Twin Temple unpack the roots of their satanic doo-wop

All sorts of animals are represented in the Los Angeles area home of Twin Temple’s Alexandra and Zachary James — including game trophies and skeletons of a full-term baby they’ve named Rose and of an adult known as Charles, the latter from the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London that was nicknamed Bedlam for its gruesome psychiatric care practices.

“We’re collectors of all things kind of weird and macabre,” Alexandra acknowledges, “and our whole house is kind of like one giant… I was going to say ‘living,’ but dead memento mori. It’s like late ’50s to late ’60s records and a bunch of dead humans around. We’ve always been drawn to the darker side of things, darker stories in life.”

There’s also an elephant in Twin Temple’s room these days.

The group, which the married couple formed after tenures in other bands, has been operating since 2017 and started releasing its self-identified “satanic doo-wop” two years later. Though the sound has more in common with the Countrypolitan brand of the late ’50s and ’60s, the duo’s macabre and sometimes bloody imagery along with defining songs such as “Satan’s a Woman,” “I Am a Witch,” “Burn Your Bible” and “Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy” have courted favor from the metal and punk realms, including tours with Danzig and Ghost, among others.