Q: Hey, can you tell us a bit about where you come from, and what made you want to start a career in music?
A: I’m from the NY area, spent some time in Coldspring (on Bear Mountain) growing up on the Hudson River. Met Pete Seegar at that elementary school and spent a lot of time listening to folk.. And just about everything else. Used to sing songs while out walking and would try to remember them as a kid. Sang poorly in a couple choirs before moving to jersey. I spose I was always going to be an artist because I was always trying to make things and a career is a way of doing that, but all the time as an adult… I went down to Nashville when I was seventeen to try my hand at a physics degree which lasted exactly two days before I moved on to music. Then to England where this project started.
Q: And what other artists have you found yourself listening to lately?
A: I am back on the Beck-wagon. I also am compelled by and think Heartless Bastards’ Erika Wennerstrom has an unreal voice… like Rodriguez almost. Also, I play ‘Accessory’ by San Lorenz almost daily and cry… so much talent. I love the band Courting and in spite of them being mates I also think their latest record is a triumph, which I tell them often after a couple too many pints. Cheap Teeth have this track, ‘I am the Mud’ that makes me so so happy. Also, Grandmas House has this amazing gravel in her voice that is brill, and they are fantastic live.
Also / Also a lot of Amy Winehouse cuz I was prepping for a tribute gig locally…
Q: Who were your first and strongest musical influences, and why the name ‘Torture & The Desert Spiders’?
A: Wilco, KT Tunstall, Voxtrot, Dr. Dog, JET, Sinead OConnor, Jake Bugg, Lake Street Dive and Paolo Nutini. That was the capacity of my iPod besides some Rodriguez and RHCP. Right after that, I fell in love with Death Grips, the Districts, King Gizzard and Leikeli47.
The band name is partially a rip off my mom’s touring persona… her names Theresa Chambers so people used to call her ‘Torture’ Chambers on the road. I made up the name when I was working on an essay about gender and David Bowie… probably some rip off the Spiders but it wasn’t conscious by any means.
Q: You have just released your new single, ‘The Tooth, The Gap and The Filling’. Is there a story behind it?
A: yea, I was just unhappy at how I was feeling working all the time, being destitute and just overall unsatisfied with everything outside of music. The track is about being angry… and feeling a lot of things regarding life in general. Love. Work. The things we do to survive. I think we are all different players in that, the ‘tooth’, the ‘gap’ and the ‘filling’ are just different people in that situation. That fantasy of escape from the daily rattle. The lyrics on the notepad at work that sometimes lift off the page…
Q: Can we expect a new EP or even an album from you in the near future?
A: Absolutely and I think which comes first depends on how much cohesive music and poetry comes from us in the coming months. We are currently working towards an EP but I would never barr us from doing one if it was what suited the work. I’m looking forward to embracing whatever mediums are coming. The EP will be out in early Spring 2023.
Q: What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
A: I think the music is heavily lyrically evident. I try and tell stories and I want people to listen. I also feel quite tied up in soul, or the reach towards something greater and bigger than myself… not religious in nature… just like the blues and folk and anything that makes people feel things. I guess because of that I also am really invested in organic stuff happening between the band and on live shows.
Q: Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more?
A: I think art and artists have a complex relationship, always. Ideally, we’d have governments that believed being an artist at even a more DIY level was worthy of a career and support… and then all our wins would be wins and our lows would be diminished to heartache and life pains which we can use as writing fuel. But art gives me what I need. I try not to have too many expectations but also stay ambitious… I want to play and write for the rest of my life, so that will surely be enough. Expecting is a dangerous thing.
Q: Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song?
A: Usually, I come to the band with a pretty fully-formed song idea and then they begin stretching it and bending it to their tastes and then eventually it gets shoe-shined by the live set and peoples reactions. And then we eventually become bored and try to give it it’s next life and so forth. It is a lot of give and take also… can i play the song successfully solo on an acoustic? Now, can we honor it in a room where everyone wants to dance and feel noise? And then can it come back down to its roots at the next paired down set…. I think that is the negotiation.
Q: What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
A: I have endured many hardships like any other person and especially like any other woman making art and living… I do not think any moments stand out but rather the continual need to get up and make art when so many things and events will do their best to slow you down. That is the most difficult thing. To make art, something beautiful or stupid or real when there’s a lot going against you. I get tired of it, then make it into fuel…. Theres been some tough shit. We move.
Q: On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
A: maybe the time I accidentally snuck into the press meeting in a pirate bunker drinking very expensive whiskey at Great Escape. Just me, some writers from NME, and a few thousand bucks of scotch down my gullet.
Maybe when someone says they’ve listened to *all* the music, including solo stuff, live bits… it’s fascinating and weird and so gratifying to have someone invest in your art the way I have in so many artists I love.
Just grateful that people come out and want to hear the stuff.
