THE RAW POWER AND IRONIC GENIUS OF ALLIE X

INTERVIEW BY: KATARINA LA POLL

PHOTOGRAPHER: KAIO CESAR, FASHION STYLIST: JOSHUA ALAN CLARK, MAKE-UP: TATIYANA ELIAS, HAIR: ANDI OJEDA, ART: NICK EISER, PRODUCER: JESSE ZAPATERO, STYLING ASST: ERICK GARNICA, LOCATION: GM STUDIO DTLA

With her catchy melodies, clever lyrics teeming with satire, and experimental approach to pop music, Allie X delivers once again, and this time with her first entirely self-produced album. In Girl With No Face, Allie X lives in a weird world. She sings, “it’s sad but it’s true, maybe you can’t see it, but you live in one too.” 

Drawing heavy inspiration from the post-punk and New Wave periods of the late seventies and early eighties, Allie X embodies the same spirit of rebelliousness, boldness, and humor on her 11-track record. Allie notes that being influenced by the music of those eras helped make the project feel achievable, due to the DIY nature of that time. “A lot of these bands had one or two synthesizers, and they had made a whole record out of that and a drum machine.” It therefore made sense if she were to undertake teaching herself how to produce a record on her own that she do it in a similar vein. Though the artist described this process as “incredibly challenging,” one in which she overcame several learning curves, “it felt like the only logical next step” for her after being fatigued with trying to write songs in certain pop rooms in Los Angeles. “I really couldn't stomach or even wrap my head around the idea of trying to write radio hits anymore. I needed to do this.” 

Listening to Allie’s music, I fall in love with how she embraces vocal hiccups and plays with her voice and breath in ways that are theatrical and exasperated. And not without an energetic beat to dance to. Notably in the tracks, “Off With Her Tits,” “Black Eye” and “You Slept On Me.” This isn’t the first record where Allie uses her voice and breath as a percussion instrument (there’s the catchy “Boom, boom” refrain in her 2015 self-produced song “Bitch”), while poking a little fun at the absurdity of certain societal expectations or assigned roles. Allie continues to interrogate in the music video for the album’s opening track, “Weird World,” where she explores the concept of control and the illusion of seeing things as they really are. This is depicted through what appears to be a one-take shot where a pop star is surrounded by masked dancers and tries to control what stays in frame. All the while, the pop star walks on a treadmill that’s increasing in speed while performing for the camera—a concept Allie initially was inspired by the iconic opening scene of Bye Bye Birdie (1963). 

In this personal interview, Allie X shares key collaborators, her inspirations behind artistic decisions, and moments of revelation in her career leading up to “Girl With No Face.” I love this album’s girl with no face, no autotune, just Allie’s raw voice expressing her own magnetic sense of irony, agency, and power. 

I’m excited to talk to you. I was awake until 2 AM last night blasting your album and dancing in the mirror in my room.

I love that. I love to hear it.

So my thoughts may be a little jumbled, but when I found out I was going to chat with you, I was like, oh my God, your song “Bitch” was one of those songs that triggers a very specific memory and time in my life.

A lot of people say that about “Bitch.”

Oh yeah? 

Yeah, a lot of fans. I’ve noticed a lot of people say that it's very sensory and it brings back very specific memories.

boots by Namilia,

A testament to your musical ability! Should we get into your album Girl With No Face? How did you land on the album title?

Thank you. Yeah, so I didn't land on it until the very end of the process. The working title was actually Weird World for a while. I kind of doubted it all along because any other album I've had, I've been so certain of the title, and that one just wasn't rolling off the tongue. It wasn't feeling quite right. So as I was wrapping up the project, Girl With No Face was actually one of the last songs that I totally finished and I started thinking maybe that could be the name of the album. I was playing with different lyrics for the title of the album and different song names and that one just felt really right. I think the subject matter kind of evolved. “Weird World” was one of the first songs I wrote and that's how it became the working title because I was excited about it when I wrote it in 2020. And at that point, “Weird World” is kind of about this almost a matrix-type-theme. About not seeing things as they truly are and then being able to see them and then sort of coming to grips with that, but there's also a power in that and there are dystopian references in the lyrics. So that was really cool and I thought that that was a really strong concept and I thought the whole album was going to be kind of about that, but then as I wrote it over the next few years, it really became more personal than that and more, I don't know, there was a lot of anger and pain coming out. So by the end, Girl With No Face, felt like a more appropriate name.

