You don’t have to go see a tarot card reader to make a ghostly connection with one of the coolest Colorado bands. Get the reading here and Spirettes will work their way into you unconscious for a long time to come!
You all come to this band from other projects. How did the Spirettes get started? What inspired this project and how did you come up with such a cool name?
Emily: Spirettes started with Kellie Palmblad and Kate Perdoni who both had a vision of making beautiful, huge sounding music with a strong feminine influence. We had all been in bands who’s members consisted mostly of men prior so I think that the desire was there for all of us to try something new and explore this different dynamic. That’s where I came in. As for the name, I came up with Spirettes after a deep discussion with the band about how our sound feels very open, big, ghostly, ethereal and spiritual. It just came to me on the drive home, the word “spirits”, which would encompass the vibe we felt, and then adding the “ettes” to make it feminine.
Lisa: Kellie and I took a magical trip to Iceland in the summer of ‘16 when she unveiled this vision of forming an all-female rock project. I agreed, knowing that she was going to just DO it. We came home, and she started working with Kate in earnest, while I ebbed back to a job that was killing me slowly. Soon, Emily came on board, and I left the killing-me job, and sat in with Spirettes for a collaborative one-shot performance. It really worked, it felt ‘give-you-chills’ good. We began to edge closer together, and what began tentatively became a solid, going-steady kind of thing.
Kate: Definitely just wanted to make beautiful music, then caught the wave that ended up being Spirettes.
Kellie: I have played with some very talented women and Lisa Show and Kate Perdoni, both completely blew me away. Lisa I’ve known for a while and I have admired her for ages. When I first saw Eros (Kate’s project), it was like finding my long lost twin or soul-mate. Last November Kate and I started writing music together. Lisa was still tied up a bit with her schedule. When we connected with Emily I was immediately enamored, she has this inherent finesse and competence in her playing. It emerged from a common respect and similar fascination with each other’s sound.
You’ve just released you first EP? Can you tell us about the recording, experience and the behind-the-scenes of this first record?
Emily: The recording experience for this EP was incredible. First of all, our engineer, Andy Jones, is a close friend of Kellie’s so we were already familiar with and appreciative of his work. He drove all the way up from Texas to record us! We chose to record at Kellie’s house because the high ceilings enhanced our already big-room sound.
Kate: It all came together so naturally, it’s kind of wild! One minute we met each other, then we were practicing, writing, and playing shows, and half a year later we got to record an EP with a wonderful person and talented engineer. Behind the scenes it was three days of pure energy and fluidity. It was simple and easy. Over the whole process, we all worked together to hone in on the sound.
Kellie: Andy was interested in supporting female art and, in light of the election, wanted to contribute, especially if we were doing anything political. He was working on this experimental project called “Sounds For Bombs.” His ideas were ethereal and beautiful and really out there. He understood our interests and aesthetics, the whole experience and tracking came together very organically and joyfully.
Can you tell us about the Spirettes writing process?
Emily: Typically Kate and Kellie write the skeleton of a song, bring it to the rest of us and we add our individual styles and parts to them. We all get a say in how it gets composed so it’s very much a group effort. We really take the time to make sure it’s vibing well with each member.
Lisa: This is a group of seasoned musicians, writers, and performers, who are unafraid to offer concise feedback about what works and what doesn’t, the way a song should/could feel or the texture or vision we are shooting for. The creative work feels very horizontal, very equitable, all ideas welcomed.
Kate: Kellie and I bring a rough outline of a song to the band, but the songs are changing constantly. I’m not sure I really ever play the same thing twice. I love writing music knowing that it will be graced by Emily’s drum parts and Kellie’s guitar and vocals. I just get a weird melody and phrase stuck in my head for days and make it into a song. It has been really fun to follow that muse for this project.
Kellie: Its an extremely fulfilling process. Lately, I think we’ve been writing more conceptually; there is an impulse and concept or moment we want to create and we all explore how to deliver it. I know for certain, my job is to get out of the way. Each player brings this perspective and creative process to the table and I want that to come through. As I have moved from bass to guitar, I find myself getting even more lost in the process, which is complete heaven.
Shoegaze, also know as dream pop, is a indie genre that has been around since the 80’s and has always had a committed underground audience. Is it finding new traction? How is it evolving and how do the Spirettes fall into the future of this sound?
Emily: Before the Spirettes, I was not really familiar with the Shoegaze sound. I had only heard it in conjunction with Indie Acoustic projects so I associated Shoegaze with young people singing sad songs while looking at their shoes. I now know that it is an entirely different, spacey, open sound that can be manipulated in many ways. With this band I see us pushing that sound a little bit more towards the rock genre with our driving and gain-filled tunes.
Lisa: Instead of only hearing about underground new bands from like-minded friends, record-store haunting, and obsessive band-following, its possible to dip onto a streaming service, find new music by specific genre, connect to internet radio stations and hear music from an international array of artists who are working in a common idiom. Committed Shoegazers will continue to discover and share by word-of-mouth and fanatical band-geek devotion, but we can now do so with far greater reach and immediacy. We combine the dreamy, washy, funereal wall-of-sound foundation with something sharp and incisive, something with teeth. I hope to see us really reach and resonate with our people.
