Gitane: Well, I've been here for a couple of months, but I'm heading out to do some shows in Los Angeles, and then I'm relocating to New York…I'm gonna cut a record there- Murder Ballads, torchy type of thing, I guess.

Boyd Kant: And what will that album be like?

Gitane: Well, I'm doing that one with Paul from The Brickbats, he's very well known to many musical styles, they're one of my favorite bands here in America. We've only been talking about it for the last couple of months over the phone, but we're gonna do a more experimental album, mixing jazz, blues, hopefully even some old-style country. A pretty experimental mix, with dark topics as far as the song content. We're sort of taking a dive, but we're both very ready to do it.

Boyd Kant: I've heard The Brickbats, they sound pretty good…

Gitane: Yeah, they have a pretty unique combination of players. I'm just really excited about getting out to New York, checking out a new area of the states; I've never lived there before, so…

When I get there, we'll be doing some real "death-rock" shows along the east coast with the entire band, sort of a mini-tour, and then afterwards Paul and I will go into the studio to do this "thing", whatever it will end up being! (Laughs)
It's a secret, though. Actually, what I'm sort of looking to do, is to take very structured songs and tear them down into rather experimental sounds and rhythms, into something different and (hopefully) interesting. We're probably going to have a very minimal amount of equipment to record with in the studio, so we'll definitely be doing a lot of improvising with whatever we have.

Boyd Kant: Using the studio as an instrument in itself…

Gitane: Yes, definitely. There's so much you can do with even quite basic recording equipment, things like subtle changes in EQ, changes in pitch, even just volume itself, I've found that you can dramatically change music by simply shifting the volume of certain instruments, fading them in and out, etc. It's amazing what you can do when you have limited resources.

Boyd Kant: Will you be doing any covers?

Gitane: Well…I don't do many covers anymore, simply because I have so much of my own material I want to record, it's hard enough to sort through my own stuff. I would like to do a cover album someday, though. There are certainly a lot of great songs that I could have fun with, songs that mean as much to me as my own material…

Boyd Kant: Whom would you cover?

Gitane: Jacques Brel is someone I would definitely cover, he has such sad, yet beautiful songs; "My Death" is a song I've performed live before, it's my favorite song of his. He's been a real inspiration for me. Billie Holliday's "Deep Song" is another one, just sort of depressing songs, I don't know, I guess anything sad. That's sort of my mindset right now.

Boyd Kant: Do you think you'll ever return to the electronics and vocals approach of your earlier work?

Gitane: Oh, sure. I still love that stuff, I just don't know exactly when I'll be doing it again. Actually, Paris (EXP, Face, Christian Death, Shadow Project.) and I got together overseas and did some electronic versions of the tracks from "Am I Wrong", they sounded really great, and keyboards are a really great medium for my vocals. I'd like to get together with Marc Icxx again, as well.

Phalen: When did you meet Marc Icxx, and how did you begin working with him?

Gitane: Well, when I was in Christian Death we had a guy who did our lighting at shows, he did lighting and made films, in fact, he did a video for Split Second. I got to know him during my time with Christian Death, and later on when I left, I ended up living in Holland not too far away from him. He told me that we should get together, so I called Marc, then wound up taking a train over to Belgium where he lived. We went into the studio and hit it off right away; it was very, very cool. We recorded a tape of improvisations, which is probably still in Holland somewhere, and decided we were going to record an album centered around fetish, which was something I was very heavily into at the time. So we recorded "Demonix", and, unfortunately, that's all we ever recorded together.

Phalen: On that note- did the theme of sexual dominance in your music take on a deeper meaning or analogy?

Gitane: The fascination I had back then involved more of a fascination with the psychological intent and desire, my interest lied in the aspect of master and slave, pain and pleasure. It seems to have become such a carefree topic in the past few years. Like, at one point I would walk into a room at a party, and someone would be getting a hundred lashes while others were standing around staring, and the person would be giving the lashes with this very automatic, mechanical turn of the wrist… it just seemed very surreal. For me, it held a lot more meaning than that, it was an area I thoroughly explored at one point in my life, and I'm sort of over that now. I just had to find the answers to a lot of questions.

Phalen: In your songs (dealing with S&M), your narrative takes the dominant role, have you personally ever taken the submissive role?

