Sometime between the birth and apparent dissolution of Rock band Marriages (in which singer/songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle’s career also took root), drummer Andrew Clinco decided to start a small self-released side-project, a one-man band with a unique aesthetic which he undoubtedly did not expect to amass such a wide following and eulogistic reviews. It didn’t take long for the world to pick up on Clinco’s skillful musicianship and effective songwriting, though. If the name Andrew Clinco doesn’t ring a bell, try asking just about anyone in the Goth, Post-Punk or even (surprisingly) Metal scene. Under a white wig, oversized sunglasses and alabaster theatrical makeup, he would be known to most music aficionados as his genderless and enigmatic alter-ego, the otherworldly Deb Demure, frontman of Drab Majesty. Since signing to independent label Dais Records, Drab Majesty has released three albums – Careless (2015), The Demonstration (2017) and Modern Mirror (2019), which keep selling out and getting repressed due to their immense (and well deserved) popularity. With a lineup completed in 2016 by another talented multi-instrumentalist, Alex Nicolau (Mona D), Drab Majesty still feels like a very personal project of Andrew’s.
At times, Clinco trades the wig for a wide-brimmed hat to front Drab Majesty’s seedier, more crass twin, VR SEX, in which he explores under the moniker Noel Skum and through analog synth-drenched Death Rock and Lo-fi Punk melodies society’s more unrefined malaise, anxieties and vices — never celebrating them but airing them as to lessen the stench.
Pick up VR SEX’s new self-released EP Cyber Crimes, out on April 30th, exclusively through bandcamp.
Don’t miss Drab Majesty’s first ever vinyl press, on 45 RPM 12′, of early releases Unarian Dances and Unknown To The I. Pre-orders open on May 21st.
What you’ve been listening to the most lately?
I guess I go into kind of obsessions with certain songs that I play on repeat and repeat. And one song I’ve been listening to as almost a daily ritual is this 27 minute-long, seminal Ambient work by STEVE ROACH, Structures From Silence. I can’t seem to ever tire of the song. It is a 27 minute piece composed solely on an Oberheim synthesizer, in the late 70’s, I want to say. It’s just the most amazing meditative piece and I put it on in the morning to kind of emerge from bed and my slumber, and then sometimes I put it on throughout the day to kind of calm me down. Sometimes I put it on in traffic to mitigate the pains of being stuck on the freeway here in LA. But this song Structures From Silence has proven to be an incredibly therapeutic song. Also, this record by ROBERT TURMAN called Flux is an amazing Ambient record as well. I listen to a lot of Ambient music I’d say. This other record also by this Swedish Ambient composer who goes by 1991 and it’s called No More Dreams. I listen to those pretty regularly as just a means of therapy. Music has so many different kinds of results it gives me. It’s not always just to listen, it’s like, this song is this certain drug… Actually, I like to equate music to drugs. We can talk about that later. But lately, you know, things have been stressful and it’s important. There’s not much of a rejoicing spirit right now and I don’t feel the need to get amped to go out or to do things. I have some music I listen to when I run, I’m really into running but mostly, I would say the most repetitive, replayed music right now are these three Ambient artists, just as a means to keep my heartbeat at a normal rate.
Has Ambient always been a part of your life or is that something that you’ve been more into since the pandemic?
It’s always been a part of my life. I’d say since seventh grade or maybe even as early as sixth grade, when I discovered BOARDS OF CANADA, which was kind of the turning point for my musical journey. That’s when my brain started to really respond to Ambient music and realize that these gauzy serial textures were perfect and they were in harmony with nature and they were basically the soundtrack to life. If there could be a soundtrack to life, I don’t hear the soundtrack to life being really beat driven, even though Boards Of Canada is beat driven. The soundtrack to life doesn’t have words and it doesn’t have a Pop song structure. It’s something repetitive and hypnotic and intoxicating. So yes, I have listened to Ambient music since about the sixth grade.
That’s amazing. I don’t think a lot of sixth graders are into Ambient.
I was fortunate enough to have an English teacher that showed me this music. She was super cool. I really attribute that turning point in my life to her taking interest in me as a student and showing me the music that she was into.
Is there any songs that you consider to be perfect songs? Have you ever encountered perfection while listening to music?
