Witchsister

Stephanie Petet saw something lacking in the Fayetteville, Arkansas music scene — namely, a lack of female-driven rock bands raising the bar. Striving to amend this, she enlisted the help of her sisters and cousin to form Witchsister, a high-energy rock band with something to say.

“Cat Called” is prime Witchsister. There are fast guitar and bass riffs that carry the ability to create anxiety while empathizing with it, a beat that will propel your own heart, and vocals that drive the heaviness of the track without moving into shouting. This is a balance of melody and frustration that comes across as artful. The same can be said of the accompanying clip.

The video for “Cat Called” shows the women in various states of heading out on the town. Whether they’re getting ready with each other, being interrupted on the streets of Fayetteville, or releasing the pent up frustration in live performance, it’s clear to see that this is a band with a passion for what they do. As the song picks up speed, the visuals start to distort into colourful visions of the sky and the road. It’s snapshots of the band living their life: for all the good and bad that this encompasses. - New Sick Music

Witchsister’s ‘Cat Called’ is grungy female-fronted hard rock with an alternative edge. “Rock and roll isn’t just for the boys,” the band says, “and it isn’t just for big cities on the coast either. Witchsister, an all-female rock band by way of Fayetteville, Arkansas is here to prove they have what it takes to rock out and melt faces.” These girls are quality musicians and they have a powerful message to back it up. The production on here is top notch. The gritty tone amplifies their scratchy riffs into a rolling death squad. Behind that, strong percussion and a quality bass line lay down a good bed for the awesome vocals. You’ll definitely want to hear more from these girls. Check out ‘Cat Called’ below! - Rock the Pigeon

Witchsister are going in a completely different direction but may actually have ended up closer to traditional punk than they intended. ‘Cat Called’ is the newest track from the American quarter and it’s unrefined, it’s imperfect, it’s raw and it’s catchy. The vocals go from in tune to borderline to experimental as the track swoops and soars through it’s three and a half minutes barely giving you time to catch your breath in there. If you just want a release these are the place to go. - Mind Noise Network

Rock god Ann Wilson was fuming. A record promoter had just busted through her dressing room door during a Detroit show in 1977. His misogyny in full display, he spouted some non-sense about where her “lover” could be, simply because two women were gracing an advertising spread together in Rolling Stone. But she then got even and turned that rage into art. She wrote the highway-barreling tune “Barracuda,” from Heart’s Little Queen record, and it’s time-imprint is as fresh today as it was then. “I hope that that song will come in handy now when women are thinking about what they want to do and not do,” Wilson told the magazine this January.

In that same wide-ranging interview, Wilson made one of many points about pressures on women to always be accessible, always on, always sexual. “Women accept willingly that they have to turn themselves inside out to be good enough – big, plump fish lips, makeup, fuckable. It’s really a problem for young women in their childbearing years. They need to realize they are more than wombs. They need to realize they are valuable,” she said.

Men are driving the bus, and the music scene remains thick with body odor and sensitive egos, fostering an environment of unobstructed sexism. A woman’s value takes the backseat to what men have desired, on society’s terms, of course. Musician Stephanie Petet, who fronts and rips into rhythm guitar for Witchsister, a rock band out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, had damn near enough when she decided to mount a project of all women. “I was sick and tired of men telling me what to do, how to play, what to say,” she says.

The band’s new record, Good for a Girl, appropriates what she’s been hearing for years ⎯⎯ that she’s “good for a girl” when it comes to the craft. “We’re using the phrase because it reaches a larger population of anything female. We’re using it as aWith the skin-burning single “Cat Called,” she hisses and spits her way through a day in their life. “Wake up and drive somewhere new…with only so much time to talk…while getting cat called in Kansas,” quakes the first verse. Then, on the second, the vicious cycle begins anew, “I can’t remember where we slept last night / I’m covered in sweat, nothing on the radio yet…while getting cat called in Texas.” The venom pours from her mouth, fueling the fire that she’s ignited across each city’s ruins. The smoke twists around the buildings, and the earth cries for relief.

That’s the state of the world: one gigantic pot of rancid stew.

Throughout much of Good for a Girl, the band ⎯⎯ rounded out by Stevie Petet (on bass), Skylar Petet (lead guitar and vocals) and Kelsey Petet (drums) ⎯⎯ works as one, but its pieces are distinct, vibrant and clawing, gasping really, for breath. “Flowers” gets the blood going, the palpitations exploding in punkish fashion, while “Awake” is considerably more subdued in tone. At the core, the album hinges on creating and claiming “your own power,” says Stephanie. “No one will give it to you. People take and take. Feed your power.”

Facing the world together, the quartet grit their teeth and tear through some damn gooey rock ‘n roll that serves as a reminder that good music is good music. “It is also a statement of equality,” Stephanie stresses. “We don’t want all women musicians to always be a novelty. It doesn’t always have to be one ‘chick’ in the band.”

Stephanie, Stevie, Skylar and Kelsey exercise immense aptitude at the mic, lashes licking at the eardrums. While the songs “are technically changing” with every passing minute, the “concepts become more specific,” she writes of their growth over one extended play, 2014’s self-titled, and now two full-length records, including 2016’s Time Out. “We’re going through shit.” Conclusively, these are among the lessons they’ve learned most as a touring act: “Drink more water. Don’t eat old warm hot sauce. Or a cold can of black beans. Or a quesarito from Taco Bell. Support your support acts.” marketing tool to make people think about when and how they’ve used that phrase,” she writes in an email to B-Sides & Badlands. “I’m not just good for a girl. I’m good, and I’m a girl. My gender doesn’t define my technical ability, and it shouldn’t define your perception of my abilities.” - B Sides and Badlands