Jack the white knight… no pun intended…
There’s now another layer in the weird and winding story of Charley Crockett removing Twin Temple from his tour after booking the duo and not knowing that they lean heavily into satanic imagery.
If you aren’t familiar with the work of Twin Temple, the band hailing from Los Angeles consider themselves a “satanic doo wop” band, and they have songs like ““The Devil (Didn’t Make Me Do It)” and “Lucifer, My Love” to back that up. When it comes to their messaging, it’s kind of hard to miss. Yet somehow Charley Crockett and his team did just that (the country singer apparently thought they were more of a Black Sabbath type).
Twin Temple was booked to open for Crockett on July 14 and July 18, but they took to Instagram earlier this week to reveal that Crockett had removed them as openers for those two shows because of their satanic imagery. The duo apologized to fans and expressed how grateful they are to have support… then threw an all caps “HAIL SATAN” at the end:
“Today we were informed that Charley Crockett has decided to remove Twin Temple has decided to remove Twin Temple from his upcoming shows next week due to our Satanic imagery.
Unfortunately, that means we will not be able to perform for you next week as planned. We are really disappointed as we were looking forward to getting back out and seeing you, and also what it means as far as bringing different types of people and music lovers together.
We are sorry to everyone who was planning to see us. We’re grateful for your support, not only of Twin Temple, but more importantly of artistic freedom. HAIL SATAN! 93/93″
Yeesh…
That was one of the those updates that caught people off guard. Many learned that Twin Temple was supposed to open for Charley with the above post announcing they were no longer going to do so. And it didn’t take long for Charley Crockett to respond to that message.
It was hours after that Crockett used his own social media to share a picture of a young Johnny Cash standing in front of a church with Kris Kristofferson’s “To Beat The Devil” playing in the background. He kept his caption short and sweet:
“If they did it to Jesus, imagine what they’ll do to you.”
And thus, the relationship between Crockett and Twin Temple – if there ever really was one – is no more.
Twin Temple fans rushed to the comment section to condemn Charley for removing the band, while many followers of the country singer expressed that it was the right thing to do. All in all, it’s somewhat been a case of “any publicity is good publicity” for Twin Temple, and I say that because they just got an opener invite from a different artist.
Jack White, the former lead man for The White Stripes and now solo rock n’ roller (he also plays with The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather), must have caught wind of the Twin Temple removal. Because he reached out online and told the band they’d be more than welcome to open for him at a show in September.
He even made a pun referencing The Whites Stripes’ 2005 album Get Behind Me Satan as he extended his invitation:
“Twin Temple, would you like to open my show in L.A. on September 29th at the Hollywood Palladium? Let me know. Get in front of me Satan!”
To be clear, Jack White isn’t a satanist (he was actually raised Catholic). But he and Twin Temple do go together a bit better than the band would with Charley Crockett.
In the comment section, it appears that Twin Temple quickly accepted the offer:
“Unholy hell…. Sir Jack, you have no idea what this means to us. Lifelong fans- ‘Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground’ was one of the first songs I (Alex) ever learned on guitar. We were actually planning on coming to this show. It would be a most infernal pleasure to play the devil’s music with you.”
Alrighty then.
So now, it’ll be interesting to see if Jack White and Charley Crockett get into some sort of feud. Can’t imagine that would be the case, but never say never. Though the country crooner has previously sworn off picking fights with other artists (like Gavin Adcock), there’s enough to chew on here where we could end up having a country/rock n’ roll rivalry…
