Sky Valley Mistress Talk New Single, October 2025 UK Tour And More

Who is in Sky Valley Mistress, how did you meet and what do they play?

Sky Valley Mistress is Kayley “Hell Kitten” Davies and Max “Leather Messiah” Newsome. We met at Astro-Not camp in the high desert back when we started training to launch into the Sonic Stratosphere and we’ve been kicking out the jams ever since.

When we play live, we stand facing each other and I (Max) play a Flying V guitar and 24” kick drum whilst Kayley batters the rest of the kit and sings like the Molten Rock Goddess she is. In the studio I play the instruments and Kayley takes care of all the vocals and percussion stuff because she knows how to shake it better than me.

 

 

Mine personally was learning I Wanna Be Your Dog by The Stooges on the umbilical chord in the womb. People don’t think you can get distortion in there but I think it depends on the mother and mine is pretty electric. I’m still so grateful for all those months she would listen to her music loud enough for me to practice to.

I don’t know about Kay but I don’t think there’s been a moment in her life that she’s ever not known how to make a beautiful sound. I think because she has deaf parents it took a little longer for her to realise that she’s naturally incredible at what she loves to do.

 

You have your single ‘Thundertaker’ which is released Friday 26th September 2025. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

The title comes from the hearse we tour in. Its a ‘95 Jag and it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever owned.

The actual song sounds like Sabbath driving into Motörhead whilst Queens of the Stone Age commentate on the action. It was designed for you to drive with your foot down and go as fast as the road will let you (we regularly top 20mph when we’ve got this on in the hearse). The lyrics are about creatively dying before people realised you were dead, rising like a phoenix out of the ashes and screaming “I’M BACK, MOTHERFUCKERS!!!”

 

Was it a difficult song to write?

I wouldn’t say it was a difficult song to write but I do remember we were going through a pretty difficult time when I was piecing together the first structure/demo of this song. Sky Valley Mistress had recently split from a four piece down to two of us, I’d lost my job, my grandad was in the hospital and the outcome became clear pretty fast how that was gonna turn out. It was still during the end of the pandemic so I had to isolate so I couldn’t see him. I remember one night at home being sat up at 4am working on this song feeling like I was completely alone apart from this secret chaos in my headphones and then a few nights later being alone at his bedside at the same time feeling like that silence could overpower any chaos I could make.

 

Do you have a visualiser to accompany the single?

We’ll eventually put out an official video when the art is ready but until then, find a wheel to get behind and a road to stare down before you set off with this track ripping out your speakers.

 

Where did you record the single and who produced it?

 

We recorded parts of this song at The Nave in Leeds with Danny Blackburn from Adult DVD engineering and Namouche in Portugal with Miguel Peixoto engineering. 

We can’t say enough about Joe Fossard who produced the record though. He’s insanely intelligent, super cool to hang with and he just loves capturing interesting sounds at its purest art form. This record wouldn’t exist without him.

 

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the recording sessions?

We definitely didn’t give Danny a ride home from the studio in the hearse with Joe in the back under the hatch puffing smoke out the vents, shouting for more speed bumps whilst trying to take a picture of his feet to prove to his mate on the phone that he’s in the back of a hearse. Obviously that’s not how any rock and roll band would behave.

 

I don’t think anyone’s after the secret to my crusty guitar tone but the stainless steel drum kit was central to the sound. The guys at The Nave knew their room and how to get an incredible drum sound from it, that kit was the icing on the cake.

I will say there’s an old Prodigy synthesiser in Thundertaker somewhere and Joe is credited as playing the “Voice Inside Your Head”, so if someone wants to figure that out what that is they should let me know.

 

1. I don’t think we write particularly ‘happy’ songs. I think we have a lot of songs that feel good to play and feel good to move to and when I’m doing those things I’m usually feeling pretty damn happy. Also this upcoming record is pretty death heavy but y’know there is some happiness in that sometimes.
2. Thundertaker definitely sounds the angriest on the surface but that wasn’t the song I wrote when I felt pissed off about stuff. There’s no point me saying which ones those are now because when the new record is out I’m pretty sure people will know.
3. The whole concept of our upcoming album was to use every outlet in the project as a way of reflecting on a lot of things we knew we were struggling to process at the time. The whole thing grew the more we figured out and the more we wanted to use record and the art surrounding it as a way to do that.

 

Do you have any further music releases planned for 2025/2026? 

Our second album! It’s coming out Friday 23rd January. It’s our love letter to rock and roll.

 

 

To make everyone in the room feel as good as we do playing on stage for them and to have done it all different to the last show.

 

 

Our whole bastardised drum kit is pretty special to us. It’s basically a drum kit that we play standing and set up sideways on stage with the kick drum flipped the opposite way with most of the customisations done by an 80 something year old engineer who enjoys the work we bring him even if he doesn’t understand why we would want to do it ha

 

How do you look after your voices?

Smoke the good stuff

 

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

Damn that is a hard question… Mainly because the closest things to a novel I’ve read recently are; a pop-up book about chairs, an old Kerrang! Magazine and the ingredient list from a jar of 100% peanut butter. I think we’d probably do better at writing the jingles in the ads before the film starts

 

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

Hell. It’s cooler than you think

Do you have any live dates in the UK/Europe planned for 2025/2026?

Yes!

We’re going on the THUNDERTAKER WORLD TOUR in October:

2 London The Black Heart

3 Sheffield Network

4 Darwen Sunbird

17 Hull Divehu5

18 Preston The Continental (Rock Am River)

23 Reading Purple Turtle

24 Tunbridge Wells Forum Basement

25 Kent Lighthouse

Then we’ll be touring extensively next year to support the new album.

 

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

Current regular rotation on the Hearsecraft Sound System:

Pray For Mojo

Adult DVD

Garbanotas

Gas Künst

Along with the forever staples of Sabbath/Stooges/QOTSA/ZZ Top etc

 

What makes Sky Valley Mistress happy and what makes you unhappy?

Happy = Doing anything with this band

Unhappy = The f***in’ day job man