud beats. Crazy vocals. Lots of effects. Looping. Synchronized lights and projections. Pink guitars. Howling. Cat jokes. We are usually a two-piece but have recently been working with a drummer so that’s a fun new development for us that you can randomly expect!
What is next for Damn the Witch Siren?
We’ll be on tour for as much of 2016 as possible, so we’ll be coming to Cincinnati again soon! You can check out our music and sign up for our mailing list at www.damnthewitchsiren.com.