Keith McCurdy is the songwriter, singer and guitarist for Vudu Sister, a Providence-based band that includes a rotating cast of other musicians on violin, cello, bass and more. Drawing influence from ghost stories and the macabre, they describe their music as “Gothic Folk.” McCurdy says another big influence on their sound is the 90s “MTV Unplugged” series – in particular, Nirvana’s legendary set.
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Transcript:
Keith McCurdy: I was very young. Nirvana was my first, the first band I ever fell in love with. My father was a young guy. He was a bass player. He was very much into the music at the time, and a lot of new wave and post-punk in the 80s. He was a Gen Xer, and he sort of tailored my tastes, if you’ll say. And I’d already really started to like Nirvana, even as a young child, when they were on TV and stuff. And I had the tapes, and a Sony Sport Walkman. When the “Unplugged” [album] came out, it showed me that a heavy band like Nirvana could also strip down and play really intimate, but still manage to be powerful and heavy. And then of course they had a cello in there, and there’s candles, there’s flowers, there’s a sort of gossamer femininity to it. But also there’s this real weight to the music and the aesthetic and everything that really spoke to me and always sort of stayed with me in my mind over the years.
James Baumgartner: You had an EP recently that was in Latin and ancient Greek. That’s a little bit out there. What inspired that decision?
McCurdy: I went back to college, later in life, around 28, 29. And I decided to major in classics as well as English literature. I went to URI, and I had a wonderful mentor, Dr. Daniel Carpenter, that sort of helped guide me with my project. But as soon as I started learning Latin and Greek, the first instinct I had was, well, first let me try to write a poem, and then I’m going to try to write songs in these languages, because I think that would be a wonderful challenge, and it was.
Baumgartner: The album, “Burnt Offerings” – can you tell me about one of the songs in particular, what’s a song that stands out to you?
McCurdy: Well, one that people seem to like too, and it’s one of our favorites to play, is “Credite Mihi.” And it means “Believe Me.” And it’s told from a perspective of this woman, Cassandra, who was very famously known as being this character that was gifted with foresight from the god Apollo. But she was also cursed that she would never be believed. And there’s a lot we can play with that thematically and interpretively, particularly with modern audiences and a lot of, like the #MeToo movement and stuff. Mythically she sort of exists as a conduit of fate or destiny. And that’s a big theme in classical myth about people trying to deny their destiny or avert it or somehow. But yeah, so I’m singing as her in that song, telling her story, her side, as well as I can.
[Music: “Credite Mihi”]
Baumgartner: Where does the interest in the macabre, the darker sounds, the darker themes come from?
McCurdy: Well there’s a lot of areas, there’s a lot of places that comes from, but I think primarily I’m mostly just interested in uncomfortable realities that you have to confront as a human. And I think that there’s always a time and place for these things, but that was the whole point of tragedy in the ancient world. For example, it’s for catharsis, catharsis meaning a purgation or a purification of the soul. And you know, going to the theater, for example, was a religious experience, it wasn’t just entertainment. It was competition, it was entertainment, but it also served as a religious function. So I find something very spiritually cleansing about confronting these realities that, maybe not every single one are you going to experience, but you’re going to experience some of it that’s not going to be comfortable. It’s not going to be pleasant. And I think art is the one of the best ways to deal with some of those things. And, you know, also I love horror movies. I love horror and I love ghost stories. I love Edgar Allan Poe. There’s something sort of darkly romantic about those things. And I try to capture a little bit of that, since I’ll have a song where it’ll sound pretty, but it’s about something very disgusting or macabre or something, you know, like a grave robber’s song or something.
Baumgartner: What stands out to you about the local music scene here?
McCurdy: There’s a lot of diversity in sound, I think. I think people are starting to get better about mixed-genre shows. That’s a big one for me. I don’t think you should just have like, oh, it’s an all-metal night. I think it’s good to have a mix. For example, we play often at the Scurvy Dog’s parking lot shows, which are a lot of fun. They’re free, and Jamie, the owner, does a great job of really mixing it up. And we’ve done great by being sandwiched between two really loud, heavy, dark bands. And then you have us, and you know, we’ve got Diane [O’Connor] on the violin and myself. They’re still heavy songs, they’re just sonically, you know, it’s acoustic. So that’s really worked out well for us, and I think I’d like to see more of that.
Baumgartner: And you have a new album coming out soon?
McCurdy: Yes, most of the songs are pretty much fully finished in terms of writing, but we’re just rehearsing them and we’re gonna be tracking this year. My aim for this album is to be heavier and darker, and I started exploring like a baritone guitar, and I tuned my acoustic guitar a full step down, and we’re exploring different tones. Thematically, though, I did start out with some ideas, but honestly, the last two albums I had done, I consider to be concept albums. “Burnt Offerings,” obviously, it’s got a concept to it. And the other one before it, “Mortis Nervosa,” was loosely inspired by old ghost stories. And speaking of that, I largely depersonalized a lot of my music over the years because I think it can be very taxing to do that over and over and over again. You have this very sensitive material that’s like coming from a very real place, and it can be painful. And there’s something really rewarding about that, but then if you keep doing it over and over again, I think it cheapens the sensitivity of that. So I largely de-personalize a lot of my music. But this is actually the first one where I started to explore that realm again, where some of the songs are actually fairly intimate to my own experiences.
Baumgartner: What are some of the personal experiences that you’re exploring there?
McCurdy: Well, I wrote this one song, I actually wrote it while I was in Sicily a few years ago, called “Having Trouble Sleeping.” And it was like the first song I had written that was really deeply personal for me, and it really deals with themes of finding a new life somewhere else, and finding peace somewhere else, like far away from your own home, and wanting to forget that life and create a new one. So that was something I was dealing with at the time.
[Music: “Having Trouble Sleeping”]
You can see Vudu Sister on March 29 at Long Live Beerworks in Providence and on April 6 at The Upside Bar in Warren. You can find their music at vudusister.bandcamp.com. For The Public’s Radio, I’m James Baumgartner.
