Interview by Fredrik Croona.
2010-02-21

Original Interview published here @ Brutal Resonance

Tell us about about yourself and your band Experiment Haywire.
- “My name is Rachel and I’m a multimedia artist that you either love to hate or hate to love. Experiment Haywire started as an experimental noise project that was based on my spoken word rants as a street performer. Through the years it has changed into a studio produced electronic project that incorporates my punk vocals with my production of what I like to describe as dark and aggressive futurist anthems. I’ve played throughout the USA and would love to tour Europe some day.”

It’s pretty rare that girls release this kind of music, what are your thoughts about that and why did you start making this kind of music?
- “I don’t think it’s rare anymore though, it definitely used to be. The lack of woman releasing this kind of music was one of the reasons I started Experiment Haywire, machineKUNT Records, and the all-girl performance art group Nuclear Riot Party. I’ve always been about bringing more women into the industrial scene as the artists, musicians, and producers. I now feel like we’ve achieved this vision, but that there is even more to come.”

What are your influences, what inspires you to create?
- “My influences range from the bizarre thoughts in my head to any random interactions I may have with the universe or society. Musically I’ve always loved the dystopic sounds and themes of bands like Front 242 and Front Line Assembly and have wanted to bring forth political change through my music like Consolidated and The Dead Kennedy’s. Women like Lydia Lunch and Wendy O. Williams were huge inspirations to me too because they refused to back down no matter how difficult things got for them. I get inspired to create because I get bored and disgusted by the world around me. I need something to replace it with.”

When it comes to playing live do you have any special artist you would like to perform with on stage?
- “I think it would be amazing to perform with Emilie Autumn because I feel like we have a lot in common on a conceptual level. We have a similar message with our music. I’d also love to perform with Shirley Manson from Garbage because she was the first alternative female musician I really got into. I was 13. That was when I realized I wanted to be doing this.”

So what is the next step in Experiment Haywire, what are your plans?
- “The next step is to release my new album ‘Grrl Interrupted’. Technically it’s my first official full length because on ‘Annihilation Chic’ there were four remixes. ‘Grrl Interrupted’ is all new songs. I feel like this album tells the story of my life. I never knew that recording could become this personal. In the past I’d had reservations but with ‘Grrl Interrupted’ I let everything out.

What is the industrial/electro scene like in the USA. It seems the difference between USA and Europe is pretty big since we’ve had EBM and such for a long time and that is a fairly new concept in the USA right?
- “It’s pretty small over here compared to Europe. When I was at Wave Gotik Treffen in Germany it seemed like there were scene oriented magazines all over the newsstands. In the USA it’s a lot more spread out but everybody seems to know each other. We haven’t had EBM for that long out here but the bands that do it do it well. Combichrist and Aesthetic Perfection are both from the USA and have a huge following in Europe. The Terror EBM thing was pretty big out here but for a while and now seems to be evolving into something better.”

Any closing comments or anything you would like to add?
- “Get Nazi’s out of industrial. It’s not cool to be jacking off to Hitler because you were picked on in high school.”