Sometimes you have to go deeper into the abyss to find a way out. Northern California guitarist and singer Chelsea Wolfe attempted to exorcise her demons in 2017 with a take-no-prisoners frontal assault, digging deep into the trenches of her mind to wage war. Whether you call it sludge metal or doom pop or just plain rock, Hiss Spun is perhaps the year’s most monstrously dark, brutally heavy roar against internal agony and the myriad cruelties of life. It rages and heaves and collapses in an exhausted heap as Wolfe sings about desperation and revulsion, sleepless nights, anxiety and sickness. There is no happy ending to Hiss Spun. But as the battle wears on, it feels worth fighting.
3/22/18 – Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues 3/23/18 – Ventura, CA @ Ventura Theater 3/24/18 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl 3/26/18 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace Of Spades 3/28/18 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater 3/29/18 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theater 3/31/18 – Edmonton, AB @ Union Hall 4/1/18 – Calgary, AB @ Palace Theatre 4/3/18 – Missoula, MT @ The Wilma 4/5/18 – Lincoln, NE @ The Bourbon Theatre 4/7/18 – Chicago, IL @ Riviera 4/8/18 – Milwuakee, WI @ Turner Hall 4/10/18 – Cincinnati, OH @ Bogarts 4/11/18 – Grand Rapids, MI @ 20 Monroe Live 4/12/18 – Indianpolis, IN @ Murat Egyptian Room 4/14/18 – Toronto, ON @ The Opera House 4/15/18 – Montreal, QC @ MTELUS 4/17/18 – Boston, MA @ Royale 4/18/18 – Portland, ME @ Aura 4/19/18 – Long Island, NY @ The Paramount 4/21/18 – Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theater 4/22/18 – Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom 4/23/18 – Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live 4/25/18 – Atlanta, GA @ Centerstage 4/26/18 – Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live 4/28/18 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
Gothic singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe unveiled her heaviest and most dynamic album yet with a little help from Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, Mustard Gas and Roses’ Bryan Tulao and SUMAC’s Aaron Turner. But it’s Wolfe’s soaring, ghostly vocals that hold it all together, and under her guidance, the beautifully overcast Hiss Spun luxuriates in serpentine melodies, moaning doom riffs and high atmospheric darkness. J.B.
Gothic singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe unveiled her heaviest and most dynamic album yet with a little help from Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, Mustard Gas and Roses’ Bryan Tulao and SUMAC’s Aaron Turner. But it’s Wolfe’s soaring, ghostly vocals that hold it all together, and under her guidance, the beautifully overcast Hiss Spun luxuriates in serpentine melodies, moaning doom riffs and high atmospheric darkness. J.B.
There was a time when Chelsea Wolfe could have, perhaps erroneously, been called a folk singer, but with each new release she has moved into a more introspective and sonically devastating realm, reaching a crashing upsurge on Hiss Spun. It moves further into noise and alt-rock territories than ever before yet once again it retains a natural kinship with her oeuvre, coal-black and uncanny in its ability to cut straight to the heart of anyone who cares to listen. We caught up with Chelsea to examine the mind and soul of this powerful work.
Congratulations on Hiss Spun. It’s an eerily powerful album, and it feels like an incredibly weighty one too – a lot of doom and industrial elements in there. You’ve always been fondly received by the doom community so does this feel like an album for them, in a sense? Of course I want those who already follow my music to enjoy the album, but I try to write without anyone else’s voice in my head.
One thing the album really highlights is the dual (duelling?) senses of strength and vulnerability that have always seemed present within your work. How has the balance between these two forces shifted from your beginnings up to now? That contrast has been within me from the beginning. I was haunted by macro vs. micro from a very young age.
It’s a very evocative album title – there’s something quite obtuse yet animalistic about it. Where did the phrase come from and how does it represent the sound that you were trying to capture here? Hiss is the white noise, the life force you’re addicted to. Spun is the sickening feeling you get from the withdrawals.
Another thing with Hiss Spun is that it feels like more of an ensemble work than previous albums. What was the writing process like here and was there any shift away from how you typically work? It was a culmination of important musicians in my life. Many of the songs came about from us just jamming together.
You recorded the album in Salem, which is certainly a far cry from Los Angeles. How did you find the experience of working there and do you feel the change in weather and scenery played any part in the album’s tone? We recorded in Salem in the dead of winter, even got snowed in at one point. There is a sense of the cold outside with the warm interior. Jess recorded drums in a concrete dungeon room in the basement of the studio. Two floors up, I’d work on vocals, set to the hiss and bang of the radiators.
“Hiss is the white noise, the life force you’re addicted to. Spun is the sickening feeling you get from the withdrawals.”
