I recently had the nonstop ecstatic thrill of interviewing the legend Marc Almond for FLOOD about Danceteria — the final, full-circle Soft Cell album that revisits the synthpop provocateurs’ early days, when he and the late Dave Ball were out in clubland having fun in pre-Giuliani New York City.

“It was a bit like the Wild West. Boarded-up buildings. You’d go back to your hotel and there’d be a car on fire on the side of the road. It was kind of like that movie The Warriors,” he recalled, speaking via Zoom from his home in Portugal. “It was dangerous, but it was exciting and creative.”

Almond shared many memories of the nights before, including meeting Cindy Ecstasy (who he gave her stage name) during the “dying days” of “bridge-and-tunnel” Studio 54, and experiencing his first MDMA trip with her while listening to the Cure’s “All Cats Are Grey”; his admiration of the “female David Bowie,” Madonna, who recently released a song titled “Danceteria” inspired by her own formative clubbing era; and the final time that he and the ailing Ball performed together, at the 2025 Rewind Festival. But since Almond and I ended up chatting for more than an hour (after we said hello, I never wanted to wave goodbye; I could have talked with him all night), not all of our conversation could make it into my epic FLOOD Q&A. So, I’m exclusively publishing three of my favorite outtakes here.

Of course, I had to ask about the Tim Pope-directed, banned and bootlegged “Sex Dwarf” video — which for so long, before the internet, was almost imposable to see in its infamous uncensored version, so it took on a mythical status and became an urban legend. (When I told Almond that it might have been the first viral video, he said, “I think that’s really cool. I like that!”) Almond revealed that the “vertically challenged” leatherman in the S&M-themed video, who became a fleeting tabloid sensation when he lied to the sensationalist British press and claimed that Soft Cell had forced him to do “horrible things,” was in fact responsible for “Sex Dwarf” going viral.

“He went to the video company and said, ‘I’m in the video. Can I borrow a copy to watch at home?’ He took that VHS, bootlegged it, and sent it to all the tabloid newspapers in a brown paper package. So, what you see on YouTube is probably a bootleg from that time,” Almond explained. “It’s usually really bad quality, which I think adds to it and makes it even better, actually! It kind of looks like some ’80s video nasty/slasher film, which is great. The record company got hold of the master and locked it in a vault: ‘It must never be seen!’ But it was too late. It was already out there.”

Almond also went into detail about how both Soft Cell’s 1981 debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (which he and Ball recorded during their first whirlwind visit to NYC) and Danceteria were concept albums with deliberately constructed narratives, and that he’d been pleased that his friend Neil Tennant had picked up on that. Since Tennant’s Pet Shop Boys once had a West End musical called Closer to Heaven, I asked Almond (a self-described “romantic cynic, or disillusioned romantic” who tries to “write in a cinematic way,” who cited “The Rainbow Room,” a sentimental ballad about a birthday dinner while looking out at the Twin Towers, as his favorite Danceteria track) if he’d ever thought about doing a stage musical based on Soft Cell’s catalog.

“There has been talk of that, actually,” he told me. “Somebody wrote a musical a few years ago of mostly Soft Cell songs, with a few of my solo songs as well. I went to a workshop of it and I liked it a lot. I thought it was quite cool. But Dave didn’t like it at all. He just really hated it. He said, ‘That’s not how I imagine this thing to be.’ So, it never happened. They came to me with another draft a couple of years ago, but then I didn’t like what they’d done to it; I liked it what I first saw in the original workshop! I don’t know, maybe that can be ignited again, now that we’ve got the newer songs from Danceteria. I love the idea of it.”

But perhaps my favorite “outtake” is in the video at the top of this page. Almond unfortunately had his Zoom camera off due to connectivity problems in Portugal, but mine was still on. And so — right in the middle of our Cindy Ecstasy discussion — when I reapplied my glittery pink lipgloss like an ‘80s club kid, he stopped himself mid-sentence to tell me, “Your lipstick looks great, by the way!” Almond is a glamour icon who knows a thing or two about face-painting, so that was the ultimate compliment. Under the deep ringlight, he could see the makeup sliding down, indeed.

