Vyktoria Pratt Keating Interview
It was in the city of Sedona, where Vyktoria Pratt Keating performed her mystical harmonies, that something amazing happened that would alter her perspective and her music forever. Although she had played many shows before, this would be the first time that her audience connected with her on a level that went far beyond previous experience. As an artist, Keating is an intellectual and metaphysical visionary with a down-to-earth style.
This niece of the famous horror actor Boris Karloff began playing her favorite Beatles and Bob Dylan tunes at the age of seven. Since then, she has been constantly perfecting her craft. Keating has toured the world with bands such as Jethro Tull, offering her the opportunity to spread her paranormal poetry with gypsy-like finesse.
Her most recent album, Things Falling from the Sky, is the culmination of her lifelong interest in the unexplained. Keating’s songs are swift, progressive rock characterized by sublime vocals and sharp tempos, which has been described as “Mulderesque” by some. Later this year, Keating will be touring the American Southwest to promote her new album, which includes re-mastered versions of her paranormal classics as well as the new songs Halloween and Face on Mars. Listen to: Disembodied Voices, Black Helicopters, Face on Mars, Yer Dead, and When I Dream.
FATE magazine recently had the opportunity to chat with Vyktoria about her love of music and the paranormal before she leaves on tour.
KBM: What was your first introduction to FATE magazine?
VPK: I’ve been a fan since I was a teenager. I’ve always been interested in the paranormal and the unusual. FATE has always been around and I just gobble it up. If FATE ever went out of print, it would be a real tragedy. I have quite a few back issues. I read a lot of Fortean or paranormal magazines, but
FATE is my favorite because it just has so many great stories. I love the layout, too.
KBM: What paranormal experiences have you had?
VPK: Personally, I walk around in a state of being in tune with other energies and vibrations. I think everyone has psychic abilities to tune in to. Some are more open and don’t have as many shields holding them back. In my house in Arizona, not myself but two people have had ghost experiences.
KBM: What happened?
VPK: It was the sounds of old scratchy music, something from the 1940s, singing as loud as can be, and then banging on the door. My friend got up with a gun to investigate, but found nothing. Then one night, my niece was asleep on the couch in the living room and said that the ghosts of a man and a woman were hovering around her saying, “Look at her little feet.”
I had an out-of-body experience in my 20s. I am supersensitive to vibrations and energies looking to be more grounded. I have seen a couple of UFOs in Sedona, and I may have witnessed an exorcism while living in Virginia.
KBM: Can you describe it?
VPK: I was out walking when I came upon a small church in the backwoods of the Virginia mountains. I crept up to the side of this tiny old church and saw people writhing around on the floor; speaking in tongues, and I saw this little old women jump around as if she were possessed.
I think the world is full of paranormal and numinous experiences. Like peeling skins off the onion, you could walk into another reality because science has proved this with quantum physics. On the subatomic level miracles can happen.
KBM: What inspired you to create music based on the paranormal?
VPK: I’ve always been into the paranormal and metaphysics since I was a teenager: things like Wicca and doing rituals and being tuned in to all that stuff. Starting out as singer with a guitar in the folk-music world it’s been a natural progression for me to write about what I’m into. Just to be able to capture something that I’m interested in, whether it is EVPs, UFOs, or strange phenomena. It’s been a natural progression of letting my weirdness fly. The past 15 years I have just let myself write without regard for whatever people think of it.
KBM: What’s your favorite paranormal subject?
VPK: The Other Side. Ways of interacting with something in another dimension. The whole afterlife is so fascinating and the people who have the near death experiences are very fascinating for me. I love UFOs and all that, but it’s less mysterious than what’s on the other side of death, what energies are hanging around, and why they are. Older civilizations delved into the meaning of death and what it meant to be there when they were passing.
KBM: Tell me about your new record coming out in January.
VPK: I have a lot of new songs and have redone some others from my last album. Halloween, and the song Air Ship will be on the new album. But my most progressive tune for me is The Face on Mars, which has a really neat time signature and spacey elements.
KBM: The song Spider is absolutely beautiful. What was the inspiration for it?
VPK: It is a love song for a spider. My boyfriend at the time was a rock climber and often was not around. It was waking every day in this farmhouse house in Virginia that had many spiders, and I was alone except for all the house spiders that occupied the rooms.
KBM: How did your great uncle’s work influence you?
VPK: I remember when I was growing up, my mom was familiar with him, and when I got into paranormal music she remarked that it made sense. I never met Boris Karloff but I remember my mom saying to us kids when we would show interest in the paranormal and ghosts, “It’s no wonder…you’re related to Frankenstein (Boris Karloff) you know!”.
KBM: Any other ineteresting family members?
VPK: My dad lives in the woods on a spiritual quest. He’s surrounded by all sorts of books and one day I’m out visiting and I ask him about this strange pot he has on the stove. He was extremely excentric, but thats normal for my family
“What are you making?” I ask him.
“Gold,” he replies. My dad is the alchemist out there in Salem.
KBM: Anything you’d like to leave the readers with to ponder?
VPK: Absolutely! When I was keeping a dream journal back in 1998, I recorded 12 dreams when I was on tour with Jethro Tull. They were and still are my favorite band and I had, in my dream, sent them a CD. At the time I had no Internet or manager, so I mailed off a demo to Ian Anderson [the leader] of Jethro Tull. I didn’t think I would get any response and then ten days later Ian Anderson called back. I went on tour with them and produced an album. I just want people to read this story and trust their intuition and dreams. There was something that I was able to tap into, the quantum way of thought, through another dimension.
When people ask about the music business it’s almost impossible to go through things in a linear fashion considering the amount of information coming through on a daily basis. It’s just using your intuition to shoot mental arrows into the world.
Byline: Kyle B. Morton is a writer from St. Paul, Minnesota and a Green Lantern from Sector 2814.
