Today sees the release of “Witches Forever”, the first single from Seawitch‘s forthcoming debut album Well Of Spells. Seawitch are the new WA-based band for Fiona Horne (founder of 80’s girl punk band, The Mothers, 90’s charting rockstar of DEF FX and infamous real life Witch) and Dave (Spiff) Hopkins, guitarist/founder of 80’s/90’s seminal surf rock band Hellmenn).

Newly signed to Cheersquad Records and Tapes – where Fiona and Spiff join their old pals from Sydney’s punk scene, The Hard-Ons – Seawitch are set to release their debut album  Well Of Spells in time for Halloween.
 
Fiona has written fourteen books on Witchcraft, and her song lyrics are inspired by her Craft: “‘Witches Forever’ is a song about resilience, courage, and survival. Witches were the original healers and spiritual guides – the world needs her Witches now more than ever.” 

‘Witches Forever’ features soaring sonic guitar by co-founder of Seawitch, Dave (Spiff) Hopkins and thundering bass from Brad Miller. The song lures you in with an entrancing 1970’s-soaked intro, before exploding out of your speakers in a maelstrom of fuzz and rhythm, with Fiona’s powerful siren vocals riding the rock n roll waves.

“‘Witches Forever’ came about with Fiona and me locked in iso and writing a song a day. We’d never written together before and found ourselves caressing each other’s talents, with me adding some vocal ideas and her giving me instructions on how to make guitar riffs different and more original with timings. I watched a doco on Jimmy Page and how he created ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in his head before the studio, and I was thinking I would like to do something like that, that could start off acoustic and classic then turn into a thundering Fu Manchu V8 riff. After the intro, ‘Witches Forever’ moves into Neil Young territory, then cranks up a notch into Joy Division for the verses with some sonic mayhem and blistering outro. Definitely showing some 70s influences. It certainly didn’t get close to Stairway, but we weaved together some magic tones.” – Dave (Spiff) Hopkins

“Writing songs with Spiff is exciting. We sit and create from scratch, and together end up doing something that neither of us would have done individually, influencing each other to try different and unfamiliar things. My favourite lyric in ‘Witches Forever’ is the second verse – ‘Dressed in holy flames, the rope now spells my name.’ As I wrote, I was thinking about the Witches who were hung and burned to death in ages past. ‘Standing in the wind and rain, I feel no shame – my soul is born again.’ I had a vision of me standing naked on a hill – with flames at my feet and a rope around my neck, but I was dancing in the fire and I took the rope from around my neck and wove it through the air, so that it spelled my name. I took back my power and felt grateful for all the women who suffered but built the foundation upon which we modern Witches can live free and practice our Craft, we are Witches together forever.” – Fiona Horne 

The video for “Witches Forever” was filmed live at the Winter Solstice ‘Witches Ball’ which took place at The Rechabite, Perth, Western Australia. It was produced and edited by Simple Ben Films.

Seawitch are set to play Do The Pop Festival in Port Campbell, Victoria on Oct 29, and are playing with US band Stoner (featuring Brant Bjork and Nick Oliveri) at Melbourne’s Gasometer Hotel on October 30. More shows to be announced. 
 
‘Well of Spells’ will be released October 2022 just in time for Halloween!