Voltaire is a modern day renaissance man whose macabre art covers many mediums. He is a singer/performer, animator, author, comic book writer, toy creator, and established on-camera expert on alternative, horror, goth and steampunk lifestyles. A computer-animated Voltaire has led several special Friday the 13^th campaigns on the 16 million-user massively multiplayer online role-playing game, AdventureQuest Worlds. Voltaire authored the popular gothic lifestyle guidebooks, “What is Goth?” and “Paint It Black”. Voltaire’s music is as a collection of murder ballads, tongue-in-cheek exercises in the ghoulish and spooky. He has performed all over North America over the past fifteen years, and has an award winning stop motion animation series on the indie film festival circuit.  

Marcie sat down with Voltaire on the eve of his extensive U.S. tour to promote his ninth full length album, “Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children”. The album’s cover art was created by legendary fantasy artist, Daarken; best known for his World of Warcraft, Warhammer, and Magic the Gathering illustrations.

MARCIE: Your new album, “Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children” is your ninth album, and features a host of guest artists.  How did your collaborations with these artists come about?

VOLTAIRE: Most of the guest artists on the album are people I know personally or have worked with in one capacity or another in the past.  Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls played the drums on my country album, “Hate Lives in a Small Town” so I asked him if he’d return to play on this album. Melora Creager of Rasputina played cello on the soundtrack for my short film DemiUrge Emesis and I recently went on tour supporting Rasputina so I asked her if she’d play the cellos on this album. At that point it was clear I had the makings of a “super group” so I asked David J. from Bauhaus to play bass. It just sort of went from there. Working with Melora was definitely a highlight since her band was one of my biggest influences in making the kind of music I make.

MARCIE: The tracks on your album explore a range of moods. Some are whimsical, and some more haunting and serious. In “Innocent”, you say, “It’s not your fault, you’re innocent”. What do you hope listeners will take from that line?

VOLTAIRE: “Innocent” is a song about bullying. Like a lot of kids, I was a victim of bullying and I still remember all too well what that felt like. I wish someone had written this song for me back then, in fact, I guess this is me writing that song for myself. I suppose it’s better late than never.

Voltaire on YOUTUBE 

MARCIE: What is your favorite track on your new album and why?

VOLTAIRE: That’s a bit like asking, “which of your children is your favorite?” I couldn’t say. The mere fact that these songs are on the album is testament to the fact that I loved them and felt they deserved being recorded. Believe me when I say that not all songs make it to the album! But I do oscillate between current favorites. At the moment I’m really enjoying the end of “Oh Lord (Wake the Dead)” primarily because I wrote those lyrics on the spot while recording so they are still very new to me.  In fact, my favorite work is usually whatever I’m doing at the moment or have done most recently. That’s a good thing because an artist should always feel they are currently doing their best work. If you don’t feel that what you’re doing is your best work, then you’re slipping backwards. When I feel that way, I will likely quit making music.

MARCIE: What is your favorite track to perform live? Do your shows involve audience participation?

VOLTAIRE: Hands down “The Dirtiest Song That Ain’t” is both the most fun to play live and also, perhaps not surprisingly, the one with the most audience participation. The audience is required to yell out the bad words I hint at in the song and they seem to love the opportunity to scream obscenities in public!

MARCIE: What are you most looking forward to on your upcoming tour?

VOLTAIRE: This summer was the busiest three months of my life and believe me when I say that as a workaholic, that’s saying a lot! I recorded, mixed and released an album, made a stop-motion film, designed and released two vinyl toys all while playing shows out of town and playing a short UK tour. Then I had to plan this tour and that can be a bit nerve racking. But once the tour starts, there is only one thing I can do and that’s be on tour. My life gets really simple for the duration of the tour. I ride in a vehicle for most of the day, show up in some town or other, perform for a bunch of friendly faces, drink a liter of rum, go to sleep at the hotel and then start all over again the next day. There’s not a lot of thinking or decision making involved because everything is pretty much predetermined. It’s liberating. So that’s what I’m looking forward to… taking a mental vacation, meeting lots of new people, seeing a bunch of the fans I’ve come to know over the years and doing what I enjoy every night for a month!

