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Five Questions: The Bastard Fairies

Taking indie music's DIY ethic to a whole new level, the Bastard Fairies make quirky, lo-fi folk rock that is at once catchy and bizarre. The duo, made up of guitarist Robin Davey and singer Yellow Thunder Woman (a Native American and direct descendent of a Yankton Sioux chief), recorded their debut album, Memento Mori, on a shoestring budget, using little more than thrift store guitars, children's instruments, and primitive electronics. Then they took their project to the web, making the entire album available as a free download on their website and posting homemade videos on YouTube. The response has been overwhelming—over 200,000 tracks downloaded, and 100,000 YouTube views and counting.

But no matter how many fans the Bastard Fairies may win over, their biggest fan might be Yellow Thunder Woman herself, as she reveals in her answers to our five questions...

1. Name a musician who has influenced your sound, but that people may not expect.

Tiny Tim, because he has a wonderful voice; my dad was a huge fan, he loved his voice, too. He wrote really cool, simple, insane songs which resonated within my own personal insanity.

2. Who or what inspires you to make music?

Anton from the Brian Jonestown Massacre; I think he is amazing and he really inspired me to get the Bastard Fairies up and running. The way he would make album after album without a care other than satisfying his own musical desires. I am also driven by the observation of people and their coping mechanisms. The album is cognizant on many levels of social issues; this comes from my love of philosophers like Zizek and also my appreciation of lawyers, doctors, and madmen.

3. Was there a driving concept behind your new album?

We just wanted to make our favorite album, one that we could put on, listen to, enjoy and then sit back and revel in the accomplishment of being the coolest fucking band in the world.

4. What's the most exciting part of the actual music-making process for you?

Writing the songs and being able to create something quickly; when we work together we can write 2-3 songs in a day. The album was mostly recorded in a week; when our creative juices start to flow we just have to crack open a beer, take the phone off the hook, and work.

5. If you could pick a dream band to open for, past or present, who would it be?

The Bastard Fairies, because we are so fucking awesome we are our own dream band. We could just sit there and look at ourselves, going, "Man we are so good looking, oh and just so talented." Then we could get mad at ourselves and decide that we needed to be taken down a peg or two, so when we came off stage we could be waiting to beat ourselves up, but that would just make us all the more powerful and we would feed off that and become super heroes and rule the world, but then we would realize ruling the world was just too much responsibility and just go back to making albums.

The Bastard Fairies' debut album, Memento Mori, is available now in the ARTISTdirect Store.