When Vera Farmiga sings, you can hear New Jersey. Farmiga, who grew up in Irvington and Flemington, is an Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actress, best known for her work for more than a decade as paranormal investigator Lorraine Warren in the Conjuring blockbuster horror-film franchise.
But Farmiga is captivating audiences in a new role, as the frontwoman of the richly atmospheric alternative rock band the Yagas. The band is based in upstate New York, where she lives, but to hear Farmiga tell it, her Jersey roots are front and center.
“I’m a bona fide Jersey girl, Garden State kinda gal,” says Farmiga, 51. “Exits 54 and 24 off I-78. You can always sniff out Jersey swagger in actors and musicians, can’t you? It’s a no-nonsense attitude and humor that has learned to cut through traffic on the Parkway.”
Farmiga, who was born in Clifton, calls herself a “total Jersey mashup,” explaining, “I was raised in the Ukrainian diaspora, on my pogo stick, bouncing around on the gritty streets of urban-suburban multicultural Irvington, and then moved out to the cornfield calm of Hunterdon County in my teens.”
“I definitely pull from the diversity of my experience, and I think my upbringing influences our sound, probably most reflected in the way the Yagas are genre-blending,” she says. “I gravitate towards genre-blending films, too. The weirder, the better. I’d like to think I got that Jersey edge, that Jersey intensity that’s bold, slightly sarcastic, raw emotion, gritty yet melodic.”
With the Yagas, Farmiga boldly enters the proud lineage of bewitching rock ’n’ roll sirens from the Garden State, in the tradition of Patti Smith and Screaming Females’ Marissa Paternoster. The band released its debut album, Midnight Minuet, in April, and it’s a beautifully beastly piece of work, with Farmiga’s lush, distinct voice at its center.
“I don’t think of myself as a singer; I’m a feelings factory,” Farmiga says. Photo: Franco Vogt
The Yagas—who get their name from a figure from Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga—combine Gothic vibes with sharp guitar work, a propulsive rhythm section, and a captivating sense for musical storytelling. It’s a deeply cathartic album, each song capturing a complete narrative of sorts as Farmiga crafts subtle sagas for herself to dive into.
“I think of every song we play as a short film with notes and reverb. The plots can be slightly more vague. Whether it’s a 120-page script or lyrics on a single page, it’s a story in which I play the protagonist and express that character’s emotional arc. I don’t think of myself as a singer; I’m a feelings factory,” she says.
“The songs most always start with emotional riffs that the boys come up with. Riffs turn into structured songs. I smell their brew, diagnose the aroma of feelings coming at me, and then I assign a value and meaning. Presto, a song emerges. Oftentimes, before words get written, I sing gibberish into the mic as the boys play. Bibble-babble-gobbledegook pours out of my mouth, and when we listen back, you can start hearing words forming subconsciously. The whole process is an elusive sport, not an exact science. We’re go-with-the-weird-flow kinda musicians.”
Farmiga’s foray into the realm of hard rock solidifies her status as an arguably peerless 21st-century scream queen. She’s starred in many of the films in the Conjuring cinematic universe since the series’ original entry in 2013, with the franchise’s next ominously titled installment, The Conjuring: Last Rites, set for release on September 5.
Beyond The Conjuring, she was nominated for a 2013 Emmy for her work as Norman Bates’s dear mother in the Psycho prequel series, Bates Motel; scored an Oscar nom for the 2009 hit Up in the Air; and even costarred with everyone’s favorite giant reptile in 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
But for Midnight Minuet, the stories are not of ghosts and monsters, but rather tales richly drawn from Farmiga’s own mind and heart.
As she explained in an April post to the band’s Instagram page, the subject matter ranges from “I Am” being inspired by “helping my Granny, Baba Nadia, glide through the great cosmic conga line of in-home hospice,” to “Pendulum,” described in the post as “a story about perimenopausal mood swings and whiplash”—a perspective that, to put it lightly, is not often conveyed in the largely masculine world of hard rock.
The Yagas, from left: Mark Visconti; Farmiga’s husband, Renn Hawkey; Farmiga; Jason Bowman; Mike Davis. Photo: Franco Vogt
As she fronts her own powerhouse quintet—which includes her husband of nearly 20 years, Renn Hawkey, on keyboards—what does Farmiga hope listeners take away from the stories and experiences shared on the album?
“One writes what one knows. Hard rock certainly is a male-dominated space oozing testosterone and power chords,” Farmiga says. “Yeah, the average frontman is not usually wailing about menopause. Missed opportunity, really. It makes perfect sense to me. Most rock songs are about love, sex, drugs and rebellion. Menopause is a kind of rebellion. It’s a hormonal uprising. Seriously, what’s heavier than menopause? Heat, mood swings, attitude….It’s super metal.”
Farmiga cites some of her favorite female rockers as Amy Lee, Emily Armstrong, Lzzy Hale, Joan Jett and Shirley Manson.
“We have more female perspectives in heavy music these days,” Farmiga says. “Honestly? The guys are all screaming about their man-opause too. All these elder tomcats in rock bands that are having a second life doing reunions and tours and new releases—Korn, Anthrax, System of a Down, Deftones, these older dudes—they’re singing about personal struggle, healing, their inner demons, seeking recovery. That’s why they call it hard rock, I guess.”
She adds, “Life is hard, full of pain, loss, personal anguish and hormone imbalance. We send off our songs like arrows of feeling; we can only hope they fly straight to a heart or two.”
Giving back, looking forward
The Yagas have joined forces with the punk ensemble Gogol Bordello and its frontman, Eugene Hutz, to raise funds for the work of Support Action Ukraine in providing rehabilitation for Ukrainian orphans and children who have been affected by the war that followed Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Support Action Ukraine, Farmiga says, “has a charge to help these children regain their psychological well-being.” The band is releasing a cover of the Ukrainian pop-folk song “Chervona Ruta,” which Farmiga says will bring “attention to Ukrainian language and culture.” “Chervona Ruta” shirts are set to be available to buy on TheYagas.com, with proceeds supporting the organization.
“Any little way we can continue to raise awareness to stand in solidarity with our extended families in Ukraine on the front lines resisting oppression and fighting for their freedom, justice and identity,” Farmiga says.
The Yagas have made plenty of headway since forming in 2023 after meeting at the Woodstock, New York-based Rock Academy music school, then making their live debut in March of this year before releasing their debut album the following month, accompanied by a handful of music videos—including one for “She’s Walking Down,” which marked Farmiga’s first directorial effort in 15 years.
“Next, we will skip right back into our sonic laboratory and brew up album number 2,” Farmiga reveals. “It will unfurl in fits and spurts and starts and stops. In between raising kids and filming and teaching careers and building sustainably minded commercial real estate projects, by hook or by crook, somehow the five of us will carve out time to develop the countless voice notes we constantly send each other.”
Alex Biese, senior editor of CURE magazine, has been honored by NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists and has been published in USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, Press of Atlantic City and more.
