Interview With A Witch featuring Trevor Friedrich from The Witch Was Right by Justin Cruz

Although unusual to most, Trevor Friedrich and his "band of weirdos" as he states in his short documentary film, have gained somewhat of a cult following over the last couple of years. The Witch Was Right recently released their first album titled The Red Horse. I was granted a face-to-face interview with Trevor Friedrich, who also happens to be the vocals and mastermind behind the band. This interview was conducted in Phoenix Arizona at the Pub rock venue with the help and patience of my friend Joshua Robertson. So without further ado, I bring to you The Witch Was Right front man , Trevor Friedrich.    

          

Me: The first time I saw The Witch Was Right live, was in Mesa, Arizona @ the Nile Theater, when you guys were on the Infamous tour. I distinctly recall the utter daunting atmosphere your stage show unveiled. If I remember correctly the song "Goodbye Horses" played through the PA speakers as you guys prepared to set the stage with your mysterious aura. The band put on a very brave show for the Arizona crowd; which consisted of Singer and band creator Trevor Friedrich, ex bassist Bobby Schubenski, guitarist Abbey Nex and Ex Drummer Brandon Richter; who also happens to be the ex drummer for the band Motionless in White-    

          

Your music along with the stage show held industrial energy, alternative metal stamina and a Goth rock experience. By the way you spit water on me at your show

          

It seemed at first The Witch Was Right was a musical style people were not accustomed to experiencing. Personally, growing up with bands such as Depeche Mode, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot, Alice Cooper, early Marilyn Manson and Ministry I was hooked to The Witch Was Right from the get-go. Your band definitely became a huge obsession of mine.

          

I was always on your page and your personal twitter looking for updates on the album because there was a year period when there wasn't really anything coming out…..

Trevor: “I have an explanation for that too…”

Me: Oh nice! Well what’s your explanation for it then?

Trevor: “So this whole thing has just been an accumulation of all the bands I've been involved in and I just wanted to put it all into one and do my own thing- and kind of eliminate all of the problems and things that are really annoying to me in the music industry. [For example] Having to deal with- Whether it’s a management team that’s running the show or you have to do interviews that you don’t want to do- I wanted to do this one, so I said yes”

Me: Thank you!

Trevor: “But yeah I've been involved with bands and they get to a certain point.....and all of the fun kind of goes away. You get very scheduled into this, kind of like a bullshit business type of deal, where you have to wake up early to do these photo shoots with these people and it’s this very political - you scratch this bullshit back and maybe they’ll scratch you for something you don’t care about. So you know, I was in bands that were like ‘Ah fuck we got to go do this photo shoot, ah fuck we got to do this interview ah we.’ It’s like, it’s our fucking band we can do whatever we want but then ‘uh well you know then we don’t get this press or.’  Who cares, I don’t really care about expanding this band at all. I've always wanted a band that’s just for me, if somebody else likes it that’s great. It’s been great, so it’s been the most fulfilling, rewarding thing I've done,

So……..back to the explanation”

Me: Well that’s answers all of it so were done haha! Nah

Trevor: “Ha-ha, I had written it [The Red Horse] and it was done for a year but I was waiting on vocals from John Pettibone and he was one of my life heroes growing up, so it was worth it for me to wait for him and the craziest weirdest chain of events had happened , terrible things along the way that happened to him where he couldn’t do it ,he lived far away and actually recorded vocals and had been sending them to me and the guy that had recorded them fell off the face of the planet and you know it was just stupid. I stuck it out, got the vocals and released it right after.”

Me: and it was fucking amazing

Trevor: “Yeah I’m really happy that I did that”

Me: So you ready for question #1?

Trevor: “Yeah let’s hear it!”

Me: You just answered like 5 of my questions. How did you get on the False Face tour line-up? Who set this tour up…this tour specifically?

Trevor: “Jasyn Bangert, singer of GodModule set everything up and I toured with him before and I love him and all the guys, so he just naturally asked me if I wanted to do the tour. Jasyn is very accommodating with my weird band being like ‘We want to do this with a cool light show.’  And he’s one of the very few bands who are confident in himself to where he’s like ‘Yeah do whatever the fuck you want, let’s make this show rad’. A lot of bands are very annoying and listen to management too much and don’t put there foot down when they should. Management could be like Opening bands get no production, its like are you really scared of my little fucking band taking the show away from yours but anyway that’s why I was so stoked to do this tour”

Me: Cool stuff, Question #2 before performing Live do you have any traditions or rituals you like to do before you go on stage?

