About this Event

In each buildup and breakdown, every riff and groove of Nashville band All Them Witches, there is a story. The rockers’ narratives are often unspoken, sourcing musical touchstones from across the States, offering an almost cinematic experience wrapped up in their propulsive rhythms and subtly funky anthems. “As a band we pull from every moment that we experience,” says vocalist/bassist Charles Michael Parks, Jr., “our influence is not just music, it’s our everyday life.”



Their explosive live show earned them accolades from their ceaseless touring schedule and festival performances at events including their 2015 Bonnaroo debut. “None of our shows are the same twice,” Parks says, “we like not having to get up and play the same song the same way every night. It’s like jazz, where the main parts are there, but the rest is made up. We never say it, it just happens, we let the music talk for us.”



The band began as a project between drummer Robby Staebler and guitarist Ben McLeod, then expanded to add Allan Van Cleave on keys and Parks on bass and vocals. In the early days of the band, Staebler says, the band’s influences cut a wide swath. “The spectrum of what we listen to is off the chain,” he says, “but the music that shaped the way I play early on was Pink Floyd, and jazz, especially Sun Ra, and ambient music like Brien Eno, and Boren and Der Club of Gore.” The band’s sprawling performances would often coagulate into a singular unit, a live-wire electriying sound, which was captured on their live recordings and first two studio albums, Our Mother Electricity (2012) and Lightning at the Door (2014). Those albums were a snapshot of their onstage chemistry and started their evolution into sophsiticated psych rock that lurches forward but never spirals out of control. “This band is really like having four guitars,” Parks says, “I play bass like a guitar, Allen plays keys like a guitar, and Robby even plays drums likje a guitar: he’s doing fills and rolls. It’s almost like the percussive element of fingerpicking, the sound of fingers on strings.”