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Striking Back With JUSTIN WARFIELD From SHE WANTS REVENGE · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  So this is justin Warfield from She Wants Revenge and nice to meet you.
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  Nice to meet you too, justin how are you today, Brian Man.
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  I'm doing really good, just trying to get everything ready for the tour,
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  running around getting last minute figs and bobs and things organized because I'll be away
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  from home for quite a while. By the time I see you're part of
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  the world, I will have been gone for over a month of touring.
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  So that's all starting very soon. So it's a lot to deal with,
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  but very exciting. That toy you speak of, in case anybody is not
• 0:38
  aware of it, she wants revenge. I got to be touring Australia for
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  the very first time ever. It's October, so I know she's sighting the
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  obvious mate, but how excited are you to be coming over? Dude?
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  It's like, you know, there's a running joke amongst the band, and
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  I'm sure you know any awesome fans by now if we were to announce a
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  show, no one wouldn't believe it anyways, because every time we do it
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  started gets canceled. And so Thomas Froggett, who is the who is the
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  bass player? And she wants Revenge, but started in the original lineup as
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  the guitar player. He uh is from Byron Bay in Melbourne and he grew
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  up between the two and so when I told him the dates were coming,
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  he said, yeah, yeah, right, I'll believe I'll believe it when
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  I see him mate. And so it's really exciting. I mean there's been
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  some I mean, you know, it's it sucks to deal in stereotypes,
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  but like I just have to be honest, Like whenever I can go to
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  a place where the culture has inspired me or us as a band, us
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  as individuals, it's exciting. And you know, it's a place that like
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  there's so much history, there's so much great music, there's so much culture
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  that matters for me as a as a lifelong surfer. I mean, to
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  get to go to Gold Coast is unbelievable. I mean I grew up watching,
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  you know. I mean, like I'm a bit of a bit of
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  a you know, a nerd when it comes to surfing stuff and me,
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  I mean some of my absolute heroes of the sport are from there, and
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  I've been looking at photos and videos there forever. So the idea that not
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  only do I get to go play shows for audiences that probably thought we would
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  never really come. We're also talking about a band that's broken up twice before.
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  So for the people that have been with us the whole time, who've
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  grown up with us or grown old with us as it were, and are
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  like, oh wow, they're really coming, or for the new people who
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  discovered us from like a soundtrack or Pandora or Spotify or a playlist or something
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  algorithmic thing. The fact that they get to experience us and what we do
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  live, that we get to share three nights of music with our fans old
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  and new, that we get to see the culture in the cities that are
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  so exciting to us, and the fact that I just get to surf.
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  Man. I mean, it's it's gonna be outrageous. Oh yeah, so
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  that's the band coming over for the first time. I sound like it.
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  You're not a little bit already. But do you have a chat with being
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  I read before and stuff. Do you ask them what to expect or would
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  rather come over? And I would a bit of a surprise. I just
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  go for the surprise. I mean to be honest, like, I just
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  don't. I mean, I know how I know how many people buy tickets
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  ahead of time. I'm always like, I'm a pretty optimistic and and I'm
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  a person with a lot of optimism and glasses is more than half full.
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  But when it comes to live shows, I'm always like, oh, no
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  one's gonna come. And then I'm always pleasantly surprised, And so I don't
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  look up anything. I don't see what people were saying about the shows.
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  I just want to be completely surprised when I get there. You know.
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  I like to just come in and just say, hey, like, where's
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  your best coffee? Where can I have a meal that a local would have
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  that? And auditorists, but and give me a bit of the culture here
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  and whatever kind of shopping or sort of activities we want to do. So
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  I mean, I'm just like thrilled three places we get to experience. I
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  mean, you know, Brisbane, Melbourne and in Sydney and then I'm spending
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  some time off on the Gold Coast and We'll be getting a serf or two
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  in or many more depending and you know, I want to see the cities.
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  I want to see the clubs, I want to see the culture.
