How did you come up with the name?

TV: I went to the opening of The Art Lofts in New Orleans. There I was talking to my friends Jean Henri Chandler and Jeff Louviere. We were joking around about using demons and how you could trick them from guarding things of value like money. So the idea that there are demons that guard things that are valuable was part of it. The other part was that the Earth is the most valuable thing we as humans have so there’s an environmental aspect to the name as well - Green Demons are the demons who protect the environment. This theory or line of thought draws on a belief that angels and demons are the same things but demons have cooler style. 

 

How would you describe your sound?

TV: We have a lot of different sounds. The primary feature would be the double dragon or female and male vocals and solid drums.  Our early material was a mix of cow punk, Americana with some psychedelic and garage rock thrown in. We’ve had some changes in personnel in the band and each formulation had a different kind of overall thrust. After the first record we started getting more aggressive sonically. One of our original members left the group because she said she was blowing out her voice singing over the loud guitars. After Gwendolyn left the drummer, Keith Hajjar, also stepped away. We reformed with Billy Louviere on drums and Romy Kaye on lead vocals. This iteration was very bluesy and garage rock oriented. Jason Core left the band for a while during this period. A few years later Keith and Jason returned to the band and we added Rachelle “Red” O’Brien on vocals. This line up was super charged but only lasted a short while. Romy left the band. Geoff Douville joined as a guitarist because we thought Jason was leaving but he stayed so I moved from guitar to keys. We recorded a few singles in this configuration and those were a blend of the garage cow punk and some more metal or hard rock stylings. We lost Geoff to cancer (fuck cancer) and I went back to playing guitar. Jason left the band and Laurie Shefsky joined. This would be the line up that went into the studio to record what became our second album - Yeah, We Burn. Most of the Americana is gone except for the title track. The album is a pastiche of the songs and sound over the many years so it touches on a lot of different genres. Thematically throughout we have kept sci fi imagery and social awareness in our lyrics and sounds. 

 

How was the band formed? How/when did the members decide to start a band?

TV: I was in a sketch comedy troupe called St. Variety with Rich Siegel, Bill Davis and Chris Lee. We wrote really bawdy sketches and performed them at a local hole in the wall called The Saint. We had several local musicians and funny people join in as cast members and writers. One night at the end of a writing session I was playing guitar and Gwendolyn Knapp was over helping out with writing . We started playing a song about robots destroying the sunset. It was just random and fun and silly. Rich came in from the next room with a look of awe on his face. “You guys have to do a band together or something, y’all sound really good together.” And so we did. We got together and picked a couple of songs each that we had been working on and wrote a few more. We played our first gig for a Father’s Day concert at Crepe Nanou along with The Help and Dash Rip Rock.I asked Keith Hajjar and Bill Humphreys to be our rhythm section for that one show. 14 years later we still play together. 

 

When we first started playing live we had a hat maker from Lafayette, La make a felt hat with tentacles and eyes with wires inside so they could be twisted into different formations. We had a dancer that wore the hat and a green unitard costume. She would dance on stage often in roller skates. Gwendolyn and I would do comedy bits between songs. We had a trailer park alien abduction premise that we used to set up some of the songs. 

 

Over the years we had some different incarnations and played with some great folks that were “Stunt Demons” and we had a line up known as “The Dream Demons” and another called “The Greem Dreamons” Some of the players that have come through the line up are: Geoff Douville, Romy Kaye, Billy Louviere, Jeanne Stallworth, Chad Pallardy and Jason Core - we also have had some talented guests join us on stage and in the recording studio - Eric Laws, Laurence Benjamin Thompson, Anastacia Ternasky and Laura Laws.

 

The current line up started to take shape in 2017 when Rachelle O’brien joined and the band shifted to a more straight forward hard rock /punk energy. Laurie Shefsky came aboard in late 2019 and the unit that recorded Yeah, We Burn was established. 

 

 

If you had no choice but to become a cover band, who would you cover?

TV: X, The Rezillos 

 

How do you deal with creative block as a band? how do you continue to come up with new sounds/ideas as a group?

TV: Creativity hasn’t really ever been an issue. It has been more a matter of getting the band to agree on songs and practice times. In the beginning Gwendolyn and I wrote all of the songs together aside from the ones we had written previous to starting up the Demons. Jason Core introduced some really good progressions that Gwen and I wrote lyrics over and the band fleshed out. There’s lots of ways to skin a cat and we try all of them. Rachelle brought songs where she would have lyrics and a bass line figure that the band would arrange and sculpt. Keith and Jason are really great with arrangement. I got into the habit of making demos where I play all the instruments so I could get the feel for the song across to the band members. Then they take the recordings and come up with how they want to play their parts which gives the songs a wider berth.

 

What is the hardest part about being in a band? 

TV: Time. When I was younger and had less responsibility I could practice whenever. Now everyone I play with has families, jobs, other commitments. Another issue is finding a shared perspective on what the band is doing. Is it a bar band, a performance act, a recording project, a touring outfit or a bunch of friends that get together and blow off steam together? All of these are valid band situations but it is important that all the members agree as to which one you are doing.

 

What gets you through those times?

TV: The Green Demons have endured a consistent cycle of tough times. What has carried us through is that each of the members have a genuine care for one another - we are friends first and bandmates after and then friends again.

 

If your grandmother wrote a review on your band what would it most likely say?

TV: They sure can cut up. I don’t know what they’re on about but it looks like they are having fun, god bless ‘em.

 

Which song of yours was the most fun to write & make? 

TV: I think each member probably has their own answer for this - for me (Todd “Thunder” Voltz) the 3 songs that were the most fun to write and work out were Fuzzy Monster because it has a chase scene instead of a guitar solo, Outer Sex because their is a space alien possession during the bridge and a flying saucer ride in the outro and Bad Ass Demon because the night we wrote the lyrics to that song was so fun and I have never laughed so hard as I did when we came up with the line “as long as he brings the bad assest of drugs"

 

What helps bond you as a band?

TV: I know it’s corny but love binds us. Everyone in the band has been friends for a long time.