Wow, interesting question. Yeah, I mean, all the time. It’s more often than not, I think. Rarely do I hear something that I enjoy that I think could be improved. To be honest, I think artists are constantly getting it perfect. You know, some aren’t but, I really do. I think certain records are perfect. I think it’s really hard to even delineate perfect and not perfect, because I don’t know what the intention was, from the artist’s perspective, but for me, it is perfect in my reception. It’s all so subjective of course, right? Sometimes, if I try to recreate a record that I would call perfect —and I tried to do it—, it wouldn’t be perfect because A: I’m recreating it and B: it’s filtered through the intentions of someone else. So I think, all the time, it’s perfect. It’s just exactly what it needs to be, or at least I believe it to be that. I don’t really question most artists that I like, if they know what they’re doing or not. I give most artists the benefit of the doubt that they knew that they set out to do exactly what I’m hearing. And of course, there’s always these happy accidents but ultimately, they signed off on those happy accidents and they said “this is right”. So I think a lot of things are perfect. I really, really do.
There’s a lot of things I’m discouraged by too, that kind of stuff fades more into what’s contemporary and what’s happening now I think, when you get into the realm of artists trying to approximate things. One thing that cuts through that I always pick up on is, the antithesis to perfection is inauthenticity. I can pick up on that, and to me, that is a big red flag. An alarm goes off when I hear inauthenticity. Then there’s a problem and I’m thinking, “okay, this person is not being honest, this is someone trying to pose, or approximate something that’s not truly their voice.” I think perfection happens when the artist truly embraces their voice, and confidently and without any constraints and editing themselves in a way that they think would suit the listener or the audience more than it would suit their own desires as a creator.
That’s a very vulnerable position, though, as a musician, no?
Yeah, I mean, that’s what we do. Being a musician is one of the most vulnerable professions, I think. Any art really. When you’re proposing this body of music or body of paintings or a film or something, you’re saying “yeah, this is the extension of my brain, an extension of my heart, my soul, this is who I am”. I think when artists make themselves vulnerable, they really succeed. But when they try to craft something that’s insincere, it’s really quite obvious, at least to me.
I can’t tell you what makes things feel insincere, but I just know it when I hear it. I look at the whole picture sometimes, you know? We’re not going to name names, but there’s plenty of artists right now that I don’t think they really know what they’re doing, actually.
I guess there’s a sort of dissonance that you can pick up from that.
Yeah, precisely. Dissonance is a great way of saying it.
Going back to you getting into Ambient music around the sixth grade, do you have prior memories of being into music as a kid? Was it something you were exposed to at all, either from your family or things like that?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, my father is a Jazz guitarist, and so he exposed me to a lot of great music from a very early age. From as young as I remember, he was playing JACO PASTORIUS and JOHN COLTRANE and I was taken to see ELVIN JONES play one of his final concerts before he passed away. Elvin Jones was the drummer of John Coltrane. And so I was raised with Jazz, it was really prevalent in my life but also being a child of the 90’s and having MTV on all the time, I of course gravitated towards Grunge and Alt-Rock from that was on the television. I would say, well before my interest in Ambient music, I was a huge NIRVANA fan, huge SOUNDGARDEN fan. You know, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, SMASHING PUMPKINS, of course, that kind of stuff really shaped my view on Rock music and that was my introduction to music that I would later make. I never really attempted anything in the Jazz realm.
Actually, I took drum lessons from a Jazz instructor and I was learning to play Jazz drums but I never made any compositions as a Jazz musician. I’ve always appreciated it, but I don’t have a theoretical music background. My music is solely intuitive and stuff.
Was that Elvin Jones concert your first concert? Do you remember anything prior to that?
I just remember going to see various Jazz musicians at this place in Los Angeles called the Baked Potato. It’s a very legendary venue, actually. I was fortunate to see a lot of Jazz musicians there. But I don’t really know my first Rock concert. I can’t even really remember that.
It was probably some shitty Punk show, like maybe NOFX or something. I like NOFX, actually. Something in that range of late 90’s, kind of more Pop-Punk. I saw PENNYWISE too, right around that time. Pennywise might have been my first concert. Yeah.
What are some of the most memorable shows that you’ve been to?
In recent memory, one that really stands out in my mind was about three years ago, I was spending some time in Venice, Italy, and I was with my friend Nedda. She came out to take some photos and visit and we were staying in this flat. I found out from a friend that SLOWDIVE was playing in Bologna, which is about maybe 80 kilometers by train, just that night, and I was able to contact a friend who mixed their last record, my friend Chris Cody, and I said “Do you think you could call them?” because the show’s totally sold out. It was at this place called The Locomotive and it was probably a 500 capacity room. We took the train, immediately just packed up all our stuff. We were like, ‘Okay, fuck, let’s just go see it”! And we got a hotel in Bologna and went the night, and it was insane. We walked in, right as soon as they’re starting, and I was definitely really drunk on aperol spritz. It was just perfect. I took a little MDMA too, it was just a pretty surreal experience. It was the most crowded show I think I’ve ever been to and I pissed off like 50 people trying to get through the crowd to get as close as I could. It was so packed that I could try to fall backwards and there was no possible way, there were just that many people. Something that we probably won’t see for a long time. *haha*
That sounds like a really amazing way to see them. I saw Slowdive in 2015 and it was mind blowing, but it was a seated show so it was completely different. I was just sitting there being hit by the sound like “OH MY GOD”!
