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First of all, can you
give us a brief introduction of WhipKraft?
WhipKraft is a San Francisco based female-fronted band,
which draws from goth, industrial, and metal elements as
well as visual art. WhipKraft is unique in that it has
over a dozen members that have contributed to the
project and continually growing, as WhipKraft’s goal is
to work with many artists who have significant talents
to offer.
How did things get started? And why did you pick this
bandname?
Early WhipKraft started out as a duo in San Francisco’s
infamously industrial Rocker Studios as a musical
experiment. Vena Kava had an idea for the project and
recruited the rest of the band members and studio
musicians over time.
The name WhipKraft comes from multiple sources: An
intense liking for Kraftwerk ?, Witchcraft, the ideation
that Whips are cool, a bit of word scramble, and somehow
you mix it all together and you have WhipKraft.
What are your main influences?
Our influences are not musical really, but rather just
based on the hidden, darker aspects of life: Suffering,
fear, mortality and morbidity, mental illness, hospitals,
heartbreak, and denial. On a lighter note, we also draw
from magic, witchcraft, ritual, strange scientific
theories and psychology.
Musically, we do listen to a lot of the following bands,
which have had some influence one way or another:
Rammstein, Ministry, Fear of God, Death Ride 69, Rob
Zombie, Skinny Puppy, Alien Sex Fiend, Christian Death,
Nick Cave, Dean Can Dance, Nine Inch Nails, and
Deftones.
How would you describe your music?
It’s really hard for us to describe what we are doing
musically, since we are so immersed within, it’s hard to
look objectively. But recently one of our fans stated it
perfectly, “Whipkraft is a musical diorama of dread, a
menagerie of feastful tunes that are set apart in
stylization from many gothic influenced bands.” We could
not have stated it more perfectly.
You released your debut album called 'Welcome to the
Chapel Perilous' a little while ago. What were the
responses you received on it?
The majority of the responses were quite great,
everybody wants us to tour now and they want to know
when we are coming to their city. This was really
encouraging to hear since it was our very fist album.
There were of course some people who had a lot of
problems with our style of songwriting; I think they
want something concrete, something that can be very
easily categorized with specific guidelines to follow.
WhipKraft’s first album is nothing like that, it is very
ethereal and there is a lot of experimentation going on.
What is in your opinion the best track of the
release, and why?
We differ in our opinions on this one, but most of us
like Chapel Perilous. The song Chapel Perilous sums up
the album, when we perform the song, the energy behind
it is very immensely real.
What is the message you try to spread lyrically?
Vena Kava writes all the lyrics, she digs deep, and
heavy into dark realms of her mind, often grounding and
ungrounding our spinal chords with her words.
What does a live show of WhipKraft look like?
WhipKraft shows have really changed over time. When we
started out we were huge on the stage show; costumes,
dancers, effects, fog machines, etc. Now we are still
very visual but also minimalist in many ways. Many
people think we are a fetish performance band like the
Genitorturers. I know our name may be deceiving, but we
are not even closely related. We live in San Franisco,
with many fetish events and parties in which we tailored
a couple of performances specific to this audience, and
somehow many people just assumed that we were a fetish
band. But we are just artists, creating any kind of
fantastical and fanatical scenario we think of at the
time. We really have a visual thing for blood, bats,
gore, vampires, monsters, devils, rituals, witchcraft,
etc… I think that is more of our “specialty” and it
really is more like a feast or a celebration rather than
a staged production.
How important is the visual aspect for a band like
WhipKraft?
Very important, 50% is visual art for us, and 50% is
music, they just go hand in hand for us. You will never
see us in blue jeans and white t-shirts… ha ha… except
maybe for Halloween
What can we expect of WhipKraft in the near future?
You can certainly expect a lot. We will be hiding out in
the studio for a while. Vena Kava has two albums in mind
that we are currently working toward. A concept album
called “the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse,” and
another album, which seems to be moving in a more
electronic direction. We don’t know what will come first
yet… it’s all just kind of happening. After we complete
this, expect to see us on tour.
The interview ends here, thanks a lot for your time.
If you have something to add, you can do it here.
I want to thank you, Gerardo and industrializedmetal.com
for having us, it was a pleasure to do an interview for
your webzine.
Interview answered by Vena Kava and Hammer Ash
Interview by: Gerardo (November 2007) |
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