One-Eyed Doll are a two-piece based in Austin, Texas and are taking over the Rock and Metal world! They’ve toured with Mushroomhead, Wayne Static, and Otep. Their live shows are over the top, and are some of the most original live shows in the last 15 years! Kimberly Freeman and Jason “Junior” Sewell deserve the best! This interview was conducted at the Pub Station in Billings, MT. The staff at Faygoluvers greatly appreciates One-Eyed Doll accepting to do this interview!

Chad Thomas Carsten: For the unfamiliar at Faygoluvers, how did you come up with the name One-Eyed Doll?

Kimberly: The name is a tribute to my Grandpa, actually. It’s a reference to him. He’s a performer and he had one eye. That was my favorite part of him, the missing eye. He’s my big stage inspiration. He’s really slapstick and silly and wore hats. He was very experimental and little bit out of the box. So, I’m kinda filling his big clown shoes. So yea One-Eyed Doll, we kinda have have two images for that. The one that is personal to me that I don’t tell everybody about is my Grandpa. And then on our artwork and stuff, you see the one eye and it’s a reference to the third-eye of consciousness that keeps us looking ahead instead of behind.

CTC: Oh wow! That’s pretty deep on both ends. I’m a Dragon Ball fan and I’ve looked into the third-eye stuff since I was in middle school because of my favorite Dragon Ball character, Tien Shinhan.

Kimberly: Right on! It’s kinda a reminder to me to stay away from the past and to just be in the present and look forward to the future. And it’s also a tribute to my Grandpa. So there are two positive meanings.

CTC: That’s awesome! I appreciate the answer!

Kimberly: Thank you! A lot of the time when someone asks what the band name is, it’s usually at a truck stop. They’ll say, *In a Southern Accent* “What’s the band called?” and I’m like, “One-Eyed Doll.” and they reply, “One-Eyed Dog?” and I’m like, “No, One-Eyed Doll.” and then they’ll say, “But you’ve got two eyes?” and I’m like, “Yea, never mind” That’s the conversation I have daily.

CTC: *Laughs* It’s now officially Fall, but what do you like most about the Fall season?

Junior: Oh yea, it’s now Fall!

Kimberly: I like the weather in the beginning of the Fall where it’s turning from Summer to Fall, where it’s still warm enough not to be bundled up, but it’s cooling down and the air gets a little dryer. Different parts of the country are so beautiful! Especially Chicago in the Fall, there’s just so much golden orange and red leaves all over!

CTC: That’s what I miss about my home state Michigan. Out here in Montana there aren’t many trees.

Kimberly: Yea you got lot of needle trees up here that don’t shed. Obviously, Halloween is a big plus in the fall *Laughs* That kinda always feel likes the very end of the fall where it’s going to get cold now and so it’s just a big celebration. Ya know, pumpkin everything! Totally down with that. What about you?

CTC: *Completely caught off guard with being asked my own question* *Stuttered at first* For the Fall, I have to go with Halloween as my favorite part of the season. I always dress up and I sometimes hand out candy. One time a friend and I had a Ruben’s Tube (AKA standing wave flame tube) on the front porch while handing out candy. The fire went perfectly in sync with the music. We had Fresh Prince “Nightmare On My Street” blasting! Along with, Screamin Jay Hawkins “I’ll Put A Spell On You”, Marilyn Manson’s cover of “This is Halloween” and even the 1938 song “Jeepers Creepers”. The looks on the children’s faces was priceless. But ICP’s Hallowicked in Detroit 2007 was the greatest moment for me during Halloween.

Kimberly: *Laughs* Oh man! That’s awesome!

CTC: Yea it was rad! For the both of you, what’s the true meaning of Halloween?

Kimberly: I don’t know if I have one, it’s just fun for me! *Laughs*

Junior: Everyday is Halloween for us. For me, Halloween is the time of year where the rest of the world converges to know what my life is like. And then it goes away and everyone else thinks we’re weird all of a sudden.

