Eartheater Interview

INTERVIEW   Glor1a

PHOTOGRAPHY   Ned Rogers

STYLING   Clare Byrne

HAIR   Evanie Frausto

MAKEUP   Raisa Flowers

MANICURIST   Yukie Pendell

ROPE   Allie Grump

SET DESIGN   Griffin Stoddard for MHS Artists

CASTING   Bert Martirosyan

We meet Alexandra Drewchin aka Eartheater on Zoom, something that’s so normalised in our 2021 existence. It’s morning in NYC and she is sitting blissfully in a room covered in pink hues from long sheer drapes hugging her curtain rails, her hair fire red, a molten volcano falling past the shoulders. Travel is inherent to Eartherter’s life; as a touring musician having lived in bustling cities such as Paris and New York, this exceptional multi-instrumentalist composer, music artist and model gets to the heart of her environment through befriending the local community. Eartheater’s career spans fashion, music and visual metaphysical spaces of communion leaving impressive creative marks throughout her ten years in the industry. She has released five albums to date, three on Berlin-based electronic imprint PAN records with a three-octave vocal range and masterful composition expertise. She has firmly cemented her otherworldly aesthetic in fashion, featuring in Mugler catwalks for three seasons. This year she was part of the Spring Summer 2021 campaign with a soundtrack to die for, alongside the queen Dominique Jackson, Hunter Schafer, Bella Hadid and more. In a time of global solitude and uncertainty, the pandemic, rather than slowing Eartheater’s creative flow, has allowed her to gather strength and excel herself, using artist residencies as places of motivation. Be it feeling at home on set in Kiev or the beaches of Palm Heights in the Cayman Islands, each location has its own unique, ionic effect, providing new energy for creativity. In Eartheater’s work, there is an equilibrium of dark and light forces. Her latest video for her song Volcano directed by digital creative studio Actual Objects, sees a horned Eartheater standing on the Earth’s molten crust: an extension of her previous video for Faith Consuming Hope, in which the artist is found in a line-up of nuns against a beautiful backdrop
of gothic Kiev catholicism, juxtaposed by scenes of unspoken sexual power. In a lively conversation, we discuss what makes Eartheater feel most at peace, how she would construct a future utopia without hate and speak about the power of craft, sex and imagination, plus what’s next for this artist truly in her own lane.

Hey Alex. How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

It’s getting a bit overcast here in Lisbon. But apart from that, I’m good.

I just got back to New York. I was in the Caribbean, in the Caymans, for two months doing an artist residency at Palm Heights.

Was it for a new project?

Yeah, I started to put new things in motion for multiple new albums and made some site-specific stuff. I built an incredible team there; we shot a video for Supersoaker and some other things I’m excited to share. But I guess the main thing was, I got to re-establish the work ethic that I lost.

During COVID?

Yes. At the beginning of COVID, I got kicked out of my house of eight years and my dad got really sick (not with Covid). It was extremely hard and nerve-wracking—I lost creative focus.

I’m sorry to hear. What aspect helped you regain your creative flow?

It’s easier for me to feel the constants in me when my surroundings switch up. Stagnancy and monotony are the enemies. New environments help me expedite big changes and moves. When I arrived at Palm Heights and started my quarantine, I did a ten day master cleanse where I didn’t eat food and only drank lemon, cayenne, and maple syrup water. I was on quite a long winter spiral in NYC before that, so it was time for me to make a change. The day got out of my fifteen day quarantine, I ran down to the shore and dove into crystal clarity. The negative ions of the constantly shifting beach’s atoms scrubbed through me. The ocean relentlessly grinding on the coast is an environmental battery, and I was sprung in its electricity. I lived in a rhinestone bikini and sucked on passion fruit. My nails and hair started growing twice as fast—all of this lubricated new ideas and a new album. 

You released your fifth album Phoenix: Flames Are Due Upon My Skin in October last year. How did that feel?

I think that the record embodies a lot of last year’s complex energy. I’m honestly very ok with the way it came out. I’m happy people were cooped up and with nothing to do but listen to my album (laughs). I think it took people somewhere else.

