Pixel Grip - Interview
Interview & foreword by Beau Croxton
Pixel Grip by Yulia Shur
Pixel Grip is a Chicago-based electronic trio that has been making waves with their multifaceted synth music since 2019. Earlier this year, they stopped me in my tracks– the way they expertly weave pop sensibilities into a more menacing, primal, industrial grit is infectious.
From their sold-out DIY shows, to playing Riot Fest, to their iconic co-signs by Versace and Peaches– Pixel Grip has been crushing it on all fronts. Their fantastic new album Percepticide: The Death of Reality dropped in June— it’s full of bruising, menacing bass lines and ghostly, vibrant synths. The album is a thriller that's constantly alternating between the ethereal and the absolutely vicious– “Reason to Stay” is an insane banger that lures you in seductively, only to rip your head off with a raging chorus that demands you to move aggressively. The title and themes of the record reflect the different stages of trauma and shattered perceptions from betrayal, cycling through heightened emotions such as rage and grief.
The record harnesses significant power from confronting darkness, and it ultimately results in a victorious breakthrough with themes of rebirth. The band has had plenty of bops and bangers over the years, but this great new record hits an undeniable high mark for the group with a heightened sense of consistency and an irresistible dark edge that runs throughout.
Now, you may have seen the band name in some recent headlines that have been going around…
In July, it was reported that the band's song “Pursuit” was used in a sample for Travis Scott’s album Jackboys 2, on the song “Kickout”. In most cases, this would be purely positive news and even a cause for celebration…but there’s an issue here. The band had absolutely no idea about their track being sampled and used for this song. According to Pixel Grip, the sample was not cleared with them before the release.
Ultimately, the standard practice of sampling and interpolations is very straightforward. As most of us know: if an artist samples another artist's music, they must give credit, compensation or clear the sample before release.
In light of this situation, the broader music community filled comment sections with a justified outrage, with many people praising Pixel Grip’s music and incredible live show. Anthony Fantano of The Needledrop even called it out, coming to Pixel Grip’s defense with an undeniable side-by-side comparison for all to see and hear.
But the most notable aspect of this entire situation was the extremely classy response that Pixel Grip provided themselves.
In a post on their instagram addressing the situation, Singer Rita Lukea said “I don’t know how to feel- I have mixed feelings because it is a great track, and I do feel like we just got the nod of approval from one of the biggest artists on earth….but at the same time I can’t help feeling a little exploited and kind of feeling like someone took our creative and intellectual property and they are trying to pass it off as their own”
Tyler of Pixel Grip added “Just reach out to us if you want tracks and stems, we’re happy to collaborate on something together.” Well. There you have it folks….what a noble response.
Pixel Grip is a shining example of the original, talented, hardworking, DIY bands that we like to spotlight at Occult– and we are thrilled to have them for our next interview.
In early July, I caught up with the full group– Rita Lukea (vocals), Jonathon Freund (synth/production), and Tyler Ommen (drums/production). It was just after the release of their excellent new album, Percepticide: The Death of Reality, and it was before the recent sample-related headlines– so we got to dive deep into the most important part…their fantastic new album.
Check it out below
BEAU CROXTON: Hi everyone! How's it going?
JONATHON FREUND: Fabulous. How are you?
BEAU CROXTON: Congrats on the album. It's sick!
RITA LUKEA: Thank you!
BEAU: It's been a few weeks– How are we feeling about the release? How are you all feeling about the record being out in the world?
JON: It's been exciting. I think we're really going to feel that energy once we tour. Right now, we're letting people have their private experience with the music, it's very much for their world. But then once we perform the songs, it's going to have a whole new story/meaning.
RITA: It feels good. Like Jon said– it feels very ordinary right now… just doing my thing, doing laundry, going to work. I just hope that people are resonating with it. I'm also excited to play shows and just feel the air move in the venue and get some audience feedback and feel it.
BEAU: It's been resonating with me – I'm sure there's a lot of people going pretty crazy behind the scenes for the record. I'd love to hear more about the recording process between you three.
JON: The process generally has been: Rita will write stems and songs, independently. And then we come together and work on the production, adding melodies and beats and so forth.
