Frankie and the Witch Fingers from L.A. put on one of the best, and most fun sets of my Shaky Knees festival. We sat down with the band after their set to talk about Monsters Eating People, acid trips in the desert, and their musical inspiration.
Apologies for not being able to identify each specific person being interviewed. There were some especially loud bands rocking on stages right next to us.
Atlanta Music Guide – John McNicholas
Congratulations on your latest record, Monsters Eating People Eating Monsters. Where does the title come from?
Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Nikki Pickle
I came up with it on an acid trip. I didn’t know it was gonna be the album name. I just kept saying it because I thought it was funny that the patterns on our ceiling just looked like Mayan etchings of monsters eating people eating monsters eating people. And then I thought that was hilarious. Like everything. You just look close enough. It’s all just monsters eating people, eating monsters, eating people!
AMG
The first time I saw you live was the Levitation session on YouTube. When I heard it, I was thinking, these guys totally have an Austin vibe going on. It’s like desert rock, stoner rock. It’s like psych rock. I’m thinking like 13th Floor Elevators, and the more I listened to it…, oh, but there’s some jazz in there, there’s some Grateful Dead in there. Maybe there’s some Foghat in there?
(laughs)
Are your influences really diverse, or are they kind of along the same lines? Like what did you all grow up listening to and kind of inspiring you to play?
Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Josh Menashe
We all love Elevators and I love jazz, I love The Grateful Dead. I like getting melodic with it, not so punk all the time. All of our influences kind of blend together. In a way we’re not trying to do one thing really.
AMG
There’s some drone-y elements, but then you don’t just stay there. You go off doing some melodic stuff. Your videos, the album artworks are all heavy, heavily stylized, but I think it’s just perfect for your sound. Who’s in charge of the visuals and the graphics?
Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Dylan Sizemore
I’d say we collaborate on that a lot. I mean, I love making visual art. It’s kind of the bonus of being in a band, getting to work with visual artists and so this last album we worked with Will Sweeney, and this British artist or UK artist who’s incredible.
AMG
How did you meet him?
Frankie and the Witch Fingers
Honestly, just hit him up out of the blue. I’ve always been a fan of his, following him online. He’s done album art in the past and I kind of knew he worked with psychedelic music artists. So I was like, maybe you know, maybe he’ll work with us. It was a dream come true.
Nikki
Sometimes people hit us up like the guy that did the MEPEM video that just came out, the really long one. We also have a friend Josh Jesus from Brooklyn, who is like our buddy that does a lot of videos for us. But, Daniel Labrosse is the one that did the new video. He actually approached us.
AMG
What did you all do to stay sane during this whole last 18 months or so? Did you get together to play music? Did you just keep playing anyways?
Nikki
We played music together sometimes, I mean, when we were all locked down we were all separated. Josh taught himself to do synthesizers
Josh
Yeah.
Nikki
And Rubik’s Cube!
Josh
Yeah, we were all isolated in our own zone and then what really kept us sane is we did that Levitation session. That was our first time playing together for like, seven months or something.
AMG
Y’all are based in LA so did you do the session there?
Josh
We did it in Joshua Tree.
AMG
It was a neutral zone. We all got tested and then we had a friend who lives literally in the middle of the desert.
Nikki
She let us take over her ranch and we just made it our home base or “moon base.” We just stayed there for like two weeks and practiced and jammed and did drugs and had fun and then we made a recording. We made a whole video out of it and then a recording out of it and then even did a live VHS tape.
AMG
So does that mean there’s like new stuff coming?
Frankie and the Witch Fingers
We just put a single out last Friday. “Cooking” with the b-side “tracksuit.”
AMG
Being out in Joshua Tree is kind of like a moonscape. I’ve been there once and it was just like, “Am I still on the planet Earth?” …and then there’s Pappy and Harriet’s out there.
Nikki
We were like, 300 yards away from that place.
Josh
Yeah, right next to it.
AMG
Who’s the huge vinyl fan in the band? There’s six versions of the latest record available in all different colors.
Frankie and the Witch Fingers
That’s our label. He lives and breathes vinyl records. Apart from actually putting out music that he enjoys, the other side of it is like his artistry comes out with the vinyl. He loves to handpick the colors and you know kind of collaborate but it’s very much his thing.
Nikki
Biggest creative outlet is picking the colors and figuring out the interesting names. Like that’s his baby.
AMG
How much longer are you gonna be out on this tour?
Dylan
We’re out for like, another week and a half. We’ll end the tour down at Levitation. We’re really excited for that. It’s kind of like the perfect way to end this.
Links
Website – https://frankieandthewitchfingers.com
By John McNicholas