*Everyone Laughs*

Kimberly: I don’t put a lot of meaning into anything like that. I’m non-religious. I just have fun and it’s a fun day where you have a really good excuse to party and dress up and give candy out. I love the aesthetics! I love the how happy everybody is and their all dressed like little ghouls.

Junior: So, it’s really cool that we can do a Halloween tour where even in late September. It can be Halloween for everyone in the room.

Kimberly: Ya you know, people can dress up if they want and then they won’t feel out of place.

CTC: Any costumes ideas for Halloween this year?

Junior: We dress up every night.

CTC: *Laughs* Yea I suppose that wouldn’t really matter then.

Kimberly: I like being a skeleton. I’m practically one already. *Laughs*

CTC: *Pulls up right sleeve of flannel* Yea I’m pretty skinny myself.

Kimberly: Alright! Skeletons! Whoo! Everybody’s like, “Great costume.” and we’re like, “What are you talking about?” “We’re not wearing costumes, I just put on a tank top today”

CTC: What is your personal favorite Halloween memory as a child?  Good, funny, or scary, if scary can even count as a favorite?

Kimberly: I always had to go to church things. I got to trick or treat a couple times. I remember I had blind step sister for awhile from one of my mom’s past marriages. Her name was Terry. I took her trick or treating. I didn’t have any kind of costume, so I just dressed like a homeless person. I put my rattiest clothes on and put some dirt on my face and there I was. If I ever got the chance to dress up, that’s what I usually was. Or a clown! I could put together a clown costume. I was probably a baby Juggalo. *Laughs*

CTC: That’s cool though! You were using your imagination and thinking outside the box.

Junior: I have this story. When I was a kid about four years old I told my mom, “I want to be a wizard!” And she’s like, “Okay”. She spent all this time gluing crap to my face and stuff. and I’m like, “What is she doing?!” I didn’t get to look into the mirror the whole time. At the very end she’s like, “Okay, I did it!” She had glued me with this type of paste.

Kimberly: Wood Glue?

Junior: Something. But she pasted this big old beard and made me into a wizard. And I was like, “Mom, I said lizard!” I actually meant Lizard, because I had a speech impediment. And she was like,“Oh.. Lizard, well you’re a wizard, deal with it”.

*Everyone Laughs*

CTC: *High-Fives Junior* That was a good one!  Can we dive into the concept of your latest album “Witches” and how many hours did you guys spend researching the Salem Witch Trials? What did you find the most interesting/disturbing behind the trials?

Kimberly: Well, I kinda binge researched it. I accidentally came across the story of Mary Etsy, who was one of the people executed for Witchcraft in 1692. I was just really interested in her story and what happened to her and why these people did this to her?! And the history behind it. I read her story and I wrote “A Rope For Mary”. That was the first song. I was not meaning to make a whole album out of it. I just was so inspired by her story that I wanted to read more. Then I found about all these other people’s stories and the afflicted girls. I just kept reading and reading and reading. And writing and writing and writing. It just kinda came out that way. We actually had another album that we were scheduled to put out instead of Witches. I wasn’t supposed to be writing an album, but over the course of a couple days I just blew it out. And we’re like, “Holy crap we have a concept album!” Whoops. We made it and we recorded as if it was one song.

Junior: I don’t want to get too much into the technical details, but usually when you’re recording in your computer each project is it’s own entity/ each song is it’s own project. Usually have twelve different things you’re working on all at once. This one we recorded all in one project, so it was literally one long song. That’s how you can get all these smooth transitions where one song kinda flows into the next. We just recorded it all at once as one long song. When she recorded the vocals we could only afford one day in a nice studio.

Kimberly: The rest we did in random spots where we found that were quiet and we could do our takes. But the vocals we wanted to do in a nice a studio with the good mics. We rented J.Street Studios.

Junior: It’s owned by the bass player for Tesla, “Brian Wheat”. He’s got all the best gear in the world!

Kimberly: We just needed a couple hours.

Junior: So,we booked one day there and we did the acoustic guitar stuff early in the day and then we’re like,“Oh we gotta get the vocals!”And she just blasted through the vocals and almost everything you hear on the album is the first take.

