So, what's going on here, what's the makeup?

Halloween is coming up so this is kind of a Halloween show. It is my favorite holiday, so yea, I’m getting turned into Freddy Kreuger right now.

Halloween is your favorite holiday? What was your favorite costume you’ve done?

I did Leeloo from The Fifth Element a couple years ago. For the last Halloween show that we did before COVID. I did the straps when she comes out of the lab in the beginning of the movie so I was basically just like, naked, well not naked, I basically just had underwear on and it was crazy.

Did y'all have to take a break with COVID, was that a thing?

I would say the band did but it wasn’t because of COVID, it was because Sean had like, a little bit of an arm injury that basically, for 8 months we didn't really work on stuff as a band, um, and that was when I started doing the Neon White stuff.

How’d you kind of re-emerge back into doing it as a duo?

Well, it was always just waiting for Sean to feel comfortable enough to be able to play you know, get back to where he was. And that didn’t really take that long but it was just like our practices had to be kind of… we only did an hour or two at a time three days a week at first and then just kind of build up to full time practices again. And that was like a year and a half ago when we came back to New York.

And y’all are here full time right?

Yea.

So, this is show probably a little different but what is your usual pre-show routine? How do you get hyped up before going out there?

Umm, usually it's not really that exciting a lot of the time… [someone walks by pointing at Freddy Kreuger makeup], “it’s like this every night”. 

Yea, I do this [Kreuger makeup] and then I remove it all right before we go out on stage. I just stare at myself in the mirror, yea, and give myself a fright.

Nice.

No I just, like, relax and then I just get some kind of caffeine a little bit before I go on and just kind of stretch a whole bunch and stuff.

I’m sure the audience kind of gets you fueled and ready.

Totally. Totally. And yea just getting in the mindset before I walk on stage. Like that's the most important thing.

And obviously the fans are such a huge aspect of these shows, how would you describe the Machine Girl fanbase?

Umm, I would describe them as very enthusiastic, creative, you know like, very expressive. I feel like that's one of my favorite things about… I mean I honestly feel really lucky that Machine Girl has the fanbase that it does. Some other bands maybe would be bummed when they walk out on stage and see some dweeby kid that looks like he never goes outside next to some weird anime cosplayer chick next to a raver kid, it like, doesn’t make any sense, but I think it's the coolest thing and it weirdly matches the kind of music that I make and stuff perfectly. So I personally love it. I love how eclectic and varied it is.

Yea thats fucking awesome. Do you have any tips for artists who are aspiring and working on their art?

Yea, I mean like I would say if it's something that you really want you just gotta do it. Like you gotta really, you know, it takes a lot of work. It's like, it's a lot of not going out and working on your own shit and owning it, having a vision, you know. I think, cuz it's also not just about work, like, I think that sometimes I've… I’ve actually overworked sometimes and I think sometimes I get lost in the process and I think that's also something to avoid. I think really it's just like having that vision and not losing it. That's what's gonna separate you from everyone else, like especially if you notice that no one else is doing this thing that you’re picturing in your head, chances are it's something cool and unique that people just aren't aware of yet. You know, that once you put it out into the world theres gonna be people out there that are like, oh I can get with this, I get this, and I like fuck with this.

Did it take you a while to find your aesthetic as a band or just kind of your general goal or vibe?

I think it's just changed over the years, you know at first it was way more like internet-core anime shit, which like was even kind of big when I started doing it like ten years ago. But it's not like what it's like now.

Yea it has emerged a lot.

It's crazy. Like it's like mainstream-ish now, and when I started to do it it was a very weird little like, just you find random artists on Soundcloud, you know, and it was, it wasn't a scene or anything. Now it's like this crazy community scene, whatever like, kids that just like, make either breakcore or this weird vaporwave shit, whatever, it's interesting…it's really interesting.

You, I feel like, come from a very DIY kind of self-made nature, have you made any efforts or try to maintain that in a way as you grow in popularity?

Yea totally, I mean, I always kind of want to maintain that. I think that's something that resonates with people, is that, you know, everything that comes out of Machine Girl comes from me. It's not through some AR person or whatever. I absolutely like, most of the time, I don't know, interviews or articles are written about us or whatever I cringe most of the time I hear that shit. That's never really how I feel about things and shit. Yea, I think keeping it DIY is something that is a high priority, and unfortunately tonight we won’t have these visuals, it didn’t work out tonight, but I crowdsourced visuals from fans and, so like, the visuals we’ll have for The Garden shows and for our own headlining shows for a couple weeks, they're all fan submitted.

That’s awesome.

Yea it's really cool I’m really stoked for that.

And I think you guys are kind of paving the way for kind of a whole new realm of music almost, do you think like, what's the future for this genre especially as, like, the world is kinda going to shit?

