Dylan Fraser and Alaska Reid were never meant to be in a band. For the two singer-songwriters, their solo endeavors have been the main focus for the past few years. But sometimes between artists, there’s a certain spark — a ‘twin telepathy,’ if you will — that becomes undeniable.
“We want to bring back band music, make it less boring and one-dimensional dude-centric,” Reid tells PAPER. “I miss that real energy and rock star lore that people talk about when they talk about Blur or Fleetwood Mac.” In comes Witch Post, the new project between Reid and Fraser, who hail from Montana and Scotland, respectively. The two met online and came up with the idea for the band a year ago, initially bonding over the shared name of their hometowns Livingston from different sides of the globe.
Both Reid and Fraser bring their own musical baggage to the band, and it’s working in their favor. Reid, a Montana kid with big dreams, cut her teeth on Americana-tinged indie rock (go stream Big Bunny and thank us later), while Fraser’s breakout EP, The Storm, cemented him as Scotland’s brooding alt-pop prince. Together, they’re like a sonic match made in witchy heaven, blending their strengths to create something both nostalgic and now.
For them, it’s all about building lore, the kind of teenage imaginative interest that we all experienced when discovering a new band back in the day. “I think it’d be fun to get people excited about the music in a way that it becomes word of mouth,” Reid says. “‘Oh apparently for that ‘Chill Out’ vocal take, Dylan had just projectile vomited all over the street’ or, ‘Alaska thought up the name Witch Post because she kissed an actual 17th century witch post and got followed around by a black cat.’”
With two songs under their belt, Reid and Fraser are focused on summoning more at the moment. Sometimes witchy undertones make for music magic and given their output so far, Witch Post are sure to become alt-rock wizards in their own right.
We sat down with the two to discuss their inception as a band, how they want to be perceived and what the future holds.
How did you two come together?
Dylan Fraser: It’s September 13th, 2021. I’m on a train from London back to Scotland, a journey I wasn’t unfamiliar with during this time in my life. I’d just finished a tour around the UK and was heading back to my childhood home. My life had rapidly changed in the space of a year. I’d gone from a small town in Scotland to being in London making music and partying. I was having the time of my life but also feeling the pressure of the music industry slowly creeping in. This train ride was the only free time I had with absolutely zero distractions and it was the time where I could discover new music and artists and listen to an album in full. I don’t remember quite how I stumbled upon Alaska Reid but it felt like she just appeared one day on my Spotify. I was intrigued by her album title “Big Bunny,” so I clicked on it. I listened to the album in full and I remember being completely taken by her voice. I had never heard anyone sound the way she did. I decided to reach out and tell her how much I loved the album. She responded to me, gave me thanks and told me she was coming to London in mid-October and that we should write some music together, and we’ve kept doing that ever since.
What references or inspirations do you two most agree on and how have they influenced your vision for Witch Post?
Alaska Reid: Big guitars, emotional vocals, stories. We love rock music, and we love scrappy, romantic-sounding songs. With this band we’ve been making an effort to reference different influences or different elements than we do with our solo projects. I’m always obsessed with The Replacements and being in Witch Post has been a good opportunity to not just think about, “What would Paul [Westerberg] do?” from a songwriting perspective, but also from a production perspective. Dylan loves Sonic Youth and I do too and I think it’s been really fun for us both to use each other's voices when writing, playing with contrast of male/female vocals. We’re both really into The Waterboys and Fleetwood Mac at the moment.
Tell me about “Chill Out” and how that song came to life.
Dylan: It happened really naturally. We were fucking around with guitars and Alaska started playing these chords and I just started singing the verses over the top. The words just sort of came out and have mostly stayed the same since that day. We wanted “Chill Out” to feel like a crooked teeth, sweaty bar conversation of a song. A rough around the edges track. Diving into the venomous tongue that comes with a relationship breaking down. In our heads it’s a couple having a fight in a bar. I almost wanted it to feel like a Fairytale of New York. I love the back and forth in that song. Conversational lyrics are exciting to me.
What space do you envision Witch Post filling in the music landscape, especially given both of your backgrounds as musicians/producers?
Alaska: I want to make music that I’d enjoy listening to. We want to bring back band music, make it less boring and one dimensional dude centric. Sometimes I feel that currently it’s as if all the cool songwriter personality and emotion have just been sucked out of the rock scene and we’re only left with a hipster bro in a “rock n’ roller” outfit. I miss that real energy and rock star lore that people talk about when they talk about Blur or Fleetwood Mac. I think it’d be fun to get people excited about the music in a way that it becomes word of mouth, “Oh apparently for that ‘Chill Out’ vocal take, Dylan had just projectile vomited all over the street” or, “Alaska thought up the name Witch Post because she kissed an actual 17th century witch post and got followed around by a black cat.” When I was a teenager, this was all I cared about, music lore and fantasy books. I guess we’re finally combining the two.
Anything else exciting coming/that fans need to know about Witch Post?
Alaska: We have many songs that we have summoned. We’re going to howl at the moon in the new year.
Photography: Andrew Mishko
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