Gitane: Oh, yeah, I definitely do- I did, yes.

Boyd Kant: Hold on, there. You said 'I do' at first…

Gitane: Well, I was putting myself back at that time…I still enjoy spanking and bondage, but that's about all. And… whichever role I played depended on who I was with, I was mostly with one person at a time, and I definitely take on the dominant role if I'm with someone who seems unsure of what they're doing. That's pretty much how I am in every type of relationship, which I suppose is why I can't seem to keep a normal one! Oh, god…I'm lamenting the fact that I can't keep a normal, healthy relationship! Then again, what really is normal?

Boyd Kant: Do have good relationships with your children?

Gitane: Yes, I do. Unfortunately, I don't get to see them that often, but they're being raised in a very good environment. Los Angeles is such a horrible place to raise kids; it's just awful! My son used to come home from middle school and tell me about his friend's parents giving the little boy pills to make him not want to go outside to play and be active. I mean, that's pretty bad.

Boyd Kant: I'm not too familiar with Los Angeles, mostly just the Bay area.

Gitane: It's just… incredibly sleazy! It's very hard, very superficial, but it is possible to make it there.

Boyd Kant: A lot of great bands have "made it" there…

Gitane: A lot of shitty music, too. A lot of good and bad, just depending on what you like…

Boyd Kant: Would you mind if I ask you a few questions about your years with Christian Death?

Gitane: No, that's fine.

Boyd Kant: By both your own account and Valor's, it seemed that you guys really struggled to build up Christian Death in the beginning, you were stranded in Europe for awhile working odd jobs to get home…

Gitane: Actually, I was pregnant when we were on tour there, that's when I had my son. When Rozz (Williams) left, we really got stranded, so we recorded The Wind Kissed Pictures in Italy. That gave us enough money to fly the rest of us home.

Boyd Kant: Did you regret putting so much into the band, going through such thin times only to leave the band a few albums later?

Gitane: No, I've always had complete faith in what I decide to do. Ever since I started singing, I knew that was going to be what I would do for the rest of my life. It does piss me off that I've never gotten any royalties for my work in Christian Death, but that's something Valor will have to deal with if he so chooses. You know, I was only ever paid a couple hundred pounds after we did Atrocities, and he never paid anyone else in the band, either. But, I can't afford to be angry about that sort of thing anymore. It did annoy me that when I did the Live in Death album, he tried to put a stop to it, even though we had agreed that I could do it; he sent a threatening letter to Triple-X's distributor saying he would take legal action against them for releasing his compositions without permission, even though he had re-released numerous Christian Death songs which featured my vocals without ever informing me or asking my permission. That's something he'll have to answer to himself for. I think that the only fuck-over I ever did to anyone was to stay in Christian Death after Rozz left, and to go on using the name Christian Death even though it was clearly Rozz's. I don't know, maybe that'll answer a few of your questions, I hope.

Boyd Kant: Do you think you would ever perform with Christian Death again?

Gitane: No, I personally never would. I really don't have anything to with Valor, we have two children together and that's about it. You know, Rozz was very close to my son Sevan. I just discovered this old photograph of them together, Rozz was 34 at the time, and Sevan was 13, so the caption on the back reads: "1334", it's so funny! (1334 refers to an experimental side project of Williams'- it was also the beginning year of the Black Plague). It's a very sad photo; Rozz looks very sickly in it, it was taken near the end of his life. But they were very good friends. I can remember once when Rozz and Ryan Gaumer were at my place, Rozz and Sevan were going to stay up all night so that when Valor came to pick up Sevan, Rozz was going to answer the door and shake his hand and say hello to him. Unfortunately, Valor was very late in arriving, so Rozz wound up falling asleep and the surprise meeting never happened, I'm not sure what Valor would've done. Valor makes all these claims that he and Rozz were never enemies, and he does all these dedications and memoriams to him now that Rozz is dead, but I think that he's just exploiting his death. Valor obviously did consider him to be an enemy when he was alive.

Boyd Kant: Rozz Williams seemed a very tragic figure.

Gitane: He was a very beautiful person, too human to be human. I remember meeting him when he was 19, before he broke his nose, he was always so handsome. It's very sad, but fortunately, he left us a lot to remember him by.

