I don’t know why, but I’ve not really had the desire to interview artists particularly in recent times – with the exception of my new series /The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing, which I’ll be resuming again soon. But hearing about the new album from grabyourface got me ready to ask questions again.

---

---

This is an exceptional album that plumbs the depths of human feeling and despair, and uses music and song to deal with and process a whole gamut of emotions. Some of it is intensely personal, some of it is more relatable – and there is no doubt that at points it is a difficult listen.

I’ve met Marie (grabyourface) at festivals in the past, seen their ferocious live show and heard a lot of their music up to now, but even so this new album was a bit of a shock. In many ways, it’s quite beautiful. But it did raise a lot of questions, and they were sent to Marie – and I thank them for their time. The photos come from grabyourface, aside from the one onstage at Infest 2022, that I took.

A note about the interviews on amodelofcontrol.com. This is now a long-running, occasional series, occasional because of the fact that I only interview artists when I have something to ask, and when artists have something to say. I don’t use question templates, so each is unique, too. Finally, I only edit for grammar and adding in links, so what you’re reading is the response of the artist directly.

---

It seems to these ears that your sound has come full circle since your early single 1LLNES$E$. That single, back in the first days of 2017, was a mostly spoken-word piece of self-loathing that saw the musical elements pushed into the background. It’s increasingly becoming clear that the raging tracks like FKNBSTRDS and HOWDAREU were outliers – did you ever have a plan for grabyourface, or was it wherever inspiration took you?

I have ZERO plan. I just make whatever I feel like making. I love a lot of music genres and I will continue to go in every direction that pleases me with grabyourface. I will probably go into hardbass, dark techno, ambient, maybe dark medieval stuff, vaporwave, black metal if I figure out how to make it. Making music and art is not serious and there is no limits.

You’ve had a fair amount of collaborations released inbetween releases – the most notable perhaps being the appearance on the last Covenant EP (Fieldworks Exkursion EP, on the highlight track False Gods). How did that come about?

Chance ahah ^^ Eskil bought the tape of my first release philophobia in 2017 because he was collecting tapes and probably thought I was a bit cool even if I was totally unknown at the time. We had met a couple of times at gigs and clubs before but to this day I have no idea if he knows now that that was me ahah. We spoke a few times online after I released my first EP, and one day he came up to me and said that they were looking for collabs with a different vibe for their next release, and they liked my rough electropunk edge. Next thing I knew we recorded that and did a bunch of gigs together.

Onto Sadgirl Mixtape: the information accompanying the release suggested that this has been a project that has taken seven years. Were you just writing and recording tracks here and there, and they became a coherent release in time, or was there more intention in how it came together?

It was kinda like that yeah. I went through several awful shit between 2017 and uh… now, and everytime to exorcise the nightmares I was writing a song. At the same time I was doing other things, releasing other songs and playing them live in a very angsty manner which gave me this reputation of angry anti-capitalistic feminist punk ahah. But deep down I am and have always been just a sadgirl. I knew that there would be a time when this collection of sad songs would make sense together, when it would be the time to release it. I had the name for it before I had the album. It was a very clear idea in my head for a couple of years now. It just needed to be the right time for it to exist on its own.

Let’s start with the last track: possibly the most unlikely cover from an artist in the wider “industrial” genre that I’ve ever heard. I wasn’t expecting a cover of a French chanson (the original) from the seventies. Then again, translating the lyrics, it appears to be a song of unrequited love, of not having the confidence to step forward and seize the moment. A more hopeful song that what has come before, non? Has this song been part of your life for a long time?

This song is one of my favourite songs ever. It encapsulates things i’ve rarely witnessed being executed so perfectly in music. It’s an extremely dramatic song that manages to hold back and leave so much unsaid, only for the love interest to “guess” our intentions. It’s a song that I always found special, dark and ethereal, a goth song that isn’t really one. It was a dream for me to appropriate that track and make it the goth song it has always been in my mind. In fact it is so special to me that the next music video I will release will be for this song.

Talking of influences: other than the modern chanson, I detect a distinct reflection of eighties dream-pop and echoes of mournful shoegaze in the music that makes up sadgirl mixtape. What were your formative musical artists, as I get the distinct feeling it’s going to be a varied selection?

Ahah yeah it is quite varied. Things like Depeche Mode and Marilyn Manson (yeah I know) has been extremely formative of course. But artists like Lana Del Rey, Lil Peep, Linkin Park have changed my idea of making music. I can also name Alice Cooper who inspired my stage persona so much and got me into industrial before I even knew there was a name for it (Hence my name dragontown on facebook).

