Maris The Great: Goth guys turn me on. They look dead, but their penises aren’t as shriveled up. Can I give you a hand job after this interview?

Gordo: Wow, I’m getting more out of this interview than I bargained for! (laughs)

But you’re straight though, right?

Gordo: Yes, and available!

Hear that ladies? He’s available! What about you Valenta, have you ever got it on with another chick?

Valenta: Yes. Aliens abducted me and made me have sex with Deborah Harry.

Did you enjoy it?

Valenta: Sure!

Are you comfortable with Scary Valentine being labeled a Goth band?

Valenta. That’s fine. It fits us. I have no problem with it. I like Goth music. I think it’s seductive,dark and mysterious.

Gordo: You know, Goth is, actually to me, to be a recent association. I never knew we were categorized as Goth until recently. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s associated with darkness and I’ve always dressed in black. I didn’t know until recently that I was considered Goth. I just dress in black because black is what I like. I don’t have a problem with the title Goth; I just think it was given by people who don’t really understand it.

How do you classify Scary Valentine’s music?

Gordo: Industrial electronic. I always thought industrial as being in it’s own category. Recently, it seems to be grouped with Goth. It’s probably because a lot of the people who are into Goth are into Industrial. You don’t find any solo ‘Industrial’ clubs; it’s always Industrial- Goth.

My website is devoted to Rock and Roll. I cover Goth because, at least early on, Goth music was guitar-orientated. Peter Murphy, Christian Death, Sister’s of Mercy. At what point did Goth music lose the guitars and become so electronically dominated and ambient?

Gordo: Actually, Peter Murphy played a part in that. He uses a lot of synthesizers. I mean, originally with Bauhaus it was a regular band, but even with Bauhaus, He used a lot of weird effects. So the synthesizer was just a tool for creating weird effects. Peter Murphy is a huge influence for me. You know, he just happens to be classified as Goth, but Goth or not, he writes great songs.

Do you intentionally write dark music so that it appeals to the Goth crowd?

G: No. I’m not going to purposely write dark music so that Goth people will like us, I write dark music often because I’m depressed. I always write through my emotions. I’m rarely walking around all happy, so if it comes out as dark and gloomy, it’s because that’s how I feel at the time.

V: I write the lyrics I do because it’s an opportunity to allow another side of my personality out, so to speak. It’s a side I would never show if it wasn’t for the opportunity our music provides.

Valenta, what serves as the inspiration for your lyrics?

V: You, Maris The Great. You are my inspiration (laughter) You make life very interesting! 

Do your own personal experiences ever specifically influence your music?

V: For me, not so much experience as maybe an awareness of who I am on the inside and experiences I might crave. Everybody is aware to some extent of an aspect of himself or herself that the rest of the world doesn’t see that they themselves are aware of. Some of my lyrics are about yearnings I may have, some are about mythology, like “Gorgon”. “Money buys sex” is about prostitution. A lot of my lyrics are simply poems I write. I give them to Gordo and he writes music for them or adds them to a music he’s already written.

You speak of “yearnings”. You said in a previous interview that “Agony” is about S&M. Do you have secret yearnings to experiment with S&M?

V: (Laughter)…Maybe! (More laughter)

What other personal events have influenced Scary Valentine’s music?

G: My Dad died in the middle of writing GORGON. We had like five songs done and my Dad died. The song, “GORGON” was the first song I wrote after he died. Plus, when you’re single like I am, and lonely…. It’s dark, and it comes out in the music.

It seems that some of the best music comes out of pain.

G: Oh yeah. But good art can come from feeling good too, but it doesn’t happen as often though. However, the people who make it big in the music industry are the ones that can write songs about feeling good. Because that’s what people want to hear on the radio. They want to hear something that makes them feel good. They don’t want to hear something that makes them depressed.

You know, with GORGON, I feel the dark energy but at the same time, I don’t come away from listening to it feeling depressed.

G: When I write music, the music cheers me up. So, I’m usually depressed as I write the music, and in the process of writing the music, I love it so much, that it cheers me up. So the music starts dark, has a dark feel, but provides optimism too.

