A great end to 2012

WIDOWS voted local band of 2012 by RockShowReloaded on UK station Scratch Radio

WIDOWS listed in the top 40 albums of 2012 by Rancho de la Luna Radio, alongside Orange Goblin, Om, St Vitus, and Witchcraft!

WIDOWS have just confirmed they will be playing with Orange Goblin at Nottingham Rock City on the 13th Feb.

Stay tuned for more details....

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Interview with Summon from the Crimson Moon Webzine, Florida, USA

Thanks to Summon for taking time out to interview us for her webzine. Go check it out after you've read the interview: http://crimsonmoonzine.com/widows

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Death Valley Duchess reviewd by Paul Robertson of Sleeping Shaman

Original review can be found here: http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/w/widows-death-valley-duchess-cd-2012/

When Def Leppard came up with the name Bludgeon Riffola for their record label maybe, just maybe, Joe Elliot and chums looked into the future, heard Nottingham’s Widows, thought “Yes! That’s for us, we’ll have some of THAT!” and coined the phrase based upon the bludgeoning riffage that they heard through that speculative rip in the fabric of time and space.

Of course, the Lepps youthful idealism has looooong since vanished up the bloated spandex-clad-and-bemulleted arse of desperately naff corporate cheese-o-rama but, thankfully, Widows are keepin’ that rockin’ dream alive with almost enough vim, verve and vigour to make up for the excoriating vortex of suck that is Def Leppard.

Widows play it tight, deft, nimble and fierce – fleet-fingered burning bluesy riffs tumbling forth from guitarist James Kidd’s fingers as drummer Steve Mellor scampers nimbly around the kit, bassist Rob Stringer brings the thunder and full-throated vocalist Adam Jolliffe gargles with Jack Daniels and hot gravel. Reminiscent at times of a hopped-up Clutch at their most stripped-down and deadly, Widows are a razor-sharp rockin’ machine.

Those of you with functioning long-term memories may remember that I reviewed, and greatly enjoyed, Widows’ debut EP Raise The Monolith back in 2010 for this very site. Well, three of the four tracks from that recording – ‘Fuck Knuckle’, ‘The Kiss Of Failure’ and ‘Whores Of Babylon’ - are reprised on Death Valley Duchess in punchy, shiny new versions along with five brand spanking new tracks of a similar calibre.

Opener ‘Green Tsunami’ sets the pace and tone for what follows, a whirlwind of ferocious bluesy blunt-nosed metal riffing driven by Mellor’s kit-scouring drumming and Jolliffe’s whisky-sodden bark. From ‘Goat Lab’, through ‘Truckules’ to ‘Something For Deities’, Widows don’t let up. Riffs keep tumbling and Jolliffe keeps on a-barking, right the way up until final track ‘Parentheses’, wherein things slow right down to grinding doom-speed after an initial frenzy.

As with their debut, Clutch and the first Sixty-Watt Shaman LP are foremost in my mind as far as points of reference, but Widows are sharper, lacking the fuzz and wooliness inherent in most bands tagged as ‘stoner rock’. Much sharper, with a real fierce hardcore edge, mostly brought on by Kidd’s scything guitar-tone, Jolliffe’s lungbusting vocals and their propensity for velocity.

I have to admit to having lost track of Widows following Raise The Monolith, so finding out about and hearing Death Valley Duchess has been the most pleasant of surprises, and it more than fulfils my prophecy about the band going on to better things after such an impressive start. Clearly they deserve more and wider coverage and exposure than their current label can give them, I think some enterprising label really ought to snatch ‘em up and put ‘em out on tour pronto, then maybe they’ll really be able to take things as far as they can, as, based on this and previous evidence they’ve got what it takes to pull it off with aplomb. Hell, they’re the band that hypothetically inspired Def Leppard!

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 1)

This is the original English transcript (prior to translation to German) that we sent them. We assumed you'd rather read this than the German version, being as most of you can't read German. Because it's a long 'un (that's what she said), we've had to break it up into parts. Enjoy:

Q: How do you realise the melodic guitar playing live without losing the bottom?

