Roll of the Dice: 8 questions with Saint Agnes

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Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.

UK four-piece Saint Agnes dropped the ferocious new album Bloodsuckers last Friday on Spinefarm Records. TGEFM is thrilled that we had an opportunity to speak with Jon from the band about the record, the future and how a real-life tragedy fed into the rage and hope throughout the record.

Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats on the release of Bloodsuckers. For our readers just discovering the band, what can you tell us about Saint Agnes, your sound and what you stand for?

Describing your own sound is hard! We know the nuances too well. When you’re outside it looking in it is way easier. With this record I can hear a Broken/Downward Spiral era Nine Inch Nails punk metal aggression that runs through the record, as well as some Dead Weather garage rock. But our main focus is on supporting Kitty’s vocals and lyrics. She has an uncompromising attitude of wanting to capture the feel and essence of the song in her performances which makes for some intense recording sessions with mics thrown across the room, and total immersion in the moment.
This attitude  also embodies what we stand for. The art is never compromised, the message and meaning is sacred and we make music designed to speak to our true selves that hopefully then resonates with others. We always try to be the band we wish existed. We always felt like outsiders, still do. We seem incapable of fitting in and our music seems to be a home for people who feel the same.

What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do”  Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?

White Zombie had a huge influence on me. Specifically the album Astro Creep 2000. I was into bands like Metallica and all the usual rock and metal, but this was the first band I discovered on my own, that felt totally mine. They seemed like they had come from another planet, just so outside the mainstream and they felt like a gang to me. A gang I wanted to be in and could be in just by listening.
I also loved how simple the music was. It was simple ideas taken to their extreme and the dominant factor was the character of the performance. This sold me on the idea that the best way to express yourself is to tey to be authentically you and embrace whatever weird ideas and limitations you have. I also broke my wrist around this time and was writing my first songs on guitar, but my cast prevented me from playing with anything but one finger, so I was totally inspired, trying to create but totally limited. It actually informed a lot of my approach to music later on. If you haven’t heard the record put it on from the start, don’t shuffle it, just absorb the freaky groovyness. 

We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?

My first demo tape somehow made its way to a pretty major record label and I got a call from an A&R guy. Unfortunately my friend had just got off the phone to me making prank calls and I assumed this was one of these. I hung up on the A&R guy and didn’t know about my fuck up until a week later when I saw my friend again. Being 18 and painfully shy I was too embarrassed to call back and apologise. 
I doubt much would have changed, but I still have the odd anxiety nightmare that closely follows this script!

I hope I’m not asking too much into personal lives here, but a lot of Bloodsuckers came in the wake from the loss of Kitty’s mother.  How did the songwriting and recording process impact your mourning and healing periods?

Kitty was in a very dark place. She was overwhelmed with grief which manifested at times as despair and rage. It was all she could do some days to get out of bed and face the day, but she took the decision to make this record, to use it as a way to express herself and to create something permanent and positive out of this bleak time. Most of these songs were written and recorded in the very heart of these strong feelings rather than reflecting back. That made us record in a way that was spontaneous and raw and we kept the suns abrasive and untamed to match those feelings. 
Andy and I fully supported her decision and worked hard to try to musically match the emotion of the lyrics Kitty was writing. We aimed to make a record entirely for us, to not think about expectation or commercial appeal or the radio, just embrace the moment and document it. Kitty was feeling so raw there was no way to have a definite structure, so some days she’d just write lyrics there and then, in the eye or the storm of feeling and we’d record her vocal within minutes, capturing all the rage and pain.
As the album progressed Kitty began to realise there was an element of hope in the songs too, in tracks like “Follow You” and “Forever and Ever.” After all her rage was spent she chose to write a song directly for her Mum, to confront the softer feelings left exposed after expelling the anger. This resulted in “This Is Not The End,” one of the pieces of music we are most proud of.

What’s the state of the live scene from your point of view?  We are living in a “just deal with COVID” world and everything about this timeline is some level of completely fucked.  What impact, if any, do the current cultural and political landscapes have on your music?

We haven’t written any specifically political songs, but the social environment can’t help but have an affect on what you’re creating within it. The extra stress, tension and financial strains definitely take their toll. In the UK we have had Brexit which has been a disaster for the country as a whole let alone the live music industry. Touring in mainland Europe used to be no different than just extending a UK tour. You could just take your tour van across and keep playing. Now there’s a huge amount of red tape, massive costs and delays that squeeze any band of our size.
The people at shows are as engaged as ever, possibly even more so. Now that we had a taste of life post-live music a lot of people seem to realise what we have to lose. As a result I think there might be an extra willingness to embrace the moment which we have been seeing in our audiences. Or maybe we just got better. Either way the shows have been unreal.

One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?

Mimi Barks. We took her out as an opener on a tour last year and really liked her music and her DIY work ethic. I admire anyone who has a vision and pursues it relentlessly, it is very similar to our own way of working. We then invited her to sing a verse on our record on a song called “Body Bag.” It was designed to be a relentless hammer blow at the point you feel you can’t take anymore. I love how it turned out.

Ho99o9 are bigger, but still seem to fly way too far under the radar. Their album United States of Horror was a big influence on Bloodsuckers. If you haven’t checked them out I suggest you do so.

Now that the world has its hands on the record,  what’s next for Saint Agnes?

We have a UK headline tour coming up that we are focusing on right now, as well as a few things I don’t want to jinx by mentioning. 

What do you wish I asked about or that you had more of an opportunity to speak about during this interview?

We produce, mix and record our own music with little outside help. This is done out of the desire to impart character on every single element of the record. Our vision for the music is so complete and all encompassing that it would feel weird to hand creative control over to someone else, especially when the record is this personal. This extends to directing and editing our own videos. Our goal with this band is to express our inner world and this is done most effectively by doing it yourself.
The only exception to this was the first track we recorded for the album, called “Follow You.” We were writing music we felt really captured in real time, the chaos and heartbreak going on in our lives, but coming from such an emotional place it was hard to start the recording process which takes a much more methodical mind than we felt we could muster at that point. So we opened the door to our world just a tiny bit and worked with Sean Beavan (Nine Inch Nails). We told him what we wanted to do and sent him the rough demo we had for Follow You and he loved it. Told us to not over think the process, just put all our feeling and energy into the performances and really go even harder and noisier than the demo. He told Kitty to ignore sonic perfection and just use a live, handheld mic in the studio and lose herself in the songs, go as wild as she needed to inhabit the songs. This advice really just solidified the process already in place with the demos and just focused our minds on what we wanted to do. Sean’s advice gave us permission to be as raw and abrasive as we felt and we took that blue print and applied it to the whole record.