Read my full FLOOD magazine Q&A with Marc Almond here!

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On the day their fifth album’s release — they made history as the first all-female band and first Mexican band to score a No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, with “Kerosene” — Daniela, Alejandra, and Paulina Villarreal Vélez of superstar rock band the Warning came by Studio City’s Licorice Pizza Records for an autograph signing. The sister trio then sat down with Licorice Pizza’s LPTV to discuss how making that album, Everything’s Falling, helped them lean into their anger, face their fear of failure, and strengthen their family bond.

Watch the video of the Warning’s insightful conversation in the video above, and check out their “5 Questions” article from this interview over at FLOOD magazine.

The Doublespeak project actually isn’t that new; it dates back to 2017, when Arthur began sending his longtime mate Clarke cover-song suggestions (many of which Clarke had not heard before, which excited him) without “any kind of clear vision” of what it would become. But as the two synthpop pioneers harnessed their skills with Benge’s, utilizing both analog equipment and modern technology, they resynthesized these songs — by everyone from Fad Gadget to the Carpenters to a certain “fucking amazing” Swedish pop group that Clarke and Arthur bonded over poolside while on holiday in 1982 — in ways that somehow sound vintage, futuristic, and timeless, all at once.

Sadly, one attempt, Van McCoy’s “The Hustle,” didn’t make it onto Doublespeak’s final tracklist, which Clarke amusingly told me he’s still “angry” about. (You and me both, Vince!) But it was still a great honor and great fun to delve into Arthur, Clarke, and Benge’s track-by-track guide to the approved covers, from post-punk deep cuts to easy-listening classics, that comprise their fascinating debut album.

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE!

courtesy of Reybee, Inc.

Ahead of the Human League’s first headlining U.S. tour in 15 years, I interviewed the self-described “haircut at the front” of the band, Philip Oakey, for FLOOD Magazine. It was an honor, and I kept feeling fascination through the entire conversation.

The sole original member in the current Human League lineup after multiple personnel changes, Oakey was quite self-deprecating throughout our interview. He insisted that he’s “about 150th the singer of [Soft Cell’s] Marc Almond or Alison Moyet” and was considered “tone-deaf” when the Human League started; he repeatedly credited Gary Numan, Ultravox, and the Flying Lizards with laying the groundwork for his success; and he even claimed that Human League’s revolutionary debut single “Being Boiled” — a song that David Bowie declared “the future of music” in 1978 — gave them an “authenticity that maybe we don’t deserve.”

Such modesty was entirely unexpected from this bold new-wave superstar, whose asymmetrical and angular Sassoon bob, kohl-ringed stare, and booming baritone once made such an indelible impression in the early MTV era that Michael Jackson hired Steve Barron to direct “Billie Jean” after seeing Barron’s cinematic video for “Don’t You Want Me.”

Oakey was also grateful for this upcoming 21-date tour, a full-circle development in that the Human League, along with Soft Cell, effectively kickstarted music’s “Second British Invasion” when their respective synthpop singles “Don’t You Want Me” and “Tainted Love” dominated U.S. radio during the summer of ’82.

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it? It doesn’t make any sense!” Oakey marveled when asked about headlining the Human League’s biggest-ever American tour, this many decades into their career. “But I can’t be too terrified of anything now, because I’m 70. Whatever happens, everything is just a bonus and a chance to enjoy experiences that I never thought I would have in my whole life.”

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE!

photo: Skylar Watkins

For FLOOD‘s March 2026 digital cover story, I had the thrill of interviewing Silversun Pickups frontman Brian Aubert and super-producer Butch Vig about SSPUs’ excellent new album, Tenterhooks.

This is the third Silversun Pickups album that Vig has produced (now making them the band that he’s worked with the most aside from his own group, Garbage), and his bond with Aubert and the rest of the Pickups was wonderful to witness.

