New York goth-folk duo Charming Disaster is steeped in mojo from the instant you see them. From the heavy eyeliner, customized costumes, and a catalog of albums that dabble in everything from murder ballads to magic to folklore, the duo excels in understanding the importance of visuals with their songs. As I learned while attending an intimate assembly inside of Twelve Vultures, experiencing one of their shows hits on all of your senses. We sat down to discuss what moments have influenced the bands image and goal as performers, as well as the early sparks for their style.
While both carry memories of failed attempts in fashion, Ellia Bisker notes that playing dress up has always been a love. There was always a costume trunk filled with options that her friends would dig through, staying up late and putting on fancy dresses to take photographs in. Before it was coined cosplay, Ellia was a pioneer in stepping outside of normal by mixing weird clothes together for costumes.
“Growing up there was a sense of inventing yourself, like Halloween was about creating a costume. We all looked down on store bought costumes in my family. You have to make that somehow from scratch. So costume was always important,” Ellia shares.
That carried into thrifting at the Salvation Army and getting into an old man phase of style with a kind of androgynous, v-neck sweaters and tweed pants. Ellia admits that it was not very flattering stuff. Another resource for her became estate sales, when someone dies and all their belongings are up for grabs. Her top find being a dark navy blue polyester dress with while polka dots. It was comically too many sizes big for her, but she wore it to school feeling like a million bucks because it was so over the top. The final moment that tied everything together was when her mother finally allowed her to wear eyeliner to school. She had been begging for this and remembers her mother teaching her how to line her eyes. All of her school photos from then on have heavy eyeliner, which now transcends into her Charming Disaster persona.
Jeff Morris had always thought he dressed cool, but looking back at photos from high school with his big frizzy hair, Oxford shirts with the sleeves cut off and tie-dyed, with white jeans, he realized it was comically bad. Although it wasn’t important in his family to go out and shop for clothes, he learned how to be self-sufficient in altering clothes with scissors and dye. This DIY skill was his path to express himself and grasp how to make something his own.
He remembers in high school wanting a suit with a skinny tie, much like the Beatles had on the Ed Sullivan show. But finding simple options like black jeans was harder back then. Unique Jeans and Trash & Vaudeville were options in New York, but oftentimes very expensive. They gave you ideas, which he used to find ways to piece together outfits from other places.
You can see this same skill still being exercised in Charming Disaster. He has the ability to combine clothes from different resources, pairing them with customized options to make a uniquely distinct outfit.
“I’ve always appreciated musicians who dressed differently on stage than off stage. Bringing that heightened kind of reality to the stage is something I’ve wanted to do. David Bowie is obviously the style icon of achieving this.”
-Jeff Morris
Music certainly influences their style, but only in a small way. Ellia credits PJ Harvey in how she stylistically creates each album that is not only sonically different, but her look changes for each one. It could be more drag queen or more sparse, but that identity was something that could be easily reinvented with each project.
Both Jeff and Ellia look deeper into what’s influenced them outside of musicians. Jeff acknowledges thrift stores and how proprietors tweak their collections by combining different looks together. Recognizing the styling abilities and how to make something out of random pieces is a huge inspiration for him. While Ellia looks back at the circus as a guiding factor. She came of age as a performer working with circus artists and in witnessing the transformation between your street self and your stage self being an extreme difference. It also gave her a safe space to wear things that were very revealing and not have it be considered an attempt of trying to attract attention. She could be daring in that way, which was a formative thing growing up and translates into Charming Disaster.
The duo follows in the long history of danse macabre and changing our perspective on death and serious matters. By adding humor into subjects like crime, death, myth, folklore, and the occult, the band holds their hand out to welcome you into the heavy subjects.
Jeff thinks back to when they started playing together and the initial songs being about folklore and death, mainly influenced by the Addam’s Family and Edward Gorey sense of goth. There was a lighthearted darkness and certain tongue in cheek approach to mortality. Their music is about dramatic stories that can come from all angles of our world.
“So of course we’re having this interview at Twelve Vultures, which is full of taxidermy, but it’s these beautiful traces and relics of the things that get left behind. As artists, I think that’s what we’re aspiring to. To leave beautiful things that will outlast us,” Jeff states.