But this album was unique in comparison to the last two albums, because we started working with additional musicians, mixers and producers. It took on a much larger, collaborative spirit, when before, we had been very DIY… we were making music on the floor in our apartments. So we experimented with recording in Los Angeles, recording in Chicago, having a lot of people contribute– and that was new for us.
BEAU: So, there are some (sort of) “diss tracks” on the album. They are really awesome– there's this cathartic rage in the music. Tell me a little bit more about the approach on tracks like “Insignificant” and “Jealousy is Lethal” — I imagine there's a lot of power and catharsis in performing and writing songs like that, you know?
RITA: Yeah, definitely. I think the best part is writing it– I felt really good. It brought me a sense of justice and peace…and yeah, catharsis– to write some of those lines and some of those punch lines. Because it's one thing to tell someone how you feel, but it's another thing to make it rhyme. For some reason, it just feels so much more devastating. (laughs)
I feel some of the stuff that I'm talking about– it's because I didn't get any closure or peace or justice. I had to take that into my own hands, and words can be really devastating…words can be really powerful. I think it's like…like a “spell” kind of. It’s not a spell against them, but it's like a self-empowering spell, I think.
BEAU: Absolutely. Then you get to perform it too! What can you tell me about all the themes coming together on this record?
RITA: The album title– Percepticide: The Death of Reality is a symptom of betrayal trauma. All of the stages that you go through working through the betrayal trauma resemble grief– you'll feel really fucking sad and hopeless, then you'll get really fucking angry, but then you'll just want to die. Then you'll get wrathful again. Maybe there's some acceptance, and maybe hope at the end– and the album is kind of going through those stages.
I think something that I experienced a lot was rumination and just like…brooding. A lot of the basslines have that menacing, brooding, rumination-like feeling. I think about “Split” and “Last Laugh” – the basslines alone, (even if they didn't have words accompany to them) would feel exactly how it feels to just feel fucking pissed off and wrathful– and ruminating on something that is really painful. Basslines inform a lot of emotion for me.
Rita of Pixel Grip by Yulia Shur
BEAU: There is also a lot of retro sounds on the record. What are some of the more old-school influences on this material versus some modern ones? Are there any influences on the record people might not expect?
RITA: I really try to self reference– but I will say specifically for “Split” I was really inspired by Jack White's writing style. His writing is really clever and witty and uses a lot of alliteration and comedy. He has really strong punchlines, and his writing is just really airtight. After listening to the White Stripes album “Get Behind Me Satan” front to back… I really wanted to write something as smart as his writing.
So that inspired “Split” a lot. But I think more than the writing, is maybe specific production details like a distorted 303 cowbell– or like a specific synth sound.
I will say, personally , something I was really inspired by when we were producing “Stamina” was the song “Barracuda” by Heart. Like it gives that kind of heavy metal-but-femme vocal feeling.
JON: It's interesting because we have all these influences coming to us all the time from different genres and styles. Somehow, there's always the 80’s new wave baked into the fabric and the core of how we kind of sound– less often now, we're not really channeling that. It's at the root of what we love, but we're not actively trying to sound retro.
“Insignificant” is like a Chicago house track. Then there's influences like Black Moth Super Rainbow. I also was inspired by Tame Impala for “Gonna Be Faster”. There’s so many layers, but then it's just like by nature of like the instruments that we use.... When we recorded in LA, there were some like 40 year-old synthesizers there. So we're just like “Okay, let's just use them.” And then that solidifies the sound as something that's like from the past, but it really feels like musically and compositionally it's for today.
Jon of Pixel Grip by Yulia Shur
BEAU: Speaking of synth sounds, what are some of your favorite electronics to use and gear on the record?
TYLER: This kind of answers both this question and the last question. But when I started off with this group, I was primarily a live drummer. Well, I guess if I backpedal even further, I started off as an iPad drummer for the very first meeting. And that obviously didn't feel like the vibe. So I took a few years off, came back and did live drums.