The last time I spoke to you, I asked about some of the designers and couturiers that you’d worked with, so I’ll fire that back again. Who have you been working with lately, and how would you describe your own tastes in fashion, art and photography? I oscillate between something raw, vulnerable, and primitive to something modern, strong, and futuristic. I’m always trying to reconcile those two sides of myself. Sometimes I’ll lean towards one to the extreme, but most of the time I fuse them together. Lately I’ve been buying less clothing, instead just saving for timeless pieces by AF Vandevorst, Ann Demeulemeester, Sisters of the Black Moon, and Ovate. I’m reuniting with my friend and photographer Mary Gebhardt soon, she’ll join us for a few days on tour. She took some of my earliest photos as an artist, and turned me on to Nan Goldin, who has since been a big influence for me.
You’ve stated that you were quite uncomfortable with your first recordings and that you felt pushed into releasing those songs. Has your opinion of that material changed over the years and do you feel there is anything there that is worth reviving? No, let the dead rest.
I really loved the Rudimentary Peni covers EP that you did for Latitudes a few years back. Are there any other artists out there that are close enough to your heart that you feel you could give similar treatment? I’ve done some recordings of Townes Van Zandt songs. I have a deep affinity for him. I might release those someday.
There’s a strong sense within your music of the voice, not just as a lyrical and narrative tool, but also as an instrument in and of itself. Is this the reason for your use of vocal distortion or is there another purpose at work? Lyrics are very important to me, but so is expressing a more feral, spontaneous side of myself where I allow my voice to create sound layers on its own accord.
I find the social and religious undertones of your music as intriguing as the musical and literary ones. Are there any such vibes occurring within Hiss Spun that we should know about? Walt Whitman, my own insomnia and memories.
Something of an open question but what is your primary motivator as an artist and musician? What spurs you to create what you do with the frequency that you do? Something innate. An addiction to the quest for something holy. And of course to connect with others.
Words: Dave Bowes // Photos: Bill Crisafi – Hiss Spun is out now via Sargent House.
Chelsea Wolfe never intended to become overwhelmed with the crippling force of self-preservation. After all, the singer/songwriter has struggled with coming to a peaceful resolution of vulnerability, anger, self-destruction, and dark family history for many years now. At points, Wolfe found herself progressing towards disappearing altogether. This unnerving sensation has been dominant throughout Wolfe’s discography, along with her brooding melodies that are filled with darkness and punishing textures.
With the September release of her latest effort Hiss Spun, Wolfe vowed to make this collection of songs as a way of refuge. Escaping from the darkness that surrounded her mentality, Hiss Spun in a lot of ways is the long-awaited exorcism, cleansing the soul with blunt force. Instrumentally, Wolfe pushed harder than previous albums. Resounding bass lines, heart-pounding drums sit atop longtime collaborator Ben Chisholm’s collages of sound that has been accumulated. The howl of a coyote, construction being done on the streets of Prague are just a few distinctive noises found within the songs that accompany Hiss Spun.
Although there’s still work to be done, Wolfe is seeing the positivity clearer than before. “I know already that some people will roll their eyes at this, but I’m honored to be able to make albums and play shows around the world to people who want to hear it and experience it with me,” she said during our email exchange. “It took me a while to even accept that this is my life. I feel so lucky to be able to dive into music and art and ideas for a living and connect with people in that way, and that’s a very positive thing.”
What inspired you to get into playing music? I saw that your father was a country musician.
Still is. That had a lot to do with it, yea – seeing him practice, play shows and record. But I was writing poetry from a young age and had journals full of poems that I eventually had a desire to set to music. My dad taught me the basics of songwriting and recording when I was around 9 and I took it from there and never really stopped, even though I didn’t share it with the world until much later.
You mentioned on Twitter back in February that the new album was “trying to swallow me whole & I like it.” What were you experiencing that was leading you to come to that line of thinking?
This album has a very physical energy to it – visceral, and fucked-up and sexy. I felt like it became a living being at times and so I interacted with it in that way. I’m 33 now and accepting myself as a feral creature. I sometimes have the tendency to deny my body, to try and disappear… Maybe because I feel I take up a lot of space, and that’s something a lot of girls grow up being told not to do, but through some of these songs I wanted to channel the opposite of that and be very present and forthcoming.
Hiss Spun will be released on vinyl in a unique way. Three sides will be music while the fourth side showcasing an etching. How did this idea come about?
