Q&A: Frankie and the Witch Fingers Embrace Collapse in New Album ‘Trash Classic’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photography Credit: James Duran
EVERYTHING’S TRASH AT THE MOMENT — When everything is reduced to a product; every thought, movement, feeling monetized and squeezed until it’s bone dry, something starts to fester. The glossy surface of late-stage capitalism is beginning to crack, and what seeps through is grotesque, chaotic and strangely exhilarating. That’s the world Trash Classic inhabits: a feral, electrified mutation of sound from Los Angeles psych-punk shapeshifters Frankie and the Witch Fingers.
Over the last decade, Frankie and the Witch Fingers have evolved with reckless abandon, with each record unfolding into a new metamorphosis. But with Trash Classic, the band tears through their own boundaries and plunges headfirst into the filthiest, fiercest version of themselves yet. The result? A fever dream of proto-punk venom, fractured new wave and industrial grime.
From its opening moments in “Channel Rot,” the album snarls and slithers, unapologetically wired with wiry synths, razor-edged guitars and rhythms that twitch like exposed nerves. Thematically, the record dives deep into escapism, decay, overindulgence and the strange beauty of societal rot.
The origin of this sound? It began in Vernon, LA, but the real transformation happened in Oakland, at Tiny Telephone Studio, where producer Maryam Qudus helped shape the sonic chaos into something unhinged and alive.
For Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Trash Classic marks a definitive turning point. It’s the sound of a band not just evolving, but mutating—ripping apart their past selves in order to build something jagged and wild. It’s dirty. It’s disorienting. And it’s fun—in the way only a truly unhinged punk record about collapse and excess can be.
If you’re brave enough to dive in, Trash Classic offers no salvation and is Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ most daring mutation yet.
Photography Credit: James Duran
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires the atmosphere or sonic world you aim to create for your listeners?
DYLAN: I think for this album in particular, we all have our own relationship with the styles of music. I think the intention was to add a lot more synthesizers in the mix. We were a four piece at the time and we were dreaming about being a five piece. We were open to the idea of making a record that forced us to be a five piece, so those were the two main catalysts.
LUNA: You just released your newest album Trash Classic and huge congratulations! What is the inspiration behind the project and what themes or emotions do you explore?
DYLAN: Everything's trash at the moment. We’ve been thinking about late stage capitalism, and what happens when everything's meant to just be monetized and suck to dry. I think everything's just a little trashy, and it's starting to bubble up at the surface. Maybe that's a little bit of what it is.
NIKKI: There's a lot of dystopian, futuristic vibes to it, talking about robots taking over the world and things like that. Dylan hit the nail on the head late stage capitalism. We're living through it. Everything's designed to break and you're meant to buy more trash, so that's what we're living in.
LUNA: Can you walk us through the creative process behind Trash Classic—from writing in Vernon to recording in Oakland with Maryam Qudus? How did that environment and collaboration shape the final sound? How did working with Maryam Qudus at Tiny Telephone Studios help you push the envelope sonically?
JOSH: We always try to switch up the recording process from each album. And in the past, we've gone to other studios, or we've recorded it all in house in Vernon. And this time, I think we were looking for a bigger sound, kind of a wider sonic palette. We met Maryam up in Boise, and I heard her record and was blown away by it, and found out she also produces and works at a studio, so it was a perfect combination. We spent eight days up in Oakland and had a blast recording with her in the studio, getting weird every day.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on the album — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Frankie and the Witch Fingers is right now?
NICK: “Dead Silence” is my personal favorite. I think if the album had a song that sums up the record, at least sonically, that one captures everything we’ve been working on trying to expand sonically.
NIKKI: I really like “Total Reset.” I feel like it's so fun to play live and it's so energetic. And to me, it's got a lot of different, faster, wild, carnival, off the rails vibes. It pulls in everything.
JOSH: “Trash Classic,” the title track, takes you on a nice journey.
LUNA: You've spent a decade shapeshifting as a band. Looking back at your discography. Did you take any creative risks or experiment with new approaches on Trash Classic? What felt different this time around in how you expressed yourself?
JOSH: I think using so many of our other albums have been based around the guitar as an instrument, and the guitar took a back seat on this record in lieu of synthesizers and sound effects and the vocals being more upfront. I think that was quite a change for us.
LUNA: Did you experience any personal or creative breakthroughs or lessons while working on the album that have shifted how you view yourself or your artistry?
NIKKI: I have a tendency to be really hard on myself, and was really struggling in the studio at a certain point trying to get it perfect. I had to come up against that and just learn to have fun and accept mistakes. I feel like I became another person. I'm really lucky that I have such a supportive group of people around me, because I feel like everybody was not only just cheering me on, but also reminding me how far I've come in this process of being in this band. It was very transformative making this album personally.
LUNA: Looking back now that it’s finished and out in the world—what does Trash Classic mean to you personally and creatively?
JOSH: It's another piece of trash out there in the world, another disposable part in the wind.
LUNA: How did you celebrate the album release?
NICK: We did three small, intimate rooms in New York, London and LA.. First in London at a small venue called Shacklewell Arms, and then a few days later in New York, at this place called Berlin in the Lower East Side Manhattan. Then Permanent Records Roadhouse in Los Angeles, and all very small, intimate venues, nice, sweaty rooms with a lot of energy. It was hard to believe that the album is out now.
LUNA: You’re currently on a headlining tour in support of Trash Classic. You’ve toured extensively over the years, but how does this tour feel different? What’s been most exciting—or meaningful—about this run?
JON: It's meaningful to me because I just joined the band, so I think that it's all been really exciting and new, and learning where everybody basically drew the answers to all the questions you just asked that I'm still finding my place in the equation. I'm just stoked in general to hit Europe as many times as we are this year. Then, of course, the east and west coast, we're touring with two bands that we all genuinely love. We're very stoked that we have such solid openers who are headliners in their own right. It's really nice to be able to share the stage with people that rip every night.
NICK: Specifically, when we went to Europe this last time for this tour, I will say that whenever we play in Europe, or really anywhere these days for a tour, there's usually at least one or two duds as far as turnout or crowd energy. I think we could all collectively say that even though not every show was sold out, still every show felt great as far as energy. It just seems like there's more and more people coming out to our shows and finding out about us, especially overseas too. That gave me a lot of hope. We're only growing from here, and that gave me a lot of positive reassurance that I think we all really needed.
LUNA: Do you have any pre-show or post-show rituals or regimens that help ensure you play your best set?
JOSH: We try to come together and do a couple deep breaths to center ourselves, and then we have a secret handshake, and if we don't do that, the show is not the same.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
NIKKI: Grateful. We have an amazing group of people behind us, homies, collaborators, like, it's all really in the midst of what's going on in the world. We're really lucky to have a strong community and be able to make art.
