Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection reveals how he sins.

interview by Mike Kieffer

Daniel Graves is the founder and sole creative member of the electro-industrial band Aesthetic Perfection. This past November All Beauty Destroyed was released, the bands third album and first to be released by Metropolis Records. With this release, Graves has carved out a highly addictive album full of witty lyrics, powerful vocals, and smashing beats.

Lust – People magazine puts you on their cover, shortly thereafter young teenage girls deem you aesthetic perfection and therefore the new heartthrob. Explain your reaction and future actions.
Daniel Graves : I think I’d just be really confused and frightened. Teenage girls are insane, I’d probably have to be a hermit and never leave the house at that point.

Sloth – Three separate friends ask you to help them move for the next three weekends, do you help out or come up with excuses? If you do indeed decide to help out, what excuses would you have used?
DG : If all three were really good friends, I’d begrudgingly help them. I’d complain a lot, but I’d help. If we weren’t tight I think I wouldn’t even bother making up excuses. I imagine I’d just tell them that carrying a couch up a flight of stairs for a casual acquaintance is not how I picture a perfect weekend.

read the full interview in the December/January 2011/2012 Issue

Daniel Myer and Dejan Samardzic are back with a new Haujobb album, New World March, eight years after their last full length. Not focusing on club hits, but still aiming to return to the popularity they’ve had in the past, New World March is distinctly Haujobb. With this brand new material, Myer and Samardzic prove they still have it.

interview by Aaron Andrews

In 1993 Daniel Myer, Dejan Samardzic, and Björn Jünemann founded Haujobb releasing two industrial albums before Jünemann’s departure. The duo of Myer and Samardzic have continued on since and ushered Haujobb through a musical evolution away from their initial sound and explored the realm of electronic music trying sounds including drum & bass, IDM, ambient, techno, trance, and electronica. In 2003 they issued their last full album of new material, Vertical Theory, and became slowly quiet until 2009 when they remixed their reissued Homes & Gardens single with the promise of more on the way. This year Myer took a break from his other recent projects (Architect and Covenant) to focus on reuniting with Dejan as Haujobb on their all new full length release, New World March. We got the chance to interview the creative team of Daniel and Dejan to ask about Haujobb, working together and the brand new album.

It’s been eight years since Vertical Theory came out and for the most part Haujobb has been quiet. Why such a long hiatus?
Daniel Myer : It’s very simple actually. I moved away from Bielefeld and it was kind of tough, working apart. We were still working on music together but it took forever to get things done. When Dejan also moved to Leipzig the whole thing became new dynamics. We focused on the album, started to focus.

Was there any difficulty in working on this album so that the Haujobb sound was identifiable and current?
DM : No. We knew what we wanted and like I said before, we were focused on the sound.
Dejan Samardzic : Current? We don’t care about such things.

read the full interview in the December/January 2011/2012 Issue

Starting out as a model borrowing his styling cues from Marilyn Manson, Manzin developed into a unique homme fatale. Manzin is now loose in New York City, not afraid to break the rules, and taking gender ambiguity to a personalized new level.

photographer : Ron Douglas
makeup & model : Manzin
location : Beauty Bar New york
interview by : Arden Leigh

You recently relocated to New York City. What have you been up to there and how has the new environment affected your personal style?
Manzin : Mostly I’ve been getting lost in the city and abandoning myself to whatever interests me. Once the tricky business of finding a job was out of the way, I could indulge a bit more in the restaurants, bars, clubs, and shops and I’m really enjoying the variety. It’s making me a bit more polished than I was before, I like to think I’ve come a long way from haunting thrift shops, now my key pieces are by quality designers and I have more access to better materials to play with. Plus spending time pounding the pavement has exposed me to a lot of different people and I’m constantly inspired and to some extent influenced by who and what I see on the streets.

view the full feature in the October/November 2011 Issue

Ronan Harris of VNV Nation reveals how he sins.

interview by Mike Kieffer & Vanity Kills

Perhaps the most well known modern EBM/futurepop group of today, Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson of VNV Nation continue on their vigilant quest to spread their music to any willing ear. Automatic is their newest weapon, which is powerful enough to please their fans and pull many more onto the VNV bandwagon.