In electro, Tiga, Moderat and Fever Ray were extraordinary discoveries for me, and my favourite boy ever TR/ST, who for me created a bridge between synthpop and goth in the modern times, I think this guy is incredible both musically and lyrically. Downtempo sad melodic stuff is also up there in the influences, things like Nick Cave, Soulsavers, Daughter, Leonard Cohen, etc.
90s sadboy rock from Nirvana to Bush and Hole I also love very much.

Anything that falls in the emo bracket from 2000s emo bands to emo rap, sad ambient stuff that’s being released now like Daniel.mp3, Øneheart, etc. In our scene my favourites are probably Hatari, they really channel something raw and sexual that I love.

Oops, that was a long answer. And I probably forgot a million bands.

There’s no two ways about it: this album a difficult listen. You detail some really dark moments in your life in the (extensive) lyrics – was this a way of dealing with what you’ve been through, by making a permanent record of them?

I suppose. As I said before, I never had a plan, with music. Or, in general. I just feel things, sit down, write things, pour the pain into it and try to shape it in something that makes the pain worth it. In hopes that I can close the lid on this maybe, I don’t know. It doesn’t always work though. But at least it makes for pretty art. I always thought that the best songs were the sad songs, and that musicians stopped being relevant once they found balance and happiness. This is a bleak and immature way of seeing things, but damn it has checked out way too often.

Everything Remains The Same sets an unflinching scene: written but unsent letters, wishing for someone’s life to come crashing down, you standing tall in the wreckage of everything, as you move on. Was this song where this album started?

I don’t want the life of the person to crash down in that song, I simply witness it. It is me taking a backseat as I see the life of my father abruptly ending without being able to do anything to help. And before having been able to resolve all those years of conflicts, misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Hence the unsent letters.

That’s a little bit how the album started, even if not chronologically. I think my dad’s death was the moment I crashed down for real and unleashed many things that had been rotting inside of me for a while and that I dared not speak about. The really bad abusive relationship, etc. I suppose that’s when my brain went “fuck it I’m writing about this”.

My Last Act of Love has a gentle, dreamy pulse to the music (like you’re on the other side of a closed door in a club). This track feels different otherwise, too, as the lyrics suggest that you are the party that got it wrong here, and by walking away you save them. Is this survivor’s guilt talking?

This is a different story, and that one is about romantic love. This song as well as the previous one Bubbles Of Me are about the fact that I felt I could not seem to love “right”, and that there was a constant underlying pain and anguish in my relationships that I couldn’t escape from. This in turn made my partners suffer and feel unloved, and I felt like there was nothing I could do, except leaving. So yeah, guilt, definitely. Not nice to make people suffer.

Then again, the sultry summer days of All I Have Is Love, All I Do Is Destroy return to the subject in a different way, where you can see that sticking around is the worst outcome for both.

A different type of pain, this one. Sometimes everything is right, except the time, the place, and the reality we’re in. And you’ve also got to walk away.

To my ears, the most difficult song is Rain on the Car Roof. I think that’s because we’ve all been there: that despair when you convince yourself that you’re the failure, your life is shit, relationships are even worse, and you can’t see any way out. I got out of such a situation, but looking back I’m still not sure how I did. With the benefit of hindsight, did you?

Well, this is a song I wrote quite recently, so I suppose not ahah! But I am used to it now. As I was saying earlier, I got used to a permanent underlying sadness in my existence, this is how I live and that’s probably the reason why I make art for a living. So in a way I wouldn’t want to give that up. Sometimes the sadness gets overwhelming, and I write songs like Rain On The Car Roof. Sometimes it is manageable. I’m still here so I’m good at managing it.

There is a dissociative feel to your vocal delivery on this album, as if any emotion will derail what you are trying to say. What was harder, writing and performing this, or having to relive the trauma by listening back to it as you completed the album?

Definitely listening back. The writing and the recording I’m in deep and I don’t take a step back to think about my emotions. I just need to put them somewhere, exorcise, heal. That’s when the song comes into existence. All the while I work on it I don’t take a step back. However, post release, when I don’t listen to them as often, and I randomly get to hear All I Have is Love, All I Do Is Destroy… Well, THAT, is always like a punch in the stomach. I’m ok with it though. I’m happy that the song turned out very pretty. I have and I will cry a little on stage when I sing it probably, but I’m ok with it.

The reaction to the album has been one of universal approval – and a whole lot of people relating to it strongly. How has it felt for such a personal album to be validated in such a way?

It confirmed what I say all the time: we are all suffering; we are all highly emotional beings. We all have tragic backstories, and I know those words have been said so many times that they seem empty now, but god do we need to be a lot kinder to each other. And that counts for people who disagree with you. Doesn’t make them less human.

Sadgirl Mixtape is out now. Get it on Bandcamp.