The 2 artists on the heart of VOWWS got here to their death-pop sound naturally. It may be heard within the music on the band’s new album, I’ll fill your own home with a military, because it travels by layers of shadow and melody, anguish, and euphoria. Simply don’t name it goth.
“We’re probably not huge goth rock followers,” singer-guitarist Matt James insists. “Neither of us are huge Depeche Mode followers. I do know, like, one Depeche Mode document again to entrance.”
The Australian duo obtained there by different means, as fanatics for varied genres of rock, for film soundtracks, and the pop avant-garde. They’re makers of digital music with an analog obsession, with emotions and lyrics fueled by robust instances as expatriates making a go within the aggressive Los Angeles music scene.
“I like a bit little bit of this and a bit little bit of that,” provides singer-keyboardist Rizz. “We grew up within the ’90s, we love ’90s grunge, so there’s a variety of that in there. However we additionally love movie scores. He listens to primarily piano music, like Satie—our primary artist on Spotify. It’s pure notes. It’s perhaps why it’s onerous to outline what we sound like as a result of it’s such a mixture of issues.”
They’ve additionally attracted some big-name help from the likes of Poppy and members of the Cult, Deftones, A Excellent Circle, Korn, and darkwave godfather Gary Numan. On the highway in 2026, VOWWS are set to journey Europe with Kim Dracula by February, play the Sick New World pageant in Las Vegas on April 25, adopted by a number of just-announced U.S. dates with Marilyn Manson in Could.
In efficiency, they gown in dramatic shades of black, with Rizz’s face painted in vampiric white and black, as film footage is projected onto the stage. “We at all times name ourselves, like, joyful, unhappy,” says James of VOWWS’ music. “There’s a variety of feeling in there that’s not dangerous. We’re not simply miserable.”
The artistic couple are sitting in colourful wingback chairs at their condo close to the Hollywood Bowl. VOWWS has at all times been a dedicated DIY operation, and that is the place a variety of their work will get performed. There are guitar circumstances on the ground, a pc station the place Rizz edits video, and a big TV display silently exhibiting a documentary in regards to the Andy Warhol diaries.
Rizz is dark-haired and wearing a black observe go well with, lighting one other in an countless chain of cigarettes, blowing smoke by the open sliding door behind her. James, blonde and sporting a T-shirt, is having a combined drink.
The band’s third album was a very long time coming. VOWWS had been in the midst of writing songs for his or her follow-up to 2018’s Below the World when the pandemic hit in 2020 and every thing stopped. Earlier than then, there had been stay performances and gigs creating music for vogue exhibits by Comme des Garçons and Givenchy all over the world. “It simply obtained lower off on the knees,” says James. “It wasn’t uniquely dangerous for us, nevertheless it was a traumatic factor. And it fucked with us for 2 years.”
There have been some singles within the interim—the driving “Keep The place You Are” and “Impulse Management” in 2020, the growling “One By One” and “Wait,” an elegiac collaboration with Chelsea Wolfe, in 2022. However after talks with one indie label urged by Billy Corgan went nowhere, VOWWS grew extra anxious in regards to the misplaced time.
Then they met Billy Howerdel, the producer-guitarist-songwriter for A Excellent Circle, and an avowed follower of the darker pop of the Treatment and Siouxsie and the Banshees. He was in want of somebody to create a music video for his 2022 solo album, What Regular Was. The track was “Poison Flowers,” and Rizz got here advisable by Danny Lohner, a frequent collaborator with 9 Inch Nails and A Excellent Circle. Rizz then directed and edited an evocative, moody collision of photos to match the track’s haunting textures—present discovered footage layered with materials shot largely within the VOWWS condo.
“We spent a stable two weeks collectively nearly daily, and he’s simply great,” Rizz says. Then Howerdel requested VOWWS to open a tour for him, they usually shared a bus for a month on the highway. “Once you stay in a hallway with any individual, you actually get to know one another.”
They bonded over music, just like the soundtrack to the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula, an eerie romantic rating by the Polish composer Wojciech Kilar. Howerdel additionally realized of their struggles to maneuver ahead and he supplied to supply the brand new album in his personal studio.
“We name Billy our American dad,” James says with fun.
