Chicago vocalist and songwriter Kira Leadholm is obsessed with all things spooky and mysterious. It’s why today, October 31, aka Halloween, is a date that she circles on her calendar each year.
“Ever since I was a kid, Halloween has been the highlight of my year,” Leadholm says. “I love designing and making costumes, and there’s something freeing about assuming another identity for an evening. I feel especially in my element during the spooky fall months.”
“This year, I did a Lady Gaga cover set at GMan [Tavern] and performed in a meat dress (meat fabric, not real meat). On actual Halloween, Kev [Sheppard] and I are going as Lance and Nina from Portlandia.”
For Leadholm, her band Madame Reaper – which also features Austin Myers (bass), Kevin Sheppard (guitar) and Tony Mest (drums) – falls into that same realm and lets her joyfully keep the spooky party going all year long. She’s created a character oozing in stories to tell with a charismatic and gothic personality and a spooky world to roam in. On the band’s self-released debut album Madame Reaper’s Gentlemen’s Club, which came out last month, Leadholm and her bandmates conjure up a spooky sound she describes as “vampire synth pop.” It has a cabaret-like feel to it and should appeal to Rocky Horror Picture Show fans.
Here are a couple videos of the band from earlier this year:
(Video credits: Kira Leadholm – vocals; Austin Myers – bass, Kevin Sheppard – guitar, Garen Hudson (no longer in the band) – keys, videographer, audio engineer)
We caught up with Leadholm recently to talk about the origins of the band and its namesake character, what vampire synth pop means and the surprises and thrills she and the band stumbled upon on their journey recording their debut.
It sounds like you put a lot of thought into the band’s name and creating a specific character and setting. Why did you pick the band’s name? What’s the story behind the name?
My undergraduate degree is in creative fiction writing, and one exercise I did a lot during school was figuring out every detail of a character’s life, regardless of whether those details ended up in the final piece. Knowing things like where your character grew up, what their favorite food is, or when they first experienced heartbreak make it a lot easier to write believable characters. It’s the same for music—knowing who Madame Reaper is and understanding her context helps me write music that’s cohesive. It also has helped me develop a brand, which for better or worse is an essential aspect of being an artist.
With that said, it wasn’t really an intentional decision to build Madame Reaper out to the extent I did. I just knew I wanted to draw a line between my stage persona and who I am in real life. Then out of nowhere, her entire backstory hit me over the head and I wrote it down as soon as I could. I was so excited about it that I wrote an entire first chapter to what would be a novel about Madame Reaper.
In short, Madame Reaper owns a strip club in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Illinois. It’s sometime in the second half of the 20th century, so there are a lot of elements of pop culture nostalgia. She permits her employees to murder lewd customers—activity that the townspeople are well-aware of and let slide because Madame Reaper brings business to the town. However, the police eventually catch wind of her operation and shut the whole thing down, leaving the town dilapidated. She disappears never to be seen again.
How did everyone meet and decide to form a band? How would you describe the band’s chemistry?
In Spring 2022 I was in the early stages of recording the album and wanted to start playing out live. Unfortunately, I knew very few people in the Chicago music scene. To meet bandmates, I heavily leaned on my now-drummer Tony, whom I met outside the Golden Dagger sometime in early 2022. Tony knew Kev through Girl K, so that’s how I met Kev. Tony plays with us now, but ironically he didn’t start playing with us until May 2023. And I met my bass player Austin through another mutual friend. Long story short, it was just a lot of networking (my least favorite activity) and meeting people at shows until I found people crazy enough to join my project.
I think our chemistry is pretty solid. Kev and I are dating and we live together, which makes rehearsing and writing pretty convenient. And Tony and Austin are both really good friends–sure, we work together, but we also like to hang out and joke around. Honestly, the biggest issue within the group is finding time to rehearse, because everyone plays in like ten projects.
You’ve called the band’s music “vampire synth pop.” Why do you think that? What draws you towards that spooky kind of sound? What bands influenced you most?
To dissect that a bit, the “vampire” comes from the eerie undertones of the Madame Reaper story and the overall goth vibe of the project. It might be self-explanatory, but the “synth pop” portion comes from the fact that I make synth pop music.
I’ve always been drawn to tunes in minor keys or other unconventional keys because I think they just sound really beautiful. I’m also attracted to experimental synth sounds, which I think take on a spooky feel a lot of the time. With that said, I don’t always stick to minor keys—there are several tunes on the record that are more upbeat musically but lyrically are still pretty emo.
When I wrote the album, I was listening a lot to the French band La Femme and was inspired by the way they create sonic landscapes by layering instrument takes. I was also listening to Prince’s 1999 a lot, which led me to use a lot of sounds from the Linn LM-1 drum machine—the same one he used on that record. I looked to earlier electronic projects like Kraftwerk and New Order for inspiration on how to incorporate electronic drums and synth sounds into my tracks. And vocally, I’m really inspired by early MARINA (formerly Marina and the Diamonds), Kate Bush, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the B-52s.
What song had the biggest impact on the direction of the album and why?
