Audiences were used to mellow hippie songs and drug psychedelia. We kept getting booked where there were large lighting crews that projected onto the stage throbbing liquid lights and films of girls in bonnets running through fields of flowers.
I finally knew I would have to do something as most halls had light shows. At one theater show I asked the lighting man if he had anything darker like fire on film. He got excited and said in fact he did. He had fire. The audience went wild. After that show, I knew I had to connect visuals with the songs and added the human crucifix, skulls and other Occult accoutrements.
Times would be changing. Yet the label pulled Witchcraft right after the Manson murders, which seems like a fearful reaction. How would you describe the mood back then? Open or conservative? Do you think what audiences wanted differed from what the label thought? Do you think Sabbath had an easier time not being from America?
Jinx: Very conservative. It was not only the Manson murders. The album was beginning to be banned and pulled from stores around the same time anyway. It was being sold under the counter in brown paper wrappers by only the brave store owners.
There was a backlash by churches and other groups due to the musical content and the nudity inside the gatefold. Our sister label did look toward England for a band with males only, and willing to take on a similar situation. Diabolique: What has the reaction been since you started touring again? What has it been like taking Coven on the road again these past couple of years?
Have there been any surprises? Jinx: The reactions from the crowds have been phenomenal. I expected most would not really be familiar with Coven after so many years and so many other bands taking up the same Occult banner. But at all the festivals we drew the biggest audiences and crowds in Brazil were even singing the lyrics with me. My dark heart was truly touched. Diabolique: Yes! It was so great. Who do you consider your most devoted fans to be these days?
Jinx: The 20 to 40 age group who like to research music history and occult in music. Most actually like the fact Coven has been hidden for so many years. They feel a personal connection through their discovery. The album was indeed meant to be a scholarly work. Jinx: I came from a Left Hand Path family who held secret ceremonies and a mansion household of Obeah maids and cooks who practiced Hoodoo.
I learned from both paths and had been trained in opera and classical piano. When I became a teenager and wanted to have a rock band and rebel against that. Little did I know at the time that I was rebelling against the rebels. Magick was to remain a family secret and I wanted to reveal that most interesting secret that I had kept since a child.
Categories Births. Comments: 1. Siacri from Mendocino County Ca. Dawson seems to get not enuff deserved credit for certain things and maybe a bit more than she should for other things.. Get the Music History Event of the Day in your inbox. Purchase a Subscription. We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.
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Toggle navigation Menu Toggle navigation. Sign Up Log In. Dashboard Logout. Trending Now. It is hard to go back that far, all the way to childhood, and it is hard to get it exact. I had to look up years and what has been happening in those years, and it was quite difficult.
It is almost done though, and it is pretty interesting. I am surprised that I have been writing like that, that I almost have an entire book finished. Ritual is probably the whole reason I even did music, besides the fact that I liked music. I always did piano lessons, singing lessons, guitar, sitar, and like I said, the band was a scholarly work when I first put together the group.
I think it is really important information that should be out there. As a teenager I actually rebelled against the rebellers; here I am trying to put out information that I was not supposed to put out. As a matter of fact, my great aunts went up to Chicago when I was recording the Witchcraft album.
They were screaming and yelling that I could not do the sign of the horns, and I lost my inheritance because of it.
I am not angry at anyone; I had money anyway, and I was not trying to make a living; I was not trying to shoot my way to the top. That was not my journey; it was not to be any kind of rock star.
I have done a few things, had some dangerous things happen, and now I think it is important to put a blind in there. I will do a ceremony, but I will not show you how the whole thing is done. Record companies wanted me to be a blond Cher, and I was not into the money. I am just trying to make good, scary music and stories, stories of witchcraft and the occult. That was my main thing, I would get a record deal and they would make me change the material.
My path was meant for information, and I am very pleased. Who were some of your biggest influences back then? Does ritual still play a big role in your life, and your music?
Would you like to share any final words?
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