Before Charley Crockett nixed a husband-and-wife duo from his tour last week over their use of “Satanic imagery,” it’s likely that few had ever heard the name Twin Temple. A cult band (perhaps literally) out of L.A., the group have released throwback rock and doo-wop songs with titles like “Lucifer, My Love” and “Satan’s a Woman.” Apparently that was too much for Crockett and, well, all hell broke loose online: Twin Temple announced they’d been removed from the shows, Crockett defended his decision, and then Jack White got involved, offering Twin Temple an opening slot at one of his upcoming gigs.
Today, vocalist Alexandra James and guitarist Zachary James announced their new album, Doomed Lovers, a project that puts Twin Temple squarely in the throwback country music lane. Think less outlaw country and more Patsy Cline. Arriving Oct. 9, Doomed Lovers was produced by Shooter Jennings — who also produced Crockett’s latest albums.
With all this twisted black magic to parse, we Zoomed with Twin Temple, who’ll tour with Danzig later this summer, to talk about the Crockett dustup, whether they’ll accept White’s offer, and whether they really do worship Satan.
How did you learn that you were no longer going to be opening for Charley Crockett?
Alexandra James: Our former agent got a call from Charley’s agent, and he just said, “Charley made the decision to remove you due to satanic imagery.” We just recently started working with a new agent, and we asked them to call Charley’s agent again to confirm, and that’s what they said.
Did someone complain? A venue? Promoter? Or was it Charley’s call?
AJ: The only thing we know is that it was due to satanic imagery. We actually got a note from one of the venue promoters that was just like, “I’m so sorry about this. We were looking forward to working together.” At least for them, it wasn’t coming from the venue side. Our agent said it came down from Charley.
In your Instagram post telling fans you were off the tour, you mentioned artistic freedom. Do you think that your artistic freedom is under assault?
Zachary James: These are Charley’s shows. Ultimately, it’s his decision, which, you know, is artistic freedom in its own right.
AJ: Artistic freedom isn’t guaranteed, so that’s something that we don’t take for granted. But I felt like it would have been a really cool statement on Charley’s part about music being able to bring people from different backgrounds together. I feel like music is maybe the hands-down most beautiful and powerful art form to bring people together. The reason why we were so excited about these shows was to build some of these bridges. Charley is a really talented artist, and I think we share so much musical DNA: our love of everything from Roy Orbison to Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Burrito Brothers, the blues. So, we’re a little sad. It felt like maybe it’s reinforcing a divide between artists.
Satanic imagery has been used in music forever. Everyone from Black Sabbath to Mötley Crüe, to the Misfits and Glenn Danzig. Even Sammy Davis Jr. got involved in the Church of Satan. Alexandra and Zachary, are you guys really Satanists?
AJ: Hell yeah! To us, Satan is a metaphor for exploring all of these things in our art. It’s the images that have always resonated with us. For me, growing up a mixed-race woman [of Korean and British descent], first generation in America, I’ve always felt a little bit like an outsider. And Satan’s the original outlaw, right? He’s a rebel angel. He’s the one who questioned authority, fought for himself, refused to bow down or conform, and was like non serviam. That was a metaphor that resonated very strongly with me.
I grew up reading gothic romance. Frankenstein really resonated with me because I didn’t see anyone representing me on stages or in film. It was the monsters that, I felt, were like I was. There were times growing up where we had the mob with the pitchforks coming out for me as a mixed-race kid. I got my first death threat when I was six. And so very early on, I learned, “I am never going to be really accepted by mainstream America. There isn’t a Barbie that looks like me.”
And that’s what we mean by artistic freedom: the freedom to explore the things that inspire and excite you, and for us, that’s our visual language. Freedom is what this country was built on — and we have an amazing constitution that protects these rights.
ZJ: America is kind of satanic at its core.
Is there a particular sect of Satanism you ascribe to? Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, for instance?
AJ: I think the thing that resonates with us with Satanism, or the broader tradition of the “left-hand path,” as you would call it, is that it is not dogmatic. So, there’s no proselytizing. There’s no, “This is the correct way to practice.” It’s very much about finding what works for you.
ZJ: It’s exploring subversive ideas, transcending cultural norms. Individualism.
AJ: But I do practice witchcraft. Zach does practice ceremonial magic. We are students of the occult and find the tradition very interesting, ideologically and philosophically. It’s all those things, and that’s really why we made Twin Temple in the first place. It’s really fun to go shopping for a human skull and a Ronettes record in the same day, and we get to do that with our band.
Shooter Jennings produced Doomed Lovers and the last few Charley records. Do you know how he’s balancing this drama with Charley?