Kimberly: It’s really organic and it all felt like it was all really from the heart. There wasn’t a 50th take where you’re like, *Takes Deep Breath * “Okay,I forgot what these words mean now” It was just very in the present and it came out really honest.

CTC: Impressive!

Kimberly: Thank you!

CTC: How would you two feel if Mary Etsy visited both of you on the anniversary of her death to thank you for creating a song in her honor? What would you say back, if anything?

Kimberly: *Jaw Drops* Dang dude,that’s kinda hard!

*Long Pause*

Junior: I would just let her know that her death wasn’t in vain and we’re still learning from the lessons, that it was a horrible thing that happened. Hopefully now with the fact that we can make an album about it 400 years later and she’s able to still teach that lesson.

Kimberly: I would say thank you and I’m sorry.

CTC: It’s just hard to take in the fact that all that went down almost 400 years ago with everything being so different in America nowadays.

Kimberly: It was not that very long ago and people are still being executed for Witchcraft in the world today. Extreme religion, it has such a hold on people and the mainstream to be honest. It really does a lot of damage in people’s everyday lives.

CTC: That’s the scary part!   Extreme religion as whole, poisons everything. Look at the Westboro Baptist Church for example.

Kimberly: It’s what runs Governments and it runs our own Government.

Junior: We generally get really good reviews and comments on the album, but every once in awhile you hear someone say,”King Diamond already did an album about the witch trials” And it’s like man, his a story needs to be told from different perspectives over and over again!

CTC: Yea who cares if someone else did their own concept, everyone has a different perspective. I really like what you guys brought to the table.

Kimberly: The thing is too ya know, you can only do what you are inspired to do. And hey this is what I was inspired to do, I couldn’t stop it from happening. There it is, enjoy it or not. *Laughs*

CTC: Is there a music video planned for “A Rope For Mary”?

Junior: I would like to start making more music videos. The “Afflicted” video took a massive effort!

CTC: Yea with all that snow!

Junior: Yea that was all real. We went to Salem and it was super cold.

Kimberly: Zero degrees the whole time!

Junior: We had a whole crew and it took all of our money that we could scrape up. Anything that we can do from here on out will probably a smaller budget, not quite as epic of a production, but we’ll still try!

Kimberly: We’ll do some more toilet seat videos.

*Everyone Laughs*

Junior: I have some plans. But I think “A Rope For Mary” might be a good one!

CTC: Especially with how much the song means to you guys.

Kimberly: It would be hard, because we put so much into “Afflicted”, because it was so important to me to really pay homage to the people that died. And who suffered for all that. We put everything into it to make sure they were honored and not exploited.

Junior: I feel like the video for “Afflicted” tells the whole story for the album.

Kimberly: We weren’t trying to make a documentary. We were using our imaginations in there and kinda going back in forth between fantasy and reality. It’s definitely still a fictional work, but the idea is there and it’s accurate.

CTC: What are each of your own favorite personal tracks for Witches and why? I know that’s tough to pick a favorite.

Junior: For me it’s “Stillness”. When she first played it for me I was just blown away. I think that was the moment that I knew like, “Ok this album is going to be really good.” I think this is the best thing that she has ever written. And it’s just such a pure outpouring of emotions and I think it really puts you in the place of one of those people. Not only lyrically, but musically the way it’s structured and the way the vocals just soar! The dynamics of it. The intro part with it being all acoustic and mellow and then halfway through building up into a big epic!

Kimberly: That’s the style of music that I would more than likely just listen to. That really pretty to epic kind of stuff. We’re both really Pink Floyd influenced. With ya know, their concept albums.

Junior: To some degree we don’t do a lot of thinking about how we’re going to perform something live when we’re in the studio. We really just record the song and then figure out a version of it live. To some degree we have to also say, “Ok we need a couple songs on this album that we can play live” It can’t be all choirs and orchestra.

Kimberly: Not without a certain budget or cheating, which we don’t.

Junior: Yea we don’t do any backing tracks or anything like that.

Kimberly: What you see is what you get.