It was too much music to fit on one vinyl, and not really enough to fill four sides, so when we were left with the fourth side empty, my bandmate Ben (Chisholm) suggested the etching. He’s more of a vinyl collector than I am, and he’s also really great with design work. I had been working with designer John Crawford and artist Bill Crisafi as well, and throughout our talks of where to go with the design of the album artwork John brought up that he’d noticed I’ve done quite a few things in the past using my hair as shapes or textures and I decided to follow that further as it seemed to make sense with the feel of the album. Bill spelled out “HISS SPUN” in hair and took photos of it, John shaped it into a circle, and that became the etching.
The past few albums have showcased a slow march towards being engulfed with heavy distortion and metallic components. Listening to Hiss Spun, it sounds you finally jumped in all the way. What is it that propelled you to go explore this new terrain?
My way of translating it is intuitive. I mean the song “Scrape” literally sprung from a sample of a tractor claw scraping against a concrete floor at a factory my friend Travis was working at. It had a rhythmic element to it that the song was built around. On “16 Psyche” I wanted the guitar tone to sound like a motorcycle engine. The lineup of this record was very key to the sound as well. A couple years ago, I reunited with my old friend Jess Gowrie, who is a truly great rock drummer. We had a band together in the past in Sacramento which I actually left to pursue my own project, and we didn’t talk for 7 years. It was a difficult decision at the time but I knew I had to follow my vision. When we started hanging out again it was easy to remember how much chemistry we had together not only as friends but with writing music. So I started a side project with Ben called Das Welt just to write songs with Jess on drums, and asked Troy Van Leeuwen to play guitar on it as well. After a few songs came together, I knew deep down that it should be the next Chelsea Wolfe record, and everyone agreed. I was falling in love with the songs (Spun, Scrape, Vex) and didn’t want to not be able to play them live. So then I had yet another difficult decision to switch up the lineup, but playing with Jess, who is my OG and really helped me become the front-person I am today, was really important to me.
You have mentioned that at one point you were tired of trying to disappear and you wanted to open up more. If it’s possible, where do you see yourself at this point in overcoming that feeling?
I guess I’m being more honest in the moment, instead of just trying to be friendly or something. I’ve stayed quiet a lot in the past but that leads to people putting words into your mouth on the internet, which I’m sure will still happen. I’ve always wanted my music to speak for itself, but now I also want to speak for myself.
The climate of the world today for some tends to have them worried. With the amount of destruction and devastation that the news circuits air minute by minute, do you find yourself needing to speak out on the issues?
I put how I feel about the fucked-up nature of the world into my songs. I always have.
You have said that the world has been in dire straits dating all the back from the beginning. What do you feel needs to happen in order for the world to become what it should be?
It will probably always be this way, until the end, unless the singularity occurs, and maybe humanity starts over on a different planet. I’m sure that’s the way evolution will go for us. When you look around the world, it’s easy to see how little compassion there is. We are broken, glitched.
During the recording sessions, I read that you began coming to terms with yourself; years of bottled up frustrations were released. Looking back now, do you feel that it was necessary to become that open? I can imagine that there was some apprehensiveness.
That was more during the writing of the album actually, which I did mostly at home. I moved back to Northern California last year, not to Sacramento but also not too far from it so I’ve been spending more time there. Naturally, I was thinking back to when I lived there, as a child interacting with my disjointed family, or in my 20’s with all the relationships I had, mistakes I made, and also the good times – the few times I enjoyed my “youth.” It inspired new lyrics.
Once I was in the studio re-recording the vocals for these songs, it was a little tough to sing these intensely personal lyrics in front of people. But I just wanted to service the songs the best I could, so when I was feeling particularly energetic on a certain day I’d record some vocals, and then take a break or go back to working on something else. I knew I couldn’t leave them all to do at the end or I’d just be spent.
On the latest album, decided to work with Kurt Ballou (Converge). What made you choose him to record the new album?
Last year, I went out to Kurt’s studio in Salem to practice for a short tour I did with Converge as Blood Moon, doing reworked versions of their songs. I liked the feel of the studio and got on well with Kurt, and as Ben and I were already fans of many of his recordings already, he became the obvious choice. I knew the new album would be drum-heavy, and I’d loved how Kurt recorded Dave Turncrantz’ drums for the last Russian Circles album. Ours came out different of course, as the album was co-produced by myself and Ben Chisholm, and I was particular about the mix.
Recording with Ballou, you spent some time up in New England during the end of winter. What did you take away from that period of time?
I visited Salem a few years back after a Boston show on tour and fell in love with it. I’ve made some great friends there over time as well and was able to collaborate with them on album artwork and a music video. Ashley Rose made the dress from hair that I’m wearing on the cover, and Bill Crisafi shot the photo. Working with artists from the area made it all the more special, but I would have wanted to work with them anyway because they’re so talented and fun to be around!