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  I want to meet the people. We are not the kind of band that
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  just plays a show, hides backstage and then like hops in the vehicle as
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  it were, and leaves. After the show, we're out shaking hands,
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  talking, signing things, having conversations. I especially not only because people who
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  don't get to see us very often, if ever, wants to have a
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  personal experience, but also when you're in a town for one or two days
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  maximum, you can't really possibly know the city, and so the best thing
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  you could do is know the people. Very tree right trade stick, let's
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  buys. On the flip side of that night is like what can san fans
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  expect? She wants revenge from each well, probably a combination of like deep
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  cuts, well known fan favorites, and on this tour two new songs that
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  we've never played every you know ever really so all very you know, I
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  don't know. I mean, we really put on quite a show, like
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  we were not like performing and jumping up and down for the audience, but
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  we try to make sure that we're giving everything that we have to put on
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  the most amazing show possible, both visually, sonically, in our energy,
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  in our interaction with the audience. We don't just phone it in ever,
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  like for me, like I don't even enjoy myself unless I give everything I
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  have, but I want to be physically and mentally racked afterwards. And so
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  I also feel that like concerts are just like expensive, and like we try
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  to make them as affordable as possible for people. But if somebody's going to
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  put down money and all the things that they go into going out for a
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  night, parking, getting something to eat, like maybe you want to get
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  a T shirt you go to a show, like I can't. I hate
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  it when bands just like get up there and just act like they're in a
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  fucking rehearsal room or something. Sorry for person, It's just like, you
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  know, it's just like it's crazy. To me, it's like, come
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  on, man, Like we don't get to see you but once a year
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  or maybe once ever, and you're here and you're not going to give everything
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  you have. That's just not fair. So for us, we try and
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  put on a real I don't like to say show, but like we try
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  and create an experience on stage with each other that makes the crowd a part
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  of it, and then they're a part of this experience. And to me,
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  like the bands that always like really blew my mind when I was younger
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  were like The Doors, James's Addiction, Public Enemy, you know, Pink
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  Floyd, like led Zeppelin, you know, groups that like put On so
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  like just created a whole experience and you were just like your your face was
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  melted because you're just like you got everything in one night, you know,
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  and like, to me, that's what we do. And so if you're
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  a fan of She Wants Revenge, I can't imagine someone liking our records and
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  then not being even more excited by what we do live. They go back
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  and talk a little bit. Bright Light. You guys pretty much exploded on
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  the music scene in two thousand and five with the song Tear You Apartment.
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  Actually, at the time, are you surprised by how well and how quickly
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  people took to your music? For sure? But at the same time,
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  with hindsight, I can see why, I think, because it's really it
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  stood out and it was different. Even though we get lumped in with other
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  darkwave bands, other post punk revival bands, other you know what I say,
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  other as if we're part of it. We get lumps in with post
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  punk revival, we get lumped with what they call now indie sleeves. We
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  get lumped in with dance punk or whatever these different genres that were called at
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  the time. But at the time we were like two guys making records that
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  were influenced by like Tangerine Dream, Georgio Morode or Suicide, Depeche Mode,
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  you know, Tears for Fear, as the Smiths Secure, you know,
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  New Order and like Sisters of Mercy and stuff. We weren't thinking like when
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  we came out in two thousand and four, there was bands that were influenced
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  by like Gang of Four, or there was bands that were influenced by,
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  like, you know, a lot of the more like up tempo things like
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  Asdeed Jays and music fans and sort of you know, self proclaimed sort of
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  like I don't want to say we're like academics or scholars, but we could.
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  Adam and I can go toe to toe with most music academics, and
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  like I was a part of like in La I like DJing and the electroclash
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  sheen in Los Angeles that was really coming out of New York City and Berlin
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  and Paris. That was a great time that just proceeded it. So for
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  us, we're coming out of electroclash and then Adam and I started a night
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  DJing where we started playing a lot of like late seventies early eighties dark wave
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  music. And that's sort of to me where if you bring in also the
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  Prints and the Tangerine Dream and the Vangelists and the things that were inspiring us
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  as youths, and you put it all together, that's what we were doing.
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  And the thing is, no one else at the time was doing that.
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  There was bands that were incredible, like you know, block Party was
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  incredible, and inter Bowl was incredible, and all these bands that were around
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  were great. Then there were something that I'm not so fond of, but
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  you know that they were just like around. I love the rapture back then.
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  I think you know, Chick Chick Chick was the band that was around
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  back then that was great. And like, you know, uh, what's
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  the band from from the Omaha, Nebraska, Like my brain is totally dying
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  right now, help me out dance macab their big record, Yeah, yeah,
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  hold hold on, hold on, it's uh the Faints. The Faint
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  was doing a sort of you know, dance punk like new wave before anybody
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  in the revival of all of us. But the point is when we came
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  out, no one was doing anything that sounded like us, like where it
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  was like, hey, here's this dude who like could be like an evil
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  Fred Schneider from the B fifty twos, but he's actually like, you know,
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  this black dude who's a rapper with like a dude who is a DJ,
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  and they're banging on weird drum machines like suicide and making songs like Tear
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  You Apart or songs like these things. It's not surprising in hindsight that it
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  stood out because we just sounded different. Is it surprising that it was successful?
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  Of course, Like nobody thought that, you know, most of all
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  us, nobody thought that like we were gonna like be where we are today,
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  like doing weirdo you know music, Like it's incredible. And the fact
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  that we're still doing it, you know a couple of years or whatever,
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  we're gonna be coming up, you know, you know when next year.