Since then, I've been finding new ways to be involved with the project. I think on Arena, there's a lot of samples from Native Instruments, Machine Controller for the drums and just trying to find samples. Of course, everyone's contributed to all those sounds. But after that record, I started to study a little bit more of the traditional Roland drum machines, like the 808 and the 909 and the CR78. So, there's some of those retro sounds on the record that are just coming from getting excited about learning about these drum machines and how to implement them into the music. We recorded this over like four years or something like that. So you can hear “Oh, during this song, I was into the 808” and so forth. So for me, I was just excited about learning more about these drum machines and letting them have their life.
Tyler of Pixel Grip by Yulia Shur
BEAU: The video for “Reason to Stay” is super iconic. It’s probably my favorite track, I love the duality of it…the chorus goes really fucking hard. I imagine that must have been a very fun video shoot, how did that all come together?
RITA: Yeah, that was super fun. Jasmine Garcia and Justin Stillmaker– they sent us a cold email and they filmed this movie about motorcycles. They wanted to inquire about a sync, like using a Pixel Grip song in their movie. We had just signed a publishing deal, so it wouldn't have been like a artist friendly deal to be like, “Oh, let me just send you to my publishing agent” and basically tell you to go fuck yourself, you know, because he's going to quote you something insane that's not going to probably not going to work for like a DIY budget.
We didn't respond the first time. The second time they emailed us again, like, “You just released a new song, “Stamina”-- we really wanted this in our movie”. I just emailed back– I was like, “Would y'all be down to do a trade? This movie is sick”.
I also love motorcycles, and I live in Humboldt Park and I always see kids doing wheelies around the park, and “Reason to Stay” just feels like a really masculine song….It just feels like engines, and fire…. and motorcycles and aggression…and wrath and revenge. So, when I watched the preview for their movie, I was like, “Would y'all be down?” And they were literally just like, “Yeah!”. And, and that's how it started.
I put out a casting call on social media, we didn't hire any models or dancers or anything. It's all fans. It's all our friends, and they all just showed up. I was like, just go 100%, full, tank-cunt! Just serve crazy moto-cunt! Everybody understood the assignment, and everyone just came super decked out. I don't know, there were maybe 50, 60 people there, as extras. We were all just hanging out taking pictures. It was a long night and it was exhausting, but it was super fun.
I also love the way that video turned out. Everyone on that team was just super competent and talented– that was a really cool experience.
BEAU: Sick. Well, I imagine some of your diehards probably had the best day ever, doing that with y'all. No matter how many times you run the track, they're like, “let's GO!”
JON: I heard people say it was like the best night of their year so far.
RITA: Awww!
BEAU: That's amazing. That's so wholesome …and immortalized, like you mentioned earlier.
RITA: Yeah, it's funny because it's so depraved, but it actually is wholesome. Like it's just like people hanging out and being nice to each other, complimenting each other's outfits, taking photos….. It was super wholesome actually. (laughs)
BEAU: So one of my favorite songs on the record is “Moment with God”. I really love the Phrygian dominant scale, I gravitate towards it and it really works with this record. There's one progression…. I think it's like 1 to the flat 2nd and major 3rd– I think it's the verse progression, my brain locked into it.
JON: The nerdy music theory talk here…..It's great.
RITA: Well, I think that those intervals are what makes Pixel Grip sound like Pixel Grip. Like the Mixolydian scale, the Phrygian scale, Latin scales, Arabic….etc. That makes it sound like us. I'm glad somebody noticed that we're doing that kind of shit.
JON: Something I really like, (Rita), about your melodies– is that you'll always make something major that always makes me go like, “Oh…”…Like you flip major in very select moments and then you carry on.
BEAU: Yeah, there's a vocal harmony towards the back of the record…A major vocal harmony comes in and it's just like SO major…
RITA: Oh, “Work or Shut Up”— it has almost like Beach Boys harmonies. They're really like major-y. When we were recording that song, I was like…is this song too cutesy?
BEAU: It's not, it works – it's mixed perfectly in there. But yeah, “Moment with God”, can you tell me about that song a little bit?
JON: That's the oldest song on the record, I think. It came from this demo that we recorded in my old apartment. Earlier in this interview, I quoted that we would write music on the floor, like that one we actually wrote on the floor. I think it was a pandemic fall…it was bleak and dreary. And we would get together every Monday to play music and cook dinner for each other.
