Fact Sheet Haywire

This was initially an interview for EH but the person conducting the interview told me he no longer wanted to be associated with me due to reasons which are too ridiculous to mention. Since he told me not to use his words I’ve decided to respect this. I’ve posted my responses to his questions in the form of a fact sheet. I hope this gives you guys some more insight into this project and the woman behind it.

Fact Sheet Haywire

-I’m up and down and all around. Life has been pretty damn difficult recently but if it wasn’t for the struggle I would lose my inspiration.

-The scene has nothing to do with the music. I could easily go into a rant about how messed up I think the scene is but what actually matters at the end of the day? The music. The art. Sometimes I’ll get sucked into “scene drama” but I always end up regretting it later. While I want new artists to know how bad the scene has treated me (so they don’t go through the same bullshit themselves) I am currently looking to focus on the more positive aspects of my life.

-I’m not sure if this would be considered goth but I like pretty much everything Alien Sex Fiend has released. I’m more of a deathrock person than a goth person. I guess my closest goth influence would be the Legendary Pink Dots. They’re one of my favorite bands of all time and their live shows are incredible. “The Island of Jewels” is one of my favorite albums. Would anyone consider Current 93 goth? “All The Pretty Little Horses” changed my life. “The Wall of Sacrifice” by Death in June is another favorite of mine. I’m not a fan of bands like Bauhaus and Christian Death. Goth, in general, bores me.

-”Tryanny For You” by Front 242 is one of my absolute favorites when it comes to EBM. “Front By Front” is a close runner up. “Tactical Neural Implant” and “Epitaph” by Front Line Assembly. Anything by Vomito Negro… as hard as their work is to find. “Too Dark Park” and “Last Rites” by Skinny Puppy. I really like this neo-old-school act called AD:keY. They’re like Nitzer Ebb but with a female vocalist. “Alles Is Gut” by D.A.F. is a classic. As for the newer EBM acts I think “A Violent Emotion” by Aesthetic Perfection set a new standard for the genre. I haven’t heard anything that good from this scene in a while.

-I’m constantly changing the way I write music. What I’ve been doing these days since I now have a very limited setup is composing on Abelton Live with my Oxygen 8 and headphones. I’ll start out by creating a beat, then a bassline, than a few synthlines, and then I’ll insert a bunch of random sounds until I feel like they’re in the right place. I love VST plug-in’s too. It’s all trial and error. I’m working on adding more structure to my songs because I’m sick of working with a side producer. I’m fine producing my music alone now- I just need to get better at the structure of the songs. I was raised on chaos so that’s a bit of a challenge but let’s bring it on!

-Right now I don’t have shit for gear. I once used to use a MicroKorg and Novation X-Station 25. Now I’m back to the very basics. I do still have my Boss ME-50 Multi-FX pedal that I use for vocal distortion. That thing is too much fun.

-It’s hard to choose a favorite instrument but I’m gonna go with the violin. The sound is nothing short of beautiful. I was working with an electric violinist for a while in Experiment Haywire but she was a bit shy about performing live. I miss her. As for synthesizers I like anything old and analog. I have a major fetish for Moog’s that were used in the late 70′s. There’s something about the sound of these analog synthesizers that is so raw and authentic. It’s not about holding down a key and letting it arpeggiate like people do with the newer synthesizers. With an analog synthesizer you are getting to the source of the signal itself and generating a completely new sound.

-I’m not sick of “mindless club music” as much as I’m sick of the idiots who continue to dance to it. The musicians wouldn’t be writing this crap if it wasn’t what sold. Don’t blame the musicians for trying to make a living you know? Blame the idiots for having brains the size of insects. Does anyone really expect this scene to have any intellectual meaning right now? Dirty Bois and Dirty Girls? Come on now. It’s a joke.

-If I could get any piece of gear for free I’d go with a top-of-the-line analog mixer that has self moving faders and more channels than I could count. Either that or the first MiniMoog ever created.

-I love collaborating with other musicians and producers. I do this all the time and am always up for working with new people.