Junior: We’re playing a lot of song from the Witches album live on this tour, but “Stillness”, I would love to play that song live! We haven’t figured out how to actually make that song come across.

Kimberly: Maybe sometime in the future it would be cool. If we could bring the banjo and mandolin and do it that way, it would have to be done a certain way, but maybe in the future.

Junior: And the guy who played violin on the album (there’s violin on the whole album), his name is Damien Sull. He actually was our light guy on one tour. He runs a business that is very time-consuming. It was almost like he over extended himself to do that tour. It doesn’t look like he’s going to be able to do it again, but I want to twist his arm to get him on board.

Kimberly: Our VIP after party every night was us all playing acoustic songs for the fans on the tour bus. And so he had his violin and we were able to do the banjo-mandolin-acoustic-guitar-violin stuff! It was really special! They got to pick the songs.

CTC: That’s pretty sweet! That would be pretty amazing to see. When you guys were visiting Salem, did any paranormal things happen?

Kimberly: Nope! I was just freezing the whole time. *Laughs*

Junior: We almost became ghosts. I shoveled snow for five hours, for that “Afflicted” video.

CTC: Has anything paranormal ever happened to you in the past?

Kimberly: Nebulost was crazy. Some weird stuff going on there.

Junior: I can you tell that the important thing to remember is that, as carbon based creatures we have a very limited ability to know exactly what is happening around us.

Kimberly: We’re discovering new things all the time that we didn’t know before. Quantum physics is showing us quite a bit. I’m a really science-based person, but I admit that there’s a lot that I don’t know. I’m an atheist, but I guess you can say I’m agnostic. I’m not a spiritual person. I really believe in science and what’s here. But there’s all sort of stuff that we don’t know about energy, what’s residual/ what’s left. Feedback, ya know. I feel like we have experienced some of that stuff at Nebulost, A place where we used to record all of our albums. There was definitely a lot of that spooky stuff going on and a lot of it happened during our sessions. *Laughs*

Junior: I lived there alone out in the woods and it was just me in the house. There would just be lots of certainly other activity happening. I don’t have any facts to back anything up, but all I can say is strange things were happening. I don’t think it was my imagination, as far as I know.

Kimberly: Other people would come and go and experience the same things. I’m sure that there is a scientific reason for all of that, but yea we both experienced those kind of things. I lived in this place in Austin, Texas called the “Austin Music Co-Op”, that had some pretty heavy stuff going on. There were always these Ghost Hunters coming and going. Almost everyone who lived there had these crazy experiences. Stuff seems to be out there, whether it’s our imaginations or scientific explanation for the energy that we experienced, I really don’t know. But I’ve experienced it.

CTC: Wow! Interesting. May have to check that out someday. Yea the place I’m renting right now was built in 1909 and it’s been remodeled. But more than a few friends, including me, have heard weird stuff at night. One evening something kept walking up and down the stairs a few times throughout the night and we would check and see what was up and nothing was there at all. I don’t if someone came into the house drunk or it was just us hearing things, but it happened.

Kimberly: Really?!

CTC: Yep! It’s a pretty old house, but the rent is cheap.

Kimberly: That stuff is kinda fun though to be honest. I kinda got a kick out of it. I was there for awhile alone and I just had a video camera out the whole time and kept turning off all the lights. *Laughs* If there are ghosts, I want to see one!

CTC: I wouldn’t know what to do honestly. Is it important for band members to learn more than one instrument?

Junior: For me personally, I consider myself a producer more than just a drummer. Someone who’s focused on a single instrument. When I’m recording a band (that’s how I got introduced to Kimberly, I recorded her band. There was a different drummer at the time) I find it very important as a producer to be able to understand and perform every instrument that’s going to be coming into the studio. I want to know the technicality of how someone is playing an instrument in order to guide them.

Kimberly: Give the best performance.

Junior: Yea! If I can get on an instrument and be like, “Hey, can you play more like this?” and they’re like, “Oh yea, ok!”.

