Interview: Witchsister embark on murderous rampage

Rock god Ann Wilson was fuming. A record promoter had just busted through her dressing room door during a Detroit show in 1977. His misogyny in full display, he spouted some non-sense about where her “lover” could be, simply because two women were gracing an advertising spread together in Rolling Stone. But she then got even and turned that rage into art. She wrote the highway-barreling tune “Barracuda,” from Heart’s Little Queen record, and it’s time-imprint is as fresh today as it was then. “I hope that that song will come in handy now when women are thinking about what they want to do and not do,” Wilson told the magazine this January.

In that same wide-ranging interview, Wilson made one of many points about pressures on women to always be accessible, always on, always sexual. “Women accept willingly that they have to turn themselves inside out to be good enough – big, plump fish lips, makeup, fuckable. It’s really a problem for young women in their childbearing years. They need to realize they are more than wombs. They need to realize they are valuable,” she said.

Men are driving the bus, and the music scene remains thick with body odor and sensitive egos, fostering an environment of unobstructed sexism. A woman’s value takes the backseat to what men have desired, on society’s terms, of course. Musician Stephanie Petet, who fronts and rips into rhythm guitar for Witchsister, a rock band out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, had damn near enough when she decided to mount a project of all women. “I was sick and tired of men telling me what to do, how to play, what to say,” she says.

The band’s new record, Good for a Girl, appropriates what she’s been hearing for years ⎯⎯ that she’s “good for a girl” when it comes to the craft. “We’re using the phrase because it reaches a larger population of anything female. We’re using it as a marketing tool to make people think about when and how they’ve used that phrase,” she writes in an email to B-Sides & Badlands. “I’m not just good for a girl. I’m good, and I’m a girl. My gender doesn’t define my technical ability, and it shouldn’t define your perception of my abilities.”

With the skin-burning single “Cat Called,” she hisses and spits her way through a day in their life. “Wake up and drive somewhere new…with only so much time to talk…while getting cat called in Kansas,” quakes the first verse. Then, on the second, the vicious cycle begins anew, “I can’t remember where we slept last night / I’m covered in sweat, nothing on the radio yet…while getting cat called in Texas.” The venom pours from her mouth, fueling the fire that she’s ignited across each city’s ruins. The smoke twists around the buildings, and the earth cries for relief.

That’s the state of the world: one gigantic pot of rancid stew.

Throughout much of Good for a Girl, the band ⎯⎯ rounded out by Stevie Petet (on bass), Skylar Petet (lead guitar and vocals) and Kelsey Petet (drums) ⎯⎯ works as one, but its pieces are distinct, vibrant and clawing, gasping really, for breath. “Flowers” gets the blood going, the palpitations exploding in punkish fashion, while “Awake” is considerably more subdued in tone. At the core, the album hinges on creating and claiming “your own power,” says Stephanie. “No one will give it to you. People take and take. Feed your power.”

Facing the world together, the quartet grit their teeth and tear through some damn gooey rock ‘n roll that serves as a reminder that good music is good music. “It is also a statement of equality,” Stephanie stresses. “We don’t want all women musicians to always be a novelty. It doesn’t always have to be one ‘chick’ in the band.”

Stephanie, Stevie, Skylar and Kelsey exercise immense aptitude at the mic, lashes licking at the eardrums. While the songs “are technically changing” with every passing minute, the “concepts become more specific,” she writes of their growth over one extended play, 2014’s self-titled, and now two full-length records, including 2016’s Time Out. “We’re going through shit.” Conclusively, these are among the lessons they’ve learned most as a touring act: “Drink more water. Don’t eat old warm hot sauce. Or a cold can of black beans. Or a quesarito from Taco Bell. Support your support acts.”

But that’s not all.

Below, Witchsister discuss sexism and its psychological effects, how the album is a modern retelling of Alanis Morissette’s iconic 1995 album Jagged Little Pill and various music touch points.

In your work, you confront unabashedly the many problems women face. What kinds of sexism have you endured?

We’re always talked to like we don’t have experience in the music world because we’re female, almost as if we’re children. [Men]’ll talk to us about gear, how to fix it, how to have a bigger sound, how to adjust. They’ll state the obvious, like we don’t know that a Tuesday night will probably not be as packed as a Friday. We get put on the bill with other bands that have females in it, just because the booking person thinks, “Oh, well, two bands that have females! Perfect match!” It turns out that the other band is folk.

What men have said to Stevie: “Let me show you the ropes” and “You’re almost as good as my female bassist,” and “Do you need help from a man?”

Stevie: People compare me to Tal Wilkenfeld, and I don’t even sound like her. They only compare me to her because that’s the only female bassist they know of.

Kelsey: A drummer had agreed to backline the drums, and I came up to the set. The drummer looked at me, looked at one of his band mates and gave a look of disapproval, like shook his head and lined-his-neck-with-his-hand type thing. I’m assuming he didn’t want a female on his thrown.

Skylar: People have ripped my gear out of my hands and actually hurt me more than they helped me. I had bruises left on my arms from it. A guy said to me, “You have to remember you have a three piece band, your sound needs to be bigger and louder.”

Have you seen your music have a very real impact on other women?