-I used to DJ old school industrial, noise, digital hardcore, and martial neofolk at a club I was supposed to spin dark electro at. I can’t believe I lasted there for almost a year! Now I spin whatever I feel like. Depends on the night. I recently DJ’ed for the Psylcon Nine/Imperative Reaction show in Florida. I’ve been spinning a lot of Aïboforcen recently. Emilie Autumn to piss off the old school elitists. Frightdoll. I like to mix and match.

-I like a lot of movies. City of Lost Children goes on the top of my list. Blade Runner is up there too. 1984. Clueless. Anything Greg Araki did. (The Doom Generation being my favorite) The new David Lynch film Inland Empire was pretty damn good. I loved Terry Gilliam’s Tideland too though it was no Brazil. I could go on and on about movies. I loved Children of Men. Pan’s Labyrinth. Inglorious Bastards was hilarious. Party Monster. Tromeo and Juliet. A Clockwork Orange of course.

-I’m surprised people still read books. I only read twitter! I really enjoyed the book “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It was written before 1984 and Brave New World and- as far as I know- the first dystopian novel by ever written. “The Metamorphosis” by Kafka. “The Stranger” by Camus. “No Exit” by Sartre. “Girl, Interrupted” by Susanna Kaysen. “The Long Hard Road Out of Hell” by Marilyn Manson. “Join My Cult” by James Curcio.

-I think the 9/11 truth movement is very important. While there are a lot of idiots who water down the movement with useless information and make us all seem like a bunch of conspiracy theorist whacko’s I find this to be a truly important time in history. People are finally waking up and questioning their government. It used to be that it was simply a few people discussing what was actually going on- but suddenly everybody is interested in the truth- and I find this to be pretty damn exciting.

-If I could go back and change history I would change the holocaust. Hitler killed the wrong people. If he would have actually read Nietzsche he would have understood that the lower race were the people who blindly obeyed their masters without question and that it had nothing to do with ethnicity. Then maybe we’d actually be living in our mutant utopia. Instead we have Idiocracy.

-The first show I remember going to (besides local acts) was KMFDM in Chicago at the Metro. 16 Volt was opening for them I was 17 at the time and still have no clue how I was able to get in there. It was a performance that completely blew me away. I remember seeing Survival Research Laboratories back in San Francisco. That was something else right there! It wasn’t just music but violent performance art. It was brilliant.

-I’m an anarcho-fascist. Anarcho-fascists hold their position to have removed all the pesky parts of old anarchism, in the sense that it can mean whatever an individual or group wants it to mean at any given moment to justify their claims, so long as those claims are identical to those of anarcho-fascists. Ok I’m kidding! I’m an anarchist. A liberal when my life is really shitty. I don’t know. I just want our civil liberties back. I recently founded RANT which stands for Rivetheads Against Nazi Thugs. We’re starting where the SHARP’s left off.

-My favorite EH song is probably “Sociopathic” because I made that song banging on scrap metal and recording it. It was the first time I’d combined the old school sound with the newer electronic sound. That song was done on pure improv. I just screamed into the mic and let it all out. I really like my new song “Reality Is Dead” too.

-The scene has embraced me with love and kindness. It’s hard to go to a club without receiving flowers! Someone once told me I was “making money off of sob stories.” This is the fucking goth scene. Who isn’t? At least my struggles are real and I’m willing to post about them. Very few people are willing to show this sort of vulnerability.

-I love old punk music especially The Plasmatics. Old punk is the true energy of industrial. I like everything from The Clash to The Exploited to The Dead Kennedys to The Transplants. I’ve also been getting into ska recently. The Aquabats are too much fun. There will always be a place in my heart for The Devothka’s too. They were an all female oi band based out of NYC.

-I consider myself a free thinker who has graduated the program people label as sanity. It’s quite a bore. People say that I’ve recently gone psychotic and paranoid. If they were me they would have gone a lot worse than psychotic and paranoid! I love exploring alternative realities. I consider myself “mentally sound” but feel that the things that have happened to me have been “utterly psychotic.”

Never be silenced,
Rachel Haywire