This feature stems from a live Q&A event that I moderated at Pasadena’s Sid the Cat Auditorium in February, which was a benefit for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. You can tune into FLOOD FM all this week (March 24-27) at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 5 p.m., and 10 p.m. PT to hear audio of the full conversation. 

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE!

So, I had the delight and honor of chatting in-depth with Gorillaz masterminds Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, along with key collaborators Posdnuos (of De La Soul) and Yukimi Nagano (of Little Dragon), about the cartoon supergroup’s Technicolor career… and about five minutes into my conversation with Albarn, he casually dropped the news that a new Gorillaz album, The Mountain, had just been completed!

That revelation then added a whole new unexpected chapter to what was originally intended to be just a retrospective. This interview was actually the first that either Albarn or Hewlett did about The Mountain — a very special project which at its core is a touching tribute to both their very real, flesh-and-blood friendship and to some other much-missed collaborators who no longer live in the 3D realm.

And along the way, I got some amazing stories about not only the new album’s emotional recording experience in India, but about Albarn and Hewlett’s past as ’90s flatmates in Ladbroke Grove; how one Gorillaz character was inspired by Angus Young; the hilarious (and Dennis Hopper-related!) story of Albarn and Hewlett’s wacky night at the 2006 Grammy Awards; why Posdnuos didn’t have a solo rap on “Feel Good Inc.,” and how Trugoy the Dove came up with his iconic verse; the highs and literally bowel-rumbling lows of the epic Plastic Beach tour; the band’s seven-year hiatus and how “brothers” Albarn and Hewlett are now closer than ever; the eerie prescience of 2017′s Humanz; and how Gorillaz were really prescient in so many ways, basically predicting the future.

And Gorillaz still sound like the future now. Tomorrow comes today, indeed. Read all about Murdoc, 2D, Russel, and Noodle’s past, present, and future misadventures via the link below!

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE

For FLOOD magazine, I had the pleasure of chatting with former Regrettes frontwoman Lydia Night about her fantastic debut solo album, Parody of Pleasure.

She was very open, discussing being a self-described “fuckboy” during a hot summer of singledom in New York City; the Regrettes’ split; the liberation of working with a female producer for the first time; love-bombers, unrequited crushes, and pansexuality; the workaholism that, for better or worse, she inherited from her father; her struggles with being in the music industry since she was a teenager; the fallout from her #MeToo revelation about her much-older ex-boyfriend, SWMRS’ Joey Armstrong; and “the existential dread of being an artist.”

We also discussed Night’s bold new pop direction, and the pop aspirations that she’s had since she was listening to Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani with her mom as a kid, and she declared: “If it doesn’t [succeed commercially] that’s fine, because I love what I’m doing, and that’s why I’m doing it. But do I want to play arenas and fucking headline festivals? Yeah, of course I do.”

I hope it happens for her!

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE!

For FLOOD‘s April 2025 digital cover story, I had the delight and honor of chatting with Lucy Dacus about her brilliant new album, Forever Is a Feeling (her first solo release since the massive success of her on-hiatus supergroup with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker, Boygenius, and fourth album overall).

We discussed recurring themes on the LP, which Dacus described as a “crossfade between a breakup album and a falling-in-love album and a reckoning-with-change album” about “sex and relationships and romance” and “accepting the temporality of things in love,” and how she’s learned to just enjoy the ride — no matter how long it lasts.

READ THE INTERVIEW HERE!

As an L.A. native whose first Whisky show was Redd Kross, it was immense fun to reminisce with Jeff McDonald & Steven McDonald about Los Angeles for FLOOD magazine. I really think they should do guided tours on some sort of double-decker, Partridge Family-style bus! Thanks Redd Kross for the magical, mystical ride through a lost Los Angeles, and congrats on your documentary ‘Born Innocent’ getting an official theatrical release this month!

READ THE STORY HERE!

I recently had the immense delight and honor of chatting with Maya Hawke, about her amazing new album Chaos Angel and how it intersects with her Oscar-worthy star turn in the Flannery O’Connor biopic Wildcat, for a FLOOD digital cover story.

READ IT HERE!