Yeah, it’s so immersive. I think it doesn’t even matter what you’re doing, no matter if you’re seated, standing, you know, hanging. But yeah, it was incredible.
What are some of the most impressive band you’ve toured with?
When I was in MARRIAGES, we did a tour with this band called CREEPOID. Kinda short lived, maybe three or four year lifespan band from Philadelphia. We did this co-headline tour with them and I remember we had to meet them all the way in Denver, which is pretty far from LA for a first show. I hadn’t really familiarized myself with their music and I just remember as soon as they were soundchecking, I was like “Oh my God, this band has really, really good songs and really good guitar tone”. The main songwriter, lead singer, this dude by the name of Sean, I was just kind of fixated on how great his songs were. So yeah, CREEPOID blew me away. We proceeded to do 30 shows without any breaks with them. That was a pretty insane tour. That was during the summer, too. Yeah, that was amazing. Did we go to Canada? Fuck, I don’t remember…
With Marriages? I don’t know.
I’ve been to Canada. I played the Faimount Theatre with MARRIAGES, but that was a different tour. But yeah, that band was amazing. Of course, when we toured with SMASHING PUMPKINS, I was like, they’re as good as they could possibly be. You know, given that it’s three fourths of the original band. That was mind blowing to watch them play every night just flawlessly. Something you don’t really expect from a band that’s been around for 30 years, to have gotten even better or something. There’s been no kind of deterioration, really.
They keep pushing and always coming up with new stuff instead of kind of just wallowing in nostalgia, you know what I mean?
I do, but I will say that those nostalgic moments are really powerful. You’re immediately transported back. I mean, I was brought to tears many times here, carrying these classic songs that shaped my childhood.
Then I’d say maybe from a more recent account, being on the road with XENO AND OAKLANDER. I have the utmost respect for both Liz and Sean. I think they’re just absolute masters of their craft and they really have taken the medium of synthesized music to a height that I don’t think any band has really ever. They carry on a lineage from the 80’s more respectfully, I think, than any electronic band out there right now. They’re absolutely mind blowing.
Is there any artist that you can think about that has a flawless discography, that can do no wrong?
This is a great question. Give me a second. I want to have an immediate reflexive response, but I want to see if I can be even smarter about that… You know, I probably have to say WIRE. Considering some of their stylistic departures, I think if they did the first three records like 10 more times, it would get boring. Beyond a perfect discography, I want to say I think they had a perfect career in doing exactly what they wanted to do at all times, and never compromising, always reinventing themselves, and just really holding art to the highest level. Nothing about what they do has ever felt phoned in or just the easy route, it’s always very boundary-pushing. Beyond the first three records that everybody kind of heralds -like some of them were even like “Pink Flag is the greatest Punk record of all time”-, I think there’s records that go beyond that. Such as The Drill, also an incredible record that came later. I think that they’ve had a perfect career, they have kind of the career that I dream of having. And also never selling out, you know. So yeah, Wire probably,
Is there any up and coming artists that you would recommend?
Fuck, I don’t know. I hate to be such a cynic, but I’m pretty disenchanted with a lot of contemporary music right now. I mean, there’s great bands that are of my age bracket that I think are already known, and are already doing really good work, and for the right reasons, I think they’re celebrated, but I don’t… I’m ashamed to say that I don’t familiarize myself with contemporary music as much as I probably should. Typically, I’m usually shown that stuff, and then I’m really excited about it. But I really don’t spend much time digging through Bandcamp.
You don’t actively look for it.
No, I don’t. If I find something that I really like, it’s really exciting. Usually, I’ll find something I really like and then it’s like, “Oh, yeah, everybody else knows about that.” So I’m not really in tune to the scene in that capacity.
It’s actually quite an interesting answer, I think. I mean, we’re also getting older as people and you know what they say, that after 30, it becomes really hard to open up as much to new stuff, including music. I don’t know if you feel that way, but are you afraid of getting stuck maybe in your old music tastes? Or do you think that’s gonna keep changing?