We would rotate who was cooking that day. And it just came from one of those sessions. And once we could tour Arena, we started, we wanted to play like a new-new song. So we had been playing “Moment with God” since 2022. So we had a lot of time with it– before it was finally released last month.
BEAU: Yeah, I did see a comment from one of your fans. It said, “Finally! A moment with God”! — So that checks out.
So, are there any personal favorite songs at the moment that you all have now that the record is out?
JON: I think my favorites are “Split” and “Gonna Be Faster.”
RITA: Yeah, I think my favorite is “Reason to Stay”. And I'm really liking “Jealousy as Lethal" lately. I know Tyler's…
TYLER: I'm curious….you probably know which one you think it is…
RITA: I know your favorite one is “Insignificant.”
TYLER: Yes, it's in my top three. I was going to not be predictable today and say, “Crows Feast” and “Noise”. But if I've had a lot of coffee, “Insignificant” is definitely the vibe for sure. But yeah, “Noise” is such a cool universe that we accessed on that record. That's my favorite today– “Noise.”
Rita of Pixel Grip by Yulia Shur
BEAU: I was going around online…and this is kind of funny, but I felt so seen when I came across this one comment. The visuals, the vibe, and the hardness of this record reminds me of the movie Blade with Wesley Snipes– and all of the hard techno in that movie.
I saw the most awesome comment that said “If you're a hot vampire and you like to dance with other hot vampires at night, while blood rains from the sprinklers, then this is music that you need”...... in regards to the record. How do you feel about that, the whole visual world of the record, the videos, the artwork…and the vibes it gives off, versus the older stuff?
RITA: I feel like (not to get deep) but I think about the cultural zeitgeist of that scene in that movie, and I also think about The Matrix, or some of these classic nightclub scenes that our subculture just like reveres and loves…It was the early 2000s and we were kids, and we were watching these movies and we were like, “Oh, this is an option?” like “You can be an adult and you can go to the club…and be sexy and goth?”. Probably all of us in the subculture watched those scenes and we're like, “Yeah, I know who I am now. I want to be that when I grow up.” (laughs)
I think it's really sweet when people say that our music reminds them of those moments, because the early 2000s were very pivotal, and it's very much about your identity and sexuality. It's a really, really cool compliment.
We're not trying to be that– I think we are just there because of the scales that we use, the instruments that we use, our influences and the people we're around in the city we live in. We're not trying to replicate that. I think it's just coming from an authentic place of “this is where we find joy” and nightclubs and venues, and being around people who also are alternative and want to feel that kindred spirit.
I'm really happy with this record and all the visuals that we've made and our creative team who put everything together in our art department. I'm also really excited for the live show, because I feel like that's where the Blade vibe comes in– because it's even more menacing and dark. So yeah! You have to come and see us on tour. We're doing a full national tour!
BEAU: By the way, when I saw that scene in Blade when I was a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen—
RITA: (laughs)
BEAU: And yes— I saw you have a bunch of tour dates, with night shows for Levitation and more, the tour sounds very exciting! I'm going to come see you at Baby’s All Right, of course. How are you feeling about the tour?
JON: I think we're totally going to up our game on this tour. It's just going to grow. It's already feeling like it's a step up from what we've done before, in terms of lights and sound and performance. So it's just going to be really exciting once we get on the road.
BEAU: Thanks so much! I'll see you all in Brooklyn.
JONATHON: Tell everyone who's coming to our shows in the fall to dress like a horny vampire.
RITA: (laughs)
BEAU: (laughs) I mean, I got trench coats and all sorts of clothes that my friends can borrow if they need!
Thank you all so much. Congrats on the record, and I really appreciate you. We'll see you on tour!
RITA: Thank you. Nice to meet you and we'll see you later!
JON & TYLER: Bye. Thank you!
Pixel Grip’s Percepticide: The Death of Reality is out NOW.
They play Saturday, October 4th at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn
(with Coatie Pop)
..and you can get your tickets here.
You can check out their video for “Reason To Stay” here.
You can check out their video for “Stamina” here
You can check out their video for “Pursuit” here.
You can buy their vinyl and support them directly on their store here.