Photo courtesy of the Black Widows
Black Widows
Black Widows
Surf is an important part but not the only dimension of the Minneapolis band Black Widows. The band also knows its way around punk, goth and various other sounds—dark and otherwise—that have seeped into its appealing, assured mix as the band has evolved over the last decade from mostly instrumental beginnings.
Black Widows, who return to the Milwaukee area with a show at X-Ray Arcade, were born in the back of a restaurant by two co-workers, Corinne Caouette and Pamela Laizure, who realized they had a lot in common musically.
“We listened to a lot of the same kind of things,” says Laizure. “We had similar kinds of backgrounds of playing in orchestras. We loved instrumental music, and we both kind of were disillusioned with being in bands with a bunch of dudes.”
Over the years, Caouette (guitar) and Laizure (bass) have been the mainstays in the band, which has seen a few drummers come and go. They’ve even let in a few dudes.
“Chris, a good friend of ours who’s a doctor by day and a rocker by night, is touring with us a lot this summer and also recording with us in the fall,” says Caouette. “So, he’s kind of our staple dude for the for 2025 summer. And then our friend Madeline also plays with us. We say we’re in a polyamorous drummer relationship, and everybody knows about each other, and it’s all good. No secrets, no secrets, no lying, yeah.”
Down in The Swamp
The band’s latest release, the Swamp Rock City EP, came out last December and features songs with titles like “Shakedown in Snaketown” and “Alligator Rally.” Laizure says it’s a love of animals, in fact, that first enticed them into a swamp frame of mind.
“We started kind of playing some songs, and we’re just really like feeling this, like gritty, sludgy vibe, but still a fast-moving surf-style song,” Laizure says. “And we’re like, ‘what does this remind us of?’ We’re like, ‘Oh, this is like swamp music.’ And then we created this whole storyline, which helped us write this cohesive little EP and have the songs flow together. It’s like a whole story that happens during that instrumental EP. Corinne’s really good at telling that story.”
Caouette says she practices this storytelling skill on stage, and she thinks it is imperative for them to be able to help their fans visualize songs that have no words.
“I think like we, you know, when it comes to talking about movies, for example, like, we maybe don't pull from particular movies, but we’re definitely like, cinematic or visual in how we write,” she says. “I think we maybe create our own movies in our head. In the future, I would love to work with somebody who does like a cartoon version of Swamp Rock City would be really cool. You know, like a digital creation of that story would be really fun. I think, yeah, we just always sort of need to have these threads or these storylines. When we write, we aren’t just writing about our ex-boyfriends or whatever. You know, that's boring, right?”
Another recent release, last Halloween’s haunted with a “feminist twist” cover of Lesley Gore’s 1963 hit “You Don’t Own Me,” was a song Black Widows had long played live without vocals, but they decided to record a version with vocals.
“I think we both have an understanding that guitars or any instrument can be the melody or be the voice,” says Caouette, “And so we played that as an instrumental for a long time, but then we thought for this Halloween that we would just sing with it. But yeah, it’s usually the content, I think that inspires us, and some kind of like minor keys, something that can lean into, you know, spookiness and creepiness.”
New Album in the Fall
Caouette says they mean it this time that they are going to record a full-length album—their first—this fall.
“We get carried away with touring. We get a little off track, but we do have, like, legit time booked to do that, so we are going to focus more on, the punk side of our personalities and more vocals,” she says. “We’ve been doing a lot of instrumental stuff, but it's going to be very vocal heavy. We have a lot of it charted out already, but there’s a lot to do still. I would say probably a little more politically forward, and, yeah, a little more punk.”
Adds Laizure: “I mean, there’s always going to be some surf undertones, overtones, surf elements, but yeah, kind of more, ‘Yeah, but we also got some shit to say.’”
More Black Widow links here: linktr.ee/blackwidowsrocks.
Black Widows perform at 7 pm. Thursday, July 17 at the X-Ray Arcade, 5036 S Packard Ave., Cudahy. Milwaukee’s Cozy Danger and ID open.
