We had the chance to sit down with the phenomenal Kim jennett (Solo, Myke Grey, Voodoo Blood) to talk about the return of her breakthrough band, Voodoo Blood. We talk about their return and new single, as well as Kim’s experience on The Voice and her plans or the future!

What promped the return of the band?

I was writing for the Kim Jennett stuff, which is how I’ve released all my music over the last few years. When we started writing we realised it was kinda heavy and just sounded like a Voodoo Blood song. And it inspired me again to do all the creative stuff and do the music videos and lots of other ideas. It just felt right to do it as Voodoo Blood. It just fit.

It’s a lot more fun for me too, to be honest. It opens up a whole world for me to be creative in rather than when it’s Kim Jennett it’s just me. I feel like I can let go of that when I’m doing Voodoo Blood because it’s a character so it’s a lot more fun for me.

You mentioned the earlier writing, was that ‘Black Mirror’ (the recent single)?

It was, yes! That riffy kinda bluesy stuff that we started writing and this one sounded like Voodoo Blood. But then we do have a few other songs in the works that do sound a bit different, which are different from anything I’ve done. My boyfriend has got different influences to me, he plays with Geoff Tate, Queensryche’s old frontman, so he’s got that sort of other influences. But then we’ve got stuff that’s quite different and experimental so I’m quite excited to release that as well!

Is it a whole new line up aside for yourself?

Yeah, the actual band is just me and my boyfriend. We do all of the writing, he plays guitar and records me and does all of the production. It’s just us two and then depending on where we are in the world we can have different members. The other two are interchangeable for the moment.

Is the plan for an EP or album or are you just focusing on singles for the moment?

We’re doing singles for the minute but we are working towards having a release like an EP or an album down the line, yeah!

How did you come up with the whole Voodoo Woman persona?

It was strange. Voodoo Blood first started around 2018 and we were kinda just playing as much as we could, playing every single gig we could. But I didn’t have the persona yet. We did cover an old blues song by Koko Taylor, ‘Voodoo Woman’. We made it our own. She says ‘I’m the voodoo woman’ in the song and everyone at our shows started calling me the voodoo woman. It kinda developed from there.

My parents do the artwork for us and I wanted to take that idea and create a character for one of the EP artworks. Then I thought for one of the shows I’d dress up as this character and promote the EP and it all gelled together then and I became the voodoo woman!

I didn’t think of it as me playing a character on stage, it was still a band. I was just myself and it naturally turned into the Voodoo Woman. So now a large part of this project is creating a world around her and creating her backstory.

You were on The Voice last year. Why do you think shows like that doesn’t see rock as very positive?

It’s strange actually. The thing the judges said after I’d been on was very much ‘oh but it’s rock’ like that’s a negative thing. I think they said a similar thing to Nathan James (Inglorious) a few years before. I’m not sure, I guess they want music that everyone’s gonna like and I’ve got quite a different voice, I have that rock edge to it. I guess that pushed me into just what I want to do again.

I was going to ask, did that have an impact on your direction and plans after that?

Yeah it definitely did. It was like I did something quite commercial and I was doing my livestreams at the time, singing pop songs and covers. So I was doing the commercial thing and people still put me into that box of the rock one.

And I didn’t get to pick my own song, they picked their song for me. I don’t think it showed off my voice at all. I wanted to do an old blues song, ‘Cry Baby’ by Janis Joplin, which would have been brilliant. So it was like not everyone’s going to like me anyway so what’s the point in trying to please other people, I might as well do music that I enjoy, and I enjoy doing heavy rock music. I’m just going to do my only thing because I enjoy it and it makes me happy. Hopefully it’ll then inspire people who look at it to go ‘well, I’ll be myself too’. A big thing for me is inspiring others to be themselves. Embrace the different, creative, wacky side of yourself!

Do you have a dream tour in mind?

Of course I’d love to play with my influences like Halestorm, Ghost, Alice Cooper. Someone like that would be amazing! We just saw him on the Monsters of Rock cruise and it was just awesome. The show behind the music and the lineup – the musicians he’s got – are just excellent.

I didn’t really set out with this project thinking ‘I’m going to go and support another band’, this project is me being creative and if I am going to go out there and do a live show, I want it to be perfect. I want it to be a show, not just a gig. I really like the whole theatrical thing, not just a gig, I love that.

And finally, do you have any plans and ideas for the next few years for Voodoo Blood?

My goal is to be creative and to write music. I love writing the music videos and creating that whole world. My dream was to play Download festival and I did that a few years back. After that I just thought I’d play Download and that’d be it, I’d be happy then. Then that night I was still going back to my bedroom sat there thinking ‘fuck, what now? What’s gonna top that?’ and I actually felt quite sad.

So I thought what next? For me, to be able to do the music that I enjoy and to be creatively free, that’s what’s gonna make me happy so that’s what I’m gonna do. I’ve already seen a lot of people really liking the track which is nice to hear. But I’m out to do this to get all of this stuff that’s in my head out of there, it kinda keeps me sane. So that’s my goal really; to be creatively free and enjoy what I’m doing!

And there we have it! If you enjoyed our interview, check out our video ones from our YouTube here.