Gothic rock band Saint Agnes have been blowing up the charts in the UK since their debut. Their latest single release, "Outsider", was released in early June and is the third track from their upcoming album, Bloodsuckers. We recently got to chat with Kitty and Jon about the creation of the album, their influences, and more.
Saint Agnes is made up of: Kitty A. Austen (Vocals, Guitar, Bass), Jon James Tufnell (Guitar, Vox, Bass), and Andrew Head (drums)
MSM:
Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and how have they helped to shape your sound?
JON:
Nine Inch Nails are a really big important influence for us generally. And it definitely kind of came through more on this record. I think the kind of emotional rawness of Nine Inch Nails Records coupled with the sonic experimentation. Both those things are things that we really took to heart with this record.
KITTY:
Yeah. And like the kind of authenticity of the front person. So like Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor, you believe every word that he's singing. And that's something that really inspires us and something we really strive to do. And particularly with this record, being as emotionally authentic as possible is really important. And kind of anyone who inspires us, that is what it is. So like PJ Harvey is another person who is just her pure authenticity that we find inspiring rather than like, I love the music as well, but like the thing that really inspires me is artists who you just believe them. You know, you feel like they're making music because they have to, not because they want to or they just wanna be famous or whatever. More like they're compelled to do it and that's what inspires us.
JON:
Yeah, definitely. I think Jack White's projects like the Dead Weather and the White Stripes are another that has always influenced us. Again, he's someone that just feels like he has music kind of pouring out of him and a very no compromising attitude to how something should sound. And he's a true believer that some of the best things in a record are the mistakes that you leave in, and that's something that we've definitely learned from.
MSM:
Okay. So, your album Bloodsuckers will be out on July 21st, can you talk about the creative process behind the album or are there any themes or messages you wanted to convey with it?
KITTY:
Yeah, the creative process was very traumatic because, sadly, my mom passed away pretty much weeks before we started making the record, so all of that crazy emotion is in there. A lot of rage is in there, and a lot of sadness. A lot of joy as well, actually, because I think when these big traumatic things happen to you, you experience euphoric highs as well as the very low lows. You are in a very strange emotional place and you're kind of up and down and all of that is in there.
JON:
It really was about Kitty and I solidifying our way of being musically and emotionally honest with each other and making a pact that we were gonna make a record that was just for us. And when I say just for us, I mean that as the band, we weren't gonna worry about what people might think about it. You know, this is our first record on a major record label and normally when that happens, bands tend to become a bit more polished and a bit more commercial. But we were like, well we don't know what our lives are gonna hold, this might be the last record we ever make so let's go down in a blaze of glory. You know, let's make the thing we want to make.
KITTY:
And I think because of what was happening in the background to it that lent it this like sense of what's important to us, you know, you don't know tomorrow isn't guaranteed. I've found that out shockingly and it really added a sense of like, we need to make the thing that we want to create and not really listen to anybody telling us, oh you can't, like, guys don't put swearing in that song cause it won't get played on the radio, or make sure you get to the chorus in like 10 seconds, or whatever. We really didn't listen to anything. I mean I was like in pieces, really. So we had to make it completely on our own.
JON:
Yeah. Really dependent on each other. Our bass player that had been with us since the start left the day that we signed the record deal as well so it went from being four of us to three of us and it was me Kitty, and our drummer, Andy. And we are incredibly, the three of us. Andy's a really, really solid drummer. Really talented and he believes in our kind of creative direction. And so it was really just about Kitty and I kind of locking ourselves away and just trying to make something that we really believed in that there was no compromise whatsoever. And it was really like, well this might not be the most sensible decision, but this feels like the right thing to do. And to be able to sit back and go, yeah, some of that's pretty hard to listen to lyrically, sonically it's pretty relentless and stuff like that. And a producer who is more sensible might have told us to do certain things differently, but as Kitty said about tomorrow not being guaranteed just meant, let's make the record we want to hear right now. If we could put a record on, this is what we would want to hear, and that really guided us. We made the record we wanted to hear that didn't exist in the world. And I don't think you can find a truer way of making something than that.
MSM:
Okay. That's great. Do you have a favorite lyric or song from the album?
JON:
That's really hard.
KITTY:
I love so much of it.
JON:
I like different songs on different days.
KITTY:
Yeah. The song I'm really, really proud of is a song on there called “At War”, which was written at a very mentally difficult time. I'd had a very difficult day and we wrote it the morning after, I think?
JON:
It was the day after you'd had a really like mentally challenging day. Yeah. And you said like, I've got these words and I just wanna have a song that starts with the sound of the tiniest glitch in your brain. Everything's fine, but it's just this one tiny little flickering problem. And then for it to develop and to soundtrack your lyrics and end up in the true brainstorm of chaos.
KITTY:
Yeah. And we wanted the song to reflect the way it feels to have a mental kind of episode. And I feel like it really does. So I'm super proud of that song.
JON:
Yeah.