I can’t predict the future but I definitely feel like this is gonna grow, it's like, I hate calling it digital hardcore, because it's not even what I would call the stuff that we really make, but yea this very aggressive, angry, electronic music is only gonna grow because, I mean, most kids now immediately have access and an understanding of computers and shit you know? It's actually more accessible than a guitar or something and… I think that, I’m really excited, I do feel like our place in the grander scheme of all this is this band that will influence something else that's gonna blow up way crazier than us, you know, cuz like we're already a little bit older.

How do you feel about being categorized? I feel like there's a lot of different genres that people try to confine your music to. Breakcore, hardcore… Do you try to fit into a music genre? Because I feel like that's not what you’re going for.

Yea, I think, I totally, I love that we are uncategorizable. I love being this chameleon and constantly shapeshifting, it really, I think when I first started doing the vocals and the drums there was a moment where, especially when I first released the album Because I’m Young and Arrogant…I’m just gonna abbreviate it, when I released that I was concerned this was the nail in the coffin for Machine Girl, and like everything I’ve put out is all this electronic instrumental stuff, like people are not gonna fuck with me like, shrieking over this. And it definitely did alienate a lot of people that initially got into me. I feel like a lot of people were like alright this isn't for me anymore, but then it was like a whole new fanbase kind of grew out of that, and over time I’ve noticed that a lot of like, I’ve seen kids that, like, fuck with all, with all of me. And I’m sure they have their preference for one kind of style or the other but like I think it's actually really been a great way to have, to like, cultivate this die hard fanbase. They’re not just like “I wanna hear Wlfgrl over and over”, they’re just in it for whatever it's gonna be.

Supporting your art.

Yea, exactly.

On the note of vocals, do you ever get worried that your lyrics are gonna get lost with all the distortion and stuff? I’m sure you put lots of thought into what you’re, you know, saying.

Yea, well at first I purposely, and I still sometimes do it especially when it's a new song and I'm working the lyrics out, I purposely, kind of like, hide them when I’m doing it live. I kind of know this is a work in progress or whatever, but definitely with like the new stuff that I record and put onto the next album or whatever, I want it to be much clearer and like, you know, I purposely didn't release the lyrics for Because I’m Young and Arrogant, cuz I was just like, that was the first time I ever wrote lyrics to anything and put it out into the world so I was, like, embarrassed.

It’s intimidating.

Yea, but I feel a lot better and a lot more confident now.

That's great!

Yea, moving forward, I want the vocals to be more, you know…

Maybe there's a clearer message you’re going for almost?

Yea, well I would actually say that, going off your thing about lyrics getting lost, I’m not so much concerned about them getting lost, like, actually of what you’re hearing, I’m more concerned sometimes of, with some of the darker material, like, the satirical nature of it being lost, and someone taking it more at face value, more literally than I mean it. That's something I try to be mindful of, so that it's not like… if I'm saying some violent shit and it's clear, like, this is not, like, this is not a good thing.

Hard to get the tone across.

It is! And I don’t want it to just be like some fucking, I don’t know, I feel like, maybe in some nu metal shit and stuff there definitely was that stupid, I’ll do that a lot and those lyrics are terrible, a lot of very much like, that blind rage [in deep metal voice] “everyone fucking sucks” and like, “I’ll kill everyone”, you know just like, as relatable as that is sometimes, I don’t wanna just be screaming that.

And maybe that comes across in the sound.

Yea exactly.

Ok let’s do a few rapid fire questions: any current favorite albums?

Ooo that's hard. Yea, uh, I would say, I don't know, all time favorite is probably a toss up between a few. Oh man thats fucking hard. That's really hard… there's too many. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of, I’ve been listening to a lot of Pharell. Not really an album, I’ve been listening to a lot of mid 2000s Pharell beats and produced songs.

Yea Pharell produces a ton of shit I didn't know that until recently.

It's insane.

Craziest thing you’ve seen at a Machine Girl show?

Craziest thing that I’ve seen at a Machine Girl show… um, I feel like I’ve seen people breathing fire in the pit. We played in a little house in Mexico four or five years ago and this dude, it was like in a living room and this dude, just yea… started breathing fire. That shit was pretty crazy. And like, yea, just people climbing shit. It wasn't during our set but during a Johnnascus set, the opener on our last US tour, this kid shimmied up a thirty foot pole, and it was a water pipe, like, the worst thing you could climb.

Holy fuck thats terrifying.

Yea it was crazy.

That's gotta feed into your energy though.

Totally, totally. And I'll say a positive, a positive one that I saw was like, in London, at the end of our set in London, without saying anything, before our final song the crowd opened up into a big wall of death, they did a wall of death on their own, which I just thought was this beautiful moment. Like damn, we really made it.

Didn’t even have to ask.

Yup, didn't even have to ask.