Anyone bemoaning an absence of the mysterious or needing a hint of theatricality in music hasn’t walked down the same dark alleyways Drab Majesty inhabit. The brainchild of Deb Demure (née Andrew Clinco), the project has spent the better part of a decade concealed behind dark glasses, platinum wigs, and smoke-filled stages, leaving the focus on a pastiche of synth-based goth and airy melodies that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Friday night in the bedroom of an early ‘90s teen obsessed with Wolfsheim’s No Happy View LP.
Despite the exterior visage put forth by Demure and live accomplice Mona D (Alex Nicolaou), there’s no denying authenticity trumps any sort of mining past influences. Songs like “Oxytocin” and the propulsive “Dot in the Sky” from the respective albums Modern Mirror (2019) and The Demonstration (2017) are so earnest in despair and icy coolness where you wonder what exactly the atmosphere was like when putting it together. It wouldn’t be a shock to find out the disguises never come off.
“I’m very much [into] vibe and curation in the studio space,” Demure tells Vanyaland. “Recording weird hours of the night, getting into a zone. Playing weird films and having visual textures projected on the walls and really creating a weird creative cave is pretty highly important. Having, like, the right martini going on — I’m big on martinis when I record myself — I’m a master at the martini.” [laughs]
Intoxicating as the end results may turn out, the last couple years have been sobering for many acts who witnessed firsthand album release hype muted, tours scuttled and an overall sense of dread about the future. None of that happened with Drab Majesty, with the timing surrounding the uncertain period pleasantly serendipitous if anything as Demure explained during our 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings) ahead of Friday night’s (November 11) sold-out show at Boston’s Royale supporting goth punks AFI.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
Michael Christopher: Everyone has their own story about how they were affected by the pandemic, and I’m curious as to what it was like for Drab Majesty, especially in the way it informed the music, which already has a very isolated and distant feeling to it.
Deb Demure: For me it was one of those moments where after coming off a long string of touring I had already planned for a month break after… probably a string of 100 shows in about four or five months. So, I was looking forward to this month off and crack open some of my musical equipment and kind of learn it better. Well, I definitely got what I wished for, and I got more. And I absolutely loved it to be honest with you. I was like, “Great!” This month extended into a year extended into two.
As an only child I’ve always enjoyed having time and space to do the things I want to do — alone. I’m one of those cases where it was just a dream come true. It’s like school’s cancelled for a year, now you get to just do whatever the fuck you want. And I’m a pretty highly productive person and self-motivated. The pandemic gave birth to a new synth project I’ve just recently completed an album on, [and] I was able to work more on VR SEX, my other project.
Regarding Drab, I took this really beautiful trip to the Oregon coast, stayed in this A-frame house that was rented to me by a mutual friend and got to work on this new LP and experimenting with a 12-string acoustic guitar kind of seeing a new aesthetic dimension open for Drab going forward, one that is less darkwave/post-punk and a little bit more ambient, neo-psychedelic, spatial. I guess some of the isolated aspects of it definitely played into the sound, but also if I’m ever making music, I always find a way to isolate myself. Isolation is important and has been for the duration of this project.
You’ve done a handful of festival dates over the past couple of years but this is the first extended time on the road and you pointedly noted it would be “strict classics” along with some new interludes. Did you find comfort in those familiar songs as opposed to bringing out the fresh material now?
Yeah, yeah. I think it was partially related to not having the time or space to forge into the new stuff and also, being a support act, distill down the catalog to kind of the most hardest hitting, most representational kind of numbers in our catalog. [It’s also to] give what we assume is an entirely new audience a crash course in the band and not really challenge too hard in the lesser-known songs which — mind you — are also harder to play. [laughs] We do feel strongly about the songs and I think they do encapsulate the “Drabosphere” — if you will — in a way that is a good introduction to the band.
AFI is one of those bands with a notoriously dedicated fanbase and it’s not a group I would have pegged you to be supporting given the disparity in the music. But I do know [AFI frontman] Davey’s tastes, so it makes sense in that respect. How have you found the audiences now that you’re a few dates into the tour?
Actually, the last show, being in Tempe, was the best thus far. It’s hard to quantify because obviously they haven’t been there every night, and they’re watching us get better which, we think we are improving show by show, but maybe there is a symbiosis there where we are playing better and the crowds are responding more. It’s a little too soon, but that can also be determined by the place and just the people there. And united as this country is, it’s also very disconnected in the way they receive music. Rowdier crowds in different cities is just a fact and no two audiences are alike.
In some of the past imagery of Drab Majesty, there were references to Greco-Roman figures, those famous statues of the past. It’s something that was surfacing in the visuals by Johnny Jewel and the groups he is a part of (Chromatics, Desire) as well and got me wondering if you find a direct correlation to the sort of post-punk, synthpop, et al and the sculptures, whether it’s in the blankness in their faces, the emptiness in their eyes…
It’s really interesting you bring that up because I do think there is a universal mind that does gravitate towards this imagery or, somehow, it’s codified in the music and the general aesthetics of it. I know it’s leaked into this particular genre vaporwave, which is something I don’t really know much about, but I have noted that these sculptures and figures do pop up. I’ve always personally been really interested in the lifelessness of mannequins as well and sculptures. They convey so much, but they’re still totally inanimate. The idea behind us kind of whiting our faces out and not showing our eyes and trying to distance ourselves from the humans behind their instruments as much as possible and be more into the objectified zone.