Trevor: “Uhhh well, One of the things that gets me in the right mindset is the song "Goodbye Horses" [recorded by Q lazzarus] I just think it’s a great; fun, catchy, awesome song…and way to get into some weird darkness with the whole Silence Of The Lambs scene. It’s really fun for me when that comes on, it’s like this fun event where I get to watch  everyone’s reactions around me- whether its people putting on the shows, the fans I get to peak through and I get to see their reactions like ‘Oh shit it’s the fucking buffalo bill’. As far as before that the only kind of ritual ill do is if, I’m listening to music ill listen to Black Sails In The Sunset by AFI. It gets me back to my roots of when music really meant a lot to me.”

Me: Question #3, where did the name of your album The Red Horse originate from and what does it symbolize? If that question isn't a little too deep or weird

Trevor: “Oh no no no. I leave a lot of things up to interpretation as far as um lyrics, but I’ll tell you my take.”

Me: Okay.

Trevor: “The whole thing and the whole project of The Witch Was Right is about a witch in the Salem trials and different experiences she goes through and the red horse is kind of like um, you know a little bit of a symbol of some of the things I say ‘She brings the red horse’ [lyrics from the album]. The red horse kind of represents her revenge. So um that’s what The Red Horse means and I felt the whole album is kind of about a witch’s revenge. So that’s why I chose that to be the title track”

Me: Question #4 what inspired the concept for The Red Horse album when did the light bulb go off in your head, that this was direction you wanted to go into?

Trevor: “I've always liked the Salem trials, whenever I can ill watch documentaries or whatever. Concept bands have always you know intrigued me and when I got to choose from the ground up a band every step of the way I was like ‘Oh that would be cool to do a concept band and do it like this and whatever’ And trying to stick to something rather than just ‘I was feeling like this one day so i wrote a fuckin stupid song about it.’

Me: Was all the instrumentation done by you?

Trevor:  “Yeah other then the physical tracking of guitars Mick Kenney did, but I’m a guitar beat box master hahaha Yeah its really funny that’s why most of the guitar riffs are like single string and just heavy,  because I can do a mean single string beat box. So it’s like ‘oh just do a part like this’”

Me: Yeah that’s awesome, how long did it take you and Davey Havok from AFI to complete track #2 "S.K.Y" ?

Trevor: “I had written the song and um I originally asked him if he could help me with a catchy chorus for vocals and so he uh - I was even nervous to ask him that because he’ll tell you NO if he doesn't want to. So he said ‘Fuck yeah awesome.’  So he came down. Mick grew up in England um and you know his idol is like King Diamond. So he loves AFI but he was never like ‘Oh my god Davey Havok!’ Like I was growing up. So he didn’t have a problem asking when we- we were going through it and he was listening to it. Um Davey listened to the song 3 times in a row asked for a pen and paper and he after the third times he goes ‘Okay give me the mic, hit record and we’ll see.’And he literally just sang it perfect the first time and were like ‘Wow that’s fucking sweet.’

Me: You’re like cut 1 over

Trevor: “Yeah were like ‘that’s rad.’ and he’s like ‘Really you like it?’ and I’m like ‘fucking yeah,that’s awesome’ and then Mick of course just turns around [To Davey Havok] and is all ‘Ah you should sing it’ and I’m like ‘Ah fuck!” just waiting for him [Davey Havok] to be like , no. You know because he hasn’t done that in forever and all of that shit. So he’s like ‘really I would love to, is that okay with you’ to me and I’m like ‘oh my god of course.’ So he’s um like ‘okay let me track it again.’ We literally tracked it one more time and that was it, it came together so quick. He’s just- He’s really that good.

Me: The band/album sets a strong tone which consists of raw emotion and a creepy live atmosphere, is this something that was pre-planned when you were creating the band concept or did it just develop naturally?

