By Keith Walsh
Starting with The Eurythmics, Yazoo, and Alison Moyet, up through Nuda and The Analog Girl, female-fronted electronic popular music has offered lots of badassery. One very special electronic music release is by the awesome Josie Pace. From Detroit, her latest album is IV0X10V5 (a clever way of spelling ‘Noxious’) on which she delivers amazing performances alongside Ken Roberts on synths and electro-rock beats, and Mark Damian on drums.
In our interview, Josie reveals some of her surprising influences, pushes back on my basic assumptions about gender politics, and sets me straight about the supposed uniqueness of dark themes in electronic music. She’s currently on tour all over the United States. Check her out!
Synthbeat: Your songs are definite earworms. I think it’s a misconception with music fans that artists necessarily write songs to be commercial. What is your experience with writing catchy songs?
Josie Pace: I don’t go into writing a song, planning to write a ‘catchy’ song. But because of working and growing in my writing for years and listening to all the influences throughout my life, I go into writing in the purest sense and it comes out (so far) as catchy. I don’t force anything onto the song, if I did it would be very contrived. It all really goes back to being yourself and just letting yourself write about what is important to you. People can always tell when things are being forced.
Synthbeat: How do your listening habits influence your writing?
Josie Pace: I grew up on a lot of songwriter bands and classic rock. Growing up with bands like The Eagles has definitely helped my writing skills. I feel like good songwriting is something that is lost now days. I took a ton of creative writing classes and I have so many books on songwriting. There are so many ways to strengthen the writing process but listening to bands that write well is definitely the best.
Synthbeat: ( For Ken) What synths are your go to? Do you prefer VSTs or hardware synths? What DAW are you using?
Ken Roberts: I own about 100 synths but for the recording of the noxious album there were a handful that I used the most. My go to’s were the Arturia Matrix Brute the Sequential Prophet 10, the ARP 2600, the Moog Voyager, and Korg MaxiKorg 800DV. I use some software synths just for the ease while we are writing but then go back and switch them out. I use Logic Audio for songwriting and Protools for mixing.
” I go into writing in the purest sense and it comes out as catchy. I don’t force anything onto the song, if I did it would be very contrived. It all really goes back to being yourself and just letting yourself write about what is important to you. ”
Josie Pace
Synthbeat: What tools do you use to write your songs?
Josie Pace: I write all of the songs on the acoustic guitar before I take them into the studio for Ken to transpose them into electronic driven music. I love writing completely alone, I will sit for hours and work on music. It’s like a therapy session for me. After finishing the song I take it into the studio and Ken and I work on transposing the guitar parts into synth parts.
Synthbeat: On ‘Vicious’ you play the femme fatale or someone cruel? On ‘Begging you’ you’re in a world of hurt. There’s lots of gender politics here. How does the current state of the ‘battle of the sexes’ inform your lyrics?
Josie Pace: I find it very interesting that that is what you pulled from those songs. I rarely ever go into detail of what my songs are written about because I love leaving it up to the listener. I don’t ever write about politics or ‘gender roles’ or ‘battle of the sexes.’ I find it very elementary to focus on topics like that. I write merely out of what’s in my mind and I love seeing what other people hear in my lyrics.
Synthbeat: I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. But can you appreciate the work of Britney Spears, who also has some minimalist electronic music? What acts do you admire?
Josie Pace: We appreciate all good songwriting, ‘Toxic’ is a great song, though she didn’t write it. And I don’t believe she had any say in how it was produced. Good songwriting is universal throughout all genres. Ken is very influenced by David Sylvian and classic rock is a huge influence for me. Bands like IAMX, Gary Numan, Royal Blood and Shinedown are some of our influences as well.
Synthbeat: For both: What do you suppose it is about electronic music that lends itself to darker themes?
Josie Pace: Any genre lends to ‘dark themes’. Jeff Buckley wrote such amazing music that would be considered ‘dark’. I think there is a bit of a stigma around electronic music being inherently ‘dark’ but just because it’s electronic or synth driven doesn’t mean it is ‘dark’. But! I will say that I write about darker themes only because it has influenced my life. I’ve lost so many people due to suicide and mental health is so prominent that a lot of people relate to that. The fact that I write electronic music doesn’t have much to do with my writing themes.
www.josiepace.com
www.josiepace.bandcamp.com
www.youtube.com/JosiePace
finis
