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San Francisco's Switchblade Symphony are a band that truly lives up to their name. According to member Tina Root, the group set out to take the intricacy of a symphony and "cut it up like with a blade and put into the symphony guitar, hard drums and different character type voices." Combining orchestral sounds with heavy sequences and ethereal vocals, the group has come up with a highly original gothic sound that really can't be compared to anything else out there.

Switchblade Symphony was formed about seven years ago when Tina Root and Susan Wallace were introduced over the phone by mutual friends.

"Both of us were in bands prior to that, but they weren't really things that were what we wanted to do," explains Susan. "When we met each other, that was the first time we had the opportunity and the control do to what we wanted. We didn't really have a specific plan, we just had so much that we needed to let out that it just came out like diarrhea. And it all came out at one time, we just spat it out really quickly. It just came really naturally, like in the first year."

After several self-released eps and compilation appearances, they signed to Cleopatra and released their debut album, "Serphantine Gallery," late last year. This past summer/fall, they were out on the road as part of the "Goth Fest" tour with Christian Death and Big Electric Cat.

Tina and Susan remain the core of the band, but on stage they are joined by a guitarist and drummer, who they plan on incorporating in future studio work. Swictchblade Symphony try to have themes for each of their shows, and in the future they'd like to incorporate choirs, cellos, and addition percussion for special performances. Making the shows theatrical comes natually for the band, as Tina has musical theater training and Susan has done soundtracks for art films.

Switchblade Symphony have a new remix EP coming out soon, and have contributed a song to the soundtrack of "The Dark Angel" video game. Now that the tour is over, they are eager to start working on new material and are hoping to make the often mentioned collaboration with Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens a reality.