ALL THEM WITCHES play The Roxy May 12, The Constellation Room May 13, The Casbah May 14; photo Paul Harries
When you witness the musical tour de force that is an All Them Witches performance, what you’re really witnessing is four men transcending the earthly realm through the gateway of their music.
Often embarking on mind expanding solos and tangential jams, their songs never exist the same way twice. A feat that really only works when the whole band is working as one, eyes closed, heads down, bodies in intimate, wordless communication.
Lead by bassist/vocalist Charles Michael Parks Jr., he and his bandmates write songs of a uniquely psychedelic nature, ones that beg for us to join them in that alternate plane of existence.
With their latest release Sleeping Through The War, our minds are primed to wander as we are immersed in an ocean of reverb, weird echo delays, and chest-rumbling fuzz. But just as the metaphor implies, their music plays out in waves of sonic dynamics. One moment, you’re floating through hypnotic, calming waters, and the next, you’re thrashing amongst the waves of a musical hurricane.
But the album isn’t just a variety of sounds and vibrations. As the title implies, the album is also an exploration of the current world order. And while many of the lyrics are deliberately open ended, you get the impression that Parks and co. are concerned about the current trajectory of the human race.
And so when Parks sat down for an interview with Concert Guide Live, just a couple days before All Them Witches embark on a 17-date tour, the focus was about the nature of musical expression. How can music wake up those who are sleeping through the war? Is there a definite purpose to music? Find out what Parks has to say below, in an excerpt from a stimulating, rant-filled conversation about the importance of music.
CONCERT GUIDE LIVE: Your latest album is very much in conversation with politics and society. Have you always seen music as more than just feeling vibrations? When did you realize you could use it to spread and talk about important ideas?
CHARLES MICHAEL PARKS JR.: I think maybe when people started really showing up to our concerts and I realized that all of these people had made the same decision all at the same time. They made a decision to end up at that place with all of these other people to do the same activity. And that’s when I realized, “Oh, that’s the power of music. It gets people to the same place using the same words but being interpreted in different ways.” So that’s really powerful to me.
CGL: Do you see music as a form of activism then? In that it has this power to unite people?
CMPJ: I feel like music can be a form of activism. But you have to use some of the guidelines of — I don’t want to say the enemy — but, I feel like advertising is kind of the enemy of music. Everything is about mind control and money. And music is the opposite, right? It’s about how you feel, and how you relate that to the world. But advertising and music have become the same thing over time. You have to build a brand for yourself. It’s what all the people have been rebelling against for so long. You know, “don’t put me in a fucking box.”
But I don’t need to be mass marketed, I don’t need to trick people into liking me. I’ve always said that as our music changes, people are willing to come and go. And that’s fine, people can think whatever they want about my music, and take what they need from it and leave. So, yeah, I feel like it can be a form of activism.
But at the same time, you can’t just fall into the same thing that Dylan or Hendrix were doing. Because what they were doing was being kids and living and singing how it related to them. You have to hide it now. You have to make people think that they thought of it.
And that’s what I mean when I say you have to pull from advertising. You have to get people to come up with the idea for themselves. You can’t give it to them because nobody cares about that. In an age of internet and instant gratification, you can find whatever answer you’re looking for at the click of a button. Information is killing us because it’s just made us completely apathetic. We have all of the information and we don’t know how to process it. People only stick to an idea if they think they came up with it.
CGL: Is this album about that? Is it your way of using music to “inception” people with ideas?
CMPJ: Well, I’m just trying to be honest with my feelings. Which I think is not really done a lot. It’s hidden in a machismo kind of way for guys, and I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to identify — I mean, I do identify with every guy in a lot of ways — but I’m tired of the bullshit macho stuff. It’s unnecessary, it’s a facade.
In doing that, I have to be able to use my emotions and use sadness and be able to be honest about those things, that I can feel those things. And of course everybody feels it whether they want to admit it or not. And if you don’t, you need to. You need to cry, you need to actually feel something. So that’s all I’m doing.
When I get on stage, that’s my safe place. It doesn’t matter how many people are in front of me. I get to let loose. I’ll dance and jump around and yell, which I wouldn’t normally do in everyday life. That’s my spot to be like, “Here’s me. Here I am. Here’s all my friends, and this is what we do. And this is how we feel about it.” And then the lyrics are just open to interpretation. Because if you get the feeling, you’re going to get some kind of hint of the meaning.
All Them Witches will be sharing their music at The Roxy May 12, The Constellation Room May 13 and The Casbah May 14.