Trevor:  “I feel if you play live you should be able to put on a show, that’s the only reason you should be playing live. So that’s very important to me but when I was doing this project I never really intended on playing live. I just wanted to do a fun project because you know hanging with Mick a lot and he said ‘Hey I just want to do something.’ And we did Monkeys Are Machine Guns which is my stupid grind core band and i was like ‘Ah that’s fucking cool ,let’s do a real band.’ So I just did it for fun and I played it for Wes Borland when he did the cameo for us at the Combichrist [Industrial band Trevor used to play drums in] video shoot and I just said ‘Yeah I've been doing this check it out’ and then a couple months later he hit me up and said ‘I’m going on tour with Black Light [Back Light Burns] do you want to open?’ and I was like sure. I wasn't a band.

Me: So it was just you pretty much?

Trevor: "Yeah I didn't a have band. So quickly assembled my friends that I thought would be good for it. You know Philips [aka Abbey Nex] amazing. So I just said ‘hey were gonna go on tour I guess, this 2 week run, cool.’ and then I was like i mine as well do this right and um, you know, spent way too much money on figuring all that out but it’s worth it its cool. I think it’s definitely worth it in the in the long run to have good shows from the get go and all that. So then I gone out for those 2 weeks. We got a really good response and then Ted from Imperative [Imperative Reaction] Tell me were going on tour right after that and he goes ‘Oh did you just want to come on that tour as well?’ Cool, I did that and then Motionless [Motionless In White] did the same thing very last minute. I woke up, what morning was it? I woke up some morning and I was like I’m fucked I can’t talk, I’m like shaking, I don’t know what’s going on. So I went to the hospital and I had laryngitis,strep throat  a fever just pretty much everything all at the same time. SO I got a steroid shot in my ass and all this stuff, and all these things and they’re like ‘yeah you need to be bed ridden for 2 weeks’ and im like ‘uhh’  and they’re like ‘You on tour? whens your next show?’ and I’m ‘Well its tonight’ and they're like ‘What! You can’t do that!’ and I’m like ‘Well I have to you know’ So I ended up taking 2 shows off because of being contagious, I would've fucked everybody up. So I took 2 shows off. Then I had to do the whole entire Motionless tour without being able to scream. So I was like just killing myself , I couldn't breathe  and I just to do this stupid yell thing and I was coughing up blood some nights and that was really bad. So it was very hard on me, A) we weren't allowed any production, light show or whatever on that Motionless tour which made it hard enough for us and then b) I was completely embarrassed the whole time not being able to scream and I was like fuck it , I don’t care. Let’s just be weirdos…"

Me: Just be raw as fuck dude, go out there like an old school punk band, half those guys can’t even play instruments. You guys went out there raw! Not saying you guys couldn't play instruments but I’m saying you went out there raw and did the fucking job!

Trevor: “So it was cool you know uh, it was just great being out with those guys cause I've been friends with those guys before and Stick To Your Guns , I fucking love that band. It was cool to see them and we became real close on that tour so it was cool. It was worth it for sure.”

Me: Question #10 My favorite song off the album is “The Sacrifice”……….now if I get this wrong correct me. I noticed throughout the song you use sound bites from the movie titled Inland Empire directed by David lynch,

Trevor: “HOW DID YOU FUCKING GET THAT!? …WOW!”

Me: I’ll tell you later haha. But it was prefect placement throughout the song, what inspired you to put those in there? Okay, well ill tell you now. So I liked the sound bites so much that I literally listened like 20 times, I’m not exaggerating and I started typing them on word and then I copy and pasted in Google.

Trevor: “That’s crazy too because I chopped them up, so yeah”

Me: Yeah and now I’m a huge David Lynch fan, like..

Trevor: “Oh you never seen his stuff?”

Me: I’ve never seen his stuff dude

Trevor: “Oh my god”

Me: like, Lost Highway [David Lynch film]

Trevor: “Crucial”

Me: Sorry to interrupt, but what inspired you to put the sound bites in there?

Trevor: "David Lynch, I’m a huge fan . I’m also a huge fan of sound clips in songs and I was like I really would like an obscure, I mean it’s hard not to have an obscure thing when its David lynch and I was like , something that needs to go along and that part just fit perfect."

Me: Question #11 what song off of the album gave you major headaches as far as recording goes?

Trevor: “None of them…”

Me: NONE OF THEM REALLY!?

Trevor: “If I told you how long it took to record this album, you would not believe me”

Me: I won’t ask, I want to keep that a secret

Trevor: “As soon as you hit stop I’ll tell you…”

Me: Question #13 what is your favorite song to play live?