With Hiss Spun being your sixth album, what is that you are still looking for within yourself as a musician?
I’m always interested in following my instincts with music and staying honest in my lyrics. As I’m writing songs for a new record, I let them come as they come… Some get set aside for the future, and the right ones get culled for the current time. I want to become a better songwriter and a better performer, always. That drive doesn’t stop just because you’ve released a certain amount of albums. I’m learning more about myself and my own artistic process each time and putting that back into the songs.
For genre-bending rock singer Chelsea Wolfe, her music has largely stemmed from the various experiences that have shaped her life. From growing up around her father’s country music band, teaching herself to play the guitar, and touring Europe with an artist, Chelsea’s unique experiences are as diverse as the sounds in her recordings. After the 2017 release of her sixth studio album Hiss Spun to her recent participation in Fender’s American Professional artist-driven video series, she has proven that her pathway in the music industry has led to success. We sat down with Chelsea to talk about her roots, evolution, and recent projects:
CW: Before music, it was words I was drawn to. I was writing poetry from a young age and found that I could understand the world through that. My dad and stepmom had a country band while I was growing up. I’d go over there on the weekends and hear them practicing Fleetwood Mac covers and original songs. Eventually, I asked my dad to teach me to record songs so he set me up with a Tascam 8-track and a Casio keyboard, and from there I never stopped writing and recording. My mom introduced me to a lot of great folk music as well, and I mostly remember Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt standing out to me as a young person. I’m named after a Joni Mitchell song! My dad introduced me to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and a lot of great old country music.
BD- When did this interest in music progress to a potential career in music?
CW: The desire was always there, but I was a very shy person and pretty much self-taught, so I never imagined that I could be a successful musician just based on that. I tried a few different avenues… going to massage school, studying language at university and community colleges, but nothing ever held me and I kept getting drawn back into music. Eventually, I was stuck in a day job and writing and recording music at home. Enough friends encouraged me to start playing shows, so I did that and eventually decided to put an album together. I guess that was the starting point, when I wanted to put together a finished work that wasn’t just a few songs on a CD. My friend, painter and performance artist Steve Vanoni, invited me on a European tour to be the resident musician at the end of each night of art performances. I was able to experiment with my voice and songs in different spaces in front of open and accepting audiences – that was very important in my journey to becoming a musician.
BD- You just released your sixth studio album, how do the sounds and influences of this album differentiate it from your previous releases?
CW: I reconnected with my friend and drummer Jess Gowrie, who introduced and re-introduced me to a lot of my favorite music of the 90’s and early 2000’s… NIN, Tricky, Deftones, Soundgarden. We were listening to a lot of that again while writing Hiss Spun. Jess and I reuniting after seven years of separation was the catalyst for this new album, and the fact that I am really comfortable writing with her influenced the feel of this album a lot – this album is a lot more confident, aggressive, and in-your-face than before.
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BD- How do you think that you have evolved since before you’ve been signed and started recording professionally?
CW- Well I’m a lot more focused. In the past I would write a song and then immediately put it out on the Internet a couple days later. Now I’m much more reserved and will spend more time on the songs and I want to actually put together well thought out albums instead of just songs here or there. I’ve been focusing more on creating albums that are a complete thought, that’s definitely something that I think I’ve gotten better at over the years hopefully. I don’t really look back on my evolution, I think that’s other peoples job to do. I’m jut always looking towards the future, as soon as I finish one album I look towards the next one.
BD- You recently got tapped by Fender to be a part of the 2017 American Professional artist-driven video series, how long have you played with a Fender guitar for?
CW: My dad played a Fender Telecaster while I was growing up and I always admired it. When I first moved to LA, around 2011, I bought my first Fender, a Jaguar, after being drawn to it in a guitar store. I played it for years after that, and have also added a Fender Starcaster and Gibson ES 335’s to my arsenal as I’ve grown fonder of hollow bodies over the years.
BD- Is there anything in particular that you hope fans will get out of your video?
CW: I think it was cool for Fender to feature a player like me, who isn’t the most technical player out there, but who has created my own style and been able to have a pretty rad career despite that. There are gear purists who I knew would react negatively to the video and only want to see traditional shredders, but my video wasn’t really for them. It was for a younger person who is maybe just starting out, to see another direction you can take with music and guitar.
BD- Are there any upcoming projects that you are working on that fans can look forward to?
CW: I’ve already started working on ideas and songs for my next album! And I’ll be working on a collaboration this winter that I can’t quite talk about yet, but I’m really excited about it.
Check out Chelsea Wolfe’s participation in Fender’s American Professional Artist Driven series