KITTY:
We set out to do a thing and I think we managed to do it. Also the single we've just put out, “Outsider”, I think all of us in the band are really, really proud of that one as well. And there's a line in it that's “we are broken, but that doesn't mean that we are not whole”. And that kind of underpins the message for the whole record, really, of that, just cuz you've had trauma or you struggle, it doesn't mean you're not a whole human that's worthy of love and respect, so that's really important.
JON:
And I think one more thing is one of the songs that we are doing on the record is called “Follow You”. And it's the one song that we had worked with an outside person on. We worked with Sean Bevin, who mixed and engineered a lot of the early Nine Inch Nails stuff. And so he was someone that we really were lucky to get a chance to work with. And at the beginning of this project we were quite, we were in a very difficult time and it was quite hard to focus on music and we knew what we wanted to do, but we thought it'd be great to do the very first song we record, do it with someone who we really respected and trusted their out output and just see what he said about what the demos we sent. And his input to us was, I think what you guys are doing is fucking great and I don't really think you need to change anything. And he was like, the, the way that Trent Reznor did all the vocals was just hold a live microphone in the control room and just go fucking crazy. And he was like, I just recommend you let Kitty do that. If that's how you're feeling, don't stand there with a 10,000 pound microphone with headphones on and be really careful not to move your feet. Just be a riot, you know, let it happen and capture a performance. And that was really important, that process and the first line of that song it doesn't matter what they say about us, don't give a fuck about it. Just kind of sums up exactly what we set out to do for the rest of the record. And having him give us his permission to just like, be as raw as you can. Like the most important thing is to capture the emotions and worry about all the other stuff later. And he did, he gave us the confidence to be like, well, that's what we wanted to do, and now he's told us we can, so fuck it. We can do that now. Someone's told us we can.
JON:
It's nice to be able to go to your manager and say, this sounds really, really disgusting because Sean said it's okay.
MSM:
And then that helps with the authenticity that you want. You don't have time to filter yourself out and you just outpour and worry about it later.
JON:
Yeah. But at the end of one of the songs, “Animal”, you can hear the mic right at the end, you can hear the microphone hitting the wall.
MSM:
Oh wow! So, what is your favorite thing about touring?
KITTY:
Oh God. Everything. <Laugh> I think there are some people who really either love or hate touring. I don't see many people who feel indifferent towards it. And I just love it. I always say like, being on tour is the only place really that feels like home to me. I think it's because I think a big part of it is you've got one job for the day, which is like, get to a venue, put on a show, go to the next venue. And my brain likes that a lot. Just having very clear, you know, things to do in the day. I struggle with having options like you could do anything today. I don't like that, so I really like the routine of it. And I always think as well it's like being at school, like it’s when you get to hang out with your best friends and just hysterically laugh for days on end and be deliriously tired, but just finding everything funny and I just love it.
JON:
Yeah. I imagine that touring is horrible if you're with people you don't like, but we are really fortunate in the fact that we really like each other and if we bring crew away with us at all, we've so far been very fortunate in who has come with us, but for me it's, you get to immerse yourself in the very like, energized part of the art. So like, I love writing and I love recording, but everything, there's a level of anxiety about recording that you are like, is that the take? Is that the one I want to live with forever? Whereas the live performance is just, it's over. When it's over. You know, you and you can just talk in the van on the way to the next show. What should we do tonight differently from last night? We'll change the end of that part. Let's do that part there, let's go even harder or whatever.
KITTY:
It's like a constantly evolving thing. Yeah. That we discuss kind of all day. Which I'm sure drives the crew mental. . But we will just really enjoy honing the performance each night and spending the day talking about it, and what we're gonna do tonight that's different. Oh that worked really well. . like, we'll do that again or we'll swap songs here and that didn't really work.
JON:
What is in our heads, what is our world we're trying to create. The same is on record, but with normal life, you don't get to live your art for weeks at a time. You get to do it for two hours and then you have to go and cook and then you have to go drop something off, like send some mail or whatever it's gonna be. You have real life get in the way. But when you're on tour, as Kitty said, your only job is to do the show and so you get to totally immerse yourself in it. And I just think that there's something incredible about that, that is very different from regular life.
MSM:
Can you share any interesting or surprising facts about the band or any of the members?
JON:
Our drummer was born in America.
KITTY:
Yeah, he was born in America. He likes to say he's American all the time, but he's got the most English accent that you've ever heard in your life.
JON:
He’s not American.
KITTY:
But he likes to say he is!
JON:
Yeah. At Passport Control they always say welcome home to him. Which he feels very excited about. But yeah. Interesting, surprising facts.
KITTY:
We all surf. I dunno if that's surprising. We all surf. I dunno. Goths don't really surf, do they?
JON:
Yeah, we like going surfing at Christmas, which in the UK is a pretty crazy weird thing to do, but that's fun. I dunno. No, we're not very interesting. Our whole life is this band, so it's quite hard to like pluck a kinda crazy factor.
MSM:
Is there a particularly memorable performance or moment in your career so far?