Wrath – VNV Nation is entered in a fight to the death battle of the bands, who would you want to square off against and what weapon would you choose?
Ronan Harris : Not being a fan of violence or displays of testosteronal inspired violence, this is hard to imagine but if this was a scene in some far-fetched, postapocalypse, low-budget sci-fi movie with Christopher Lambert or JCVD as the cyborg leader whose very word means life or death through the medium of bad acting and interpretational dance, and including some obligatory cliché punk looking folk driving around in chopped up Pintos, firing shots into the air, while inexplicable gas explosions shoot up into the sky around an abandoned factory… etc. (see 1980s for more on this)… I guess I’d go up against Belinda Carlise, if nothing for the sheer bizarreness of it all. Was she a band, even if she was a solo act? Who cares. It’s my answer. VNV vs Belinda Carlisle. Weapon of choice; I think grenades or an MP5K should do it. It’d be quick. The after-party would be awesome.

Envy – If you could put one item on your tour rider that you would always get regardless of price what would it be?
RH : When we started out we used to put “One shaved Golden Condor” and some other necessary items on the rider that you really do need on tour but people didn’t seem to have the sense of humor we expected. Hell, it was for our amusement, no one else’s. If I could put an item on the rider now that I could actually have, it would be one of two things… One, a fabric-lined, wooden box containing a bottle of an ultra rare single-malt scotch that I happen to like, and a collection of handrolled Dominican Republic cigars. After load-out, when everyone’s gone home, the whole crew would all sit around and act like kings of the road, enjoying some fine scotch and discussing the day because our crew’s conversations are hilarious and it would be the high point of the day. Two, an inflatable bouncy castle to be erected in the corner of the hall. You can never go wrong with a bouncy castle. It’s the ultimate icebreaker at cocktail parties and promotes fine conversation covering a wide range of topics. That or people would take their shoes off, get on the thing and re-join the 8 year old mosh pit club, remembering what it was like to smash their nose while flying around on one, though without a parent to run to after.

read the full interview in the October/November 2011 Issue

Femme and Fatalité : the art of Lori Earley

by Rena Finkel

Lori Earley’s haunting portraiture has been a staple of the alternative and art scenes since she first began exhibiting her works in 2004. The beautiful women in her world are ethereal creatures; fantastic mannerist figures full of secrets. Their large eyes and elongated limbs are immediately recognizable, but it is the elegant-but-fierce melancholy mood that pervades her work that has given Earley such distinction. We were fortunate enough to be able to talk to the New York City artist about her work and her recent diagnosis with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Tell us about how you developed your style.
Lori Earley : I honestly don’t know, it’s something that just came to me naturally. However, I think I might have finally found the reason and source of the distortion which I will explain later on. In high school art class, I was assigned to draw a self-portrait for the first time. When I drew mine, I found that I had a really difficult time making the eyes look real and in proportion to the rest of the facial features. I always inherently drew them much larger than they were. I tried several times after that to make my drawing look realistic but after several attempts, I had to give up because I just couldn’t do it. Whenever I was asked this question, I would say it was something I couldn’t explain. The best way I could put it into words was that the distortion of my figures was a visual manifestation of how I felt inside. The really interesting thing now though is that I was recently diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. It’s an extremely rare, genetic syndrome in which the physical features of someone with it tend to have large eyes, a slender build and stretchy, elongated hyper-mobile limbs, as I do. The reason for this is because Ehlers-Danlos syndrome affects the collagen in your body which is essentially the “glue” that holds your ligaments, bones, tendons, etc. together so it makes you very hyper-mobile and you tend to feel very stretched and elongated. The interesting thing about having this condition is that you can contort your body into unusual positions (many contortionists have the syndrome), but otherwise, depending on which type you have, the pain can be mild to excruciating, and I think the pain has lent itself well to emotions of the figures in my painting. When I found out I had it, it was like an epiphany! I finally had an answer as to where the natural distortion from my figures came from, and a lot of my fans made the connection as well. It was a very interesting discovery! Because I have Ehlers-Danlos though, it can be very difficult to keep up with my painting along with the business aspect of it (amongst other things), so I need assistance and found an amazing assistant who helps me tremendously with my business. She has been working with me for five years now and has become my best friend as well. I feel she deserves to be mentioned because without her, I wouldn’t be able to paint because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything because of my condition. So thank you, Sarah Smith!

