Dead Rhetoric: The way that you describe your relationship with singing and being a musician, it almost seems like you are more of a vessel. Is that accurate to say?
Crisis: Yeah, that’s the way I’ve always felt, even back in Crisis. When it was time to sing, I thought there was an extra surge of energy coming through me I called summoning. When I was singing, I felt in balance and in peace even if I was singing angry stuff I felt empowered and bright. I felt more together than I would be off-stage, living my daily life. I wondered what the energy that I would feel was. I think a lot of musicians can relate to that in one way or another. Every time I would write a song, it felt like I had never written a song before. It was a lot of mental anguish. It was like how do I connect with song? I’m not really a musician, I don’t understand rhythm. So my process was to pick a word, research the history of the word, and I guess through sort of mediation I would lose myself in studying the trail of this word and other words related to this word. It kind of got away from the mental stress of writing a song and then make it ground into a story or an atmosphere. I recognize those clumsy beginnings for me as trying to get away from the mental worry. I don’t even recognize a lot of the words when I read my lyrics now. I’m like wow, I really like those lyrics, where did they come from? I really don’t feel so responsible for my lyrics, I never really have. I have trouble remembering them when I’m not listening to the music and singing the song. So definitely there’s something taking place where it wasn’t just me. I feel the same thing when I’m singing. I’m there showing up and doing it, but there’s an extra surge of energy through me that’s not just me either that’s helping me do all these extra things.
Dead Rhetoric: That’s interesting, I was speaking with someone from a different band who was saying something along those same lines.
Crisis: Yeah, I think it’s very common, from what I’ve found, for artists and musicians, and dancers – people who lose track of time when they are doing something creatively. People say that when they are doing creative work, time stops. We are naturally built as human beings with psychic senses. People aren’t always connected with their senses, but they are there and we all have the potential to be a medium, in a positive or negative way. In a brief explanation, you know when you hang out with a friend who Is in a bad mood suddenly you are afraid to say something to set the mood off or afraid just to walk into the room. We are discerning a lot of information that can’t be seen. It’s the same thing with a lot of music and art. People are channeling stuff – it’s usually positive even if they are dealing with something really negative, they are doing it to help themselves. They are trying to transcend that darkness and that in itself is positive effort so I’m never surprised by that.
Dead Rhetoric: So in that same line, is that what you are trying to do? Does that lean towards that same positive relationship with spirituality?
Crisis: Yeah, my research and searches with spirituality has been very positive. My spirit guide helps me teach. I’m very much into understanding how things work technically and very much into improving my life for the better. So my focus is definitely on the path, there’s a lot of things that I’ve experienced that I understand very well what can happen negatively in that world too and what exists there in the negative sense. It’s what’s on the planet – you have positive people, you have negative people, you have troublemakers and manipulators, you have helpers and nurturers; it’s very much the same thing. We’ve all had friends in our life that have had a positive or negative influence, it’s very much the same thing. Depending on our mindset in our life at certain times, we come up to our friends and our acquaintances to either positive or negative nature.
Dead Rhetoric: What are the ups and downs of collaborating with your husband on a regular basis?
Crisis: There’s actually been no real downs. He’s really inspiring to me as a musician because he’s very disciplined and very passionate about his work. So I have been able to watch him compose for his own band, Ephel Duath, in the past and I love his playing style. I love sitting in the corner quietly and watching him do his composing. He’s so natural at it, so he’s very inspiring and he’s inspired me to do things better and to be a better person. To be aware that all my actions have an impact going into something creative. So I try to push myself even more. That’s been really, really exciting. It’s taken me a while to grow and get to this point, and he’s been very quick. He’s already written so many more songs for the next album and a little bit of the one after that. He’s also experienced a change in his songwriting style as a result of this, and a result of Aradia, who is the witch spirit around me. He can feel her and kind of credits her for helping him write songs even faster, he can’t even remember some of the songs they came out so quickly. He has incredible energy and quickness. I’m much more of a feeler than a musician. I have to feel my way and take [my time] and if it feels right then I’m okay. So I take a little bit longer to get into my craft than he does.
Dead Rhetoric: It’s nice that you balance each other out that way.
Crisis: Yeah, it works really well. We are so excited to release this album and finally reach this point and are already moving on, even though we have so much to do with this one. It’s really wonderful.
Dead Rhetoric: So you have two New York dates coming up in March. Do you have any plans for any other performances at this point?
Crisis: Yeah, we certainly want to do full-fledged tours. Those are the only shows booked right now. They kind of came up incidentally at the time right when the album would be released. We didn’t even have the album release date when those came out but we all decided that it would be cool to get our feet wet and say hello again to the east coast and have like a cd release event. I don’t have anything set yet but we are working on getting tours going. There will also be a website too, but for now we are keeping updates on the Facebook page.