Kimberly: And it definitely helps as an artist. I can say going to a studio and the producer actually knowing what your doing is kinda awesome. It hardly ever happens. They actually understand what you’re trying to do. That empathy really helps in the recording process. On the studio side of things I say absolutely, yes! As far as just being an artist, I don’t know. I think just whatever interests you, go for it and if it’s just one thing then you can focus on that and be really good at it, that’s great. Some people like to spread it around to different instruments. Some people like Junior are really great at everything, because they’re just smart. I’m mediocre at a few things. I get by enough to write songs. That’s really my interest is writing. And so I’ll take whatever instrument that I can play and write a song with it. But I was never one to just sit and learn scales and theory and stuff like that because I have stories to tell and that’s what I’m really focused on. I use the music as a venue for that.

Junior: I think that’s what makes us a really good team. That she’s so focused on the song writing and telling the story. Then I can can come back and help with the technical side of things. I think it’s a really good package.

CTC: I really dig that answer, thank you!

Kimberly: You have good questions.

CTC: I appreciate it! What other two-piece bands do you guys admire?

Kimberly: Shoot, all of them! I mean, anybody who has the guts to get up there and do that.

Junior: For us it’s not about being a two-piece band.

Kimberly: That kinda just was an accident, it wasn’t on purpose. We weren’t like,”We’re gonna be a two-piece band, fight the power” It was more like I had some members leave the band.

Junior: Only two people showed up. *Laughs*

Kimberly: And we had some shows to play. And I was like “we gotta have material so we can cover no matter what!”

Junior: Sometimes she’s a one-piece.

Kimberly: Not since he joined the band, but before that people flaked. This is what what my Grandpa told me. His big advice to me; I came to him and said,“Bernie, I think I want to be a performer like you, what do I do?” He’s like, “First you need to learn play the guitar or a keyboard or some sort of portable instrument” And I was like,”Well you know, that will take some time, because I don’t really play any instruments, I just want to sing. Some other musicians can play the music” And he said,“No you have to play guitar, you need to write your own music and perform your own music on your own, because you can’t rely anyone in this world, especially musicians! So you better learn to back yourself up” That was 70 years of experience in the music biz he had. He’s so right! There were so many times where I found myself with just my acoustic guitar going,“Where is my band?” I just had to play the show. I could not cancel a show. “The show must go on”, he said. He was old school showbiz. He had a guy shot on stage right next to him, because he was in the Spike Jones troop and they did all this experimental percussion with guns. It was crazy! Look it up! You’ll love it. But you know he said,“The show must go on, there is no excuse.”

I think we cancelled one show before, because I had laryngitis. But then the next day we played the next show and had the crowd sing along. I’m not as hardcore as he is. I’m not Bernie. But I’ve taken his advice and really tried to live by it. And So I did! I took his old guitar that he used to play and I learned to play it. I started writing my songs with that and it made all the difference. That’s the only reason I play guitar right now, because he told me to. I was like,“Yes Sir!” That’s what you say to your Grandpa.

I had all these different line-ups, but the show went on! And we just made it happen. That’s why we play the way we do and a lot of times we’ll have our friends come up and play with us. We can make room for that. I have others songs that I wrote for a four-piece line up or a three-piece line up. But the ones we play live are really the ones that we wrote for a two-piece line up, because that’s what we’re touring as right now. But if you ever see us on the road with our buddy John who plays bass, aka “Mr. Swimmy Socks”. We bring him out once in awhile. He’s a gold fish. Ya know you’ll hear some of the songs that we wrote for a three-piece line up. It’s just we have a hundred songs out right now, so we can’t play them all. So we just choose what is going to work for what stage and what line-up we have at the time. You never know when you go to tour as a fan, you don’t know what we’re gonna be like. It might be the same thing as last our or it might be a little different. We do what we want and nobody can tell us what to do or how to play. They can not like it, but it’s our choice really with what we do. And that’s nice. There are a lot bands who’s record label tells them what songs they can play. We don’t have that problem.

CTC: That would be really annoying not being able to play what songs you want live.

Kimberly: It sucks. It happens. It’s mean. Artists, they want to express themselves. If I’m not playing the song that feel like playing at the very moment that I’m playing it, I’m miserable. That wouldn’t be any kind of life for me. It’s nice to have that freedom.