Trevor:  “Red Horse because I generally get to play with friends, I have a lot more friends that can scream than sing Davey Havoks part. It’s just really cool because every time I play it I get to be joined by a different friend and also when I’m in Seattle I get Pettibone to do it.”

Me: Question #14 At most of your live shows including the one I saw a while back, the stage lighting is very impressive, it adds to the atmosphere along with the fog. Did a friend or company help with the lighting aspect of the show or is that all of your hard labor?

Trevor: “It’s both, his name is Lee Duck and I got hooked up with him through my friend who’s kind of managing us whenever we need management help, which we don’t really haha”

Me: haha yeah already went through that

Trevor: “Haha, his name is Lee Duck ,he played in Sky Eats Airplane? I never heard of the band but uh, I heard he does this crazy thing programming lights so you know every little thing can be programmed exactly to the second of the songs and parts because that’s what I want to do. So I had to fly him out and I just spent, I think it was a like week or 2 with him? Every day all day with these lights, just programming …he’s a mad fucking scientist.”

Me: I was gonna say, because when I seen it [live show] on YouTube, it was just like who the fuck? Did this guy do this on his own?

Trevor: “Yeah that’s crazy, it’s very involved and super labor intensive, but once you’re done your done. It’s cool.”

Me: and you get to tour with those lights and they’ll never change you don’t have to re-program them or anything crazy?

Trevor: “You can if you want, but you don’t have to.”

Me: Question #15 I noticed in the album booklet where it gives credits. It says the album was recorded with the help of Mick Kenney at the Black Flamingo, is the Black Flamingo a record label or producing/mixing company?

Trevor: “It’s my house, Mick lives at my house with me and we have a recording studio there. It makes things super easy. That’s another reason why it was so easy to do the record. Whenever we are inspired we just go into the studio and record it. It’s about as easy as it gets.”

Me: Question #16 I watched the short documentary on you and your life filmed and edited by Michael Garcia.

Trevor: “That’s my other roommate”

Me: The overall product was very professional and for a 6 minute and 37 second film it had so much substance. How long did take to film that?

Trevor: “Michael he lives with me so it’s easy, we shot it at the house. So, Other than that he is a fucking SPEED editor! He used to work for THI Tony Hawk, so he was Tony Hawks’s editor and when I watch him edit it’s like fucking lightning fingers. It’s crazy but um so the editing part should have taken a lot longer , I could literally speak over his shoulder and say let’s do this and he can edit it that fast. We filmed it all the house still shots in 1 day and have another day when Davey [Davey Havok] came down. It didn't take too long just a few days but the editing took a while, just being real meticulous. It was hard to write the script for it because I wanted to get everything in it but not have it be too much for everybody. The first thing Michael did was interview me and he asked me a question …I started talking and it was like 16 minutes later , and I’m like 'fuck I just talked for a really long time' and he’s like 'yeah we need to trim that down.' So then I had to sit down and map out exactly what I wanted tosay.”

Random Questions! =)

Me: Favorite Horror Movie?

Trevor: "I grew up loving horror when I was a little kid because it was extreme or whatever, um now kind of the b horror stuff is just kind of hokey,so I’m not like, I have a ton of friends who are still like ,the geeky,  like you know horror elitist who are like ‘Oh Fuck this remake’ because this person wasn't involved and this was this.’ I’m just like 'oh god, the movie was cool.' So I’d have to say I really liked , I like movies that can actually happen, like I hate ‘Yeah right’ like a I hate ‘yeah right’ in movies , that happens a lot with horror but um, like, I like movies like The Strangers . Like it can happen, that can happen to anybody and that will, cool I don’t care if it scares me, but if your somewhere alone in a fucking cabin your thinking about that fucking film thinking 'this sucks' The Conjuring was great I thought that was really cool, I really liked the Evil Dead remake I thought that was really cool. Most of the effects are real, there's very little CGI in it."

Me: Do you read books for inspiration and if so was there a certain book that inspired the album?

Trevor: "As far as books go, whenever I read for a long period of time, I feel very guilty that-that time wasn't spent painting or drawing. I do a lot of things , and so I feel like any ounce of time I get I should be drawing or painting and uh so it’s really hard for me to get into books because the whole time I’m thinking to myself ‘Fuck I could’ve just worked on that painting or I could’ve done this’ "