Twin Temple: Bigger, Hornier, And More Blasphemous Than Ever Before

When TWIN TEMPLE were in the early days of their formation, they expected fans of preservation in music to gravitate towards them. Rather than performing under the glitzy lights of Hollywood as their style would suggest, they have naturally found themselves being more at home in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. Finding a home amongst alternative and heavy music fans, they often don’t share much in common with the other acts surrounding them. What they do share is a passion for authenticity, theatrics, outcast culture and most importantly… blasphemy.

With their aim to capture a sound that has long been left in boxes of records in tucked away shops or in dusty attics, TWIN TEMPLE expected their crowd to come from this revivalist aspect. Instead, the metal fans found them first and it’s easy to see why with how much shared DNA runs through both bloodlines. Fronted by husband and wife duo Alexandra James on vocals and Zachary James on guitar, it’s safe to say that their lust for all things sinful was a bit of a turn off to those fans that were out to hear the music of the 60s.

“We thought our fans would be like preservationists, who just love like old school rock music but they don’t, they’re afraid of us you know, obviously,” Zachary says. “But we’ve besmirched their love of their old music I think.”

Alexandra explains that just like every decision they have ever made as a band, their signature sound of “satanic doo-wop” is exactly the music they wanted to make so toning anything down was never in consideration.

“We’ve blasphemed it. We’ve really defiled this sound so I think, and it makes sense that in their minds, well to a degree, it’s also subverting these classic American sounds. Like it’s 2023, the year of our lord Satan, it’s not the sixties anymore so I feel like to be singing about some of the topics, the same topics from 60-70 years ago, they’re just irrelevant.”

Their second full-length release, God Is Dead, doubles down on both elements of their sound by pushing the boundaries even further and diving deeper into being historically accurate. Becoming obsessed with preservation themselves, they’ve spent weeks and months reading and learning everything they can about the era in music that they’re trying to emulate. Whilst their first album took just a day and a half to capture, the follow-up saw the duo replicating a full production in the style of Gold Star Studios from 1962-1964, one castanet at a time.

“Sadly, it’s a recording process and a style of working and a sound that’s very much getting lost,” Alexandra explains. “A lot of the original people who knew how to make that sound are dead and there’s not much information other than the actual records on how that was created so there were a lot of different ways that we tried to dig up the history of it.”

After taking a minimalist approach to the first album, the plan was always to dive deeper into their love of production in the future to closely emulate the records that they love. The obvious difference being the lyrical content and on-stage theatrics that separate them from the crowd, even by today’s standards. With the backlash they have received in the past, courtesy of Alex Jones, they made the decision to go even further than before. With tracks like Burn Your Bible, Let’s Have A Satanic Orgy and Be A Slut, they aren’t backing down, describing this album as further exploration of the specific rooms in the haunted castle that the first album conjured up.

Whereas they colour their music with their love of early girl groups and THE WRECKING CREW session musicians, there is still a direct line you can trace back to their contemporaries. As Alexandra states, DANZIG grew up wanting to be Elvis and before anyone even knew what heavy music looked and sounded like, Tony Iommi dreamed of being THE BEATLES. Touring with the likes of GHOST, they are able to still thrive in modern counter culture despite distancing themselves from modern tropes. Even if it is as simple as trading stories of blood-spitting and its displeased targets with BEHEMOTH, TWIN TEMPLE lives and breathes within the spaces that their influences would have feared to dwell in.

“I think that all of the GOATs of metal love classic rock and roll and you can trace it back to all of the influences that we are more directly referencing,” Alexandra says having felt the love regardless of the bill they’re on. “So, I feel like that’s why it resonated with the rock and metal community because we all love rock and roll and we all gravitate towards this music because we’re all, to some degree, rebels and outsiders.”

God Is Dead is out now via MRI Entertainment.

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