Youth Code are the commandos of the new brutal DIY earkillers. Armed to the teeth with sonic weaponry, and ready to dish out the assault at a moments notice. They were created virtually on a whim, in a bed room deep in the dank recesses of Los Angeles. Watching them live is a harrowing ride down halls adorned with Skinny Puppy, Nervous Gender, Whitehouse and Ministry whilst making sharp turns at Unbroken (Ryan was in Carry On after all). In other words they’re fucking ferocious. The pure DIY aspect shines through brightly on their first demo cassette, which was recorded the week before their first show. They’ve hit the ground running, tearing a cybernetic swath of destruction in their path. I’d been following Youth Code closely ever since Rob Moran (Unbroken, Some Girls, Narrows) pulled me aside at his monthy Britpop/Morrissey night and yelled down my ear “HAVE YOU HEARD THIS SHIT! ITS PURE FUCKIN CLUB BANGER!” and so was over joyed at the prospect of interviewing them, and of course they did not disappoint. Check the full interview after the jump!
What bore Youth Code? Why did you feel it was imperative to start now?
Ryan: YC wasn’t supposed to be an ongoing thing.. more of a test to see if we could actually pull it off. But that aside. I always felt this huge need to do something aggressive after Carry On split up. But I’d never do another HC band unless it was with Todd and he’s so busy with Nails and his family that it’ll never happen. I mean, modern Industrial/ebm is complete garbage and all the minimal synth shows we’ve been too are a total yawn fest. We saw there was a huge gap to fill in synth based music and just tried to provide some sort of alternative. Basically, like a lot of bands, we started the band we wanted to see/hear.
Sara: I had never really done music. I toured from when I got out of high school until just this past year, but only doing behind the scenes stuff (merch, tour managing…etc.). Ryan really pushed me to excel in creativity, and would start teaching me things about synthesizers to the point where we just started writing things together. I work at Vacation Vinyl, and they were having an all employee showcase of music at Pehrspace. I noticed that I wasn’t doing anything to participate so I barked up and told my manager that Ryan and I were playing our first show, and we were called Youth Code. It seemed like it would be a fun one time deal and then it just took off.We had a second show booked as soon as we stopped playing.
Where did the name come from?
Ryan: We were originally going to make fake bands with Greh Holger who runs one of the sickest labels around, Chondritic Sound. It was going to be a split cassette of EBM on his label. Our side was called YOUTH CODE and his side was FLAT ANDRE. We were just going to rip off Nitzer Ebb and DAF and he was going to do some early Klinik/ Clock DVA type jams. Obviously it never happened but his band “Pure Ground” and YC will be doing an Industrial collaboration in the very near future for Chondritic Sound. We just need to finish up our LP and tour that first. I cant stress how much Greh has helped us as a friend and as an influence.
Sara: Greh is the fucking best. That dude, is so influential and amazing and someone I am beyond happy to call a close friend. If we had never talked about how much we loved Death in June- but hated people who wore Death in June shirts, I would still be on tour, just selling shirts for metal bands for the rest of my days. He helped me put my feet on the ground and has helped our band in so many ways that I can’t even begin to state. If we hadn’t joked around about starting bands, we wouldn’t have even made a band.
How does a Youth Code piece come in to fruition? Is there some command
shouted around the house and then someone says “I know just the
arpeggiation for that!” or…?
Ryan: HAHA Nah man. That is funny though. It’s always different. Usually it starts with a bassline or a sample that gets manipulated to the point of unrecognizable weirdness. That usually gets us going pretty quick. We honestly write songs in a couple hours. We try and keep it super fucking raw because it’s so easy to polish and rework electronic music now. But so much of it sounds stale and boring and we’re going for the opposite. We’re just a weird, fucked up version of a hardcore band.
Sara: It’s all pretty even. One of us will tinker with gear until something sounds good, and the other one just helps it build. We are constantly feeding off of each other. We’ll be at home messing with things and I’ll run in from the kitchen being like ” play that again?”or Ryan will see me learning new things and stop me and we’ll build off of that. I can’t even begin to imagine how it would be in a band where I didn’t spend every minute with who I created with. Our ideas are sporadic, so when something sounds good it goes from a spark to afire in minutes, and it has to be or one of us would probably forget what we were doing or say it sucked and move on to something else.
