VOID OF TOLERANCE-So, the last time I heard SINISTER SIRENS it was just you and Marie in the band. Now there are five members, tell us about this.
SINISTER SIRENS (Deanna)-Well, we’ve been trying to move toward a more live performance. I met Staphanie through another band here in Houston and Carol had been playing flute with us when we’d do our ‘unplugged’ type setup. Recently she got a permenant pick-up installed in her flute so she can play with it plugged, so we’ve been able to add her that way. We had a drummer but the drummer didn’t work out. Rick, Marie’s friend, is a self taught musician and he said he’d help us out and be our drummer. We’ve pretty much worked towards having a ‘live show’ and walk away from using a sequencer all the time.

VOT-You just released “Enter The Lair” CD. You pretty much re-released material that was on your tape, tell us about that?
SS-We released a vinyle three song dance mix of “The Bride”, “Sex Offender”, and “Brother Serpent”. Those three songs are the remixes on the CD which are not on the cassette. Actually, all the songs are mildly remixed, so it;s not exactly like the tape, but very similar.

VOT-Ok, what about new material?
SS-We’ve got a bunch of new material that we’re working on. We’re kind of in a transformation, morphin period between going from what we’ve been doing, with sychquencd material, to becoming all live. Our goal is within the next six months to have the syquencer put away and play everything live. we have eight songs we’re working on, and as we can work them into our live set we’ll work some of the syquenced data away.

VOT-How did you come in contact with Tone Zone Records?
SS-I originally answered an ad in the Public News (Houston weekly paper0 for a keyboard player. Over the years the original members left the band and I kind of ended up taking charge and it kind of evolved into my band.

VOT-Do you write the majority of the lyrics? Let’s talk about some of those, like a very dark and lovely song called “Black Roses”.
SS-Yeah I write most of them. That was a crazy one. I was waiting to meet someone siting outside a carnival in winter and I had this idea in my head of kind of a dark love song. I’m not really into the mushy ‘I love you’ kind of songs. That was as close as I’d ever come to something moderately love-songish!

VOT-With your music, there is the slow ‘love-songish’ type songs, like “Black Roses”, then a more harder edge on “Iowa Boys”, and then going to other musical functions. Tell us about other songs and how they fit into your music.
SS-Well, we try to pick songs that we’d consider to be appropriate subject matter. Since we’re kind of dark and gothic what ever we write about tends to influence our lyrics. “The Bride” was basically inspired by me watching Legend. I really thought that was a cool movie. “Sex Offender” is dealing with unfaithful people; there everywhere. It’s just funny how people react to the song, when we play it live I’ll say something like it the song is for all the naughty, unfaithful people and everybody will cheer. I wrote the song about someone who affected me, not about naughty people in another way.

VOT-Which song do you think represents SINISTER SIRENS as a band?
SS-Gosh...that’s a tough one, we have so many different faces. To me “Black Roses” and “Sex Offender” are probably the two sides. “Demand” and “Sex Offender” are similar in subject matter but it’s like something that’s dark and evil put up against something dark and beautiful.

VOT-So how did the name SINISTER SIRENS come about?
SS-Actually, Bobby Joe, our manager (of TONE ZONE Rec), had a dream of a girl band called SINISTER SIRENS and it kind of bloomed from there. we ended up growing up and turning into the brides of Frankenstein!

VOT-you mentioned earlier of new material being worked on. Is there any tentative dates for them to be recorded and released?
SS-Probably early ‘97 we’ll work on it. As soon as the CD’s that we just got are totally paid off and start saving for the new CD. I would say hopefully by March to June we’ll have something. I know were going to do an unplugged recording in Dec. through some friends of ours and a company called Art Studio in Beumont, We’re gonna be recording on 8-track live and their going to give us the master so we can do a released and their going to select two songs from the performance to put on a CD to go with the other bands that there going to record that night also. We’re doing it on Dec. 21, so I’d say January is when it will all happen. We just have to see what the money says at that point in time.

VOT-You mentioned on going toward a more ‘live’ feel in the band, how is it going to be differnt, besides that way, from prior music and such?
SS-For the past two years it’s been just Marie and I; and she and I are pretty simbionic, we can finish each others sentences sometimes. I really want Stephanie, Carol, and Rick to all have input in our new stuff. So it will probably have a little differnt flavor because we have a live human bass player, I’m not just sequencing a bass line. we have a drummer that can play live. I’ve sequenced drum lines but I’m no drummer. I’ve always loved the flutes, I think they add an ethereal kind of overtone. it’s going to be differnet, I hope everybody likes it. It’s just going to be a little more flavor in the soup.

VOT-So, what do you want out of SINISTER SIRENS?
SS-I would like to hope for some moderate success. I don’t expect us to be METALLICA or anything of that kind of nature. I would just like to have moderate success, be able to tour around the country, manybe go to Europe or something. Try and play as much as we can. If we could do it as our job, that would be really cool.

VOT-Anything else to add?
SS-There’s a group of people in Victoria that come to see us that are so cool, I genually from my heart appreciate the fact that there are people that think we’re cool and enjoy our music, and like to see us play. I know when we go down there that there’s going to be this hand full of faces that I know, it makes us feel good to be appreciated.

VOT-You did a video for “Brother Serpent”, kind of interesting how it came about.....
SS-Oh God! We had this gentleman who wanted to shoot a video for us and we spent six months shooting stuff in the woods by my house, in my garage, and at the Renaissance Festival. Well, his wife got a job and he was like ‘Um, I’m moving, here’s all the stuff, bye!’ He dumped 15 tapes of footage in my arms and moved! A friend of mine looked at the footage and said he could do it. I think he did a really good job considering what he had to work with. I’ve had several people that would like to make videos, but we’re looking for something low budget. If I could do it for around $200 then that would be ok.

VOT-Besides new material and a change to a live feel, what else is in the future?
SS-I don’t know. There’s some change around the corner, we’re not sure what to expect. I’m just anticipating. I hope something good happens. the people that believe in us, that help us out are really cool and I hope one of them gets lucky and can help us meet the right person. I just want to go to the next level, I’ve been on this level for awhile and really would like to get to the next level; I just haven’t found the right magic key to get me there. I would like to play a college circuit or be stuck on tour with somebody that somebody heard of.

VOT-Anything else?
SS-Cool interview! Sometimes I get asked weird questions like ‘What’s the weirdiest thing somebody asked you to do?’ It wasn’t the weirdest thing, I thought it was really cool; the gentleman who asked us to sign his chest (at the Victoria show Nov. 1, 96, some guy got all the band to sign his chest). The fway he asked he thought we might say no. I thought that was a great request. Who knows, it might become a thing with SINISTER SIRENS, to sign our names on peoples’ body. But there would be a limit to what we sign!

VOT-Well, I guess that’s it, thanks for the interview.
SS-Ok, no problem. I was glad to do it. Thank you and take it easy!

You can find out more info at http://www.twin.com/sirens/

Both photos scanned by me.

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