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  I didn't even realize it in year twentieth anniversary. That's crazy. Like,
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  you know, I started the band in my early thirties. I'm fifty,
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  so I mean it's incredible that we're able to still do this, and it's
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  just you know, we like writing good songs. We've always felt that there's
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  a lot of bands making goth and dark wave and new wave and all that
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  who know how to get the right keyboard sounds, to write drum sounds and
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  look the part and do their voice and the O you know, And there's
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  a lot of people who know how to do that, but not everybody are
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  great songwriters. And the one thing that I will hang, we know how
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  to write songs, and it's because we're not writing like goth songs or new
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  wave songs. We're just writing songs, and stylistically the style is darker,
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  and so I think that like good songs last. Like, not everyone of
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  our songs incredible, but we've written some good songs and I think that connects
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  with people. When we first started making music, we made two or three
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  demos. I heard them and I went, man, I know exactly the
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  way people are going to connect to this. And what I meant was when
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  I first discovered Placebo and then became really close friends with them, I was
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  like, Wow, this is like feels like I've seen the energy of fans
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  at a Cure show or a Smithter Morrissey show, and I've seen the energy
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  hands at a Placebo show, And when we recorded our first two songs,
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  I said to Adam, we're gonna have that same type of fan because there's
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  honest, heartfelt lyrics that are not trying to be too cool or too esoteric
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  or too clever for Clever's sake, and because we're speaking directly, and because
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  there's a lot of emotion, and because we're not just making music for a
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  bunch of dudes. What I didn't realize was it was going to be a
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  lot of people. I thought, maybe, you know, we'd have a
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  small little audience that were devoted. I didn't realize, you know, did
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  we'd have a song that was streamed one hundred million times? Would and that
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  actual song tell You're Apart? Might like they caught the attention to Lady Gaga
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  pretty much demanded that the song be featured in the American Horror Story franchise,
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  in the Hotel Theories. So, yeah, what sort of doors did that
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  open up for you? Did it? Did it changing significantly? Yeah?
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  I mean at the time when that happened, we weren't we were weren't even
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  a band. We were broken up, you know, and I told people
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  that we're going on to hiatus, and it was. It was Baga's inclusion
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  of the song in addition to in addition to it being the tenth anniversary of
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  our first record that made us go, hey, you know, maybe maybe
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  we should have a go of this and give it another go round. So
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  yeah, I mean it was a really big deal for us. It was
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  the difference between we aren't an active band and Lady Gaga puts this in the
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  you know, and you know, to give him credit, you know,
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  because he didn't she suggested it, but he had to do it. So,
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  you know, the creator of the show hearing it goes, yeah,
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  it's a great idea, puts it in the show. And then the next
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  thing, you know, we're we have one more thing that's motivating us to
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  get out there and do it again. And look, it wasn't like it
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  wasn't money and it wasn't opportunity. We had been offered a lot of money
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  to come back and play shows and turned it down. It was like,
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  you know what, maybe it's time. And so when you say what did
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  Lady Gaga to do for the band, she played a partner. Getting back
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  together Cool and your last alf of belly Hot came out back in twenty eleven.
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  But you mentioned two new songs before so Field, the fans are going
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  to demand. I ask you this question by so does that mean it's going
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  to be a new album from she was preventioned the New Future. Yes,
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  there is, and I'm not breaking any news here. We've sort of been.
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  We didn't do like any formal just what we're making a record, because,
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  like you know, we're not like some massive band that everybody knows,
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  so we don't make announcements and announcements like everybody like the whole world is waiting
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  or anything. But we also were like it was sort of a mix of
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  like if we make some big announcement, just the way the world works now
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  where the algorithm is sort of like you kind of have to feed it in
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  order for people to even see what you're saying. And it's like I can
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  make an announcement on Instagram today saying I'm playing here in your town, and
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  then the next day somebody goes, when are you gonna play here? And
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  I'm like, I'm at the airport we just left, and they're like,
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  I had no idea, and it's like, well, because not everybody can
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  see what you say when you post right, So if we were to make
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  a formal announcement, it kind of feels like, who knows if anybody would
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  even hear it, right, and so so sorry. So rather than just
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  make some formal announcement, we just started taking pictures and videos in our rehearsal
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  studio and Adam was just like all right, working on the new record,
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  and so it was very uh, it was very like low key announcement,
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  if you want to call it that. And what can you tell us about
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  it? Might isarra a rough rough release date and stuff there. I have
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  no rough release date. I have no such information. We're just working on
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  it. I feel like we'll probably release a single, well no not.
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  I feel we're going to release a single towards the end of the year and
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  then album in the new year. Very exciting. If anybody's a fan of
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  She Wants Revenge, they'll just love the record because it's not like sometimes bands
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  are like listen, like we know you love and everything, but like we've
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  grown away from that and here's what we're doing now. And I just think
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  that it sounds like the best version of what She Wants Revenge could be.
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  So I think people would be very pleased when they hear our new songs and
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  the new record very nice. All right, just sall. That's all I've
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  got for to day, mate, So you guys, She was Revenge will
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  be out here in October for the first time ever, so fans get online
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  now and get yourself tickets, mate, and all the best. We'll see
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  you when you get here. Thanks so much mate, always brother, enjoy
• 18:29
  your day.