In the Deep Fryer with Evil Sword
Can Evil Sword be any cooler? Philadelphia’s self-proclaimed “preeminent papier-mâché rock band” for the last 15 years—not like there’s a lot of competition for that title but even if there was they’d still be on top—has continued to get more fantastic and just more fun. And now they’ve combined forces with New Orleans puppeteer and musician Miss Pussycat of Quintron fame on the Skit Split album, a double dose of storytelling and strange sounds. Evil Sword’s side is “The Wishing Pebble of Soggy Pond” while Miss Pussycat tells the tale “MG Xing Ever Gras” about two kittens preparing to celebrate Mardi Gras.
Yoni Kroll caught up with Ben Furgal and Kate Ferencz from Evil Sword to find out more about the album and also get their thoughts on Friday’s record release with Kilynn Lunsford and Nina Ryser.
Evil Sword
Yoni Kroll: So first of all let’s talk about the show on Friday. Tell me about the lineup!
Kate Ferencz: Nina Ryser and Kilynn Lunsford are both people we’ve been big fans of for a long time. I feel that we’re always, like, “Who are the art freaks?” That’s the genre of person we click with when we’re trying to book shows. Because we’re such a weird and hard-to-categorize band so that’s the type we’re looking for.
Ben Furgal: The Skit Split with Miss Pussycat is a very out there, playful record and Kilynn’s music also has that [quality where] it’s not just scary, there’s also parts that I think are funny. There are some very weird sounds. Talking to Kilynn about the show, she’s also a big Miss Pussycat fan. And Nina with her solo music, she has this one album Paths of Color and it makes me think of this wider palette not just sonically but…
KF: It feels like a landscape. When you listen to that music you feel like you’re in a world of sorts. Evil Sword has a wide range of feelings and energies that we engage with. Nina is kind of on the lighter side, which I think suits this record that’s coming out. It’s definitely a sillier flavor of Evil Sword and that’s saying something because we get pretty silly as a baseline.
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Custom Made In 1968
YK: What’s your history with Miss Pussycat?
BF: We are huge Quintron and Miss Pussycat fans and we love Miss Pussycat’s puppet shows and puppet show soundtracks. We wanted to play together for years but we didn’t know how to reach them so we were, like, “Okay, we’re just going to be fans.” They were opening for the Black Lips at Underground Arts [in 2019] and we thought, “We’re a band. What would we want to see on tour? What would surprise us?” So we baked them a cake with Marcia from Trixie and the Tree Trunks—one of Miss Pussycat’s videos—on it. We go up to Underground Arts and were immediately turned away because they didn’t allow outside food.
KF: It had not occurred to us that might happen because we were so focused on the cake.
BF: [Underground Arts] radioed Q and P and they said, “We want to meet the cake people.” So the first time meeting them we went backstage and presented them with a cake and a bunch of pictures were taken.
YK: Did they like the cake?
BF: They loved it. They didn’t eat it. Miss P thought it was so beautiful that they kept it the rest of the tour and then someone stole the cake and ate it.
KF: But also I didn’t know if they had any dietary restrictions so this cake had been made vegan and gluten free so it might have been a terrible cake.
BF: So then fast forward [a few months] and Three-Brained Robot, who we had never met at the time, he loves our band and he’s touring with Quintron and Miss Pussycat and he wants us to play together at the Philadelphia show. We found out later that the whole time Sam from Three-Brained Robot is talking about “this band Evil Sword, you’re going to love them!” and Quintron and Miss Pussycat are, like, “I wonder if the weird cake people are going to show up?” And then it’s load-in [for the Philly show] and we’re got our paper-mache props and stuff and they’re just, like, <reduces voice to a stage whisper>: “It’s the same people!” We became really good friends after that.
YK: In what ways do you see Miss Pussycat and Quintron as kindred spirits?
KF: We have so much in common with them as artist-musician bands. They also have the advantage/problem of doing so many different things.
BF: I feel like our band is very unconventional. So part of the Skit Split is giving ourselves our own context of how we would like to be seen, about the larger history that we’re a part of. Most of our influences are artists and fine art stuff more than bands. And Quintron and Miss Pussycat came to very similar conclusions about what makes a show, [though] coming from a totally different place. There’s just so many parallels between our projects. That’s why we’re such huge fans.
DICE
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