The lyrics are so menacing and commanding, what are they influenced by?
Ryan: Lyrically- life’s hardships, lessons learned, love and loss. Basic teenage diary stuff… but with some heavy real life experience behind it. I’m a pretty chill person but I hold a lot of rage and pain inside. I’m not the best at talking about my problems so I use music as an outlet. It keeps me balanced. Musically- We draw from hardcore and metal just as much as we do from all the early Industrial bands. There is also a huge power electronics and noise influence with what we do although it a little more subliminal and structured once we get the finished song.
Sara: I tend to write about experiences that I build in my head. Like really fucked up scenarios that could happen, that are completely possible and may have sort of happened in my life, but are excessive in written song. I like that I can completely throw every feeling of hatred, rage, pain and sadness into a 3 minute format and just cleanse my brain of those feelings.
Electronic equipment can be a wonderful thing and absolutely
crippling, you can do and make whatever you want so long as it wants
you to make it. You have a pretty massive set up; electribes,
samplers, controllers. What’s your favorite piece to create with?
Ryan: We use the electribe to sequence but our sampler is the soul of our band. We always have our iphones out recording sounds on the streets and pulling movie clips etc. Then we just dump them in the sampler to make kicks, snares synth sounds. Whatever really. We’re pretty budget wave. Can’t really afford a bunch of crazy analog gear and I’m not sure if I’d even be that into it. With a sampler we can apply the old Burrows “cut up method” and use every day sounds in a new way (which is what we think Industrial music should be about). That’s very attractive to us. Other favorite is the Yamaha DX7. It uses FM which is a different form of synthesis. It’s such a pain to program but you can get the HARSHEST sounds out that thing. We sample that a lot as well, but live it gets used as a controller for Sara’s rack synths.
And yes. It can be crippling. We’ve yet to play a show where everything works right. YC has only been a band since September and it’s been full throttle since. A LOT of trial and error. We’ve recently been using/playing tape loops through a series of pedals between songs. It’s helping kill the dead space while we re-patch and set up the next song. But it’s also a very cool homage to the early Industrial Records catalog. I seriously hate 1/4″ cables now because of this band. But it’s worth the trouble to use actual hardware. Fuck
laptops .
Sara: I really really like the EMX (Blue Electribe) I feel super drawn to it because it’s so all inclusive. When Ryan first started showing me how to mess around with that stuff, the Electribe was really what was left in our house. It is the base of a lot of our stuff and it just clicks with me. Sure I’d love to get a Tempest or something crazy like that in the future, but that thing will always be my baby. I also really love pulling samples. The power in words resonates super hard… so when I see a line in a movie that I like, and process how it affects me, I like to take that and place it in our songs, as an inspiration for what I’m trying to convey in Lyrics. And exactly what Ryan said- I want to murder every 1/4″ cable in the universe, but Fuck a laptop. It’s like the Mario Bros. 3 cheat whistle of electronic music.
There’s a very cinematic feel to Youth Code, a definite tech noir
vibe, what films inspire you?
Ryan: I totally get the tech noir feeling but neither of us are huge sci-fi nerds, surprisingly. I think the futuristic vibe comes more from growing up in a very small town, out in the countryside. I was completely enamored with the city as a kid. . specifically, night in the city. The glow of neon lights, skyscrapers busy, freeways, were worlds away from my surroundings and I cherished every trip my family would take into Los Angeles. I was obsessed and I still am. Once I was able to move here I started going to clubs and was exposed to so much dance music. It was never really something I would go home and listen to (aside from 80’s synth pop) but it was the perfect soundtrack to accompany my lust for the city. I guess paring that feeling, with our Wax Trax fetish, is where the tech noir feeling
comes from?
Sara: I can see where someone would put it as tech-noir, but for me the movies that are super inspirational are movies where I feel like I can truly see the inside of how humanity operates. I love John Waters. His movies push so many boundaries and envelopes, and I feel like he took a bunch of people who society would cast away as being disgusting and turned them into superstars… and superstars who have no boundaries about what they do. It is similar to what we’re doing in a way… we don’t give a fuck and we’re just doing our thing and making it work.