A: We gave this a lot of thought when we started WIDOWS back in 2008, a lot of it is to do with the choice of equipment we use. When we first started we intended to have 2 guitarists to get around this problem but couldn't find someone who would suit the job so James decided he would just do both jobs ;-) As a result we use two different guitar stacks at the same time, one Orange and one Matamp; the two stacks use different EQ settings so their individual sounds do not interfere with each other, allowing each amp its own space in the overall sound. This means that although the frequency ranges they cover do overlap a little, the amps each have their own character that distinguishes one from the other. The end result is a much bigger guitar sound than can be achieved by using a single amp stack or two amps with the same settings. We also try and position the amps at either side of the stage to give as much width to the live sound as possible, which we have noticed can really help everyone onstage hear what the guitars are doing when the stage monitors aren't very good, or in the case of some small venues, non existent.

**check out part 2 for more of the interview**

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 2)

Q: Where does the sample at the beginning of "Drowned In Chains" come from? What is the text about, and why didn't you take it along for the album?

A: The sample was from a podcast of some preacher up in the northern US. Adam and James wanted to use a sample of a preacher ranting about something, we didn't really know what we wanted him to be ranting about but we knew we'd know it when we heard it. We spent hours searching the web for preachers who are known for their 'fire and brimstone' style of preaching and could reasonably be expected to have some bile and conviction behind their words. Eventually we stumbled across this one guy who was just wild...I mean the guy was seriously heavy duty when it came to his preaching; yelling, stomping his feet, his voice sometimes almost breaking into tears under the weight of the emotion behind his words. We spent several more hours trawling through some of these recordings looking for little snippets that would suit the vibe of the song. Eventually we found the sample that you hear on the track and it seemed to sum up how we were all feeling at the time of writing. The samples, the lyrics, and the song title all kind of shaped each other as we wanted them to tie in together to express the strife and struggle we were going through at the time. The “text” you ask about (I’m assuming you mean subtext/context here?), ie. The subject matter for the song etc: All four of us were going through a really bad time in our lives around the time we wrote the EP and especially Drowned in Chains. We were all coming out of some very messy relationships, having problems finding work, and James was dealing with the aftermath of a lot of deaths in his family over the previous 5 years. Essentially we were all very stressed out, unhappy dudes who felt as though we were being smothered by what seemed like an unavoidable torrent of shit. The name Drowned in Chains comes from the feeling of having been emotionally and physically drained as a result of these bad relationships and having to deal with all the crap that comes with it, on top of having to sort out my family affairs, finding work, and paying the rent and bills, all whilst barely having any time to keep ourselves from going crazy. That sort of thing will start to make a man crumble eventually, and this is where the idea behind the track came from. The ‘Chains’ are a metaphor for all these responsibilities/problems which we felt were drowning us. We decided not to use Drowned in Chains on Death Valley Duchess for two reasons: 1) We didn’t feel it represented who we were as a band any more as we had moved on from a lot of the things that caused us to write that tune, as both people and musicians, and 2) Because it has a very different feel to the rest of the songs we were writing for the album. Most of the songs have a very distinctive bluesy/stoner rock feel to them, whereas Drowned in Chains was very much a Doom track. When we wrote the Raise the Monolith EP we were still finding our feet as a band and working on creating our own style and sound, one of our friends mentioned that the EP sounded like 4 tracks from 4 different bands, and that we should try and streamline our sound a little, rather than hopping between sub genres. This one stuck out the most and was subsequently dropped as it just didn’t fit the requirements we had for the album.

**check out part 3 for more of the interview**

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 3)

Q: Why did you re-record three out of four EP-tracks?

A: We really liked the other three tracks from the EP and felt that they were great examples of our song writing from the earlier days of Widows. All three of those tracks were very popular with fans at our live shows to the point that if we’d drop one of them in favour of a new track, people would be asking us why we didn’t play them. Also, we still felt that these 3 tracks were still very relevant to our sound and had decided long ago that we would be re-using them when we eventually recorded an album. They were re-recorded because even though we had committed them to CD on the EP, we had continued to experiment and evolve the tracks since the original recording (the main difference being the use of backing guitars behind the lead work rather than just a bass and drums) and we felt that they deserved to be recorded again so we could capture the new/updated feel they now have.

Q: What happened to your former bass player and layouter Evan?

