interview with Two Witches
Where are all band members from?/Who does what in the band?
JW: At the moment there are six members in Two Witches and we are living in two countries, Finland and Germany.
Alarik – drums, Aleksi – bass, HayDee Sparks – guitar, Jyrki Witch – vocals, Marko Hautamäki – guitars, cello, programming, Zynthexia – keyboards.
What was the ambitions of the band when you started? JW: Having fun.
Where was your first gig? JW: The normal story, we played the first gig early 1988 at the local gothic club. If I remember right, there were only about 100 people that night. But it was a start anyway.
Where was the latest gig? JW: Just played the record release concert for our new album (called ”Goodevil”), co-headlining for the biggest gothic music festival in Finland. We played at the main stage for Saturday 5th of July, together with our fellows Leaether Strip.
Who writes your songs?/Who writes the music who writes lyrics? JW: With the current line-up, most of the songs are written by Marko Hautamäki and me.
What genre do you feel you are? Could you explain your music to someone that haven't heard you? JW: We have always been a pure and shameless gothic rock act.
Have you made any albums?/If yes what are they?
JW: We have done 12 albums so far (including some ”early years”, ”best of” and ”the singles” compilations). Three of those released in USA by Cleopatra Records, three in Russia by Shadowplay, five in Germany, one in Mexico by Scarecrow, one in UK by Nightbreed and most of them in Finland by Darklands Records.
http://www.discogs.com/artist/109935-Two-Witches
The albums are: Agony of the Undead Vampire, pt. 2 (1992), The Vampire's Kiss (1993), Phaeriemagick (1993), Bites (1995), Into The Darklands (1996), Bites and Kisses (1996), Eternal Passion (1999), Wenches, Wytches and Vampires (2000), Saints & Sinners (2004), The Singles Collection (2005), Inner Circle Outsiders (2010), Goodevil (2014).
We have also released a lot of singles via different labels around, same as loads of tracks at the compilations.
Do you have any clips on YouTube? JW: Loads and loads of them. Especially live clips around.
At what age did you start playing? JW: To be honest, I do not remember anymore. Years ago anyway.
How old were you guys when you first stood on stage? JW: All of us had bands before Two Witches. I guess all of us were teenagers when we were playing live the first time with our pre- Two Witches projects.
Best/worst gig you've played? JW: Too many bad gigs done so far. The best concerts we have done in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Russia and even some in Finland. The audience helps to play good gigs.
What places will you be playing in in the imidate future? JW: We play several gigs in Finland next, then going to UK and play with Fields of the Nephilim in Bram Stoker International Film Festival. There are also a lot of other plans for this year, but we haven't get the signed contracts yet, so we do not want to mention them yet.
Where have you played from then till now? JW: We have played a several hundred concerts, too many places to mention them all. Touring in 22 countries so far; Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, UK
Asia, Europe, South America and North America... so, we are still missing some.
Is it always the same songs live? JW: We have done so many records to pick up songs and it is nice to change the set for the different concerts, but of course there are several songs we ”must” play every time.
Have you had any bigger tours from start to now? JW: Yes, of course. The first one month European tour took the place 1990. We have been touring with Lacrimosa (1993) and some others as well. The whole 90's and early 2000 we were touring all the time, many weeks per each tour. Most of them as a headliner. But nowadays it is pretty rare to have long tours anymore. The latest bigger tours we have done in Russia the last years.
How big crowds do you usually play for? JW: It depends a lot where are we playing. We are more well-known in some countries and sometimes totally unknown in some other countries. We are also playing festivals pretty often.
How do you get psyched up for a gig? JW: Nothing special, maybe taking a beer and just waiting for our time to play.
When you are on stage, what do you fear most then? JW: I do not exactly fear anything on stage, but of course everyone always hopes to play without any technical problems.
What are your sources of inspiration? JW: Life itself is the biggest inspiration; love, passion, hate, anger, dreams, fears, nightmares, etc. Everything! And the whole city atmosphere gives a lot of noises to use as an inspiration.
What's the first step when making a new song? JW: It depends who's writing it. Some of us starts with composing the melody, some with the soundscape, sometimes the lyrics comes first.
Besides your own music, what genres and bands do you listen to? JW: Zynthexia and I are DJ:ing for many clubs and we are listening music and collecting records, so there are all kinds of music to listen all the time.
Have you been part of any other projects?/Have you been in any other bands?
JW: Yes, all of us are having (or had) a lot of other projects as well.
HayDee Sparks plays for In Strict Confidence. Marko is having his ambient side with Chaos Research and his solo doom metal act Majesty. Aleksi and Alarik played earlier with Bloodpit and Alarik plays nowadays for many other bands too. Zynthexia and I were also in SinMasters and touring as a duo Jyrki Witch & Zynthexia. And there have been a lot of other bands in the past.
What do you work with outside of the band and the music? JW: All of us are having day-jobs too.
What would you do if there was no music? JW: There is always music around you. Even the sounds of the city are music in it's own way.
How important are your fans? JW: The fans are everything. There were no reason to continue without them.
What do you feel is the best live band you've seen? JW: I have seen thousands of bands, because I've been working such places my whole life. Maybe the best concert I've seen was David Bowie in Berlin 2003, but there are so many other ”best” concerts and live bands too.
Do you have any webpages? JW: At the moment we are the most active at Facebook: Two Witches (Official)
Describe your show, visually and musically JW: It would be better if someone else describe it. It will be different thinking of the concert from the stage than watching it.
What is best/worst with playing the clubs? JW: It is nice to get the audience really near you. But on the other hand, the stages are always so small at the clubs, that's why I like the festivals more.
Whats your Pre-show ritual? JW: Nothing else than trying to be at the venue early enough.
Do you have anything to add? JW: See you at our concerts!