Oh, that's cool to hear. Did you have your concept with all the masks at that point already?

Oh, yeah. So I didn't know that when I started writing the album, but I think the art direction I kind of figured out toward the end of 2022. Then I started reaching out to those mask makers. So that was the other thing, by the time I came up with the name Girl with No Face, I knew that masks were going to be the imagery, and I thought, ‘oh well, that makes total sense with the cover image that I have planned. So that was another deciding factor for sure.

Bodysuit and boots by Namilia ,Coat by Heurueh, Gloves by Roff Ael

You already had an idea of which mask makers? I know masking is a whole other art form, so it was so cool to see in the video you’re taking on those different masks. What was that like?

There were two artists involved in the creation of masks for this album. One's named Shalva Nikvashvili who's a Georgian artist now based in Germany. Georgian, as the former Soviet state, not Georgia, the US state, just to clarify. Then Miya Turnbull was the other mask maker and I discovered both their work on Instagram. Miya is based in Nova Scotia, Canada, and they have totally different styles, but I think I'd saved their work a really long time ago, probably in 2020, and then reached out to them and had a relationship going and decided to move forward with them and commission some pieces in, I think, early 2023, late 2022.

So you gave them your songs and then they worked from there or were you describing the concept you want?

I actually literally sent them my face. So I did send them the record as well for context, but I did a stone cast of my face that got shipped to Canada and to Germany, and I had a special effects artist do that for me in Los Angeles, which is also a really interesting process. Not for the claustrophobic.

I love both the “Weird World" and the “Black Eye" video. They both have masks, didn’t they? 

Yeah. So I don't wear a mask in “Weird World,” but the dancers are all kind of masked.

Allie X wears latex coat and latex belt by Vex Clothing dress by KkCo, boots by Namilia, earrings by Cat Janiga

And you directed all those by yourself? 

Yeah, I directed “Black Eye” by myself and then I directed “Weird World” with my friend Brian.

Can you talk about the “Weird World” video? I love it, especially that moment where the camera turns and there's someone behind the camera or a crew dude with a hat on. It's bizarre, but it's somehow poignant.

Yeah. [Laughs] So that's a really funny moment actually. I'll give you a little more context about the video. The idea came originally when I was watching the intro to Bye Bye Birdie, the film from the sixties Ann-Margret’s singing Bye Bye Birdie, and you can't see, but she's obviously on some sort of a treadmill and they're doing these fun camera moves. When I'm thinking of what would make a good concept for a video, I'm very conscious that I'm always going to have a limited budget. So when I think of an idea that can be done reasonably, and I wouldn't say cheap, but for a reasonable amount of money, a simple effective concept, I kind of book it then and there. So that's what I did. I had that idea in mind for a few years, but then when Brian came in, we started talking about what that concept could mean in the context of the song “Weird World,” and not seeing things as they are and all those sort of themes that I discussed before. So it became this sort of thing of, ‘I’m trying to control the camera and show what I want to show,’ which is this performance in this fabulous outfit, and ‘I'm trying to control the world around me, but I can't control the camera.’ It keeps going off and showing what's going on behind the scenes and making mistakes as it were. And of course, we also wanted to do it in a way that looked like one take. I think we had three takes altogether and then those ones in the bridge where things go really fast and show me having a donut or make sure those were all cuts as well. But yeah, it was really crazy. We had to make it look like one take. There was a lot of camera choreography involved, so that was the general vibe. Then that moment with Stan, that was actually literally a mistake where you see the cameraman. We had something else there that wasn't working and the editor and I were going through all the takes, and we found this moment where Stan is revealed, he turns the camera on himself as he's doing one of the motions, and I was like, “oh my god, can we use that?” And then the camera was actually going the wrong direction, so the editor had to reverse it, but we smoothed it out and we made it work, and we got permission from the DP to show Stan. So yeah, that’s how that happened. And it ended up being, I think, one of the most disorienting moments in the video.

