Interview with xgonesovereignx

Thank you so much to gonesovereign for the interview! I love how different already the perspectives I get to share are <3!

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Q: Why don't we start with a little bit about yourself? (Feel free to say as much or as little as you'd like!)

A: My name is Nikki, I am a 26 year old, neurodivergent, and transfem (she/they) artist from New Jersey. I do digital art, graphic design, music, writing, game development, and video editing. My music project is called Exit Wound, a solo emocore/noise rock act using mainly virtual instruments. I am a big fan of MySpace-era music and all manner of alternative and queer expression, and an advocate for its preservation.

Q: What's your history with the Alternative Scene and its influence on what you create?

A: The brand of alternative that I identify with most is emo. And the first emo band that I was ever properly introduced to was Dear Whoever, by my ex-boyfriend. This is a band that I think by most professional standards was not very good, and probably not a shining example of the genre either. But in terms of their raw edge, I think emo was probably the best descriptor you could find for this band; anything else would be over-explaining it. Something about them resonated with me as an emotionally compromised teenager, and they were the gateway band that led me to find bands like Silverstein, Armor For Sleep, Hawthorne Heights, Finch, MCR, and a lot of deep-cut bands from the MySpace era that I grew a soft spot for despite being too young to know them while they were still active. But more importantly, as I got older and connected more closely with the music and the fashion, I started to find more and more common threads between it and my queer identity. I've written a whole video essay on this topic; it's on my YouTube channel and it says more than I could possibly say here, but essentially I think that by virtue of "alternative" literally meaning "different", which as a queer person is something you tend to realize about yourself pretty quickly, alternative expression, whatever that means to you, is an inherent part of LGBT+ culture. It's one of the truest forms of self-expression, and despite all of the scene's problems, emo kids of the 2000's walked so today's trans kids could run. I believe that, and my mission statement is to preserve everything that alternative is through myself and my artwork.

Q: What would you say inspires your music?

A: Generally speaking, all of my creative work is predicated on trying to create the art that I want to see in the world. Going back to the topic of Dear Whoever, they were hitting on a sound that I can't really compare to anything because of how distinctly raw their music was. The sound itself falls under the post-hardcore label; very dark, very tense music reminiscent of Thursday, early Silverstein, and The Bled. But the thing that I find interesting about them is that aside from one EP, all of the songs they released were demos with pretty crusty sound quality, and in a few cases, some unusually bass-heavy mixes. That somehow works to their advantage; the distorted audio helps them tap into a certain visceral quality while the boosted bass gives these songs some added weight. I could never find another band that came close to replicating that exact vibe, so I’m taking it upon myself to do so. These days I consider Silverstein and Armor For Sleep as my favorite bands; I don’t think that’s a coincidence because they both directly inspired Dear Whoever, and Dear Whoever is my biggest influence with this project. In that manner of speaking, I suppose you could say that I am just another act on the lengthy list of bands that copied Silverstein, but I justify it by saying that I am just making the kind of music I would want to listen to. A lot of what keeps me coming back to the emo genre is the physical chills that so many songs evoke from me; that's called "frisson", and while I'm learning now that it's not something only intrinsic to emo, it is something I make mental note of whenever I have that reaction, and something I try to incorporate into my own music. With Silverstein I think it’s generally more of a compositional thing, but Armor For Sleep captivates me through Ben Jorgensen's knack for straightforward lyrics -- he writes songs like his diary, and doesn't waste time on esoteric or heavy-handed metaphors while still managing to be creative and thoughtful, and that's something else I've tried to capture within my own songwriting. As long as I continue to rely on virtual instrument sets, I suppose that the “frisson” factor I talk about may tend to get lost in the slightly artificial sound (not that I wasn’t warned about that), but considering how far I’ve come, I think I’m doing the best I can with the tools available to me, and even then there’s always room for improvement.

Q: Who is an artist you look up to and why?

