Photography by Colin Tierney, Styling by Meghan McTavish, PA and bts photo by Anya Hammer
Written and Interviewed by Andersen Beck
One of Pittsburgh’s most prominent features is its remarkably rich history. Included under this umbrella is a long-standing and vibrant music scene. From as early as the mid-1920s, with the Hill District’s foundational jazz community, to the most recent prominent DIY venues of the day, Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods are tied together by music much like the root clusters of an old-growth forest. In the modern era, branded by rapid change and trends, the continuation and flourishing of a band such as Sleeping Witch & Saturn is no small feat.
The post-punk group formed in early 2017; their only member change occurred early on, when Alex Nelson replaced their first drummer. Nelson joined after seeing Sleeping Witch & Saturn play live, but it was early enough in the band’s history that he was on all the first recordings.
Sleeping Witch & Saturn was founded and named with thematic intention, but like many things in life, their purpose and vision evolved with time, as did the members.
“Whenever it started, I really wanted it to be like this heavily occult theme thing, so I was just kind of playing around with words from that,” says guitarist and frontman Matt Vituccio on the origin of the band’s name. “I think it kind of means a few different things; it’s pretty ambiguous, and we’ve kind of moved away from the meaning at this point. Basically, it’s just, you know, a thematic thing,” he continues.
Interestingly, the name Sleeping Witch & Saturn also fulfills a specific function for the band.
“Sleeping Witch & Saturn was partially the name because (of) Matt’s other band Brightside – the name Brightside unfortunately gets lost in Google searches. To have a one-word band name, it's … hard to find someone’s music, so the band, having it be this long name, is super unique,” elaborates Anna Shaw, the band’s bassist.,
A unique feature necessitates a unique cost as the band has come to learn, but with the band being so well-established in the city, they have the wiggle room to make a necessary change.
“When you Google us, it will definitely be us, but it also means that every time we tell someone our band name, they forget it immediately because it’s too long,” Anna continues, “So we’ve been talking about just dropping the ‘& Saturn’ and just being Sleeping Witch. Like our new merch, the most recent shirts we made, they just say Sleeping Witch.”
Looking at their discography, you may notice a curious gap in releases, spanning four years between 2018 and 2022. What might be mistaken for inactivity, lead guitarist Rowdy Kanarek dryly explains as “Recording takes a long fucking time”.
“Rowdy records everything for us and does all of the mixing and gets it mastered by a friend, so a lot of it is done by Rowdy,” says Anna.
In reference to their first LP, The Divine Madness of Spring, Anna says, “We wrote those songs probably in 2018 - 2019, but then COVID was a big slowdown. I was pretty COVID cautious, so I don’t think we really got together until the end of 2020, for that whole year.”
Sleeping Witch & Saturn’s latest single, “Mother’s Day”, released May 2025, is a poppy, relaxed rock track with classical roots, clean tones, and sharp, sardonic lyrics that ring out Elvis Costello-esque. The single stands in stark contrast stylistically from the rest of their discography, in a way that might be aptly compared to The Velvet Underground, with the difference between 1967’s self-titled and 1969’s Loaded.
“Whenever it came out, it was like a ‘sweeter side of Lou Reed’ type song. It just felt good enough to keep … like I know it was going to be poppier and different, but I thought maybe it would get a little dirtier or something. Like whenever we started playing it, it just kind of stayed that way, and then when we were recording, we just leaned into the poppiness even harder,” explains Matt.
Discussing future music and the current direction of the band, Matt shares, “That was definitely the biggest divergence at that point, but like now we’ve been doing poppier stuff… we have some newer ones that are as heavy as some of the stuff on the first album or as like aggressive, but it’s been like really kind of poppy, kind of new wavy, maybe a little grungy.”
The members of Sleeping Witch & Saturn are certainly veterans of the Pittsburgh music scene. Before the formation of Sleeping Witch, Rowdy and Alex were playing in their other band, Jack Swing.
“That band sort of started in like, 2011, I don’t know how you define it. Me and Nelson have been playing in bands together for over 15 years now,” says Rowdy.
As seen in recent times, DIY venues come and go–as do people in the collegiate neighborhoods of Pittsburgh–and with each turnover, the culture and monuments of the last era are washed away to make space for new ones. Sleeping Witch has outlived these solar revolutions and carries on the legends otherwise lost.
“I remember the venues before Ba Sing Se and Bushnel,” Anna laughs.
“Bushnel was definitely my favorite venue ever… a lot of magical times there,” adds Rowdy, followed by agreement from Alex.
Obviously, Pittsburgh isn’t like New York or Los Angeles; it isn’t a powerhouse of influence, and as such, its cultural history isn’t ubiquitous. In most cases, to get the story about what was happening before one’s time here, one would have to talk to the people who lived it - one can’t (easily) just find a book or listen to a podcast about recent Pittsburgh art history. The members of Sleeping Witch’s lived experience is a great asset for the archiving of modern Pittsburgh history.
“When I think of Pittsburgh DIY music, I think of 2014 to 2016. I feel like that was a big time for Pittsburgh music, like shows were packed, it was the thing to do. Also, Matt’s other band Brightside, all three of us (Anna, Rowdy, and Alex) had been fans and (it) was like the very cool band back then,” says Anna.
“That time, like 2010 through 2016, every band was an emo band,” Matt says, “During the whole emo revival, everybody was an emo band. Then around 2016-17-18, I personally wasn’t going to a lot of shows; I think approaching COVID, there were a lot of post-punk bands… I know Rex Tycoon put out some stuff around that time, and Silver Car Crash, so that was kind of brewing. Death Instinct, we played with, I think, right before COVID. It seems like after COVID, things got a little more poppy, maybe noise poppy or something, maybe following Feeble Little Horse? … It felt like there was a shift towards more like "internetty" or digital stuff during COVID,”
Sleeping Witch & Saturn have stood the test of time. Today, their shows fill in with fans both new and old and their music stays fresh and continues to resonate. They’ve gone on a temporary show hiatus to record new music, but their return to Pittsburgh stages will certainly be momentous. One would be wise not to miss any opportunity to see this storied homegrown band
Written and Interviewed by Andersen Beck
Photography by Colin Tierney, Styling by Meghan McTavish, PA by Anya Hammer