read the full article in the October/November 2011 Issue

For over twelve years God Module has injected a healthy dose of creepy into the dark electro scene. We had the chance to interview Jasyn Bangert, the mastermind behind it all, as he once again sets loose his imagination and musical talents to eager fans with the release of God Module’s new album Séance on Metropolis Records.

interview by James S. Cole, Kelly Cole & Mike Kieffer

God Module seems to be a band that cares a lot about and has a close connection with it’s fans, how does this relationship effect the band?
Jasyn Bangert : One of the great things about God Module is that we have some very devoted and supportive fans. In response to this I have always made a point to go out of my way to stay in contact with our fan base on a personal level. Since I was a kid I have been deeply involved in the gothic/industrial/alternative scene and I still remember every time I met people in bands who were important to me. Now that things have changed and I find myself on the other side of these situations, I’ll be honest that I do find it strange from time to time but it is also just as important to me as it is to them. I don’t take our fans or our success for granted in anyway.

What is your personal favorite song on Séance and which song do you think will excite fans the most?
JB : At this point my favorite song is “Doppelgänger” for a few reasons. I really like the synths in the track and think they give the track a pretty but unsettling, eerie feeling. I used samples from the  film Happy Birthday To Me when I had my yearly viewing on my birthday this year. They really fit perfectly with the lyrics and the theme of the song. As for the rest of the CD I think the songs “M.D.K.” and “Rituals” are going over really well live.

read the full interview in the October/November 2011 Issue

Enshrouded in a sensual darkness, Heavy Red has always catered to those seeking something more from goth style. An icon and designer whose workmanship has entitled them to countless loyal fans and followers, Tyler Ondine Whitman and the crew at Heavy Red continue to redefine the concept and approach to gothic by playing with both subtlety and drama always with an air of sophistication. For connoisseurs of a darker aesthetic, a darker beauty, the future of goth fashion has never looked so bright.

photograher : Jennifer Link
fashion stylist : Meagan Hendrickson
makeup artist : Andrea Losecco
hair stylist : Erin Moser
model : Agatka
interview : Vanity Kills

Heavy Red’s fashions bring out the best in a woman without overshadowing her. This great achievement can be partially attributed to the countless hours designer Tyler Ondine Whitman invested into studying and photographing the female form in all its variance; from the bare flesh of strippers, swaying from the poles of Chez Paree in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, to the hyper-exaggerated visages of femininity presented by pageant winning drag queens in Alabama. Repeated exposure to this colorful Lucite heeled and be-sequined cast of characters taught Whitman how to articulate sensuality-drenched garments which readily invite flattery and praise, instead of simply drowning the wearer in a metric ton of lace, ruffles and tulle netting. As Heavy Red tirelessly continues to uphold the maxim of, “you should wear the dress, don’t let the dress wear you,” Tyler teases with previews of their fall 2011 collection, shares relevant tips on swimsuit season survival aimed at the black-clad crowd, and talks of perusing the principles of form fitting design at nudie bars.

Heavy Red is getting ready to launch their fall collection, what surprises do you have in store?
Tyler Ondine Whitman : Heavy Red is itself like a young woman, one who is always discovering new facets of her personality. One who explores her sexuality, one who redefines herself through substance and style. A woman who can be the picture of elegance during the day and a down right naughty spectacle after dark. The new fall line has so many exciting elements to help you create a look that is an absolute you. This season suitings, herringbones, pinstripes are playing a big role. Corsets like you have never seen before which will leave you breathless. Our new winter coat is in the works, definitely a must have for fall season. As always I have had some extra fun with some very over the top skirts. I am continuing to push the boundaries of what one could call a hoodie, with all new draping and accentuating of the silhouette. And of course some very unexpected surprises to tantalize the sophisticated Heavy Red shopper.

read the full interview in the August/September 2011 Issue

Former member of Atari Teenage Riot, Hanin Elias revels how she sins.