Stephanie: I see women in the crowd that have never seen us before timid in the back. They’ll come back the second time thrashing their bodies front row. I can see that they move differently to our music. They aren’t concerned with being sexy, as they might be with a boy band. Women seem less intimidated by us. They have the courage to ask us how we got started, etc.

Stevie: Women feel more comfortable to talk to us at the merch table, or wherever, because they aren’t afraid they’ll be categorized as a groupie, unintelligent or an accessory.

Within this same conversation, has the male ego and male power dynamic had a psychological effect on you? In other words, is it often disheartening and downright frustrating?

Stephanie: I can feel it in my stage presence. I try to step on their ego when we’re on the stage; I’m pissed.

Kelsey: I’ve had different responses. Sometimes, dudes will be excited before we play, and then after, it’s like they’re afraid to talk to me. I think I get different responses because I play the most male-dominant instrument.

Skylar: I had a woman direct message me on Instagram about how she wanted to hook up. I said I was uncomfortable and felt unsafe. In that instance, she was making me a thing of sex, exclusively, and not stopping and playing the dominant role. It takes almost nothing to trust a woman, and when that is broken, it’s almost worse than if a
man was doing it. She asked if she could still come see a show though, as if it was going to be a date.

Stevie: I hate that I have to act like a man and have to play their game to be seen as equal, although I won’t be.

In observing online conversations around #MeToo + #TimesUp, some men have expressed a misunderstanding of flirting versus harassment and assault. What will it take for that to change?

Stephanie: The best way to get that to stop is for men to be self aware and women to define their boundaries. When those boundaries are not met, that’s when women have to take the extra step and become an unattractive bitch because their safety is impaired. That’s the sad reality. Being in an all women band, it’s less likely for us to be targeted as a whole; men tend to isolate one of us because it’s easier to assert their “dominance” over one of us. We are a complete reaction to the state of our world. We are a defense mechanism, a product of the man’s world, and a response to the lack of women in the music scene.

From your latest album, “Don’t Talk Over Me” is a definite standout, which seems to really dig the claws further into empowerment of women. What led to writing this song?

Stephanie: Nothing is off limits to what that is referencing. Lyrically, it’s about the balance in any relationship you have in your life. Parents, friends, partners or relationships in the music scene. [It’s about] the healthy balance of listening and communicating but also the frustration of being talked over. It’s a song literally saying don’t talk over me. It’s me lyrically defining my boundaries. There is a healthy amount of back and forth in any relationship, but there is always a line.

Every artist has influences, even if they are unintentional. Who did you find yourself emulating on this new record, especially as it relates to the clashes of guitars?

Stevie: Stewart Copeland on the ‘Spyro’ soundtracks, electronic music (Justice, in specific), Queens of the Stone Age, Snarky Puppy, Wolf Peck and music from several animes. An overall strive to synthesize an overdriven angry tone with electronic influence.

Skylar: Dissonance from anyone I’ve heard. ‘The River Lullaby’ from The Prince of Egypt, Korn, Primus.

Kelsey: I don’t intentionally pull from the music I’ve heard. It’s more of being able to understand what I’m doing due to my education in music. I’m interested in techniques, mostly; broadening my understanding of techniques has allowed me to create more easily.

Stephanie: For me this album has been my version of ‘Jagged Little Pill’ by Alanis Morissette. I grew up listening to her, and it was one of the first albums I consciously sang to, as inappropriate as that seems for a 7-year-old. It’s not the composition of the songs or the melodies even. It’s the phrasing and the rhythmic quality of her word choices, which all leads back to the given anger that I identify with. There is also some subconscious punk influences, only because of our music’s vibe, like Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, although I haven’t really actively listened to them much.

“Wake Me Up Dead” is a pretty gnarly performance, from top to bottom. “My eyes feel old / Nothing is nice anymore” really sticks on the brain. What is the intent of that line and the song, as a whole?

Stephanie: The intent of that line is a snapshot of the defeat that you feel at times. It’s a pretty jaded phrase with a lot of truth. It’s literal and metaphorical at the same time. That phrase sums up a couple years of being completely dealt every wrong and bad hand imaginable. It’s like you shed the skin of optimism at the times that test you the most. The whole song is about three dreams rolled into one. Each verse leads off with a dream-like phrase then moves into a night terror type feeling. The whole song is about the in-between place of thought and doubt, things you can’t control basically. Sleep paralysis.

“Good for One Thing,” which closes the record, has such a cool, side-pocket groove to it. How did that evolve?

Stephanie: This song is a contrast to “Wake Me Up Dead.” Stevie brought the riff to practice, and then, Kelsey showed us a beat she’d been working on. And we went from there. This song is pretty manic. It goes from a groove, to an in between point, to a heavy half time, then back to the grove. It gives you whiplash.

In the context of your life shows, in what ways do these songs, especially, transform?

Stephanie: In “Flowers,” we have an extra verse where Kelsey has a drum solo. In the last chorus of “Good for One Thing,” I have a descending chromatic melody on top of the harmony Skylar sings. Stevie’s bass tone has different requirements live. Skylar plays with one pedal used in “Flowers” and “Doe Doe,” whereas on the album, there are
several pedals used. In “Cat Called,” Kelsey and Skylar blow whistles proir to the songs breakdown.

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