I have some unusual questions I want to ask you both about life. Answer if you dare. Question number one, What one thing in your life best represents your freedom?

G: I honestly still don’t feel free. Until I can earn a living by making music, I will be a slave to the system I despise.

V: My ability to travel as I please, and I do. I have little responsibility in my life- no kids, no huge debts, no high stress job. Cancun, Las Vegas and California were among this years-favorite escapes.

What one thing would you like to rid the Earth from?

G: Loneliness. I think it would be cool if your soul mate was tracked from birth and you were united with them at a certain age. This system of chance, fate and forced relationships just isn’t working very well. Someone should get on the phone with God and tell him to re-do it.

V: Chain restaurants. Their neon letters rape my eyes. And they seem to litter suburban America like so many dirty plastic bags.

If you were to become a prostitute, how much money do you think you could charge per hour?

G: If I was working at an old folk’s home, I figure I could get around a hundred bucks an hour. (Laughs) Now if we’re talking my own private Idaho, I figure I could get an eight ball per blowjob. Once I am a famous rock star however, I’ll be able to charge considerably more.

V: (laughs) These are wacky questions…Hmm, I have no idea what the going rate is these days, however, I have always had trouble charging people for artwork I’ve made. I usually end up giving it away for free or for a very little amount since I enjoy the process of creating it. So did I answer your question, or an entirely different one?

If you could remove the ability to hate from one person in the world today, who would it be?

G: Me. Life would be so much easier if I didn’t hate anything. I would love all food, drugs and sex. Life would be great!

V: That one person who is presently causing all the suffering in Kosovo.

If you had to have sex with either a man who had a vagina, or a woman who had a penis, whom would you choose?

G: I would say a man who had a vagina ‘cuz I am a male lesbian anyway. That was easy!

V: A woman with a penis. The reason for this is because I once saw a beautiful portrait of a nude woman taken by Joel Peter Whitkin. And she had gorgeous facial features and hair. But as your eyes traveled down the image, interestingly enough, there was a penis! (Laughs) How intriguing!

What do you feel is the one most important ingredient of human beauty?

V: A person’s ability to stare back intensely, with commanding eyes. A single glance can sometimes be so tempting.

G: Compassion. It seems to be rare but the most beautiful people in the world would have it.

G: You know, I have always wondered what it might be like to be a human dildo. I can’t imagine it would be much fun for the recipient though. Probably something like getting a gerbil stuck up there. (Laughs) The six-inch scuba gear probably wouldn’t feel very good either. Maybe I could ride inside a hollow glass dildo. Now that would be pretty cool! (Everybody laughs)

V: I would record a song with my tiny voice! I think I would sound insane and unstable and lend itself well to background samples.

OK. Enough about life. Let’s talk about your music again. Valenta, I know you prefer to not talk about your musical past. So Gordo, it looks like this question rests on you.

G: I started writing music in 1986. I was 16 years old and I was into Depeche Mode and Front 242. Frankie Goes To Hollywood was my first big love. In fact, I still have a collection of every single album that Frankie Goes To Hollywood has ever put out. So I decided I wanted to write music, so I went out and I got a Korg DS-8 synthesizer and my parents had an Apple 2 plus. And I plugged that into the Apple 2 plus and I got some sequencing software and I started
writing music.

What projects were you involved in prior to Scary Valentine?

G: I’ve done three solo albums under the name Davros, I stole that name from Dr. Who. A roommate I had when I was in the military gave me the name. I don’t use it anymore as a pseudonym because it’s kind of a corny name. Then my first band was POLITICAL ARENA. I started that with a friend. We then renamed ourselves Cardinal Sin and then eventually called ourselves Steady State. That was in 1990. Then I enlisted in the Air Force. I took my musical equipment with me and did the 3 albums.

How much equipment are we talking about?

G: By that time I had a full studio. I had enough that I could do what I am doing now, write all the music, do all the vocals. Plus, I bought more when I was in the Air Force too. My original plan was to enlist in the Airforce for 4 years, buy more equipment, get out and then have the band again. So I got out, and Steady State recorded one album. We ended up running out of money so we went our separate ways. But I knew Valenta the entire time.

