Guilt is Just a Word: Dispatches from Bewitcher’s Van Speakers
(Editor’s note: From time to time we ask artists to share their favorite music and the ‘guilty pleasures’ they tend to play while on the road. It’s a great way to get you, the reader, to connect with these larger-than-life personalities on a human level. This time around, we got Bewitcher drummer A. Hunter to share his and his bandmates’ ‘guilty pleasures’.)
On the surface, Bewitcher likes to portray ourselves as a trio of heavy metal hard cases. While we splinter every stage we mount with our fierce Black Magick Metal, we are humans with experiences, histories, and emotions. Musicians often funnel their lives through music. Unfortunately for us, we’re musicians and we’re old, so our taste goes deep. Between the three of us, we cover every base that would likely twist the stomachs and elicit scorn from any so-called “trve” metalhead. And yet, we are unashamed.
For starters, pop music of all kinds is celebrated in the Bewitcher van. Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, En Vogue, ABBA, The Osmonds, Prince, Roxette, Dua Lipa, and Madonna have all made multiple appearances during Bewitcher tours. One member believes if you can’t find immeasurable sexual potency in Madonna’s “Burning Up”, you might be spayed or neutered.
We hit play on plenty of hip-hop and funk too. Does one member of Bewitcher know a majority of the lyrics to Digital Underground’s “The Humpty Dance”? Yes. That same member also has a deep affinity for the Rick James album Street Songs. Consequently, another member who gets behind funk and soul acts like The Isley Brothers, Labelle, The O’Jays, and the Commodores also latched onto Street Songs.
In Liege, Belgium, the folks that attended our show there found out about our Rick James obsession first hand, as that album was piped into the venue after a ripper of a Bewitcher set. So while most were leaving the venue, the aforementioned band members incited a dance party that some show goers participated in. That being said, most of the people there were understandably perplexed.
There’s a fair amount of country music and twang coming out of the van speakers as well. Much to the chagrin of one member, another plays a disturbing amount of Black Oak Arkansas when he drives. To counter Jim Dandy’s moonshine-saturated rasp, the Tennessee whiskey-drenched drawl of Chris Stapleton can be heard. George Jones, Marty Robbins, The Highwaymen, and an immense amount of Jerry Reed are also part of our touring soundtrack.
All this being said, if you’re looking for a proclamation of our “guilty pleasures” by laying out our musical taste, you won’t find one. Guilt and shame are just words. Putting a sound between your ears that provides any kind of pleasurable sensation, thought, or memory can only bring joy. If it feels good, fucking crank it. We do.