Probably “Bang Bang.” It was one of the first songs off the album that I wrote, so it informed the Madame Reaper persona, her backstory, and the rest of the album. Certain elements from this track, like the elaborate harmonies and backing vocals, became through-lines across the whole album. And sonically, “Bang Bang” is quintessentially Madame Reaper with it’s eerie composition and macabre lyrics. If I ever were to shoot a music video for this song, it would definitely take place at Madame Reaper’s club.
(Madame Reaper at Sleeping Village; photo credit Margo Santiago)
What were the most surprising songs to write?
I think if there’s one that sticks out, it’s “Forest Fire.” It has a jazzier feel to it and leans into bedroom pop. Generally, my brain doesn’t go in that direction when I write. But when I wrote “Forest Fire,” a guitarist I was working with at the time showed me this chord progression and it just stuck. Eventually, that chord progression became “Forest Fire.”
Where did you record and who produced it?
I recorded drums and some of the vocals and instruments at a friend’s studio located in the Treehouse Records building. But besides drums, I mostly tracked everything at home! I produced most of the record, but my mixing/mastering engineer, Max Grazier, is credited as a co-producer because he contributed essential production during the mixing process.
How would you describe your/the band’s songwriting style?
I pretty much write all of the bass, synth, and vocal parts, although my bandmates contribute little flourishes during tracking. I’m not a great guitar player, so Kev and I collaborate on writing guitar parts—sometimes I give him free reign, other times he’ll figure out a way to convert a synth part I’ve written to guitar.
My writing process usually begins with an idea for a melody or chord progression that I’ll record as a voice memo on my phone. So many of my songs started by me humming in the car and thinking “I actually like that.” Then, I build out an instrumental version of the song in my DAW using midi. I like using midi because it’s really malleable—you can easily change parts and sounds without having to re-record everything. Next, I’ll write the lyrics, record the vocals, and build out BGVs and harmonies. I think I’m unique in that once I have a demo recorded, I fully mix and master it to see how everything might sound once the track is finished.
How has Chicago most influenced you and the band musically?
I’m not sure that we’ve been super influenced by Chicago musically per se. I have this weird fear where I feel like if I emulate a Chicago artist—especially one that’s currently making music—it’ll be blatantly obvious where I got the influence from and everyone in the scene will think I’m ripping off someone else’s ideas. That’s why I mostly draw my musical inspiration from bands that are either no longer making music or are based across an ocean.
But beyond the actual music, I owe literally everything to Chicago. Everyone in my community who has made this project possible is connected to Chicago, and everything I know about being an artist is due to someone in Chicago who helped me out.
Kevin Sheppard from Girl K plays guitar in the band. How has playing with him helped you as a songwriter?
Like I mentioned earlier, Kev and I live together which makes it really easy to bounce ideas off of one another and do mini rehearsal or songwriting sessions. But I think more than anything, Kev really expanded my understanding of what a guitar can sound like. The vast majority of the guitar parts on the record don’t sound like a traditional guitar—some of them probably aren’t even recognizable as guitar—and that’s all Kev’s doing. He’s great at mimicking synth sounds, especially pads. Now, I think about where his capabilities can fit when I write music, and sometimes I’ll show him a synth part and be like, “Can you play this on guitar?”
It’s also important to mention that the other members of my band are seasoned musicians who have helped my songwriting. My bass player, Austin Myers, also plays with his partner Molly Compton, Calico Loco, and sometimes with other local acts. Austin is one of the best instrumentalists I’ve ever met—we always say if we cloned him, he could play every part in the band better than any of us. I’m pretty terrible at music theory, so Austin’s always the one who points out when I’ve written some bogus part that does not mesh with the key of the song.
My drummer, Tony Mest, plays with Burr Oak and KAFIZA. He’s one of the best if not the best drummers I’ve ever met, and he’s always coming up with great rhythm ideas like throwing in a half time beat or changing the bpm of a song.
You have a journalism background. You interviewed Así Así for Chicago-based blog These Days. How has that experience helped you as a songwriter?
I think more than journalism, my background in fiction has helped me as a songwriter. When it comes down to it, songwriting is poetry. I’ve never considered myself much of a poet, but I think writing fiction has helped with aspects of songwriting like descriptive language and storytelling.
Regarding journalism, I think my reporting experience has informed the subject matter I choose to write about. Before my professional career, I was aware that the Western World—particularly the U.S.—is extremely fucked up. Working in journalism only radicalized my views. As a reporter, I covered international human rights abuses that are a direct result of Western colonialism. And in Chicago, I was covering social justice issues that stem from systemic and deliberate oppression of certain groups. Engaging directly with people on the receiving end of injustice really opened my eyes to how myopic Americans are, and to how most systems exist to serve the powers that be at the expense of almost everyone else. I’m constantly thinking about all of this, and whether it’s immediately apparent or not, these world views make it into my songs.
What are you most looking forward to in the year ahead for this project?
I’m excited about a few things! I’m looking forward to continuing to promote our record and finally play the record release show on Nov. 16 at GMan Tavern. After that, we’re going to double down on recording new music. I have another album’s-worth of material written, so more than anything I’m excited about getting it out into the world.
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