By means of Howerdel, additionally they met his buddy and collaborator, drummer Josh Freese (A Excellent Circle, Foo Fighters, Devo). He seems on 4 songs from I’ll fill your own home with a military, together with the album’s noisiest, “Re-Animator.” Additionally on the album is the rapturous “Silhouette” and the alternately grinding and catchy “Blood’s On Fireplace.”
“Damage You” has that traditional gothy marching sound, however James says it originated as a “rip-off” of a beat from Billie Eilish’s “Unhealthy Man.” He was drawn to its “actually small snare drum. It was actually intimate and private.”
On the swirling “SHUDDER,” the band options Korn guitarist Munky, a full-circle second for Rizz, who spent her adolescence listening to the nu-metal bands Korn and Deftones. “These guys all know one another, so it was all very straightforward,” she says of the session. “When Munky got here to trace, Danny [Lohner] got here, and it was like a celebration.”
“We form of had this little village that each one believed in us and believed in our music and obtained collectively,” Rizz provides, “and we had been like, ‘Let’s fucking go!’”
The album’s ominous title, James says, is “only a factor from the unconscious,” which additionally displays what number of of his lyrics are created. “Loads of the time after I’m writing, I sing gibberish to create a melody. No matter is in your unconscious usually comes by in a few phrases, and I’ll simply go together with it.”
Whereas up to now, the duo realized to make each second rely within the studio, Howerdel allowed the method to unfold over time. “He’s very thorough,” James explains. “He doesn’t like to go away any stone unturned, simply as a matter after all. He may know intellectually that he might most likely depart the track as it’s, however he chooses to go, ‘Properly, let’s attempt that. Let’s attempt that, let’s attempt that.’ He actually stopped us in our tracks and requested questions on every thing. His character in a nutshell is simply curious, fastidious, and deliberate.”
Since finishing the album, VOWWS has recruited drummer Adam Pierce and bassist Stu Brooks into the group. Earlier than then, the band had at all times been the inseparable duo of Rizz and James.
Rizz was born in Costa Rica and emigrated to Australia at age 3 along with her Iranian dad and mom. Each she and James grew up in suburban Sydney, however didn’t meet till school. “Once I was a teen, I both wished to go to movie college or music college,” says Rizz, and she or he finally selected music. Her time on the music academy launched her to different younger artists and opened up her artistic world.
James and Rizz first got here to the U.S. with a band known as Captain in 2014. The band was already fraying on the edges and broke up not lengthy after arriving. “It’s like when you’ve a child to avoid wasting your marriage: Like, let’s go to America, make a document,” says James.
Rizz and James determined to proceed with a brand new challenge, and bounced from L.A. to New York, again to Australia, after which made one other attempt in L.A., touchdown in a small studio condo within the coronary heart of Hollywood. “It was a room and we had a blow-up mattress and a TV and a chair,” James recollects. “It was sort of nice—like, that entire factor of leaving your outdated self behind. You additionally depart all of your shit behind.”
Again house, their households periodically learn sensational headlines about L.A. calamities, from fires and political upheaval to Nationwide Guard troopers on the streets, and despatched alarmed texts: “Are you OK?” However the one actual risk to VOWWS’s future in that early time in L.A. was the monetary wrestle to outlive.
“That interval is imprinted throughout all of the music we do, and it was onerous,” says James. “It nonetheless feels very fragile. I don’t know if that can ever go away, and I don’t assume that’s essentially a foul factor. I don’t need to get too snug in some methods.”
Returning completely to Australia was not an choice in the event that they wished to make music. At one level, they returned house for about 4 weeks for visa renewal, then flew again instantly from Sydney for a present in San Francisco.
“I keep in mind ending the present, and it was New 12 months’s Eve within the Tenderloin [district],” Rizz recollects. “There’s, like, a struggle taking place over there. There’s individuals screaming over right here. There’s a man overdosing over there. …Australia’s very secure. What an journey.”
With a lot time between the final two albums, VOWWS is already planning the subsequent one. They spent nearly every week within the SoCal excessive desert in a spot known as Marvel Valley simply to get away from town and write, and now have 5 songs in progress.
“We’re in a very good artistic place in the mean time,” says James. “I believe it’s come from this final couple of years of wrestle that’s led us right here.”
Provides Rizz, “I’m so thrilled [I’ll fill your house with an army] is out. It’s by no means going to take that lengthy once more. And we’ve been writing the very best we really feel that we’ve ever written. And there’s no guidelines, there’s no strain.”
