Hailing from Los Angeles, The Belladonna Treatment‘s sound is a tapestry of Rock, Dark Folk, Grunge, Southern Gothic, Rockabilly, and Punk. Their songs wind through stories both true and imagined, placing frighteningly powerful images in your mind’s eye with catchy chords and blended harmonies.
The band has landed in LA Weekly and ranked in the top 100 bands on both Bandzoogle and ReverbNation. The ‘Treatment has graced stages from the legendary Whiskey and The Viper Room to Craft Hill and Universal.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with the band about their music, challenges, technology and more.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We are from the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California.
We would consider our musical style generally as Rock, but more specifically a fusion of Dark Folk, Grunge, Southern Gothic, Rockabilly, and Punk.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Our band emulates the music we each individually grew up and fell in love with.
The love of music and what it does for the soul is an integral part of each of us and fuels the need to create and to hopefully bring enjoyment and happiness to those who listen to our songs.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
Our musical style has been evolving and refined over the last several years to what is now our collective and unique sound.
Not attempting anything specific other than to create music we each would enjoy listening to.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this over saturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
The biggest challenge seems to be getting our music out there and getting widespread exposure.
Technology hasn’t seemed to help yet as far as getting exposure. However, the ease of quality digital recording has made producing our material more possible.
What was the last song you listened to?
“Beginnings” by Jimi Hendrix; “I Drink with the Living Dead” by Ghoul Town; “Liquid Lunch” by Caro Emerald; “Trusty Chords” by Hot Water Music
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
We prefer the warmth of Vinyl, but MP3’s for practicality. Of course, we all still have our CD collections from back in the day too.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Not a fan of Spotify due to all the ads, but do like Pandora for the mix. We also use Amazon Music as a convenience having Alexa devices in some of our homes. Listen to Google Play and Apple Music too. Whatever fits our mood and situation at the time.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
You can connect with us primarily on our website:
www.the belladonnatreatment.com
We also have a Facebook page, YouTube channel, and are on ReverbNation and Bandcamp as well.
You can also find our music on all the streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon and Apple Music and the like.
Anything else before we sign off?
We as a band, have first and foremost, a passion for our friendship followed closely by our passion for music and our desire to create something heartfelt, homegrown, beautiful, and honest, all with a good backbeat.
We are guided by a nostalgia for music created with real instruments and limited studio magic without being an overproduced EDM/DJ with slick packaging instead of musical talent.