CTC: What advice would you give musicians just starting out on their first tour?

Kimberly: Our first tour we certainly weren’t a national act, I’ll tell you that much. We were a bunch of homeless people living in my van. Take your vitamins. Don’t get wasted, just be focused on your work. Stay healthy! Those are really big ones for me, because everything crumbles when I’m unhealthy.

Junior: On the business side of things, the main advice I would give to a new band booking their own tour: There are hundreds of clubs all over the country. You want to talk to the promoters. The promoters at these clubs are easy to get a hold of now online. If you get the sense from them that they’re going to be difficult to work with, ignore them. Go on to the next one and find someone else. There are people out there who are excited to work with a new band! If you get that bad vibe from someone, move on. They’re not gonna help you out. There are some people out there that will. Advice number two is be really honest with them about what your draw is. If it’s zero, let them know you have zero draw and you need to be put on the bill with another band that does have a draw or else your just gonna play to an empty room. We made some mistakes in the past with telling them we can crank thirty people, but it’s not a good idea to say that. The best idea is to say,“Hey, we’re a new band, we’ve done really well in our town and we want to start building a buzz in your town. We don’t have any draw there, we’ve never played there. If you can set us up with a band  and we’ll play for gas money, then we can start building a buzz in your town.” If they’re receptive to that, then you’re talking to the right guy.

Kimberly: I handed Jason the reigns for booking/managing when he joined the band, because he’s so good at that. He’s more like type A, people don’t mess him as much. Back in the really early days before Jason was around, they really messed with me, man. Our first tours we were just playing for tips, we just needed to get out there. I was playing shows before I really knew how to use my instrument. I was just like”better learn quick”. If you know that you’re gonna embarrass yourself in front of a live audience, boy do you learn quickly! You pick it up and your brain goes into overdrive! I would say if you’ve got a band, start getting out there and play wherever you can play! Try to just start circling outside of your town as much as you can at any dive bar that’ll have you. I can’t tell you how many country bars that we played at in the beginning when we were super punk rock back in the early days. Beer cans were thrown at us daily.
But you know, it got us out there and got us touring. And it got me into that lifestyle. Nobody in my old line up lasted it. I turned it into my life. This is what I’m still doing. Not a lot people really like doing it. They think they want to do it, but the reality sets in. We shared a can of beans everyday and we would sleep outside. We would wake up to police lights every day and just had to move on.

Literally,we all lived in my van. None of us had homes to go back to, we were really crusty. A lot people don’t start out zero, like dumpster diving for merch. I started out below zero. Just use what you do have and put it all in. If that’s what you really want to do. If you get the chance to be a local band as an opening band for a national bill, stay the whole night and sell your merch. Maybe try to meet the band. Give them t-shirts! Don’t give them your CD, necessarily. I can tell you that we don’ have a way to play CD’s on the bus. And so, we basically will hold on to all this stuff until we get home from touring and then forget what town the band was in.

Junior: We always need clean shirts!

Kimberly: I’ve seen this too with headliners that we’ve played with, everybody loves a t-shirt and they will wear that stuff on tour or in an interview. I would say if you’re a local and you got t-shirts, bring some t-shirts for the headliner.

CTC: That’s a very smart idea, especially with how difficult it must be trying to do laundry on the road.

Junior: Yea lot of times it’s hard to do laundry. So, having a stack of clean shirts from a band is awesome!

CTC: What is the future of One-Eyed Doll

Junior: We take everyday as it comes!

Kimberly: I don’t know. I might be waitressing tomorrow if this show doesn’t go that well.

Please pick up the latest One-Eyed Doll album “Witches” right here: http://shop.oneeyeddoll.com. Don’t miss them on this year’s Halloween 2015 tour! The show is crazy fun and will leave you breathless and wanting to see another live show asap!

Photo Credits: Michelle Por of Artistic Vision Photography  https://www.facebook.com/artisticvisionmt

Interviewer: Chad Thomas Carsten

Websites:

• OneEyedDoll.com