I agree. Listening to the album makes me feel like I’m a nymph waking up in a forest exploring my new body and soul and exploring my sex. It’s like I’ve been reborn from an apocalypse, and I’m exploring the new Earth around me. What did you imagine when you were creating this masterpiece?

I feel like I was grinding down and processing obsolete emotions to decompose into more fertile earth. When I wrote How To Fight, it was a triumphant moment in processing something that was not serving me. Growing the fuck up and realising through lyrics like “I know how to fight, how to fuck, know how to die, how to resurrect my pride” that it’s about knowing where to hold your ground and where to apologise—really breaking down my ego. That’s one of my favourite feelings, the processing of something that was really painful and then moving on, like major chords shifting out of minor. You can’t rush it, though.

I totally get you. I read that you had an isolated and strict orthodox upbringing, which created a very active imagination. How does that feed into your work?

I was homeschooled with just my three brothers and tons of animals in the middle of nowhere. It was a very republican, conservative, hillbilly, redneck type place and my mom was really religious, so I was either hanging out at monasteries with nuns or playing with horses. I’m good at being alone. But at the same time, I was always hungry for connection. I think this created a very active imagination that was sustained by curiosity. They told me not to look behind the curtain, and I climbed in like a cat. I love to play and tease the curtain. Fantasy gets you wet and projects ideas onto the backs of the eyelids. Imagination helps you create the vehicle that will cross the bridge from fantasy into reality. Then curiosity drives you to really find it in reality—just like in my song C.L.I.T, (curiosity liberates infinite truth).

That connection you were looking for—did you ever find it somewhere else? On vacation, for instance?

As an adult, I’ve never gone on vacation—it’s always been a project, or a show, or an invitation to do something. I’ve met some of the most incredible friends all over the world this way.

What about at school?

I went to school for the first time when I was fifteen. Honestly, it was really about observing my peers. I quickly realised I was a different breed. I gravitated to the Goths at the back of the class, scruffy musicians and the outsiders. We would skip lunch and go to the art room and do these kinds of things. It’s funny how Mean Girls, the movie, is so accurate. That scene where everyone turns into a primal state sniffing each other’s asses, I have these really cinematic moments in my head.

How was it making friends?

When I was young, I knew I was destined for big things far away from me that I couldn’t even perceive. I remember looking in the mirror when I was six years old and being like, I'm gonna be star energy, I just want to follow that thread. I think that was a source of a lot of my adolescent depression. I couldn’t connect with many people growing up because I knew they couldn’t process the kinds of dreams and fantasies I was incubating. So at a certain point, I decided I wasn’t even going to try and went back to my solitary state of being. But yeah, then I dropped out, moved to New York, and kept going.

You know, it’s funny, my dad is a vicar. It’s such a contrast to experience, so when I hear your work, I get it. There’s a beautiful balance of dark and light. How do you create this balance?

Really? Amazing. It was strange because my mom was so religious, and my dad was definitely on demon time. He would only swim in women’s one-piece bathing suits and went where the party was. I have this incredible memory of my dad doing a gorgeous dive off a rock into a lake wearing a hot pink, racerback, ribbed bathing suit. I’m grateful for that. I remember being like, Dad, you’re so fab. Meanwhile, my mother took me to monasteries where women received communion after men; we had to wear our heads covered. I was constantly shamed for being too sexual. I would say that the time I stopped believing in God was when I felt the first glimmers of my sexuality. I was a little kid, but I remember thinking, oh, no wonder they’re trying to snuff out this flame inside me, because i’s really powerful. I’m going to use that power, and I’m going to make a lot of shit happen.

PREACH! How is the relationship with your mum nowadays?

We talk all the time. She’s chilled out a lot because she realised at a certain point she had to; otherwise, she was going to lose me. 

I’m really happy to hear that. I wondered if she sees your work or ignores it?

I think she waits for me to show her what I want to show her. And I’m really grateful for that. I’m so glad my mom isn’t one of those people on Instagram! She doesn’t want to rock her boat.

Haha, good! I wanted to ask when you feel most powerful?

After writing a good song that satisfies a complex or specific feeling, doing what I do best. When I pull a new idea or sound straight out of thin air—that’s when I feel the most powerful.

You wrote Phoenix during a ten week residency at Fugu at the base of the Spanish Pyrenees. How have the residences helped you perfect your craft?