AJ: He’s been supporting us and Charley through this, and I think that speaks a lot to his character of who he is as a human.
To be clear, you aren’t feuding with Charley Crockett?
ZJ: Not at all.
AJ: We still like his records, and we still respect what he’s doing for American music.
ZJ: We just had to make a comment because we had to notify fans. I mean, if it wasn’t that, we wouldn’t even have made a public statement.
Jack White has offered to have you open one of his L.A. shows in September. Where does that stand?
AJ: OK… We already have committed to this tour with Glenn [Danzig], and we do have a show in Anaheim with him on Sept. 26 with a radius clause. So, it’s really up to our Lord and Savior Glenn and his camp and the promoters how they want to do that. We obviously want to do it, but…
Even Satanists have to adhere to a radius clause.
AJ: I’ve been a White Stripes fan since I was a kid. “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” was the first song I learned on guitar. But we do have this date and we have to honor our commitment there. So, we’re trying to work it out.
Well, we’ll offer up a prayer to the dark angel that it all works out.
AJ: Be careful now! Are you going to put that in print?
Jay-Z performing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in Paris.
Jay-Z Deserves the Super Bowl Halftime Gig
Where’s the love? Jay-Z asked that question 25 years ago, in the chorus of one of many songs in his catalog that still move audiences today. If he performs “Heart of the City” as part of his Super Bowl halftime show next February, those indignant bars are sure to be a highlight: “First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up, somebody got a problem with Hov…” It would be an appropriate choice, too — because then as now, any time Jay-Z notches a new achievement, people find a way to complain.
The jokes and nonsense started almost as soon as the first rumors trickled out that Jay, whose company Roc Nation has executive-produced the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, might be choosing himself to headline next year’s show. “Jay-Z just Dick Cheney’d himself for the Super Bowl,” Puck‘s Matthew Belloni quipped on X last week, alluding to the time that the late prince of darkness, who’d been asked to run the vice-presidential search committee for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, put himself on the ticket. (Super hip and current reference, and not at all apples-and-oranges.) Others pointed to TMZ reports that pop stars like Harry Styles and Justin Bieber had been asked first. “How are they the frontrunners, and he end up in the front?” Cam’Ron, who’s delighted in trolling Jay for many years, wondered aloud on his podcast. “Out of all the people on the roster, they couldn’t pick nobody else?” asked Cam’Ron‘s co-host, Ma$e.
These critiques miss the point, which is that Jay-Z is one of the best choices for a high-profile gig like this. He’s a superstar with a comparable level of name recognition to any other A-lister in music. He has a deep stack of classic songs going back decades. And he’s a highly skillful live performer who knows his way around a stadium stage, as he’s spent this year reminding people on his Jay-Z 30 tour. He tore down Yankee Stadium three nights in a row this summer; just last week, he rocked SoFi Stadium, which happens to be the same place where the 2027 Super Bowl is being held. He held the crowd’s attention with ease at all of those shows, and though there were plenty of glittery guests — that’s a given at a Jay show, and it will surely be true at the Super Bowl, too — he did it mostly through the force of his own magnetic energy. Let’s state the obvious here: Jay-Z is really, really good at rapping. We’re talking about one of the slickest, sharpest talkers in the history of words, someone who made it to the top through a sustained act of myth-making, then kept going. Are we seriously asking whether he can handle a 15-minute televised performance?
And yeah, there’s a touch of self-congratulation in the way he appointed himself. So what? Praising his own gifts is arguably Jay-Z’s greatest talent of all. He made a fine art out of self-applause. He told his story again and again, retracing the steps from Marcy Projects to the corner suite, and he made us believe. It would almost be insulting to the audience if he didn’t give himself the gig at some point.
Pop culture observers in recent years surely remember the backlash to Super Bowl headliners like Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny — all of it at least culturally conservative, and much of it frankly just racist. The blowback to Jay’s announcement is mostly coming from other quarters, at least for now (let’s just wait to see what the right-wing swamps make of this one). But it’s disappointing in a different way. Jay-Z has spent his career expounding hip-hop as a mainstream commercial force. He’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man. But he’s also an artist. He’s made huge amounts of money, and gotten himself into the rarefied rooms where he even has the ability to give himself a gig like this, by spinning his experiences into compelling narrative art, one verse at a time. Let’s not lose sight of how impressive his life’s work really is. Jay-Z is not some random C-suite bro, and he’s definitely not Dick Cheney. He’s one of the greatest rappers of all time, by any measure. He’s earned that Super Bowl spot.