Singer, songwriter and creator Chelsea Wolfe is a favorite amongst many horror fans as she has always been one to embrace the darkness. Her music is often described as blended elements of gothic rock, doom metal and folk, which is the adventure she guides you on with her latest full length album Birth Of Violence. She has just announced a new project, a duo with her drummer Jess Gowrie, called Mrs.Piss. Their debut, Self-Surgery is available now on Sargent House records and it’s a further trip into the mystic woods of Northern California where poems are crafted of distortion and cathartic rhythms. Chelsea’s music is so visceral and cinematic that it would be the perfect score to a horror film. It’s something that she has certainly reflected on.
“It would have to be something a bit psychological. People usually assume that I love gory horror films but I’m an empath and I actually can’t handle watching other people in physical pain. It actually makes me want to throw up. But I really love something a bit more mild like.. The Witch is one of my favorites or Let The Right One In.. something that’s more of a darker horror movie or in the dark fantasy realm but isn’t too gory. I think I’m such a mind-based person. All the cinematic stuff exists in my head so I think I would want to reflect that musically as well. But honestly Ben (Chisholm – band member, and longtime collaborator) and I have this huge dream of scoring a film together. At least writing original songs for a film or something. We’d definitely love to do that. I think we could do many different genres but I think a psychological thriller would be very cool.”
One of the dark fantasy movies she recalls discovering and falling in love with is Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film, The Seventh Seal. It practically haunts her to this day.
“I saw it when I was a kid in high school. I don’t really think I understood it at the time but just the style of it at the time, the contrasting black and white shadows and everything. But also that figure of death on the beach with it’s arm up – that just stuck in my mind and I had dreams about it for a long time. For me death became this character more than an actual thing that happened so I wrote about death in all these different ways in a lot of my early songs, that was the impact that it had.”
Chelsea’s music is deeply rooted in life experiences, her spirituality and self discovery through witchcraft and tarot.
“It’s something that kinda has been a part of my life for a really long time. It went unnamed for a long time. I didn’t want to use that name because I wasn’t really sure if I connected with it until the past two years really. I was raised by a very spiritual grandmother who taught me aroma therapy, energy work and things like that. It kinda opened me up to the fact that there is more than just the physical realm. I wasn’t really raised religiously, but I did have some religious experiences having gone to different churches and stuff when I was in high school but I wasn’t really raised that way. So it was more like exploring the spiritual realm. As I started studying it more specifically a few years ago, I was more okay with naming it – this is a path that I’m on. It’s the path of witchcraft and it’s a really beautiful healing thing for me and for most of the people that I know that are involved in it even though it’s something that some people may look at it as something dark, but it’s really not. I mean it can be, for sure, but it’s a very healing and beautiful thing.”
For more with Chelsea Wolfe, including an in depth look into her process, sacred creative spaces and more, check out The Boo Crew Podcast episode 129 available on ACAST, Apple and wherever you get podcasts!
Follow Chelsea Wolfe and Mrs.Piss on:
Instagram: @cchelseawwolfe
Instagram: @mrspisss
Twitter: @cchelseawwolfe
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Instagram: @talesfromtheboocrew
Twitter: @talesfromtheboo