interview by Mike Kieffer

Envy – What would your reaction be to a fan getting plastic surgery to look exactly like you? Would you consider that self love?
Hanin Elias : I would be horrified! Plastic surgery already gives me shivers of horror when I see someone who had done it. I think you always see it and it just makes the person look very unsure and a poor victim of superficial narcissism and a fear of getting old is something I don’t have and I wish no one would have it. I would begin to doubt if the people really get my messages right…

Gluttony – You enter a food eating competition, what food would you choose to rule over and become the champion?
HE : I would choose maybe raspberries, I can eat tons of them!

read the full interview in the August/September 2011 Issue

Influencing a generation of musicians and artists, a founding member and mastermind behind Skinny Puppy, Ogre gets behind our lens and talks about the newly released ohGr album unDeveloped on Metropolis Records, his role in the cult classic Repo! The Genetic Opera, the upcoming long awaited Skinny Puppy album, and more.

interview by Aaron Andrews

Since 1982 Ogre (aka Kevin Ogilvie) has been bending our minds and breaking new musical ground. First as a founding member and the vocalist for the hugely influential and infamous Skinny Puppy and later in the starring role of the self-named duo ohGr, Ogre’s one-of-a-kind vocal style combined with his visually engaging and in-your-face stage persona have been widely copied and his contributions can also be heard with bands such as Ministry, Pigface, and KMFDM, in addition to being a cast member of newly minted cult film classic, Repo! The Genetic Opera. OhGr’s fourth and latest musical effort unDeveloped builds on this strong legacy and reputation.

Ogre was nice enough to talk with us and discuss the premise and sound of the new material, aging, costuming, death, the creative culture of Skinny Puppy and ohGr, and last but not least, even Michael Jackson.

I heard great things about the Auxiliary Magazine shoot of you for this feature.
Ogre : It was fun, she’s a great photographer.

I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the session.
O : Well, it’s always a bit daunting at this point in life. I call it the Dorian Gray effect. So it’s always a bit daunting. When you work with nice people who understand all the subtleties and sensitivities that go along with watching yourself decay on film over a lifetime, it isn’t so bad.

Tell us a little about the new album. What have you been exploring and thinking about with unDeveloped?
O : unDeveloped is kind of a beginning point and also closure for me. It’s something that began with Devils In My Details, so it’s a continuation of the concept of Devils In My Details but closure to the content; in that I think the last four years of my life I’ve had a number of revelations and experiences that have been very profound to me. I tried to correlate that in a much more journalistic way in Devils In My Details in the moment and unDeveloped is a different look at the same situation through a much clearer resolution lens. Almost akin to looking at something through a childhood microscope and then taking it into a lab and looking at in under an electron microscope and re-examining the same information. So unDeveloped really came out of that, it was the continuation of a really great project with Mark that we have a lot of fun with and we’re really actively involved in fomenting and creating an immersive experience and taking that one step further. Obviously this time period is rife for tons of information both confusing, I’m sure terrifying to most people; but to me, somebody who’s had their head up the ass of all this spectacular and covert and, um, left over right, right over left, even when they’re all the same. I’ve had my head seasoned to this for so long that there’s just so much interesting stuff to write about in the fashion that I do that it’s a bit poetic. I think with unDeveloped too is I’m getting closer and closer to the process of my own writing. I’m not trying to say to sound bigger than life, I say that with a great deal of humility in the sense that my writing has lead me to where I am now and on the route has had things that were almost prophetic and very mysterious to me.

read the full interview in the June/July 2011 Issue

For some it’s hard to balance a career with play and creativity but Angelspit’s Amelia Arsenic does so with seeming tirelessness. As a designer about to release two new lines Crime and Punishment and Taxidermia, a musician with a UK summer tour ahead and new album slated for October with Angelspit, a writer with her own highly popular blog destroyx.com, and more, Amelia’s creative prowess has had many different pathways to follow and surely will have many more in the future to explore.

AUXILIARY ONLINE CONTENT
[ additional images not seen in the June/July 2011 Issue ]

photographer : Steve Prue
fashion stylist : Amelia Arsenic
makeup artist : Amelia Arsenic using Miss X Aesthetic Labs and Sugarpill
hair stylist : Kristin Jackson
model : Amelia Arsenic

view the full feature in the June/July 2011 Issue