A: At the start of 2011 Evan found out he was going to be a father and said he could no longer commit to the band. He had been training to be a tattoo artist for the entire time he had played with us and had started doing it professionally a few months before his girlfriend became pregnant. He decided that he needed to work as much as possible to make plenty of cash before his kid was born, and couldn’t give the band the commitment we needed from him. It was sad to see him go but I think he made the right decision. We’re still in touch and he’s tattooed all of us in the past, including James’ first tatt; the “W” from the EP cover, the same “W” on Adam’s leg, and a whole bunch of skulls and Japanese demon masks on Steve.

**check out part 4 for more of the interview**

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 4)

Q: What did you, (James and Adam), learn from your trip to California? Did you travel through the desert, or were you settled somewhere?

A: We travelled a lot on that trip, I think we covered something like 1500 miles in 12 days and moved on to a new place almost every night. We went to Joshua Tree National Park and the surrounding Palm Desert area (home of Kyuss and the whole desert sound in general) with some friends of Adam’s family, and we travelled through northern Mojave and Death Valley on our own. We didn’t go there to learn anything in particular as far as facts and figures, but more to try and get a feel for the place and the history behind it. It was good to just lock in with the vibe of the desert and gain a little understanding of what made the people tick in this vast, barren, and yet beautiful place. James had done a lot of research in the months before the trip, looking into the routes we should take for the best scenery, and the history of the area (Death Valley especially) that gave us an insight into life there. We did learn quite a bit about Ballarat, a small ghost town on the edge of Death Valley that we visited early one morning, and we wound up using photos that we took in and around Ballarat for the internal layout of the album. As luck had it, we were staying on Sunset Strip in LA the same night as Yawning Man were playing (featuring Fredo Hernandez the former Kyuss drummer, and Mario Lalli from Fatso Jetson) at the Viper Rooms. This was an awesome little ‘desert bonus’ for us as we were due to head into Mojave and Death Valley the next day.

Q: To which degree, would you say, do your roots lie in punk and hardcore, respectively heavy and doom metal?

A: Well we all grew up on classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Hendrix, etc which is definitely where most of our sound comes from, and that naturally lead to us getting into bands like Pantera, Sepultura, Machine Head etc, who had a huge influence on us as kids growing up and playing music. Dimebag still has a fair bit of influence over James’ playing style, although we try and dial down the metal elements in our sound as we’re a rock band and want to be seen as one, rather than as a metal band which often happens. As far as hardcore is concerned, Adam and Steve were both very into that style back in college and their early 20s, with Steve playing drums for a number of hardcore/hardcore influenced bands over the years, which definitely reflects in the drumming style he uses in Widows now. With the guitars, I don’t think there is any direct hardcore influence, but there are elements of it in James’ playing style that have come from bands who were influenced by that style of playing. Punk doesn’t really come into the equation as none of us really listen to it so it hasn’t had any influence on our sound. I (James) have personally never been all that into ‘Doom’ as such, it’s cool how heavy it can be but I find it a little boring at times when all I want is a heavy riff to bang my head to, but the band are just droning on and on slowly and not really doing a whole lot to keep me interested. I like music that holds my attention and won’t let me be distracted from it and for that to happen there needs to be plenty going on, I think that reflects a lot in our song writing.

**check out part 5 for more of the interview**

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 5)

Q: What moves a bunch of British lads from Robin Hood's grounds to play music which makes you think of red necks, rolls like tumbleweed and stings like a cactus?

A: Ha ha, good question. Well yeah it does seem a little odd that four guys from the Midlands have gone out and made what is almost a concept album about the Californian desert, however I think our pedigree is pretty solid. James grew up in a desert for the first part of his life, albeit an Arabian one, and this experience of - and connection with - the desert has stayed with him ever since. He’s always had a fascination with all things desert related, and the mystery of the US desert especially, given all the secret bases and testing facilities they have out there such as the China Lake and Groom Lake test facilities. The fact is, we are a band that is undeniably influenced by the sounds that came from the Cali desert in the 90’s, if it weren’t for the bands on the Generator Party scene then Widows would not exist today. As a result, the album is not only us flexing our muscles and growing musically, but almost a homage to the sounds that influenced us over the years and took us down the path we are now travelling as a band. Not necessarily a direct ‘thank you’, but certainly a very definite nod of recognition to our influences.