KITTY:
I would say when my mom passed away, it was very sudden and unexpected and it was like a bolt out of the blue and just kind of was like a bomb going off in my life really. She was very young. I'm very young to lose my mum. And we had a tour, we just got back off a tour supporting a band called Skindred and we had our own tour booked for a week later and basically she passed away in that week between the tours. My family is full of musicians, my dad's a musician, my brother's a musician. And my dad and brother said to me like, don't cancel the tour. Like, you should just go and do it, because it’s just what your mom would've wanted you to do. And also it was like really, like what's better than being surrounded by your chosen family. Being on the road and doing what you love at such an awful time. So she passed away and we went on tour. Our first show was that night which was a surreal experience, really. But I'd say like the show we did in London for that tour, which is our hometown will always like stay in my, you know, heart and like my mind forever because it was just, it just affirmed to me that whole tour really that that, yeah, like this is important and it's really important that you do the things you love, you know, in life because you just don't know what, what's coming. And it just kind of affirmed that for me. It kind of streamlined my thinking, like, you know, this is what I want to do, this is what's important to me. And I think like the audience knew things had been going on, like in the background I hadn't been explicit, but they, they we'd said like, this is, you know, the previous gigs would said like, we're going for a very difficult time. Like, you know, thank you so much for being here with us, blah, blah, blah. And that gig, there was something special about it, us and the audience.
JON:
It was, yes. It was really special. Like it was the motto for the whole tour was about just embracing the moment, not having a game plan. Don't think, oh, this tour is about selling this number of tickets so that we can then do this tour and, which is what the music industry is all about. It's always about them, it was just, yeah.
KITTY:
All that embrace, all that just went out the window, you know, cuz we, it was like life and death. It was like, it just embraced the shows and embraced this connection with the audience. . And yeah, it was just amazing
JON:
Really and just yeah, great to be part of a gang and like, you know, we were incredibly proud of seeing Kit managing to get her way through the gig every night and, you know, you weren't denying your feelings and putting on a brave face, you were totally embracing them and allowing them to kind of feel it was an incredibly healthy thing really. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We learned a lot about each other in that process and so yeah, I agree that was very memorable, even if it was an unbelievable blur. Yeah. Now
KITTY:
As well, a lot of it, I can't really remember, it's just really an odd memory, but I remember getting some messages from fans, like from people who'd been at the shows as well and they, we'd never said like, what, what had gone on, but I got messages from people being like, I can tell something awful has happened to you. And I just wanna say like, thank you so much for coming out and playing the show. Like, people were telling me about their traumas and saying like, you know, going to gigs is something that's helped me through these difficult times in my life. and thank you so much for liking, for doing that . and that was just like, it was incredible . to get that response when I was feeling so just not myself and just, yeah.
JON:
Yeah. Life affirming.
MSM:
Wow. Do you have a motto or some good advice that you live by?
JON:
I mean that's kind of it. Yeah. Yeah. If, if the, we've, we've got a song called Uppercut where the chorus is like, if we're here we might as well fucking be here. And it was kinda like the idea of, you know, just own the moment you found yourself in this point in time with these people doing that thing. You can either look at every negative that comes with it or wish you were here or wish you that, or you can go, I'm here, let's fucking do it. Let's embrace it. And that's not just music, it's everything, you know? people are, it's very easy to spend your time thinking, oh, I wish I had, I lived in a better place, or I had friends do this or I had more money. And like, you know, we're human, we're always gonna think parts of those, but the times that you manage to let those things go and really embrace that moment and live totally in the present, those are the moments where something magical happens. I think. And particularly if you're with people who are of the same mindset, it's very similar to when you're a kid at school and you're just running wild and you are not thinking about anything. You don't even remember that the lunch bell's coming. You know, you're just totally immersed in those moments. And I think the more you can regress to that mindset as an adult, the more magic there is. So yeah. If you, if we're here, we might as well fucking be here. Is a pretty good way to live, I think.
MSM:
Yeah. I love that. And then, lastly, do you have any closing messages for your fans?
KITTY:
Buy the fucking record? <Laugh> Come see us on tour! <laugh>. I guess just thank you really because we've been in this band a while and the thing that's kept this band going is the fact that our fans really get what we're doing and they're extremely supportive. They’re a very like hardcore group of fans, and that's what's kept us going.
JON:
Yeah. I think for me the main thing would be that I think we've made a record that for some people would be really, really important to them because it's really important to us and we are not totally unique in the challenges we've faced. And so, if someone's listening to it and find something really important in it, hopefully they can then share that with someone else who they think will get something from it. Our ultimate goal is to build a freaky family across the world of people who share our values and share our worldview, you know? And that's done by people who are sharing something. We're not saying this in some commercial way of like, share blah blah. We mean like if you think there's someone who is going to get something from the record the same as you've got it, don't be shy about going, Hey man, listen to this, this got me through something. I remember doing that when I was younger with records and taping stuff for people. And I know those days are kind of different and I think there's no better way of building a connection with someone on a deeper level than sharing something that means something to you with them.
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