Desertfest: Interview with Cwfen

The band is called Cwfen, pronounced like 'coven'. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was called something else, but it's the Welsh spelling. The reason we picked it was, one, it's very difficult to find a name that hasn't been taken today in the age of the internet, but also in the part of Scotland that we're from in prehistoric times, they used to speak old Cumbric - so they actually used to speak a form of, like, ancient Welsh, rather than Gaelic.

So when we were rooting around, we came up with this name, and we thought, you know, it describes us perfectly. You know, we are a coven, we're a bunch of friends getting together to make something interesting, magic, music, whatever it is - and it just so happens it's producing albums. 

In terms of the ethos of the band, it was very much started as a vehicle for us as friends. We've all been making music for a really long time - we’re a lot older than people think we are which is great, but it means that we've been around the block a few times. We're at the point where we don't really want to play anything trendy or anything for anyone else, so we decided to start the band to just sort of make music that we were interested in playing and to kind of write the stuff that we wanted to write. 

It just so happens lots of other people seem to like it now, which is lovely.

Yeah it's interesting, because it didn't start from the point of view that we were writing an album around a particular theme, but that particular themes emerged through the writing of the music. There was a lot of sadness but we didn’t call it [that] because sorrows is something a little bit deeper. 

So in terms of the themes that came through in the writing of Sorrows, I'd started writing the music for this band coming out of the back of COVID. I'd had about 5 years where I wasn't really making music, and, you know, there were a lot of big, heavy feelings in the world and music is a really good vehicle for processing a lot of that stuff. There are songs on there that are about grief, there are songs in there that are about the empowerment of women and queer people, there are songs on there that are about kind of burning everything down and like overthrowing, you know, tyrants.

But all of that kind of emerged quite naturally. It was when we were sort of assembling things and putting them together after the recording, we were like, oh, there's a heaviness to these songs, not in terms of just that they're heavy because they are they’re metal songs, but there's [also] an emotional weight to the lyrics and where the songs came from - so I think we wanted a word that reflected that.

The original word that I actually had in mind was lament, because that's something that is culturally very important in Scotland, in terms of, you know, music to mark an occasion of sorrow, but it wasn't quite right. And so when I kind of dug down into it, I thought, Sorrows, was the perfect single word that was the through-line for all the music that we'd created.

Yeah, there's a couple of different things. The initial decision [behind it] was I was shit scared to go on stage just as myself - I'd always been like a rhythm guitarist and a backing vocalist. I'd never been centre stage before and the very first time we were gonna go and play live I had a real crisis of confidence, and, I was like, okay well I’ll put on my warpaint. But also, for me as well, it's become kind of a pre-show ritual when I'm putting that on; I'm thinking about all the shows that I've played before and I'm kind of like imbuing the face paint with that as well.

I vary it sometimes but it's always heavy, it’s always black and it gets me out of the mode of when I'm off stage, into Agnes mode when I'm about to go on stage and I'm about to tell these stories and sing these songs.

It's become that sort of like, transformative ritual between the off-stage and on-stage persona and I really enjoy it. It's a quiet moment for me just before going on stage where I can just, like, really get back in my body again. I don't imagine not doing it now. It has become such a part of what we do and what's been really nice as well, it seems to be something that people really respond to.

Seeing a woman, standing on stage, taking up space, looking a bit weird and creepy, as well - like I'm kind of all for that. I really enjoy doing it. It's all liquid eyeliner and eyebrow makeup - that's the only thing that doesn't come off on stage.

Just do it. Time is gonna pass anyway. And if it's a thing that you wanted to do, you should just give it a shot, right?

You're not immediately gonna start and book your first tour, but as long as you keep making your music, making your art, make it for you - make art, not content - and if you make the art and you find other people that like your art, that will continue to open doors for you.

Like the art is no good to anyone if it's just in your head or in your phone or in your computer. Share it with one person, just make the art and get it out there and you never know what's gonna happen as our result of that.

If it's something you really care about, that you really feel like if everything was gonna disappear tomorrow, you'd have any regrets about not making the art - just make it, just do it.

Oh my gosh. The Glasgow music scene is something else, like, Glasgow is a city that really wears its heart on its sleeve. People come out and support you, they're not genre snobs, so you will see the death metal people at goth shows, the Goth show people at the industrial noise show. Like, people just come out and they love music and people really, really support their scene. Your friends within the scene will share your stories with where you're playing, they'll turn up and see you and bring their friends - it's the most convivial music scene that I have ever been in ever. 

I lived in Edinburgh for a long time and it was very different, but this [Glasgow] is like a beautiful cross pollination of all of these different genres, as well, because people go to everything.

There are so many incredible bands in Glasgow that people need to see. Like, something is really happening in the heavy music scene - Gout, Mrs Frighthouse, OMO, Coffin Mulch, Healthy Living, All Men Unto Me - like there are so many bands.

And we have Core Festival there now as well, which is happening in November this year as well - people travel from all over the country to attend. There is something in the water, something’s bubbling and there's just incredible bands who just play the shit out of absolutely everything. So many of my favourite bands right now are local bands from Glasgow who are doing really interesting things, something that's never happened in my life before. So, there is something strange happening in Glasgow, it’s Glasgow’s moment.

Oh that is such a hard question, because we like so many different types of music and we like music that is not all metal as well... who would I love? You know, I would probably have someone like Anna von Hausswolff, where you've got like the big organ, like spooky stuff going on. I'm definitely bringing out Mrs Frighthouse. I love those guys, King Woman, I would love to tour with them, they're a band that have always really inspired me.

I mean, if I could go back through time, I would love to tour with 1990s Hole. Like, they were like one of the bands that when I was, you know, when I was playing my first guitar, I thought Courtney Love was the most incredible, inspiring, like, just absolutely incredible woman who just did everything that people didn't want her to do. And so, yeah, something like that, if I could, you know, bend the laws of space time and physics, I would definitely bring some smaller bands back from the past.

I am an almost 39-year-old goth woman, so I'm sure you can imagine that film's [effect on me]... Oh my god, the Crow soundtrack, like Burn by The Cure, the Violet Femmes song, like everything - I love that movie. I mean, still, if you watch it back, you know, it definitely has its flaws, but for someone who is of our age and has our inclination towards darkness, that was such a cultural touchstone I think for so many of us. 


I listen to that soundtrack, like, at least like once a month and I think it's probably the variation of things that you have on there as well, because you've got like NIN doing a cover and you’ve kinda got like all sorts.
That's kind of my music taste distilled into like one record, so that is the highest form of praise that you can ever possibly give me.

I love things like Lost Boys and stuff too but that's like too, that's very cliche and kind of like on the nose.
I would love to do something very bleak, something kind of, like, really in the landscape. Maybe something like, Under the Skin, something that was a book first, because I really love books.