Entertainment
Wylie and Wonderous
As psychedelic rock goes through something of a renaissance here in the United States, it should come as no surprise that the flurry of interest in the genre would grow across the ocean to England, where the pioneers of the style originated. One English psychedelic act that’s garnering a great deal of attention both in its home country and abroad is Brighton’s The Wytches. The band’s powerfully heavy style is immediately grabbing and captivating and the band delivers some of the most enveloping and texturally impressive music of the current genre resurgence. With one of the more explosive, raw and gritty sounds in all of the current psychedelic rock and roll scene, it’s no surprise that The Wytches have been rapidly building a dedicated fan base around the world, as it leaves audiences both ravaged and delighted. Recently, CULTURE was able to catch up with The Wytches’ singer Kristian Bell, and hear all about the recent debut album, the travels and the differences between cannabis views in the U.S. and England.
I know you and your band mates have been in previous bands, but The Wytches is still a relatively new group. Is it intimidating to get out there every night and deliver so many new songs?
Yeah, it’s definitely weird because, we’ve all been in bands before, but nothing of nearly this scale; Wytches is definitely the biggest thing we’ve done. I mean, we’ve worked towards it, and we played a lot of shows when we first started, and I guess that’s all really paid off somehow. So it is quite intimidating because we go to many places we’ve never been, countries we’ve never been before, and you just don’t really have a clue how your music will translate. So that aspect of it is quite nerve-racking.
You all just released your debut album, Annabel Dream Reader. Can you tell me a bit about it and your goals for the record?
We recorded it in October of last year and did, about, 16 songs in five days. 13 of them made it on the album, and some of the others we just scrapped entirely. It’s our first album and it’s, more or less, just a collection of songs that we’d written since we first started the band. So there wasn’t really any goal or anything beyond just getting the songs which we’d been slaving away on laid down finally.
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As appreciators of cannabis, are you excited to be coming into certain parts of the States where it’s been legalized?
Yeah! I’ve heard it’s been legalized in Colorado and Washington, that’ll be cool!
In the UK, is there the same type of push for legalization or decriminalization?
Well, it’s totally looked down upon in England; people hate it. I mean, there are plenty of people smoking it over here, and if you got caught with a little bit, you might not be “done,” but it would probably go on your record. But people just really don’t like it.
Is there any type of push from the youth culture or anything to make it a little less feared or taboo?
There was a news report about a year ago about how Richard Branson was giving reasons on why it should be legal. That was really cool because he’s a very successful man, and there he was promoting marijuana. I think that did change people’s views on it.
