Don't call Black Sabbitch a tribute

It’s not often that a band is born out of a name, but that was the case with Black Sabbitch.

“We were just goofing around one night and someone said the name ‘Black Sabbitch,’ and we just thought, Maybe we should do that,” Black Sabbitch drummer Angie Scarpa explained. “I’m a freak for Sabbath — a complete and utter lunatic about Black Sabbath. So I said if you guys want to do this, why don’t we get together and play?”

The band’s initial core was Scarpa and Betty Blowtorch guitarist Blare N. Bitch. They soon recruited Scarpa’s Art of Safecracking bandmate Melanie Makaiwi to play bass, and eventually found a vocalist in an actual Ozzfest vet — Aimee Echo from the Human Waste Project. This “all-female Black Sabbath” (don’t call them a tribute!) prides itself on the players’ roots in original bands. They don’t get together once or twice a year, practice a 45-minute set and play it the next week. Scarpa’s goal was to nail the experience to the extent that she felt like a member of Sabbath.

“For me, since I am such a huge fan of the band, I didn’t want to do it unless it was going to be spot-on, but not in a boring ‘We sound like their record way.’ More in a ‘This is what it would have been like to see Black Sabbath in 1972. I really wanted to be able to have that experience for myself,” Scarpa said. Evidence of their quality lies in the fact that Ozzy asked the band to open a show for him last year.

There are a lot of Sabbath tribute bands out there, but Black Sabbitch is unique in that they are probably the most active all-female collective tackling the songs. Being all-female is beneficial for turnouts but also annoying in that the players are all seasoned musicians who still have to deal with stereotyping.

“Being a female musician is like going to a bar and shooting pool when you’re a girl,” Scarpa explained. “No matter how well you are doing against some guy on the table, he’s always trying to give you a pointer on how to hold the cue. It’s, like, ‘You know I’m beating you, right? Can you quit it with that already?’”

But now may be a more vital time than ever for all-female acts like Black Sabbitch to prove their worth. As Scarpa puts it, “It is an important time in history for strong women to storm through towns and inspire the next generation to stand up and be counted...as loudly as possible.”

Black Sabbitch takes the Soda Bar stage November 26.