Kate: It’s just a lot of Electro-Harmonix guitar pedals at the end of the day! ‘Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout the new sound, honey, but it’s still rock and roll to me.’
Kellie: I have been utterly infatuated and deeply in love with various sounds, bands, and projects that relate to this genre, but my connection to this style is and always has been tight. These types of sounds sort of raised me and have been by constant life companion. There is just something about loud and ethereal and melancholy beauty in music that lives strongly in me. It’s funny, when Andy first asked us where our sound fell on a scale from Mazzy Star to Bikini Kill, I laughed and said that all of my anger comes out really sad for some reason.
I understand you have a new lineup since recording of the EP? Can you tell us a little bit about the new incarnation of the band?
Emily: Lisa Schoenstein, our new incredibly talented cellist, adds an entire new layer to our sound. Kellie switched from bass to guitar which allows the cello to take over the bass and low end parts and Kellie can do more rhythm guitar while Kate floats above it all with her wall-of-sound leads. It’s a new structure for us and we are still fine-tuning but we love the way Lisa fills in with the washy, flowing cello.
Lisa: After joining the band in October, there was a magnetism, both explicit and implicit, that the collaboration should continue, that there was a new iteration possible that could enlarge what these ladies had already begun quite beautifully. You take folks who have worked for years in focused musical projects and long since cut their teeth, and stick them together in a new creative formulation, and you get one hell of an alloy.
Kate: We added a cellist, and Kellie, who had been playing bass, moved to guitar — we really like to play guitars together. Now we are hot on the trails of a new bass player. More players allow me to expand my sound without having to pay too much attention to the structure of the song.
Kellie: With the full electric set up, Lisa’s work adds a low end, a heaviness and sophistication, that adds really strong new dimensions. It allows me to continue working in layers of guitar which I love and since layering guitars with Kate might be my favorite thing in the world, there’s a lot of joy in this formation for me. I love what we’re currently writing with two guitars. We will see how fortune favors us.
What’s it like being in an all girls band in today’s culture where women are on the front lines of the equal rights movement? Is this something you take into account as a part of the project?
Emily: Absolutely. We are all very proud to be women playing music. It is a hard path to travel as all of us have experienced the difficulties in being a minority in an already difficult career. It poses some challenges still, however I’ve found that being in a project with all women is empowering and fuels us to express ourselves. As a female drummer I take this band as an opportunity to hit hard and passionately and hopefully in the process I can motivate young women to be confident and bold, whatever their life-path may be.
Lisa: We are fiercely committed to creative excellence, mutual support and encouragement — those don’t always go together in bands in my experience. I think there is a palpable collection of past band-trauma for all of us, which creates a kind of gossamer tethering to what we have done so far — no one is out pounding the pavement and pushing everyone else to comply or leave. We are all situated very differently in our personal lives, so that too creates some specific conditions for what’s possible. For some bands, those elements could spell disaster. We create a very open architecture of freedom and organic development that is removed from the rigid forms of hierarchy, patriarchy, and a musty old paradigm of ‘How This Deal Works.’ The old paradigm is breaking down, we choose what we want to work towards. Not because we waited for permission, but because we are done waiting on someone else’s agenda. If we can help swing the wrecking ball, as battle-weary song-slingers, we’re doing a good thing, personally and creatively. The response has been so powerful and positive, which tells me people are resonating with the delicacy and tension, the message of renewal through hope and razing fire.
Kate: Oh yeah, it feels super powerful and awesome and healthy and real.
Kellie: It’s a powerful dynamic. I think because the players are such high quality artists and human beings, it has been deeply grounding. We share a lot, spoken and unspoken, and have had the power and motivation to make it what we want and need.
What do the Spirettes have in store for us in the near future? New recordings? Shows?
Emily: We are playing several shows coming up throughout Colorado and are also looking into playing nationally and internationally. We will be recording again but not for a little while as we’re prioritizing playing live and getting the word of Spirettes out there.
Lisa: Immediate future? Rehearsing, re-imagining current songs and writing new songs, and booking Colorado shows. Near future? Booking nationally and internationally, getting our songs into the hearts of those who need to hear them, and joining forces with our friend-bands, both known and not-yet-met. Future future? It’s always been my dream to be the first band to broadcast a live performance from outer space. This may be the project that makes it happen.
Kellie: My desire is to continue creating and connecting with people. We have Colorado shows in March we are really looking forward to (March 11 @ Lost Lake w/ Porlolo & Oxeye Daisy and March 23 in Pueblo). As we grow and connect with creators and listeners, we want to travel, play, and do this work as much as possible.
Thank you to the Spirettes! We’re excited to see where they take their sound with the new incarnation of the band. Be sure to check them out!