Honing its heavy sound since 2019, Temptress blends solid songwriting with gnarly riffs and punk-rock power.
Following the January release of its second album, Temptress begins a 21-city Southern tour next week. The band plays Mid City Ballroom in Baton Rouge on Thursday, Feb. 19, and Siberia in New Orleans the night after.
“I’m super excited,” Temptress singer-guitarist Kelsey Wilson said. “We’re playing a lot of places that I have not been to. Whenever we play down there (in Louisiana), we play with a local band and always get a good response.”
Temptress gets linked to a gamut of rock subgenres — metal, thrash, doom, stoner-doom, alternative-rock, post-hardcore, post-rock. The band’s New Mexico-based record label, Blues Funeral Records, colorfully describes its music as a “molten sonic blend that flows and obliterates like a liquid metal assassin.”
Wilson has a less hyperbolic description for Temptress.
“When people ask us, I just say we play heavy rock ’n’ roll. It’s not complicated,” she said.
Temptress features Wilson with drummer and singer Andi Cuba, the other woman in the group, and bassist and singer Christian Wright. The group briefly was a four-piece band featuring Wilson, Wright, Cuba and guitarist Erica Pipes. Wilson, Cuba and Pipes previously played together in the all-female punk-metal band Tricounty Terror.
“We could never find a solid bass player,” Wilson said of Tricounty Terror’s demise in 2018.
“A lot of it, too,” Cuba added, “was that Kelsey and I wanted to play different music. We weren’t into the aggressive, yelling, angry kind of thing. We knew what we wanted to do, and the only way to do that was to start something new. That’s where Temptress came in.”
Unlike Tricounty Terror, the Dallas-based Temptress quickly found a dependable, experienced bassist. Alabama native Wright, a musician since childhood, played guitar in a Dallas folk-punk band before joining Temptress.
Wright’s bass fell in naturally with Wilson’s guitar and Cuba’s drums.
“They’re both ear players,” he said. “I hate to say it’s like a jam band, but that’s what I’m talking about.”
“We did our first tour as a three-piece and found a really cool sound,” Wilson agreed. “It’s organic as it could be.”
All three members of Temptress write songs as well as sing. That musical depth expands the group’s sonic potential far beyond, for instance, a band with a lead singer-songwriter-guitarist backed by a rhythm section.
“That makes us unique,” Cuba said. “I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Man, y’all just sound different.’ We have three viewpoints that come together to make this sound.”
The band’s members hear how much musical progress they’ve made from “See,” the debut album they released in 2023, to this year’s “Hear.”
“The first album, we were all getting to know each other,” Wilson said. “This one, you can tell we know each other’s playing style. We’re working together more on each other’s songs and more of our personalities are in this album.”
Wilson counts classic rock and metal as influences in general and, specifically, Lamb of God, Slayer, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd. Cuba spent her formative years listening to grunge rock of the 1980s and ’90s. Seattle’s Soundgarden and New York City noise-rockers Sonic Youth are high on her list. Wright’s touchstones include Bad Brains, Firehose, Minutemen and Hüsker Dü.
Seven years into their group’s existence, Wilson, Cuba and Wright have some basic goals.
“I just want the group to play music I love for people who enjoy it,” Wilson said. “Just do that all over the country, and see how far we can go. There’s the fame aspect, but I never think about that.”
Wright likes the catharsis performing gives him and the community of friends his fellow musicians provide.
“When I’m on stage, it’s a great stress reliever for me,” he said. “And most of the people I know, outside of family, are from the music scene. All my friends are musicians.”
Cuba doesn’t project far into the future, but she does have a short-term goal.
“For this band, right now, I hope that our new album is heard and appreciated by as many people as possible. We put so much into it, and it’s a really good album. I hope it gets the credit it deserves.”
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