Q: Lyrically, "Green Tsunami" is one of the more poetic hymns to weed, but apart from that: What moves a band to dedicate a song to funny smelling cigarettes?

A: We all smoke a fair bit, that’s undeniable, but this tune is actually about how weed is getting stronger and stronger with all the insane cross breeds and high THC content weed that’s available in places like Amsterdam especially, but also from home growers everywhere. It’s never been easier to get your hands on the equipment and seeds needed to grow ridiculous weed than it is today and that has lead to an explosion of uber-bud across Europe and the UK. As a result people are still smoking it as though it were the low grade stuff that was common 15 years ago and starting to wonder why they’re going a little crazy. Green Tsunami is about how weed smokers put their trust in a black market industry with no quality control regulation aside from that of the grower, despite the fact that they know little to nothing about what they’re actually smoking. Pro tip: The title Green Tsunami came from the lucrative discovery of hydroponic growing techniques in Europe which lead to the explosion of different strains flooding the market.

Q: The text of "Goat Lab" seems like a backlash on Eighties US-politics, mentioning Reaganites and Albert Stubblebine. Do you address his idea to create super soldiers, mentioning "psychics" and a "lab"? Where's the reference to the present here?

A: The Goat Lab track was inspired by a book called “The Men Who Stare At Goats” by Jon Ronson, it’s a documentary style book about the remote viewing/psychic soldier programme at Fort Bragg: A really interesting piece about some of the more ‘off the wall’ ideas that the US army experimented with during the Cold War to gain an edge over the Soviets. I love all that sort of weird science stuff and the Yanks had plenty of it, especially in the more shadowy and sinister elements of their Cold War era forces. The title came from a chapter in the book that dealt with a secret lab at Fort Bragg where goats were used for various experiments, including certain soldiers trying to stop a goat’s heart simply with the power of their mind. It’s a great book and I recommend you read it as I could go on all day about the book and spoil it for everyone, but I’m not going to heheh. The lyrics are basically Adam reinterpreting the story within the book.

**check out part 6 for more of the interview**

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 6)

Q: "Fuck Knucke" … "gastric guilt"? Come on, what have you eaten?

A: Haha….the concept for Fuck Knuckle is about the addiction and the thrill of a volatile relationship, where your logic is telling you “this is bad for you” but your feelings draw you back in. Essentially how some women are like a drug and you can’t get away from it even though you know it’s doing you no good. The message behind the song is encapsulated in the line “I need you on the rock, with a note and a credit card. The ‘Gastric Guilt’ he’s talking about is that feeling you get when your girlfriend is a little too good at making you feel bad; that cold feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know a relationship is going wrong and there’s not a lot you can do to fix it.

Q: "Truckules" sounds hippiesque witch its claim to unrestrained thinking, taking destiny in one's own hands and reaching for the stars with a "cosmic child" - but what the hell has it got to do with a character from a cartoon show?

A: Are you talking about Venture Brothers? If so, man I’m impressed that you picked up on that reference. Basically, I (James) had written the main riff for Truckules and we thought it sounded really heavy, lots of rumbling low end and driving rhythms, like a massive truck rolling along and just completely dominating the road and we wanted a title that reflected that feeling. James and Adam were sat around watching Venture Brothers (a cartoon show about a super scientist and this whole host of costumed arch villains that are trying to kill him – it’s fucking brilliant, watch it!), and there was an episode that featured a small appearance by a character called Truckules who was basically a cross between Optimus Prime and Hercules and we thought that would be the perfect name for the song. We try not to have completely unrelated song titles and lyrics any more, so if we come up with the title first then we try and shape the lyrics around the title. In this case the name gave Adam images of the Greek Gods and started him thinking about his opinions on astrology in general but particularly the subjects star signs, horoscopes, and tarot reading. The lyrics talk about how people often trust in these things too much and can be easily misled as a result, just like anything else that involves blind faith.