Leather blazer and Pants by Heurueh, Bracelet by Noritamy, Ring by Cat Janiga, Boots by Jonak, Necklace by Alejandra de Coss 

Yeah, totally. It's almost too real.

Yeah, totally.

I feel like the video is this interesting commentary on the industry too and what is a performer capable of and I was thinking about you now doing this solo album and what that means.

Yeah, it's in a studio and it's referencing an old Hollywood film. It is very much that. That's what I was thinking of definitely when I was thinking of this idea of trying to control my environment. So much of what I've experienced in the music industry and entertainment industry is kind of about that and showing things a certain way, even though they're totally falling apart behind the scenes and behind the seams.

Leather blazer and Pants by Heurueh, Bracelet by Noritamy, Ring by Cat Janiga, Boots by Jonak, Necklace by Alejandra de Coss 

I also feel like the song “Staying Power" is like that too, there's almost this breaking of the fourth wall or something to the listener. It's really cool. And I'm curious about the “you’s” in the songs. My friend Marie and I were talking about a poem the other day and we were talking about the pronouns of "you" shifting and how flexible they can be or the limits of that flexibility. As a songwriter, are you thinking about the “you"? It felt like you were addressing different audiences in your songs while breaking the fourth wall. 

It’s really interesting. I hadn't thought about that. I used to do theater, so I know all about the term breaking the fourth wall. We used to talk about it a lot, but I hadn't thought of it in the context of this record. And it's really interesting because I think this was the first time that I felt comfortable breaking the fourth wall. I think on my previous projects, I was trying really hard to, I guess, protect myself in a way and control what was going out there and not show too much vulnerability because I didn't feel ready for that on this one. I think I reached a point in my career and my frustrations with the industry and also I'm 38, I've had chronic illness for 20 years, I've been through some shit. I just felt like I sort of reached the point where I almost had to let it out. Because I worked on this record pretty much by myself, it just also happened naturally. There's no one in the room that I needed to be worried about explaining my life too. It was just coming straight from me. So yeah, I think when I'm addressing “you,” it's to people maybe in my life who don't know things about me, and I'm almost revealing that to them. I was very conscious of speaking directly to my audience and having had an audience for 10 years, I kind of know what they think of me and what the perception is. So some of it is directly addressing that perception or some of it is revealing information that they might not know. And yeah, there was something sort of different happening in that respect on this record. I also felt like I was going to burst if I didn't do it this way and I felt like I really wasn't at a place where I could go co-write another record. I was really fatigued of that whole thing of being in certain types of rooms and writing sorts of pop songs. This was a super challenging process in so many ways, but it really felt like the only thing that I could do, it felt like the only logical next step for me as I am getting older, and I've been around for a while. I really couldn't stomach or even wrap my around the idea of going and trying to write radio hits. I really couldn't. I needed to do this.

You rocked it. 

Thank you.

When you were seeking inspiration again, I read that you were inspired by bands like New Order or works from the early eighties, late seventies periods. What about that time period in music or the sounds were exciting for you?

So much. So much. Yeah, so far interviews have been very much about the personal side of it, but actually, this is a very referential record sonically. And that time period, we're coming out of punk. In that time, it was the post-punk period into the New Wave period and there's a spirit there of experimentalism, of rebelliousness, of boldness that was totally embraced even by the radio at that time. And also humor there. It really resonated with me. It felt like almost a polar opposite to what I had been experiencing in writing in Los Angeles in pop rooms and it became a really great comfort. It was the type of music that I would just listen to all the time, and I was late coming to these types of bands. My partner introduced me to a lot of it during our relationship. So it's not like I discovered much of this when I was younger, maybe just like the hits, so sort of coming to it for the first time, it was this whole new world of music in the last five years. So I went deep into it and I read a lot of memoirs and biographies, and I felt so inspired by it. It also felt achievable, that type of music, because it's very DIY in a way. A lot of these bands had one or two synthesizers, and they made a whole record out of that and a drum machine. So I thought, if I'm going to undertake producing a record by myself, it really makes sense to make it in the way that these bands made their records.