Personally, I feel very disconnected from the music I make — in a good way. I find it to be channeled from another place that I don’t really know much about. In honoring that, we both like to kind of get away from our names — we’ve donned monikers — and that’s where that interest lies. It’s hard to trace the origins of what this is like, why people who make this kind of music are drawn to it. They all have their different reasons, but it is interesting. And also, it just kind of looks cool [laughs], on a very basic level. It’s regal, it is majestic, it’s a nod to antiquity — which I think everyone is kind of into. I mean, how do you not go see a cathedral and be wowed by that? We’re all artists in some way and appreciators of art. If we could literally be mannequins onstage, I think that would be interesting; just play as mannequins. We don’t have the budget yet for that though. [laughs]
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The brief evolution of Drab Majesty has seen you pegged as post-punk, goth, synthwave, darkwave… what do you consider the music and does it bother you when people try to put you into boxes, or do you just chalk it up to human nature?
I think human nature wants to organize things; we just want to say, “this is this and this is that.” Because there’s so much of it, it makes sense to kind of want to have some kind of organizational system to place your records in this category and you know, it’s like, that’s fine. For me, I like to say this is basically “music” or something like that. [laughs] You know? I like to do the most basic… these are “sonics.” I understand some of the musical signifiers I’m using are definitely nods to ‘80s references of course, but I actually approached this project from a folk, fingerpicking appreciation of John Fahey and Nick Drake — guys like that. Robbie Basho.
This is stuff that I was listening to in 2007, ’08, ’09… which I later transferred onto an electric guitar and started adding kind of these psychedelic pedals and phasers and flangers and delays and stuff like that. I would even say it’s just music where psychedelia is a tool that’s implied – it’s a state of mind – but not necessarily a genre. But the whole goth/darkwave thing, that’s just to put on a flyer, in my opinion, or for record stores. I was annoyed with it at first, because I’m like, “They don’t understand!” But that’s OK. There will be no complete consensus, unifying consensus on the art one makes. That’s just part of it and that’s fine.
You started off as a drummer in Marriages, but you’ve been somewhat vocal that you don’t envision having a drummer in Drab Majesty. Coming from being behind the kit, do you miss it at all since there’s no place for it in the current project?
I do miss playing drums, for sure, but actually, there is current talk of adding a drummer for the next iteration of the band. The no drum days are kind of coming to a halt, I think, in the next year. I’ll have to restructure the live show considerably — there’s a lot of work to be done — but I think I’m ready to do that. I’m already speaking with one person, and I think they’re a great fit for the project. You’ll see more of that come to light. I don’t know if I’m imagining actual drum set drums, but some kind of live… maybe hybrid kit.
:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
Right now, I’m really craving good Italian food; being half-Italian, this is encoded in my DNA. I haven’t had it for a while, and I dream of this place in Bologna called Da Vito. Anyone that’s in Bologna [Italy] should try this place. First of all, you go in and it’s like green carpet, curtains; it’s been there for 100 years. They have a jug of wine they put on the table and they charge you by how much wine you drink at the end. This place is completely no frills but the highest quality food ever. They have this tortellini soup that’s, like, absolutely next level; these little tortellini floating in this broth. It’s minimalist. It’s perfect. I would eat it every day. Then they have this Bolognese sauce that’s just absolutely incredible. Café Da Vito in Bologna: can’t go wrong. This place is legendary, and it’s the most unpretentious restaurant I’ve ever been to. It’s truly an experience. You can tell everyone there is really enjoying it too, like, they’re there because “This is the spot.” Not like, “Oh, I’m just getting a snack and I’m getting on with my day.” People are crying as the food is coming out.
:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
You’re somewhat a student of the history of music and I want you to tell me seven artists you wish you could perform with in any capacity. It could be as an opener, sharing a bill, collaborating on a track — whatever — from any period in time.
Wire, from the late ‘70s when they released the album 154.
Spacemen 3 around when they released Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To.
I would love to play with Martin Dupont, these early synth-pop progenitors from Marseilles, France who are actually reestablished again. They’re a huge influence on my music and they had a very short-lived touring career, but they were touring in the early-80s.
I think at one point I would really like to play with My Bloody Valentine. I’ve been listening to that music for the better part of 20 years now and still I’m just so mystified by it, and I get why it’s so revered.
Edgar Froese from Tangerine Dream, my favorite synthesist ever. It’s so beautiful and so film sounding; I would like to work with him and just be in his studio and see how he has constructed some of these incredible works of art, namely the record Stuntman [which is] a really important record to me. He’s someone that I’m really fascinated by and I can’t figure out how he makes his music. A lot of the early krautrock, the technology was so strange and primitive at the time and I just can’t wrap my head around how these records were made and how all these machines were synchronized in such an artful way.
I would certainly love to play with Slowdive. That’s the music that has guided me over the years through various points of my life.
For the seventh, I’m gonna go with Chrome when Damon Edge was in the band. Some of those recordings are just so intense and chaotic and raucous and I’m just so curious how that music was made and what it looked like when it was being recorded. His vocal takes are just so mutant and so violent, but also stylish at the same time too. Whenever I’m listening to music that doesn’t seem like it was made meticulously and politely in the studio and it sounds like a transmission from another dimension, which mostly all Chrome recordings sound like, there had to have been something going on in the studio beyond just a bunch of guys in plain clothes deciding what to do next. I feel like there’s some weird juju happening in the space like the lighting and what drugs are being used, what state of mind everyone was in. What kind of day was it? How long had they been awake? Is there fighting in the space? There’s a number of recordings that sound just so unhinged that I’m just wondering what environment were these made and there’s a good amount of Chrome records that just sound like alien soundtracks.
DRAB MAJESTY + AFI :: Friday, November 11 at Royale Boston, 279 Tremont St. in Boston, MA :: 6 p.m., all ages, sold out :: Event page