Where did you two meet?

G: My former bandmate and I used to have acid parties all the time. We would get, like, 10, 20 people together and everybody would drop at the same time. It was on the 4th of July, 1990 that I met Valenta at one of these parties. Valenta doesn’t do drugs, she wasn’t part of the trip, but she was there with someone else. For some reason, I decided not to do anything at that party that time, which was unusual for me. Acid is one of the drugs that I consider acceptable. I don’t do pot or just about everything else. I haven’t done acid in like, five years, but I’ve never really had like a negative experience with it. I think it helped me to see the world a lot different than had I not done it.

V: We both bonded because everyone else at the party was being boring and going off by themselves. So we just stayed up until like, 4:30 in the morning just talking.

So it was at this party you decided to form Scary Valentine?

G: No. I overheard a sample of Valenta’s singing voice on a computer at her house many years later. We were just friends, and I was like, “Wow, we should do something together” I had known her all this time and I’ve been writing music and I didn’t know she could sing.

I get the impression Valenta that you have a greater vocal range than what you show on GORGON. Are you going to expand vocally on the next release?

V: I’m open to experimentation.The stuff I learned…..I don’t know if it would always work. One of the things a vocal teacher told me was never to sing through your nose. And we find that with distortion, singing through your nose is quite cool.

Do both of you have a sexual relationship?

V: Yeah, I beat him like a little monkey boy (laughs)…Uh, no.

G: To be quite honest, music has been my girlfriend my entire life. I’ve been single my entire life. I’ve never had a relationship that has lasted longer than two weeks. A lot of musicians are like that. Some musicians are virgins their entire life.

V: But you’re not a virgin.

G: I’m not a virgin, but music is my passion. So when I found out Valenta could sing, she got integrated into that in some way. So when we’re working on music, for me, it’s almost like having sex.

Does playing in Scary Valentine get you horny then?

G: Absolutely. There are times when we are playing, and especially when were playing erotic songs where I’m like, “Oh my God, (laughs) I’m having trouble”.

Are women out of the picture for you?

G: No, not at all. I can see like, meeting a really shy, timid, intelligent woman that doesn’t really seem to be into eroticism but once you get to know her she turns out to be a sex maniac! (laughs)

What would this woman look like?

G: Well, it’s too easy to eliminate people on a first glance. Some people you might not find physically attractive at first, once you hear them talk or find out what they are about suddenly become incredibly beautiful.

Back to the music, how does the music transfer to the live environment?

G: Half of the songs we change, just a little bit. We keep them pretty much the same but I add at least one keyboard part that I play that isn’t on the CD at all. I wing it. I play like a jazz musician. I just kinda come up with something different every time. There’s always a bit of a creation process that takes place on stage.

Do you steal musical ideas from other songs that inspire you?

G: Oh yeah. I lift my favorite stuff from my favorite artists. All musicians do. Like Peter Murphy for instance. I love his ambient rhythms. He gets really clean, ambient rhythms. On songs like, “Ophelia”, we do some vocation on Valenta’s voice. A lot of that I think I was like, inspired by “Skinny Puppy” or “Warlock”. Where vocals are mixed with strings. I always loved vocation effects.

What’s next for SCARY VALENTINE?

G: We will be performing throughout Colorado this summer as much as we can. Believe it or not, I’m already working on material for our next CD. It will probably be higher energy than GORGON. Valenta is really stretching herself vocally on the new songs too. We also are in the planning stages for a possible tour with Pure Drama. They are another local electronic band. If you like us, you’ll love them!

Well thank you for the great interview guys. I need a parting question…let me see, what should it be…Oh, I know, Gordo, have you ever tried to suck your own dick?

G: Of course. Hasn’t every guy?

I tried, but I was only successful in touching the end of my dick with the tip of my tongue.

G: The fact that I have been single for so long should tell you whether or not I was successful! (Laughter)