Dress by Siri Majaroen and shoes by KkCo

So if this was your time producing, did you have a lot to learn or did you teach yourself? 

I had so much to learn. I had actually produced before my song “Bitch” but I'd never produced an album, and any production I'd done always sort of relied on someone cleaning it up and finishing it for me, which did actually end up happening with this record too, but I presented a product that was pretty much at the finish line when I started working with Justin Meldal-Johnsen at the end, which I'd never really done before. And yeah, it was a huge fucking learning curve. I don't know really how to EQ or do compression or make drums sound good or there were just so many things that it was all trial and error, and even just navigating the outboard equipment, I had to learn how to do that on each piece. Some of these synths have presets, which you can use the scrolling arrows to get the sound. Some of them you have to create the sound from scratch. So yeah, there was a huge learning curve and I got really stressed.

Were there moments during that process where you thought something you’d made was maybe technically a mistake, but you ended up keeping it just to get that kind of rough sound?

Yeah. I mean, anyone will tell you in studio work that the mistakes, the accidents, they often make the final cut because they're just so cool. So that's not just unique to me. But yeah, this record is filled with sounds that are a little bit out of tune or vocal hiccups that I made and I really wanted it that way. I wanted it to sound raw. I didn't use autotune on this record either, except maybe on the background vocals. I wanted it to sound like my raw voice.

First: Full look by Ashton Michael  and Earrings by Cat Janiga

Second Bodysuit and boots by Namilia ,Coat by Heurueh, Gloves by Roff Ael

Do you have a personal favorite where you feel like you really achieved that task? 

All of them have that quality vocally but I think my favorite songs on the record right now are probably “Weird World" and “Off With Her Tits.” I do actually really like Staying Power as well. That's where I took down the fourth wall, because that's really how it feels. I never thought of it that way before like breaking the fourth wall, but it's almost the point where you're performing your play and you get to this point of frustration where you just start screaming at the audience. 

I also really love “Hardware Software.”

You do?!

Yeah, sonically, it's really cool. I feel like it speaks to the time we're in and feeling like humanoid in the everyday world, being in a weird world.

Definitely.

latex coat and latex belt by Vex Clothing dress by KkCo, boots by Namilia, Earrings by Cat Janiga

How did you know who you wanted to collaborate with or that you could trust in this collaboration?

So, George is my boyfriend. He's my partner and the person I mentioned who introduced me to a lot of his music, and so he's the only other co-writer really, except for on “John and Jonathan,” which is sort of the exception of the album, which was a co-production. But George did “Black Eye,” “Truly Dreams” and “Girl With No Face,” and he played all the guitar parts. And George was so much a part of the spirit of me even taking this on. He's the one that's always encouraged me to try producing something myself. He's the one that introduced me to a lot of these bands and been really guiding me in this sort of rebellious path and the one who taught me about the spirit of punk. So I naturally trusted that his instincts and his opinions on this record would be correct. And he was the only one that heard it. I never played it for my team or anyone for years. So I was lucky to have him there helping me with this and really the only set of ears that I had on this for so long. And then in the case of Justin, I mean, it was very difficult to figure out how I was going to finish it. I think I asked my friends, my friend slash guitarist Cecilia [Della Peruti], I was like, “do you know someone in LA who's really knowledgeable about New Wave?” And she was like, “Justin Meldal-Johnsen.” She played with him in Beck and I got really lucky. He happened to have a little bit of time in his schedule right when I needed to finish this. And he was a sage. He knows his way around so many pieces of gear. He's one of the best bass players in the world. He definitely can play the guitar as well. It was just a really perfect match. He sort of filled in all my weak spots and helped me fix a lot of technical issues that I'd created. We replaced some sounds and yeah, I still look back and think ‘wow, I was so fucking lucky to get to work with him on this.’ 

