Holy Wars photographed at Aftershock Festival at Discovery Park in Sacramento on Oct. 8, 2023 Mike DeWald/STAFF.

SACRAMENTO — Holy Wars‘ sound, a genre-bending blend of hard rock, electronica, pop and industrial music, comes from the SoCal duo’s distinct palettes. The latest LP from vocalist Kat Leon guitarist Nicolas Perez, Cult Classic, flares with dangerous aggression.

Leon leans more toward hip-hop while Perez is rooted in metal. Both love punk rock.

“I think it only works because we wear each other down; whoever wants their idea to work more,” Perez said in a recent interview at Aftershock Festival. “The compromise is what people hear in the end.”

Added Leon: “It’s like a science project for us.  At the end, we say, ‘I like this, do you like this?’ OK, cool, maybe they’ll like this.'”

Leon came into the band following the death of both of her parents just six months apart. After going through the various stages of grief, she reasserted herself and channeled her feelings into music. It was a way to help herself and maybe others in a similar place.

She met Perez and the duo began writing and gigging locally, often being tabbed to open for far bigger artists who passed through Los Angeles. The needle began to move in 2021.

“We knew nobody. We don’t have rich parents, so we grinded it out,” Leon said. “If you can do that in Los Angeles … you can do it anywhere. You get your war stripes that way.”

Leon co-produces and develops the treatments for Holy Wars’ videos, and between writing, recording and touring, the pair has worked day jobs scoring trailers for TV networks.

Holy Wars, courtesy.

“Sometimes [Leon] will hear something in a commercial on TV and say ‘I want to make a song like this!’ and then we do it,” Perez said. “She’s very visual. Anything that creates an image in her brain could make itself into a song.”

Leon’s creativity was put to the test while shooting the video for the band’s single “Deus Ex Machina,” for which the singer derived the treatment from her own “manic brain.” Leon plays a number of characters in the video, even mixing in choreography before meeting her demise.

“The song is very chaotic and I knew the video had to give the song that extra chaotic energy, in a way that could be polarizing,” she said. “I wanted something very unsettling in some moments, and I wanted to showcase what it’s like to be on a roller coaster ride within the mind that we all have. … It’s all about self-projection. It’s going to get you in the end if you don’t clear your shit out.”

Holy Wars photographed at Aftershock Festival at Discovery Park in Sacramento on Oct. 8, 2023.

Holy Wars’ heart is their live performances. Leon and Perez attack the stage with unrelenting force, winning over audiences along the way, including those in the Bay Area. The band has toured with The Warning, Papa Roach and Black Label Society, and has become a festival staple. The two have as-yet-unannounced plans for 2024 already on the books.

“Playing live is literally everything to us,” she said. “When you record music and you put out the videos that’s fun; we love it, but live is our favorite thing since you get that personal connection with everybody. …

While the band just released Cult Classic, Leon and Perez are working feverishly on a full-length album.

“We just never stop writing because we’re both crazy enough to do it,” Leon said.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.