The live videos are absolutely animalistic, how important is playing
live and what are the moods that transition between you two during a
live outing?
Ryan: Our main goal is to just fuck shit up when we play. If you watch old TG, Klinik etc. videos, they are absolutely terrifying and confrontational. I don’t understand why that went away. Plus. We’re both very aggressive people and we’re not EVEN going for the pretty sing-songy thing. I just want to wake people up. Synth shows are boring and guitars (as much as I love them) are fucking ancient now. There needs to be an exciting, challenging alternative.
Sara: I couldn’t come off as dainty or soft spoken if my life depended on it. When we play- it’s my opportunity to be as pissed as I want and fucking go for it. Like I said, everything We do musically I want to be as hard as Pantera or Earth Crisis. As a girl I don’t want to fight or scream or get confrontational in everyday life…. it’s not very attractive, but when we get on stage I get the chance to let that inner animal out and come out swinging.
How do you feel about the fact that this new EBM/Industrial wave that has
really began to breach? With bands like Believer/Law, By Any Means Necessary, White Car, //Tense// and you guys?
Ryan: All the newer bands that fall under the genre all sound very different and it seemed to come out of nowhere which is pretty exciting. I don’t think any of us where even aware of each other until very recently. I can’t speak for anyone but myself here… but being someone that comes from a hardcore background, I really wanted to hear and see some more aggressive bands working with electronics. Honestly though. I really don’t care if a new scene of Industrial/EBM bands pop up. I just want to hear good music that comes from the heart.
Sara: I don’t even think that this newer scene of EBM has really even cracked the surface really- much less crescendoed. I started hearing word of EBM revivalism when Tense and White Car came around and that shit is so good, but everyone else was doing minimal synth…. especially in LA- it was all either Witch house or Minimal Synth. So for me it’s exciting to see that aggressive Synth based music is starting to pick up. I feel the same way that Ryan does- we’re from hardcore and metal, and it’s good to see people being able to do things with a tough feel to it.
What are some influences you think people would be surprised to know?
Ryan: I listen to Tim Buckley, Sibylle Baier and Nico almost more than anything else. I have some weird obsession with really sad people and music. Then I guess… some really embarrassing bands like Braid and The Jazz June.. haha
Sara: I want everything that I’m a part of musically to be as devastating as the Breakdown in “Strength Beyond Strength” by Pantera. or “Firestorm” by Earth Crisis. I hear songs like that and want to break everything around me. I have so many different influences though- in fact I’m sure there’s a lot of embarrassing stuff that I just love. Fuck, I mean I like Paramore a lot. Who cares. I’m drawn to so many different elements of song structure, that I take parts that I like and apply them to what we’re doing.
Personally i want to know what are questions you want to answer,
what’s something that you’ve wanted to talk about but no one ever
seems to ask about?
Ryan: When we started we made a pact that we wouldn’t work with any labels. The exception being Dais (the 7″ on Angry Love was already in the works) but we never thought they would ask. I have such high regard for Gibby so when he asked I felt like Sara and I really accomplished something. The back catalog is fucking flawless and I wouldn’t be into half the bands I listen to if it weren’t for Gibby. From covering Joy Division when he was in The Trouble to wearing PTV and TG shirts when he was in Panic. We played shows together in the Bridge9 days and I just want to give Dais the best record we can make… to say “Thank You” and return the favor in a way.
I’d like to talk a little about the labels we’ve chose to be on. I met Eddie (psychic TV) about 3 years ago while on tour working for Kylesa. Our friendship was instantaneous and I really connected with him. I stayed with him for a little bit and got to see the production behind Psychic TV’s label “Angry Love” . I was so enamored with how they did everything. The Label is so perfect from aesthetic to how it’s run- that I couldn’t help but to ask. I for sure thought it was a long shot because they’re only put out their own recordings, but when Eddie and Gen gave the blessing for us to do a Youth Code 7″ on the label I was thrilled. It is an absolute honor to be able to release something with them, and a total dream come true. I still can’t believe that we’re getting to do this.
You can catch Youth Code at the second anniversary CVLTNATION show with Gehenna, Seven Sisters of Sleep and many more April 26th. Head over to their bandcamp to hear their first demonstration cassette.
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