Peddling back to your music videos, I was interested in the dance choreography and how you came to that kind of movement.

Yeah, so my friend Brian Hindle. He and I did theater school together. We went to college together and were roommates and we've been friends for a long time and he is the movement person. My references were Kate Bush and a lot of modern contemporary dance that I've saved on my Instagram account. Then Ian Curtis from Joy Division also, who has a very erratic way of moving. Those were all my movement references for “Black Eye.” And then I filmed myself doing weird stuff and Brian would turn it into something that you could actually choreograph. Then on "Weird World,” that was a whole different style. That was very theater. We were choreographing basically a musical kind of fossy. Brian knows that world inside and out. He sets shows all the time and he'll assist and direct and choreograph shows for cruise lines and touring productions so he knew exactly what he was doing there and I just let him do his thing. And my movement on “Weird World” I'm just improvising in the moment.

Oh also I watched this video of you performing “Bitch" live where there's a white piano. 

Yeah. That was my first performance ever. 

Dress by Serpenti Apparel , shoes by Jil Sander, leather collar by Uncuffed Leather, hair clips by Frou York, Earring by Cat Janiga, earring by Atra Nova

Wait, your first performance?

Well, I did a residency in Montreal. If we're thinking about the same one, it's called the Phi Centre, and it's this place where it is sort of a gallery slash performance arts place that brought me up there for a month. We put together that show and that was my live debut.


Oh my god. I just found it online the other day and was like, oh my god, this is so good. It made me think about the way that you do these voice modulations. I don't even know what to call it. I don't have much language for the technical aspects of singing, but you do these really cool things with your voice that are surprising or kind of, not gibberish, but sounds or gasping for air bits that can feel so empowering. 

I appreciate that. I did a lot of training when I was younger, stuff that I almost regret now in a way because it made me too schooled in the way that I sing. But on the other side of things, I’m pretty versatile in what I can do with my voice. There are a lot of sounds and tones and things that I can achieve and change. I've always loved it. It's kind of like opening up a piano and not playing the keys and just playing the strings inside. The same can be done with the voice where you can make guttural noises and you can use breaths as percussions. I've always been really into that.

So those were sounds you found through experimentation?

Well, to be honest, I am still trying to figure out how to sing. My comfortable place in my voice is to sing as a high classical soprano, believe it or not. That's what I'm the best at. So as a pop singer, I'm always trying to find how to sing in a range that's comfortable for me, which is usually high without making my voice sound so annoying and vibrato-y. It's also very different to sing in a recording when you're super close to a very expensive mic than it is to sing when you're in a club. When I'm in a club, I definitely sing differently than when I'm recording. On this record, I did kind of let it rip. I just let my voice be kind of what it is, which is high and eccentric, theatrical, and I feel like it kind of worked in this context for whatever reason, the music was maybe dark enough that my voice became an interesting juxtaposition. 

Dress by Serpenti Apparel , shoes by Jil Sander, leather collar by Uncuffed Leather, hair clips by Frou York, Earring by Cat Janiga, earring by Atra Nova

I read somewhere you used to sing opera?

Yeah, I did for a couple years and I trained for classical for more than that. So that’s definitely what I'm referring to. It's like ballet, actually. You cannot do it without completely dedicating yourself to it and changing the way that your voice is because if I'm speaking like an opera singer, I have to lift my soft palate and actually that muscle will grow stronger and stronger until you can't belt anymore and you can't scream anymore. I did a really intense program with a bunch of opera folks and realized then this isn't for me. I don't want to lose the things about my voice that I think make music interesting. It's not all just technical for me. It's emotional too and I like the sound of shit stuck in your throat. I like the sound of so many ugly things. Yeah, I was never cut out to be a opera singer.


You said something too in an interview I think, ‘ugly sounds beautiful,’ and I really love that.

Yeah, I'm sure it's the same in poetry. We know that to affect someone or to really express something, of course, it can’t all just be pretty, it’s got to be human. It's got to be flawed.

So how did you know when the album was done? 