Q: "Kiss Of Failure" is more or less self-explanatory. I only didn't get the "river of rye". Is alcohol the cause of failure then? I'm not quite convinced …

A: The whole theme of this track is about unnecessary risk taking and lying to yourself, like a gambler who doesn’t know when to quit. The line about a river of rye relates to using alcohol as an escape from emotional turmoil, it might work for a bit but you’re not being true to yourself and drowning your sorrows is denying you from dealing with the problem at hand, whatever that may be at the time.

Q: Does "Whores Of Babylon" use risky sex as a general image for the dangers of giving in to any kind of temptation?

A: This track was inspired by a stag party in Amsterdam that James and Adam went to a few months before Widows was formed. There was a group of about 6 of us and it all got very wild and debauched, we ended up in the Banana Bar all drunk off our asses…yeah, that shit was crazy. The song is basically an insight into the way that the sleazy side of tourism is so tightly connected with Amsterdam’s subcultural debauchery and indulgence and how catering for a lot of vices has helped the city flourish. We know there’s more to Dutch culture than weed and hookers, but this is just an observation about one aspect in particular. The title came from when Adam was looking through some old medieval artwork and came across one called “The Whore of Babylon”, the description of the picture kind of reads like a description of Amsterdam’s seedy underbelly.

**check out part 7 for more of the interview**

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Interview with German web 'zine Musikreviews.de (pt 7) final part))

Q: Does "Something For Deities" stem from a real experience? Alternately, you could interpret it as a big no against partners who curb you and - in your case - the drive to creating music. Have you ever found yourself faced with a choice between "her" and "it"?

A: Yeah, that was my (James) first contribution to Widows, lyrically. The content came from the same messy break up that inspired some of the content for other songs, but this was the first one I’d written myself. I had a lot of unresolved stuff to deal with at the end of that relationship and a lot of it was bothering me to the point where it was taking over my thoughts and stopping me from getting on with my life. I was out driving my taxi one day when I had to just pull over and write this stuff down to get it out of my head, it was a very cathartic process and pretty much the only time I’ve written any lyrics that weren’t absolutely laughable. The song isn’t just about me though as it draws on experiences that my friends and particularly the other guys in the band have been through in past relationships, but mostly it’s me venting my spleen about one woman in particular. And yes, there have been plenty of times over the years where any one of us has been given the ultimatum ‘it’s me or the band’, and she gets sent packing every time. Music first: there are other women but only one Widows.

Q: "Parentheses" is somewhat dubious. You dabble with the devil in one field, which you think is good, as you "take control", but in another field "it don't compare to this". How's that?

A: The line at the end of the tune you’re referring to about having "sung with the devil and married a witch but nothing compares to this". The devil is a reference to Adam’s own demons, and the witch is a reference to a past girlfriend of his. The line ‘nothing compares to this’ refers to an experience that is worse than what he had experienced with either of those things. The song on a whole is about dealing with your demons, and realising that no-one will sort out your problems for you but you yourself, and taking control of the situation.

Q: The titletrack features spoken words about the Death Valley; did you nick them from anywhere, or are they your own?

A: Ahhh, that would be telling. A great magician never reveals his secrets.

Q: Would your label support a tour abroad, and would you have the time personally to do it?

A: I know they’d definitely like to, and we have been working with them to try and get something organised, but for now we are concentrating on getting our name known around the UK, once we’ve done that I think we’ll be a more attractive prospect to European promoters. Obviously if we get an offer of some dates in Europe then we would do everything we could to go ahead with them (so long as the pay is right of course), so if you’re reading this and thinking “yeah I would like to get Widows out here for a few shows” then contact us and we’ll be all over that!

Q: What is on the cards for Widows apart from playing live and rolling another one?

A: Well we’ve spent a fair amount of cash on PR recently and been getting some good feedback from it. There have been regular plays of Green Tsunami on Kerrang Radio and the video for the same track is about to hit cable TV shows Metal Tuune and Tuune Rocks. We have a few things in the pipeline regarding tours and press etc but we’re keeping those secret for the time being until those plans are concrete. We’re in the planning stages of the video for Goat Lab, and have started writing a number of new tracks recently so we’re keeping everything moving between gigs. I don’t like standing still as a band so it’s good to have something going on as much as possible.

Interview by Andreas Schiffmann of www.musikreviews.de Thanks for reading folks!

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