Boyd Kant: He did, but it seems a great deal of his material is rather scattered and not easily obtained.

Gitane: Well, there is a lot of recorded Premature Ejaculation material out there (mostly domestic, some early foreign.), but there's an awful lot of demos, unreleased recordings, and a lot of live recordings, which I have quite a lot of. Unfortunately, a lot of the material has been sitting around for quite some time.

Boyd Kant: I really enjoyed the Merry Maladies compilation, that had a little sampling of his various projects and collaborations, Premature Ejaculations, 1334, Heltir, Bloodflag.

Gitane: Yes, my good friend Erik Christides (Williams's co-conspirator) made that album. Sadly enough, he died off the money from that album, he had just gotten the advance money from that album and he went out and made a very big mistake…

Boyd Kant: A shame.

Gitane: Hopefully the material from those guys will finally be released properly someday, because there really is a lot from both of them, they were amazing artists.

Boyd Kant: Good enough. Now, the last album you did was called Stars Of Trash, which was recorded with a German band, The Dreadful Shadows…

Gitane: The Dreadful Shadows, yes, they're a more commercially successful band over there, not quite as underground as I tend to be…

Boyd Kant: Did that work to your advantage?

Gitane: I don't know, it seems I'm having to deal with all kinds of consequences since then, I'm having problems with the record company, and they're trying to turn me into a pop diva. They've done some remixes from the album, I'm not happy with the remixes at all- they're very commercial sounding, and it's just not me at all, I am totally against corporate industry. I didn't know what I was getting into when I did that record, and I guess they figured they could stick it to me. Now they're mad at me because I refuse to sign away my creative rights for three to four years for this publishing deal that would lead to major radio airplay of this horrible single. But, it worked to my advantage in the sense that it got me into a good studio and got the album recorded, which at the time was something I needed very badly. I wrote the album about experiences with very dear friends who passed away, and it was a time of my life that I felt I really needed to record in some way, and so I went with the first decent offer I got, which was from Andromeda. So, it's done, and it's out there, but I'm not sure if it'll be available in the states, they don't seem to know the distribution score here…they got an offer from Caroline that they didn't pick up on…

Boyd Kant: Caroline? That would seem like a pretty good offer!

Gitane: I know! I told them to go for it, but they went with Metropolis Records instead, and Metropolis ordered 50 copies and sent them to other mail order services. And it's a shame, because it's the most highly-produced album I've ever done, we had the most time in the studio, and the album came out sounding very polished, which wasn't the original plan, but it turned out fine. Originally, I planned to record the album back in Los Angeles with my band I toured with in '98; it was to have a very rough "Stooges" sound.

Boyd Kant: How did the recent tour go, were there any problems worse than what went down in Sarasota? (DeMone's guitarist and opening band members were arrested by local authorities.)

Gitane: Oh, no, that was actually pretty mild compared to what happened later on. The worst part of the tour was not being able to enter into Canada; we lost a lot of money on that one, having to cancel all those shows.

Boyd Kant: What happened?

Gitane: Well, a few of our people had some minor stuff on their police records, bullshit misdemeanors. A few of them had been arrested for trespassing, shoplifting, things like that… Plus, I had some antique medical equipment that I carry around with me, they were very suspicious about that, they inspected it and asked me all kinds of questions about it.

Boyd Kant: Did they think it had drugs hidden in it?

Gitane: I'm not really sure, it was just really depressing, being held up for hours and then turned away… we lost out big. Then our guitarist started having seizures on the road, out in the middle of Montana, there were no phones around, no stops, buildings, there was nothing!

Boyd Kant: Was he all right?

Gitane: Yeah, after awhile he calmed down and slept, but we were very worried about him.

Boyd Kant: What happened after the Sarasota show, did you guys go stay with Enemy of God? (Opening band.)

Gitane: We stayed with them for a couple of days, the next day we just sort of hung out and rested. Bryce (EoG) and I went shopping at a supermarket, which was an adventure! (Laughs) There was a big party one of the nights we were there, lots of people showed up, Aaron, the promoter was there… lots of tequila, we had the obligatory "perverted photo session", of course. We really needed a rest; it was nice of them to let us stay.

Boyd Kant: Well, I hope you can make it back down here again soon.

Gitane: I'd love to, thanks.