“I think that there are some things that are so terrible that the only way to approach them is through humor. I think that goes into music a great deal. Think about Tom Lehrer’s “Poisoning Pigeons In The Park” and that sense of humor in music, while alluding to something awful.”
-Ellia Bisker
Jeff found his dark purple/gray/black shoes from a vintage store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The striped shoe laces and socks were ordered online. His harder to find vertically striped pants are from Run and Fly. He bought a few pairs as the spandex doesn’t last forever, but are super comfortable and practical with lugging stuff around on tour.
The Stella Dallas vest has little Model T Fords on them. He thinks of them as little symbols of his touring buses for traveling. One of the buttons broke and had been replaced with a tiny memento mori skull. The pink 70’s disco tuxedo shirt came with a matching suit that he found on Ebay.
The jacket was found at Top Man and has embroidery on the side. He added the black feathers with hot glue to the look. Pro tip: you can’t get feathers dry cleaned. So when he gets the coat cleaned twice a year, he has to un-glue the feathers.
His wrist has a chain mail bracelet that was given as a gift from a fan on the tour. His lapel has a copper pin he also got on tour from a friend in a band called Doomsdale High, a horror tongue in cheek group.
Ellia is wearing Prada boots there were a lucky thrift store find. She has particular needs for stage shoes as she plays the high hat with her right foot. That little heel is good for leverage and not getting plantar fascitis from playing. Her mother, also an avid fishnet tight fan, gets most of Ellias’ pairs at Marshalls.
The black dress is another thrift store find and adds a bit of fluff. Although she’s tried corsets, the restriction of the ribs and breathing hinders her singing. The dress is fitted around the bust with a flair down to the knees.
The double breasted steampunk jacket is new and was originally tan. She’s dyed it red and added the black feathers to tie the duo together.
Her trademark headgear is an assemblage of stuff. There’s trimming with wire in it, adding height and shape to her look. It also helps not having to do her hair each and every show, saving time. The earrings are a tassel of feathers which she makes and sells at shows.
Practicality focused, Ellia typically installs pockets in dresses that can hold her kazoo for the show and phone for selling merch after the show.
Mojo can be hard to define but easily recognized when a band has it. Clicking through their long stable of music videos, Charming Disaster has a mènage of visuals that both correlate to their lyrics, while honoring the fashion and style. “Monsters” eerily mimics seeing them perform inside Twelve Vultures in Northeast Minneapolis. The surroundings being as much apart of the show as the duo, Charming Disaster create an ocular experience while an auditory feast happens in front. The duo expands their sound with a suitcase kick drum, high hat, kazoo, and wireless instruments that allow them to engage into the audience. Their performance of “Disembodied Head” was even more surreal singing to walls animal faces.
The ability for Jeff to dive into a deeper rich tone, with Ellia playing the thin ukulele is peanut butter to jelly. “Blacksnake” exemplifies that perfectly with the prodding rhythm and blend, with lyrics invoking circles of salt, vultures, scarabs, and and impending gloom coming your way. Vocals, instruments, and lyrics all align for a powerful scene that evokes feeling. For a duo that has been together for over 8 years and netted 5 storybook albums of songs, Charming Disaster should be a must-see experience to breakout your black eyeliner, fishnet tights, skulls, and imagination into the unknown.
“There’s something happening that’s outside of the day to day that we’re doing. There’s a heightened reality to it. It’s a little exaggerated, it’s a little theatrical, we’re stepping outside of the realm of the normal. We’re inviting you into that,” welcomes Ellia.
Following the band on social media, it’s easy to see that there’s no “normal” show for them. From the audience choosing Tarot cards to inform what they play next, to poetry readings, to circus artists performing at the same time, the level of intrigue and unexpected surprises is something you’ve most likely never witnessed before.
Charming Disaster transports you to another world with their music. That disconnection from your life and into another’s is what most artists strive to achieve in their songs. The New York duo does it with ease and certainly with the strength of mojo behind them.
Check out the links below to follow Charming Disaster and all the things we mentioned above.
Charming Disaster Website - Instagram - YouTube - Tom Lehrer - Danse Macabre - Edward Gorey - Twelve Vultures - Run and Fly
