Joel Cusumano’s “Death-Wax Girl” is a classic breakup tune with a dark psychological twist.
“I experienced an incredibly hurtful and traumatic breakup—one that left me feeling completely betrayed and questioning my own sanity,” says Cusumano, who’s been a reliable presence around San Francisco Bay Area underground scene as a key member of Sob Stories, R.E. Seraphin and Body Double. “The song is my attempt to work out whether I’d been deceived by my ex or by myself—by my fatal trust in someone who wasn’t what they appeared to be.”
For a while there, Cusumano’s issues ran deeper than lost love. His upcoming solo debut, Waxworld (Dandy Boy), was inspired by a rocky reentry into reality after a crippling struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder that landed him in the hospital for a spell. Perhaps a little surprisingly, “Death-Wax Girl”—and much of Waxworld, for that matter—is catchy and upbeat as hell, if maybe a smidge sinister. Think Feelies fronted by Stan Ridgeway.
“The central images in ‘Death-Wax Girl’ are drawn from the grotesque, lifelike wax anatomical models created by 17th- and 18th-century Italian sculptors like Ercole Lelli, Clemente Susini and Gaetano Giulio Zumbo,” says Cusumano. “By the song’s end, the death-wax girl and the narrator have become two of Zumbo’s contorted, corrupted wax figures … uncanny-but-lifeless eyes, limbs, tissue and organs.”
In the studio, mixing engineer Matt Bullimore asked Cusumano how he should approach the song, throwing out Echo & The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” as a point of reference. “I was like, ‘Exactly! You nailed it,’” says Cusumano. “It’s definitely my attempt at anything along the lines of the spookiest songs by the Church, the Sound or the Chameleons—those moody Anglo post-punk groups who were still interested in writing classic ‘song’ songs.”
We’re proud to premiere Joel Cusumano’s “Death-Wax Girl.” Waxworld is set for release October 24.
—Hobart Rowland