A: Like I said, one of my favorite bands is Silverstein, and even if someday I grow out of their music then I'd still love them as people. I have seen them perform live more times than I can remember, have met the band three times, and have had a few private conversations with the lead singer Shane Told, and also the lead guitarist Paul Marc Rousseau. When I started writing music, they were kind enough to give me some marching orders, and ever since then, they have been encouraging of what I've been trying to do for every step of the way, while also giving me pretty solid feedback whenever I've needed it. I also can't forget to mention that they’ve been super supportive of my gender transition, since the very beginning. In spite of how much money I have thrown at them, they haven't had to spend so much time on helping someone half their age with none of their experience, but they have anyway, and I will never know how to thank them for that. The first time I ever saw them live was at Asbury Lanes on the When Broken is Easily Fixed fifteen-year anniversary tour in 2018, and that show in particular was one of the most cathartic experiences of my entire life. No concert I've been to since has ever replicated that feeling.

Q: Tell us something you're really passionate about, can be related to music or anything else!

A: Alongside music, one of my other special interests is motorsports. I get that it can be kind of an esoteric thing so I usually don't try and recruit new fans. But I have been watching IndyCar and NASCAR for 17 years because I fell in love with certain dramatic, intelligent, and dare I say artistic qualities about motor racing as a whole that a lot of people don't understand. Watching a car zoom around a racetrack is like watching a low-flying aircraft on the edge of control, pulling incredible amounts of G-forces through the turns. If something goes wrong, it has the potential to be catastrophic. You only really need two cars to make a race, but every race and every driver has a story. As a driver, you need to consider that there are an infinite number of possible outcomes, and any number of obstacles to prevent the best outcome. Your goal is then to find the shortest route possible to the checkered flag, and that may require you to be clever or creative with your own strategy, and mindful of how you race other drivers around you on track who are doing the same thing. I've also come to appreciate that a racecar can be a very pretty thing, and designing my own fictional paint schemes for about as long as I've been watching is how I got good at graphic design. Since I watched my first Daytona 500 in 2007, I have found a group of fellow race fans that I've been privileged enough to call my friends, and I've never met another group of people that knew so much and cared so much about the sport we've been watching. Some of my favorite memories have come from watching races in big watch parties we do every race weekend, and even competing against some of them in sim-racing video games. Memorial Day weekend is coming up at time of writing, and that Sunday is something my friends and I call "Motorsport Christmas", because it's an all-day marathon of three of the biggest races of the year: The Monaco GP, the Indianapolis 500, and the Coca-Cola 600. I spent my birthday this year watching Indy 500 qualifying with this group, and that alone made what I was otherwise anticipating to be a miserable day enjoyable and memorable.

Q: Where did your name 'gonesovereign' come from?

A: That's a very easy question to answer: "Gone Sovereign" is the name of the opening track on the double concept album that ignited my passion for music, that being Stone Sour's House of Gold and Bones. Stone Sour is Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor's other band, and although there is quite a bit of overlap between those two projects in terms of sound, what sets Stone Sour apart is that you hear the softer side of Corey Taylor's songwriting; something more rock ballad-oriented. On that note I suppose you could call Stone Sour "butt rock", but House of Gold and Bones is a two-pronged release that I'd say is a more literal example of a rock opera (wouldn't quite call it symphonic metal), and for that reason I really don't think it could have been anything other than a Stone Sour record. The story is based on a graphic novel that Taylor co-wrote, and while the albums aren't exactly a straight-up retelling of the novel, they do add a lot of depth to the story and characters in the novel. There's a lot of musical and lyrical motifs on the albums that appear and reappear throughout both records, and the perspective of the singer is always shifting in a way that compliments the vibe of the songs. Definitely not something that is unique to these records, but it is comprehensive to everything about them, and no part of either record is wasted. What I love about both records is more than I could say here, but regardless, they were a formative part of my taste in music and my personal soundtrack for my high school years.

Q: If you had to name a few bands/artists you feel like have a similar sound or vibe to your music who would they be?

