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“Not today, Satan”… or “Hell yeah, Beelzebub”?
A split is taking place in the polarizing realm of devil-rock, as practiced by self-styled “Satanic” duo Twin Temple. On Friday, country singer Charley Crockett took to social
media to defend his decision to drop the act from his tour dates — even as Jack White piped up to offer them a high-profile spot on one of his shows.
White took to Instagram Friday to make an offer: “Twin Temple, would you like to open my show in L.A. on September 29th at the Hollywood Palladium? Let me know. Get in front of me Satan!” (That quip was a whimsical twist on the White Stripes’ 2005 album title “Get Behind Me Satan,” which was an interpolation of Matthew 16:23.)
Twin Temple quickly and enthusiastically responded to the offer. “Unholy hell…. Sir Jack, you have no idea what this means to us,” they responded in his comments. “Lifelong fans — ‘Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground’ was one of the first songs I (Alex) ever learned on guitar. We were actually planning on coming to this show. It would be a most infernal pleasure to play the devil’s music with you.”
Others joined in with shows of support, apparently unafraid of getting caught up in spiritual warfare. “Viva Anton LaVey!” wrote singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis, of Rilo Kiley fame, referring to the late founder of the Church of Satan, in her support of the act that performs seemingly tongue-in-cheek anthems like “Lucifer, My Love” and “Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy.”
Meanwhile, Crockett, the acclaimed country indie-traditionalist, was not backing down after having made the call to dump the duo from opening his shows.
“I won’t conform and I’m not sorry,” Crockett wrote in the caption to what his currently his lone photo on Instagram. “There are many things I’ve done in my life to apologize for but this ain’t one of them.”
Crockett’s lengthy message didn’t go too narrowly into the subject of dropping Twin Temple from his bill, while he did address opening acts in general, along with spiritual power and “shameless exhjibitionists possessed by the desire to be famous and have the public’s adoration.”
Wrote Crockett: “I might wake up at 1 p.m. on the back of that bus and find out that the opener ain’t working for me that night. Tough luck. Life is hard. This ain’t no temp agency. Get to stepping. Shit you might get you a life changing gig just by standing next to me. That’s magic. I’m not gonna advertise my charity out here because as soon as you do, it ain’t nothing but self promotion,” he said, in what could have been taken as a response to White publicly announcing his invitation to Twin Temple.
He got more philosophical from there. “I’m not on the left. I’m not on the right,” Crockett wrote. “I’m on the road, and that’s a hard way to go. Believe me, the pace would kill you, bronc. I don’t give a damn whether you think I’m right or wrong. They say love your struggle. I say love the strength the creator gave you to overcome your struggle. Don’t believe in any kind of spiritual power? I’m sorry to hear that. God is the fabric that ties all life together. No need to even define or institutionalize it. The entertainment business is chock full of shameless exhibitionists possessed by the desire to be famous and have the public’s adoration. I swear they’d kill a relative. I see them everywhere. Been betrayed by many. Always stricken by the crack smoke and just dying to get ahead. I love what I do and I’m grateful for the privilege every minute, and if everybody disappears I’ll go back to the street corner where I started. Hell, sometimes I dream about it. Shout out to Angel in New Orleans who told me that if you wanna get high boy you got to start down low. I’ve found that about the only help you get out here in this business is when they lower the box.”
Reaction in his comments was mixed, with some supporting Crockett’s “backbone” and others saying he was hurting himself by belaboring the subject. Some expressed mixed loyalty, as Crockett and White have a good amount of overlap between their respective fandoms. Many just wondered how an act like Twin Temple could have gotten booked for Crockett dates in the first place, and whether it was his responsibility to just grimace and bear it, or not, after they were.
Twin Temple, a husband-wife duo formed by singer Alexandra James and guitarist Zachary James, broke the news on their social media Thursday, writing, “Today we were informed that Charley Crockett has decided to remove Twin Temple from his upcoming shows next week due to our Satanic imagery,. Unfortunately, that means we will not be able to perform for you next week as planned. We are really disappointed as we were looking forward to getting back out and seeing you, and also what it means as far as bringing different types of people and music lovers together. … We’re grateful for your support, not only of Twin Temple, but more importantly of artistic freedom. HAIL SATAN!”
Crockett seemed taken aback by the pro-Satan nature of the act, which, however humorously intended, invokes classic totems like pentagrams on stage — a routine likely to go over better when they open for Danzig, as they will be in September, than with a crowd full of fans of traditional country. “I thought they were like Black Sabbath, but they ain’t. Not today, Satan,” Crockett wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone Thursday. Later, in a since-deleted Instagram post, he added, “Fuck Trump. Fuck Epstein. But hail Satan? Not me Jack.”
