Created in 2008 by Martin Wattinger, The Wattingers are a 3 piece act performing against a backdrop of synchronized videos.

Originally described as ‘Slaughterhouse Blues’, The Wattingers were influenced in their beginnings by bands like The Birthday Party, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Gallon Drunk, and Killdozer.  Prison hollers and blues harmonica players like Howling Wolf also informed their earlier work. They have continued to develop these themes and have evolved into an audio and visual experience, using projections, and creating a theatrical stage environment for their shows.  Seven Devils started as a side project of the Wattingers, leaning more into themes of the haunted deserts of the old west, populated by vengeful ghosts and ancient spirits, more gothic in tone than the early Wattingers. Seven Devils is now fully integrated into the Wattingers, with a large part of their live set featuring songs created under Seven Devils shadow.

The Wattingers embrace the broken, dark side of Americana; time travelling from an 1800’s American post apocalypse to the present day and back again.

The Wattingers strive against narrow and restrictive definitions. This is reflected in the events and festivals we perform at, from HRH Blues Festival, Rustic Stomp, and psych/space rock festivals i.e. Sonic Rock Solstice/On Board the Craft. Amongst other festivals we have played at are: Camp Bestival, Blind Cat Resurrected, HRH Crows, Alice’s Wicked Tea Party Phoenix Alternative Festival, Fantasy Forest, Goths on a Field, and In the Black Midwinter.

The Wattingers have recently taken a regular slot at Fantasy Forest within ‘The Wastes’ as the ‘house band’ and are active in bringing other performers into The Wastes. This is the biggest Post Apocalypse group in the UK.

We are:

• 
  Martin Wattinger
  Vocals and harmonica, video projections and artefact maker. Creator of The Wattingers.
• 
  Sarah Wattinger
  For the longest time, she been gone walkabout in the Arizona desertlands and came back wearing ghosts dragged up from the haunted plains. On rib rattler and bone shaker, daughter, niece and third wife of Martin Wattinger.
• 
  Abraham Chavrin-Wattinger
  On bass guitar, our distant cousin from Southern California, Abraham Chavrin-Wattinger. As a barber-surgeon, he’s not unfamiliar with the arrangements of human body parts.
• 
  Ezekial Obediah Wattinger
  In this haunted engine of time-travelling capability, resides our ancestor Ezekial Obediah Wattinger, who’s mostly, but not all, dead. It is with this inter-dimensional device that we travel back and forth in time. Ezekial is the fourth member of the band, pulling rhythms up from beyond the grave.