Interview: The Spells
We were extremely lucky to be “moths”, even if we didn’t use that term at the time – it was a posthumous label. That was the lost era of rock ‘n roll in NYC. That New York will never come back. It wouldn’t be possible today to have the lifestyle we had at the time. No cell phones and no social media made for a more focused, immersive, in-the-moment existence.
In a dark, spidery alley, stretching tautly in NYC’s underground, just between 1995 and 1998, Nicole Barrick, Marisa Pool and Leni Zumas were The Spells.
Combining the gloriously jagged un-polish of garage rock with what feels like the necromantic power to telekinetically exhume a whole graveyard, The Spells existed in the sweetest of spots – sonically, thematically, locationally, temporally.
Their brief existence within the equally brief New York “moth” scene of the 90s was not a flash in the pan, though. It was more like a waxen seal; The Spells stamped their mark heavily and hotly before being filed away with the paperwork of history.
But recently, that embossed parchment, their unreleased 1997 LP The Night Has Eyes, has been unearthed and the seal broken. The album, and definitive record of those transitory Spells, is at last being unleashed into the eyes of the ever-present darkness. . . and your ears.
Listening spellbound, Elise Price wanted to know more about this resurrected record. Amidst chalk lines and flickering candles, she transcribed the band’s runic replies…
E&D: How were these recordings initially re-discovered? Have they been altered at all since or kept exactly as they were had the album been released in ’98?
Unboxing The Spells…
The Spells: We found an old cassette tape in a shoebox with a bunch of old polaroids. We played it and it sounded great – the songs came back from the past like forgotten hexes. We got in touch with Greg Talenfeld, who’d engineered and co-produced the record with us in 1997, and he still had the original files. We kept pretty much everything as it was recorded. Greg had recorded bands we admired (like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Pavement, and The Walkmen) and he did an amazing job making us sound as close to live as possible. We were mostly a live band – no studio trickery. The only “upgrade” is that the songs have been mastered for vinyl by Honza Kapàk at Hellsound Studio, in the Czech Republic, to give them that extra punch.
E&D: Though the record is inescapably a time capsule – a preservation of the brief period The Spells were active – it doesn’t seem obviously archival or at all dated. Do you think the record fits into a modern scene, and who would your musical peers be were The Spells performing now?
The Spells: At least to our ears, The Spells sound definitely fits today. We imagine our peers would be like-minded bands, feminists, witches, and smart girls who create weird work. I hope they’ll get a chance to hear the album! It wasn’t as easy in the ‘90s for women musicians to be taken seriously, making our kind of music, and we hope we contributed in some small way to wiping off that patriarchal residue for the artists who came after us.
E&D: Could you tell us a little about the themes of the record, and perhaps memories of the time you were recording and writing?
The Spells: We tried to create a dark, beautiful, and fierce world. Tried to express the way we felt with our instruments. We loved the writing process, going to our practice space with the Batman warehouse door, working on parts and words, building songs. Going to eat after practice at Kellogg’s diner (in Williamsburg, Brooklyn) and plotting our next moves. We miss that intensity, especially in these distracted times. The three of us were moody and out of place in our own different ways yet somehow felt linked in an otherworldly frequency. Even though we all now live in different parts of the country, that connection still hums between us.
The Spells in Brooklyn circa 1997. Photo: Nick Zinner
E&D: Has the record or your live work as The Spells been re-contextualised at all after this three-decade gap? Do you see it in a different light – have you discovered anything new about it listening back now?
The Spells: The most surprising thing to us, probably, is that we still love the songs! It’s not like cringing at the poetry you wrote in high school. These songs still vibrate and propel. We remain loyal to their aesthetic. We wouldn’t have wanted them to be released otherwise.
E&D: The essay ‘Sheela-Na-Gig Is A Punk Rocker’ by Zachary Lipez calls The Night Has Eyes “either a post-mortem release or a debut LP that was simply delayed by three decades”. Which would you prefer it to be regarded as – retrospective or introductory?
The Spells: Definitely introductory. Music lives in the ears of the listeners, it’s not for archives or museums. This album is like a meteor blasting in from outer space. Maybe it just decided the time for the collision was now!
The Spells circa 1997. Photo: Nick Zinner.
E&D: Is there anything about the NYC ‘moth’ band scene that modern life is sorely lacking?
The Spells: We were extremely lucky to be “moths”, even if we didn’t use that term at the time – it was a posthumous label. That was the lost era of rock ‘n roll in NYC. That New York will never come back. It wouldn’t be possible today to have the lifestyle we had at the time. No cell phones and no social media made for a more focused, immersive, in-the-moment existence. The three of us walking and playing around NYC, being The Spells, was our platform. We lived it to the fullest and it couldn’t be cosplay.
After 28 years, The Night Has Eyes is finally released on Friday 31 October, 2025 on limited-edition vinyl (with accompanying booklet) via Garganta Press. Pre-order and download here on Bandcamp.
The Spells 2025. L-R: Marissa Poole, Nicole Barrick, Leni Zumas
