By Keith Walsh
From the beginning, rock and roll music has disrupted expectations, both musically and socially. When gospel and blues mixed to bring us the wild guitar stylings of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the transgressive craziness of Little Richard and the gyrating hips of Elvis, culture took a huge leap forward towards a future where few taboos would remain unexplored. In the 70s with glam rock and David Bowie, a focus on gender roles came into play, and when punk rock came onto the scene shortly thereafter, new levels of subversion were introduced.
There’s a new post-punk duo from York, Pennsylvania pushing the envelope with a brand of music that evolved from the new wave and shoegaze on their first EP New Moon, to a heavier sound on their new single “Don’t Need.” The single reflects a return to the harder punk sounds they love making in the first place. Kaitlynn Autumn (vocals, guitar) and Juliann Frances (vocals , bass) of Witch Weather are queer gals doing what they can to challenge the status quo with sounds and lyrics that call us to question the balances of power in our personal relationships.
(For my review of “Don’t Need” and ‘New Moon’, please visit Punk Rock Beat dot com.)
I had the chance to discuss music making and what it’s like being queer in the punk scene, with Kaitlynn and Juliann.
Popular Culture Beat: Cool sounds! How did other goth artists influence you and get you into making music? I’m thinking of Siouxsie and The Banshees, but not only the witchy ones, also The Cure, etc? (The new single reminds me of L7.)
Kaitlynn Autumn: It’s a mixture of a lot of things I would say. When it comes to making music goth is always something we’ve gravitated towards pretty heavily. Like something about the upbeat but dark, punk like, even near Halloween sound in some cases, just kind of makes a perfect storm in a lot of ways. The less dark-sounding bands too are sonically so tight and have influenced so many kinds of music to come after them. Even when I was young hearing songs like that on the radio there was something really captivating about it. Plus the fashion has always been something that we thought was really cool and has pretty noticeably influenced us, especially in the more recent times. And the L7 influence wasn’t intentional but we’ve gotten a few comparisons to them and some similar bands to them and we’re super excited about it!
Juliann Frances: For me personally, Depeche Mode has been a consistent influence. I know that seems like an easy answer but growing up they were still played pretty heavily on the radio and I got super into them. And my dad was very excited that our new stuff sounds like L7.
Popular Culture Beat: “Don’t Need” is a harder, denser song than those from “New Moon.” What approaches or production changes are involved?
Kaitlynn Autumn: Believe it or not New Moon was actually a little bit of an outlier when it comes to the sparseness of the mixes and slower tempos compared to the direction we were going for the four or five months of pre-pandemic time that we existed. It was written during quarantine and I think that definitely influenced its sound. So coming back to the heavier faster more punk stuff just felt natural to us and was honestly almost like a return to form, even if the original “form” that we were returning to wasn’t something many people had really heard. We also both really love shoegaze so we wanted to do a shoegaze-sounding record while playing faster punk/goth music and this is how it wound up sounding. It’s also just super fun making goofy noises in the studio to fill in the empty space in the mix.
Juliann Frances: I also tend to lean more towards heavier music just by default in general. Like when we’re deciding how to execute songs I want to push for the heavier options. Or when I’m listening to music I rarely listen to things that don’t have some sort of heavy quality to them. So while I love “New Moon” and still think it’s a really really good EP, this album is definitely more in line with what both of us were wanting out of the project to begin with.
Popular Culture Beat: When I think of trans artists, I think not only of change but of the transgressive nature of just going about daily life. How does all of this play into your songwriting and messaging?
Kaitlynn Autumn: It plays into it a lot. On one hand, the lyrics are often very focused or inspired by my experience being trans. But even more so than that reinventing myself as a person has almost become second nature at this point. I try not to make two songs ever sound the same either which feels fitting somehow.
(Music is) a great outlet. Live shows are a great space to have fun and sing along with other trans people. And while I would say there’s probably not ever a time you can truly fully let your guard down you can at least feel safe in the fact that there’s a room full of people who will throw down at the drop of a hat if a transphobe tries something stupid.”
Kaitlynn Autumn Of Rock Band Witch Weather
Popular Culture Beat: What does the live setup look like? And are you playing live now that COVID is over?
Kaitlynn Autumn Playing a ton of shows actually, we’re currently on a little ‘tour’ this summer that has a ton of shows. And as far as live shows go we’re just a three piece but we’re more than loud enough to make up for it once the drummer gets added in. Our set gets more and more fast and aggressive as time goes on. We also like to kind of mix up the arrangements of the songs for live performance to fill out the sound a little more, kind of play with different sounds and pedals as well. We just like to have fun with it in general.
Popular Culture Beat: Especially on New Moon, I hear references to the bands from the beginning of new wave. Especially as I mentioned Siouxsie and The Cure. Being younger, how did you hear of these earlier artists? What are some others that caught your attention?
Kaitlynn Autumn Parents who liked those bands, friends who recommended those bands, being into the fashion xx side of it all, it was a lot of different factors honestly. We also both like to seek out new music pretty often. Honestly it’s kind of hard to say exactly ‘when’ we found all of these bands. Blondie, The Cramps, Bauhaus, and New Order are a few other bands on the New Wave side of things that have definitely been an influence on us.
Popular Culture Beat: What musical education do you have?
Kaitlynn Autumn We’re both college-educated musicians, does that show? No idea, but we are, so at least we can feel cool about ourselves.
Juliann Frances: Before college, I actually went to a performing and fine arts school as well where I got a pre-professional music education as well even before college. So that was really fun too.
Popular Culture Beat: Being trans in the conservative U.S. presents challenges I can only imagine. How does music allow an outlet and what kind of feedback are you getting from cisgendered folks?
Kaitlynn Autumn It’s a great outlet. Live shows are a great space to have fun and sing along with other trans people. And while I would say there’s probably not ever a time you can truly fully let your guard down you can at least feel safe in the fact that there’s a room full of people who will throw down at the drop of a hat if a transphobe tries something stupid. Lyrically it also just gives a huge release, a lot of times it’s easier to express your identity through that than words alone I would argue. And I mean a whole lot of our fans are cis so I’d say we’ve gotten a pretty good reaction. I’m just a lot more cautious around them at shows.
Popular Culture Beat: How does being trans in the punk scene work, with some of the macho elements there?
Kaitlynn Autumn: It’s mostly just a matter of being unapologetic about your identity, and if you get in a situation that you feel like isn’t safe just make sure you have safety in numbers. Like if people have a problem with it they can either get over themselves or leave. Most of the places we play tend to be very queer and have really cool and supportive crowds though.
(Featured photo by Grant Deguzman)
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