A: Strictly speaking in terms of influences, Exit Wound is a combination of a lot of emo, punk, alternative, and metal music. In terms of bands that have influenced me, aside from the ones I've mentioned above, Earshot and Avion Roe are two other big ones. I also regard the Finch album Say Hello to Sunshine as particularly special; it's had a lot of bearing on the sound I'm trying to create, and I will die on the hill that Finch deserved better. From the start, Exit Wound has always been my tribute to all those obscure MySpace-era bands that I love, so I could absolutely point to bands like Wings of Azrael, Mozart Season, and A Fragile Shade, whose work has entertained and inspired me such that it has a permanent stay on my YouTube channel because you wouldn't be able to find it anywhere else otherwise. Again though, as a solo musician working with virtual instruments, I know that my approach is kind of unconventional for someone making this style of rock music, so I don't really know what I could reasonably and directly compare myself to, in the sense that I don’t know of any musicians that do specifically what I do. While I do think there’s some amount of novelty in that, I also have to believe that I wouldn’t be the first to try it. In any case I do know of some one-man bands; one of my friends had compared one of my instrumental demos to the one-man depressive black metal act Sadness, and I fell in love with their song "i want to be with you" almost immediately. Such an ethereal but oddly peaceful vibe given the genre it's associated with. As an aside, while I don't usually have the capacity to seek new music, I do sometimes get turned onto new bands through my Instagram feed that end up reminding me of my own music. One recent example of that was a band called Technically Nothing; they consider themselves "depressive pop punk", and their song "stitches" is such a dreary delight that had me thinking, "Why didn't I come up with this?"

Q: Can you tell us about your latest release, the single 'Lucid Nightmare'?

A: I don't think it's a secret that the world sucks a lot right now -- the rise of the alt-right, continued persecution of queer people worldwide, genocide on the Gaza strip, nationwide student protests in the US, all of that. And what always gets me about it is that I think we all know that there is a very real and very deep systemic problem, but what can we do or are we doing about it that would make a difference against all the big money operations that serve the opposite purpose? Obviously the world's never been perfect and never will be, and we also can't manifest a revolution just because we need one. But I am just barely old enough to remember a time where the internet was not completely controlled by algorithms or overwhelmed by corporations, and despite existing as an artist online for a while, I'm finding it more and more difficult to find and connect with other artists, grow an audience, and make things work the honest way. All in pursuit of the greater good, but a lot of the people I feel like I'm competing against are self-serving "influencers" taking all the spoils for doing meaningless work. This has only been amplified by the fact that I turned 26 recently, which in the US means I age out of my parents' health insurance, and I'm hard-pressed to find a working solution. So to that end, this song has as much of a real world meaning as it does a personal meaning. Late stage capitalism and the issues thereof that we keep doubling down on for some reason is the "lucid nightmare". Truthfully, I agonized quite a bit over this song when I first released it; I ended up reuploading it to YouTube and streaming services at least ten times, which probably didn't help it much even though I didn’t see a huge net loss from doing that. In spite of that, I have to admit that I'm the happiest I've ever been with my own artwork, and I don't feel like it needs to be profitable or justified in order to convey its message and help me find a following, and those feelings of frustration is what this song is about.

Q: Anything you want to share about any upcoming projects?

A: Because of the predicament I'm in with insurance, I've had to put all my projects away for now, although it probably won’t stay that way for much longer. I do have a couple of songs in the pipeline that are still mostly works in progress at the moment, but will probably see releases as standalone singles as soon as they're ready. I'd like to have an Exit Wound EP out by the end of the year, and I anticipate that it will have a re-release of "Lucid Nightmare", as well as completed versions of at least one of the original song demos I have on YouTube currently. Have been mulling over the idea of performing live, don't know what that's gonna look like just yet as long as I'm still a solo act but it's something I have been wanting to do. I have one video essay script that I've been sitting on for over a year now; I wanna try and get that done at some point and then maybe write scripts for a few more while I still have ideas. Over the past few years I have been involved with a passion project and collaborative Mega Man fan game called Make a Good Mega Man Level; after almost seven years of development, the third game in that series is due for release on June 9th, and in addition to my contributions to the game itself I've also written music for it that should be releasing along with the game. And on the off-chance that anyone is keeping up on YouTube with what I've been doing with my sim-racing league ARSS, or else just wants to see what I'm on about when I talk about racing, I plan on putting together a highlight reel of our most recently completed season at some point, and I'll probably be hosting and livestreaming another season of that in a few months, although I don't have an exact ETA on either of those things.

Q: Any final thoughts you'd like to add?

A: Shout-outs to the EFR Discord crew, my friends, and everyone that has taken a chance on me throughout the years. Keep an eye out for me; I'm excited for what's next, and with luck you should be hearing from me again soon. If anyone wants to chat or keep up with me on Tumblr or elsewhere, I am never that far away and I'm always looking to connect or collaborate with other artists.

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