Deli Magazine Interview with Elizabeth Valleau from WOLVVES
Deli: Was there a particular album or show which made you think, "This is what I want to do."?
EVAL: I ended up going to the Knitting Factory downtown when I was way too young. I saw Yoko Ono play some weird, bent Casio and scream her fucking head off. She threw herself on the stage so hard she scared the shit out of me. My brothers and I were deeply cloistered in a classical-only enviornment at home at the time. Â It was so wild and unmusical - such bad behavior. I was like "Wow - I wanna grow up and be a PROBLEM." Later when I went to school in London was going to raves a lot. I saw Bjork DJ at Heaven throw a similar electronic temper tantrum. She was dead drunk, had a full Roland setup and was playing bizarre, acid live PA. The combination of cool electronic prowess with feral siren attitude makes me swoon dead away.
Deli: Â Who are your primary inspirations as a musician and a performer?
EVAL: I think this line of questioning is generally a poor notion, but I will say this: J Dilla changed my life.
Deli: Â What was your upbringing like? How has New York City impacted you?
EVAL: Â New York City is my heart, my lungs, my brain - Â Itâs everything. Â I have five amazing brothers and we assemble to form Voltron. My upbringing was very weird and I donât want to talk about it.
Deli: Â What are some of the most memorable reactions you've had to your music?Â
EVAL: Lots of cult talk. Like âwhere do I sign up?â and âhow do I get involved?â Occasionally âAre you guys for real?â To which we say âYes.â
Deli: Â What was the process like behind Feed the Hand that Bites? What's the significance of the title?
EVAL:  Itâs actually a quote from a song from The Knife, who we worship. From the song called âNeverlandâ, which is roughly about embracing and nurturing the bad guy  - the villain in your story. Only in this case, we are the bad guy.
Deli: Â What are some memorable stories from the road?
EVAL: SXSW is a fucking joke.
Deli: Â What does electronic music represent to the female artist?
EVAL: Steeplechase. Truly, I have never experienced resistance to my gender. I think the electronic production and performance communities are some of the least sexist in the music industry. What I do take issue with is a failure in the education system to expose young girls to the kinds of disciplines that are likely to make them comfortable with the engineering-oriented, left-brain pleasures of electronic composition and performance. I was fortunate enough to be raised by wild animals, but I know for a fact that many women are trained to be intimidated by things with wires and switches. Stop that. Buy your baby girl a fucking modular. They are colorful and good for hand-eye coordination too.
 Deli: How does gender play a role in EDM?
EVAL: Electronic music is ecstatic, escapist, ritualistic, sensual and primitive. Add pussy and you've got something close to heaven. In seriousness though, I think the relative scarcity of prominent female DJ's and artists raise those figures to cartoonish pedestal. I look to Panorama Bar as a kind of utopia, where amazing female guests and residents are bread and butter, not a surprise. This is how it should be. (FYI We don't espouse the term EDM, although it is technically accurate. We feel it represents a new breed of commercialized, corporate dance music which is at odds with our mission. Do we need to talk about Paris Hilton? No we do not. )
Deli: How would you describe your live show?
EVAL: Fire and brimstone. Donât show up and plink your tunes in a sweater and expect the crowd to leave satisfied. Create sacred space and then burn it to the ground. Also "The  Box".
The âbrainâ of our show contains a pair of mac minis along with several wired and wireless audio and midi interfaces and converters. This forms the technological central nervous system of the band on stage. All the audio is routed through the computers and sub-mixed down to a stereo pair before it hits the house. That provides a world of manipulation and control options that I feel will possibly never be exhausted.
Deli: What was the inspiration behind "White on White?"
EVAL: One time, when I was a little girl in New York City, my grandpa got me a roast beef sandwich from a Jewish deli in the lower east side. Â The most delicious sandwich of my life; it was burning hot, pickles and horseradish, and a warm trickle of blood spilled over my dumb kid hands. I was like "Oh fuck. I am a predator." Â It was glorious.
Deli: How do you stand out in the overflowing NYC music scene?
EVAL: We are really, really tall. Weâve got some good looking, incredibly capable boys on stage. Thatâs not a bad start. But actually we believe in the power of production value, trying your best to be a musician, and then bleeding your heart dry on stage every single time. Your audience totally deserves it.
Deli: How do you see NYC's EDM scene, and where do you see it heading?
EVAL: Iâm hoping against hope that Brooklyn will keep real techno alive through sheer, brute force. And make something new - while we worship at the font of Detroit, itâs time for new movements, new sounds, and ideas.
New York city rewards the least homoginized and most punk, because relief from the stress of living in the worldâs most brutal city comes in the form of truly raw catharsis.
If you live in New York City please take the time and effort to learn about new genres and support passionate DJâs and artists. Go out and dance.
Deli: Â Can you give us a preview of your upcoming music? How does it sound? Any idea of a release date yet?
 EVAL: Weâve been tuning our efforts into more free-form landscapes - dance conceit jump-off points that we can use to build towers of energy in the live show. Itâs gonna be wild. And very soon.
janainaart
prguitarman
stormborns
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
