If you go to She Wants Revenge’s MySpace page you’ll find that Adam Bravin and Justin Warfield have categorized their California band as “other.” There are a few clues to decipher their musical style for the discerning reader, though. Listing Harmony Korine, Kubrick, Lynch, and Nosferatu as influences suggests a penchant for the macabre, while the snarling, “I wanna fucking tear you apart” lyrics playing in the background bring confirmation. So file them under… “I wouldn’t,” says Warfield, “but if forced to, I’d say Dark Dance Music.” It was a shared affinity for Hip Hop, not blood vile necklaces, that brought the two duo together back in 1987. “We actually met at the first party Adam ever DJd. It was in the San Fernando Valley, and was filled with skaters, gang bangers, and punk rockers,” recounts Warfield. “He was spinning stuff like Depeche Mode, New Order, and Afrika Bambaataa…but then he put on an Eazy-E record and I ran up and asked who it was ’cause I had never heard anything like it.” Bravin would go on to DJ for P. Diddy and produce with Dr. Dre, while Warfield fronted a few rap projects in the ’90s before experimenting with electro-rock, collaborating with bands like Placebo and the Chemical Brothers and starting the two-man outfit, One Inch Punch (whose song, “Pretty Piece of Flesh,” was on the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack). “We made beats together for months until we finally realized that it was limiting, given the range of emotions that we wanted to express musically,” Justin remembers. Emotional is one way to describe She Wants Revenge’s sound, which varies from instrumental numbers like “Disconnect,” an ambient track off their self-titled first record inspired by Vangelis’ Blade Runner, to the irresistible “Out of Control” featured on their sophomore effort, This is forever, that could cull the moodiest Goth onto the dance floor with fuzzy bass synths and precision beats, a la Depeche Mode. “It’s up to the listener to decide what the meaning and intent [of our music] is,” says Warfield, “and though I know that sounds pretentious as fuck, I honestly mean it.”
SAMANTHA GILEWIC
http://www.shewantsrevenge.com
http://www.myspace.com/shewantsrevenge