There was a moment definitely that I remember I was in London in my hotel room with my partner. He was sleeping from the jet lag, and we had dinner in a couple hours. I was in the bathroom getting ready, and I was like, ‘You know, I’m going to bounce these, put 'em in iTunes and listen to them in a sequence.’ And I did. And I was like, ‘I think it's done.’ And I'd woken up him with the music and he was like, ‘yeah, I think it's good.’ I was like, ‘Okay. That's it.’ Yeah, I don't know. It just kind of happened, just kind of stumbled upon me at that moment, for whatever reason.

Dress by Siri Majaroen and shoes by KkCo

Were there moments in the making of this album that stood out to you? 

Well, finishing with Justin was the greatest reward. It was like a playground. I got to go visit after being alone for so long and isolated and confused and stressed. Then the other moment that sticks out is the beginning when I started it, it was super liberating. In 2020, I was like, this is fun. But then as soon as I realized what I really had in front of me, which was just a tremendously difficult task, a lot of it wasn't very fun. I think when I wrote, “You Slept on Me,” that was the first summer, and I do remember giggling at my words and stuff like that. But the production challenges became so stressful, and the pressure felt so high, and my self-doubt felt so high that most of this was kind of tortured, I have to say.

The technical aspect of it? Like learning this whole new thing? 

Yeah, and I said I was going to do it. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it. That’s just very in me. So I get myself in these situations, I’m in it right now too in a way in that I manage my own project. So I said I was going to do it and so I've committed to it and that means that I have to work a lot and I have to wear a lot of different hats, and I have to do a lot of calls I don't feel like doing, but I said I was going to do it, so I'm doing it. I don't mean just to prove to other people, I mean to myself mostly when I commit to something I need to see it through. I think I definitely have this deep fundamental belief that if something is worthwhile, it's usually going to be hard. It's usually going to be uncomfortable. And I don't know if that's a healthy philosophy to have, but for whatever reason, it just keeps proving to be true. So this album really fits in that category for me. And I’m really glad that I did it. I'm really proud of it.

So for the next album and from here on out, you think you're going to be doing it this way? 

No, no. Actually, I feel like I earned and got from this what I needed to get in terms of self-respect, in terms of understanding my own abilities, in terms of understanding that I am self sufficient, I really proved that to myself. And with that confidence and with that vision, I now feel like I can go co-produce with someone. So definitely I'll be writing future albums very differently than my older albums, but I don't feel like I need to go through this vortex again, not anytime soon. I hope with all this knowledge and all this insight, I can have a bit more fun on the next record. That's what I'm hoping for.

Dress by Siri Majaroen and shoes by KkCo

One kind of random, fun question. How did you entertain yourself as a child? 

I was a weird little kid with a really huge imagination. I would write plays that I'd get my dad to videotape me and my sister reenacting and I would make up songs to myself. I remember being a loner on the playground and just singing to myself about how I was alone. I was very, I've always been very melodramatic as well. [Laughs] I would sing to myself or I would sometimes cry to myself, but in a way that was very indulgent. [Laughs] I remember just thinking about my grandmother who I had just the vaguest memory of because she died when I was super young. And just sort of indulging in the sadness of that and this story that I perceived around her. And when I was a kid I remember when The Little Mermaid came out and Fievel Goes West, and I remember watching those, and both Ariel and the mouse character in Fievel Goes West both sang and wanted to be singers, and I was like, me too! So I was very, that. I was a really emotionally indulgent little girl and I definitely still am now. [Laughs] Anyone in the room is going to know how I'm feeling and I'm going to be wanting my feelings to be heard for better or for worse.

If you were a book, what book would you be? 

I have a thing about Haruki Murakami books. I read them and then reread them. And now I actually think a lot of them I've read twice, but now I'm reading for a third time because I introduced my partner to them and he reads them out loud which is really cute. So I'd say either Kafka on the Shore or one 1Q84. I really, really connect super well with those characters and their journeys.

Ooh I can see that and his books have this kind of dream logic to them, I just finished the Windup Bird Chronicle a couple months ago!

Yeah! We reread that. It's amazing. That one is really amazing.

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