I don’t know, I have trouble with the idea of “old” you know, because I feel like, is it old because it was made a long time ago or? Relatively, that isn’t that long ago, the stuff that I’m into, and as far as I’m concerned, tight work can be timeless, you know? It can still break boundaries that have yet to be broken again, in this current state. The idea of a linear progression of music getting to this space that’s continually evolving and evolving and getting better or changing, I don’t know, I have trouble with that. I think it’s just a big, big thick tree with all these various branches spawning from the single source, and some branches are branches that I don’t visit and other branches are branches that I stay on and I traverse from one to the other. I think there’s so much criteria involved in determining what’s good and the care that’s put into music and the skill set that’s involved with doing it.
I don’t see myself turning into an old curmudgeon, like, “Back in my days, it was so good”, because that stuff to me still sounds really ‘future’, you know?
Yeah. I see what you mean. I always find that our parents’ generation, they’re so excited to share the music they were listening to when they were younger but also, I find that they’re open whenever you bring them new music. So I hope that the saying isn’t true, because I want to keep discovering music, personally, and get really excited about it, all my life.
Yeah, for sure. Me too.
If it’s okay with you, I want to go back to what you said earlier about equating music to drugs. I’m curious about that because I do feel that way about music as well. I have tried some drugs but not that many, I guess. Is there a type of music that you associate more with a feeling that you get from a drug or is that more like a general feeling?
I think there’s definitely certain bands… there’s a game, actually, that I play with certain friends. I’m like, “Okay, what band is cocaine?” And then it’s like, “Okay, to me, it’s the BUZZCOCKS or like, DEVO or even THE STRANGLERS, just pure energy and mania and just being super amped”. And then music that I would describe as what an LSD experiences is like, I don’t know, I would say FLYING SAUCER ATTACK. Did you ever listen to them?
I’ve never listened to them. I’ve heard the name, but I haven’t listened. Should I check them out?
Oh my gosh, yeah! Flying Saucer Attack is just a very strange band that kind of flew under the radar —no pun intended— for a lot of people but in particular their self-titled record and this album called Chorus to me describe a very long, kind of introspective LSD experience.
Then something like DMT I would say, there’s this band called -it’s a French name, I’m gonna butcher it- LES RALLIZES DÉNUDÉS.
Yeah! They’re Japanese!
They’re really amazing, an incredible band. Their record Heavier Than A Death In The Family is just so cosmic and explosive. It’s dreamy, but it’s also very impactful and it’s got bursts of color and explosive patterns. The first impression is pure Psychedelia, but to me it’s way more than that. It’s almost like a film playing out. A really grainy film of abstract… Like this artist Stan Brakhage. There’s a film called Dog Star Man that I feel is the visual equivalent of this record or that band, really just abstraction, color, geometry, just pure color mush. It’s an incredible record, it’s hard to articulate. It’s the same way with DMT experiences, you can’t really describe it, it’s this kind of explosion of love and enlightenment from the Cosmic One, the Universal Mind. You put this record on, either for a focused listen, or it can be background music for when you’re just hanging out with your friends, but it’s really important music in my opinion. And, historically, it’s very transgressive because it came out actually in the late 60’s —or this music was being made in the late 60’s— but it sounds like pure anarchy. You wouldn’t believe that bands like THE BYRDS were also making music at the same time. I love The Byrds but that stuff feels so much more antiseptic and clean compared to this stuff. This is pure, unreal, unrestrained, full. It’s amazing.
You’ve given me something to do this weekend. I’m gonna check this out for sure.
Tell me what you think of them. I really think they’re amazing. I hope you like them too.
I wanted to come back to this question because, I don’t know how to say that, but to me, music is the grandest experience. There are things I love about life, but music is above all that, similar to what I guess how religious people feel.
Yeah, like the feeling of rapture.
You’re connecting to something that’s bigger than yourself and just kind of dissolving into that. That’s how music generally makes me feel. I don’t know if that’s the way that most people feel but hearing you speak, I know that you understand what I mean. But I also feel like a lot of people don’t.
I think they don’t, but they may just not have the language to describe it. I think whatever music, whatever genre, whatever it is, the part of it that I think makes people feel something so amazing is that it’s being digested through them, through their bodies in real time. It’s like being bathed in a warm light. Just like if you’re cold and you’re under a heater, or if you’re just jumping in warm water, you’re feeling like, “Ah, that’s exactly what my body needs.” It’s vibratory frequency, and we absorb that with all of our senses at once. I mean, aside from smell, which I think would be a really interesting sense to pioneer. I’ve kind of tried that with some DRAB MAJESTY shows by putting…
The sage!