I’m a hard worker, but what’s hard for me is getting started. I’m also just a chronic romantic. I’ll waste time staring out the window, fascinated with the way a black plastic bag is blowing in the street. It’s really embarrassing; I’m a daydreamer. Residencies have been massive because somebody is peeping in on me, like: “Hey, what do you have to show me?” If I have to show somebody something, I can do what I’d normally do in five hours in an hour.

When I say ‘home’, where do you think of?

I would say I’m at home when I have enough clarity to hear my intuition. It’s beyond the five senses. My intuition is a string I’m pulling out of my belly button. The suspension of the string is held by unbudgeted imagination, pulling it into a future beyond individualism.

Beautiful. With Phoenix, you talk about rising from the ashes and rebuilding. This issue of TTA is about future utopias in society, culture, health and sustainability. What would your future utopia look like?

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot in culture lately is alternate ways of dealing with conflict and cancel-culture. I see there’s so much violence that’s happening online now in communities. I see communities tearing each other apart. Suicide is going up. I wish there were actual community symposiums where we could come together and where there was actually a desire to resolve things and hear each other, because it just seems like it’s getting to, like a fascist level.

Yes! We are so segregated. Politics and the internet divide and conquer us. In your future utopia, would it be self-perpetuating? Ruling class rhetoric filtering down into our thought process?

I think that you don’t know until you try, and right now, we’ve only got a corrupt justice system or social media’s chopping block. Time to try something else. I wonder whether people want more understanding, or if they are entertained by conflict? People’s hunger for power or connection and the sound of their own voice is distorting and perpetuating a lot of bullshit.

In earlier times, money was power, but now, one’s voice is literal social currency, which in itself has the same issues. In this utopia, would you keep the internet and social media?

We’d have a new underground internet called mycelium with no cookies, ads, and no “numbers”.

How would your personal utopia look like?

It would look like a lady slipper orchid. Lady slippers are scandalous—veiny like sexual organs with purple, blue, and brown veins networking with sensation. Deep in the woods, surrounding the farm I grew up on, you could find lady slipper orchids blooming in the microclimate of this one cave’s warm breath, by the foot of a waterfall. Orchids don’t usually bloom that far north. Lady slippers are late bloomers like me. Things move slower in my utopia, allowing the space for all the things buried and forgotten to splat, drip and run fast. It feels like hot salty tears cutting through dry mud, fluffy lava hardening in water, a mascara wand dipping into the ashes of past battles and gently coating one’s lashes. A lady slipper’s roots need to be undisturbed for fifteen years for one flower to bloom. One day, I want to buy the family farm. My placenta is buried under the cherry tree. This utopia is thorny, bristled and ready for brutality, like a porcupine with a soft ticklish belly. In my future utopia, every child born gets a horse for travel, a dog for protection and a cat for catching. More than anything, in my future utopia, every child gets friends. Really good ones. Friends of all different species.

Take me! So what’s next for Eartheater?

I’ve been working for three years on a classical album with an orchestra which I want to make into a ballet. It’s gonna be fun to disrupt the classical world a little bit, but also bring classical music to the pop world, too, but in a fresh way.

I’m excited to see this live. How has it felt, not being able to perform live for the last year and a half?

In the beginning, I needed a break because I had been touring almost non-stop for years, but by the middle of last year, I missed it terribly. Part of the reason I composed Phoenix with chamber instruments was that I had the live show in mind. It’s been frustrating not to play, so I’m very excited to pick up where I left off, but now with audiences that are more hungry than ever for communion.

Are you going to release a new album?

Yes - maybe my heaviest sounding album yet. I’ve concluded my contract with PAN, and I’ve decided not to go with another label. I just think that system is obsolete for me. I’m way more powerful on my own. But at the same time, I want to foster other artists that may not be mainstream enough or who have “unmarketable personalities”. I’m launching ‘Chemical X’, which I released my album Trinity on in 2019. Something that really annoys me about the music industry is that people aren’t even going to look at you or give you a chance until you’ve done so much on your own. I’m excited about really finding talent in the very underground. I think, at this point, I am sitting on a lot of experience, and I want to share that.