Right. Well, yes, the sage of course, but even putting some fragrances in the fog machine. They make smells for fog, which I think is kind of an interesting thing, a new terrain to mine, if possible. But um, it’s beyond a film, beyond a painting that you just take in with your eyes, a film you take in with your eyes and your ears. Films aren’t as immediate as music. It’s this compacted experience, even within the first notes, the first sound, you’re like, “Oh, wow”. I don’t need any time for my body to kind of make sense of “do I like this”? I mean, you’ll know, you’ll be like, “I don’t like this”…
It’s in the now.
Yeah, it’s immediate. You could look at a painting and be like, “Well, okay, I like the way it looks but I’m not sure if it really moves me”. There’s a middle space. Then, maybe knowing the backstory of a painting sometimes might make you appreciate it more. If you’re watching a film, you’re like, “Well, maybe I like the way it looks, but I don’t like the story”. There’s all these other elements that can kind of direct your interpretation. But music, it’s invisible essentially, it’s just the medium. It’s sonic and it’s vibration so you have this immediate response to it, that is unlike any other art form. I really agree. Yeah.
The way you explained it, that really makes me wonder how music came about in the history of humanity? Was it always part of our societies? I have no idea. The person who actually figured out music must have been like, “Wow, what just happened?” *haha*
Yeah, I wish I was an ethno-musicologist major and I could actually explain the first tribal kind of sounds that were being made. I mean, it’s as simple as just banging a rock in a rhythm on another rock. There’s some kind of meter there and, ultimately, I think, it comes back to our heartbeat. Our heartbeat having this consistent rhythm, this pace. We all feel something when we hear what is known as four-on-the-floor, that *hums rhythm*. Even just one bass drum going like *hums rhythm*, that’s music. There’s something really primitive about that, that we all can respond to. It’s within us, it’s our hearts or the beat of our lives.
Final thoughts? Anything you’d like to promote?
In the fall, VR SEX will be releasing its second LP, which I’m really excited about. I really spent a lot of time and a lot of care into making this record. It’s to date the most expensive record I’ve made. Actually, funnily enough, it was done in a really fantastic studio in New York with my dear friend. I’d love to give a shout out to Ben Greenberg. He’s a producer extraordinaire, amazing musician. He’s one half —or one third, I guess now— of the band UNIFORM. He’s truly become one of my closest friends and, you know, just musical partners. I did the first VR SEX LP with him and I did the second one with him, and we really pulled out the stops and did it the way a classic record is made you know, done analog and done on a console. There’s real drums on it, which I played and I’m excited to have on a record. Finally, I guess it’s my first LP record that has real drums on it.
Yeah, I remember you saying like, “No one’s ever gonna play drums on my albums” because you kind of want to have control over that.
Yeah and funnily enough, the most recent VR SEX EP, there’s also live drums but they were done by a fellow named Mattia Bardin in Italy, actually. I sent the files to him, and he played drums on it and did an incredible job. I would use him as my drummer. He’s way, way better than me and has way better ideas and yeah, he’s a very good Punk drummer so I was really happy to hear what he did on it. But yeah, for this LP, I did play it myself, and I think it works. It’s fine. Ultimately I’m going to have to find a drummer for VR SEX, but I can’t play it as well as guitar and everything, and I’m not one of those people that wants to clone themselves, making a million of me. I really like people bringing their own thing to the table. But, you know, the bar is pretty high, I want it to be great. Anyway, I’m excited about the LP. Then, I guess I started messing around with some demos for the next DRAB MAJESTY record, but I don’t know when that’s going to happen, the recording of that or when it will come out, but it’s definitely a thought and I’m definitely thinking about new songs and it’s coming out good so far.
That’s great to hear, I’m really excited about that. I imagine it was kind of weird. writing music during the pandemic, but you’ve been really prolific. I feel like a lot of artists just kind of went into hibernation during the pandemic, but I feel like you’ve just made a lot of stuff.
Yeah, I find that funny. It’s like we have all the time now with no hardcore touring obligations. I think it couldn’t have been a better time to get back in touch with making music at home. I’ve really enjoyed having that space of without any hardcore obligations with other bands. It’s been a great way, a great time for me to catch up with other projects. There’s some other things I’ve been working on as well that you’ll probably hear about in the coming year that I’ve wanted to do. I was able to indulge a lot of my musical pursuits for the first time by having all this time, so I’ve enjoyed it. I really have. I almost don’t want it to end that quickly. But I want to be back to normal, obviously, I want to be able to socialize and do all those things. Even for when things come back to normal, I think it’s helped me kind of relearn what it’s like to stay at home more often. I would go out almost too much when we could, so yeah, it’s been nice getting back in touch with my instruments here at home.
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