MARCIE: You have said, “Humans go to sleep…utterly alone. When you die, you will be utterly alone.  [Goth] is the understanding that we are individuals…who are in essence alone.” Then you suggest that we reach out to others who feel similarly and go clubbing with them.  Why clubbing? What power does music have to build a bridge between the lonely?

VOLTAIRE: Comic book conventions, or most conventions for that matter, are collections of individuals, sometimes lonely individuals, who have a shared interest.  Music works the same way. People who like a certain type of music can find like-minded people at a concert of their favorite band or a club that plays the music they like. It’s a way to connect with people who might understand you. However music has a greater power over people than most other interests because music can be so emotional. It can move you to tears, make you laugh in your darkest hour or make you want to jump up and dance when the world has beaten you down. So when people  who are moved by the same music find themselves together there is a greater healing that takes place, it’s a communal healing where you are feeling happy and powerful and free and healed in the company of others like you. It’s not dissimilar to how people feel at a religious revival.

MARCIE: You said in the 90’s Goth turned into techno.  How does electronica relate to Goth nowadays?

VOLTAIRE: Goth is like Horror. Once upon a time there were horror films like “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” and  it was understood that there would be a monster in them and they would be scary. But then over time the genre grew and split and morphed and like a blob tearing down a hill picked up a whole bunch of other things along the way and now the term Horror is not enough to describe a film. There is horror, splatter, suspense, thrillers, creature features, paranormal, torture porn, the list goes on and on. Similarly, at this stage the term Goth is used to describe myriad styles of music that include everything from guitar based Goth rock to acoustic neoclassical Darkwave to a dozen different types of electronic dance or noise music. Electronica is just another spice in the giant stew that Goth has become. Some Goths like it, some don’t. In the end it’s pretty cool to consider that you could be Goth and not be anything like someone else who is Goth. There is a lot to choose from in the genre.

MARCIE: As a teenager, you moved to NYC, when you realized, “The person I am makes me a loser in one place, and a winner in another place”.  Are you based in NYC now? Do you feel the same way about NYC that you did when you first discovered it?

VOLTAIRE: Yes, I still live in New York City. I’ve yet to find a place I’d rather live. But yes, it’s definitely not the same town I ran away to in 1984. It’s become very homogenized and my neighborhood, the East Village, which was full of musicians, artists and filmmakers, and okay, junkies and hobos, is now an overpriced ghetto full of wine bars, yuppies and trust fund kids. So it’s not as gritty or as interesting as it used to be, but I’m still not moving. At least not yet.

MARCIE: You claim in an interview that the Goth community welcomes a lot of youth that would be considered outcast in the mainstream. Do you think that the adoption of elements of Goth culture by the mainstream or commercial culture, and the idea of a celebrity of Goth culture is tainting the original idea of a counter-culture as safe haven?

VOLTAIRE: The Goth scene has been around since the late seventies and it’s still around today thirty years later. There have been moments in history where the mainstream has turned an eye to it and suddenly it seemed cool to be Goth to the average teenager in suburbia. Hell, there was a time, probably around the time when Marilyn Manson had peeked in popularity where it became difficult to find an item of clothing at a mall that didn’t have a skull on it! But like anything in mainstream culture, trends come and go. The bottom line is that Goth will probably always exist in some form.  Sure, dyed -black-in-the-wool Goths will always get a bit annoyed when suddenly the preppie next door doesn’t find your revolution weird, strange or dangerous, but who cares? You should do it because you love it, not because you need to rebel.

MARCIE: In your book, ‘What is Goth’, you write that all Goths must dress the part.  Is that really true? Isn’t Goth a state of mind? Or is it only Goth when that state of mind is recognized in a specific aesthetic way?

VOLTAIRE: It’s very much an aesthetic thing. It doesn’t have to be, but it generally is. I’ll put it this way, if you wear all black and write poetry about having sex with corpses, you’re probably a Goth who likes to seem dark and mysterious. If you wear plaid and khakis and write poems about having sex with corpses, you’re probably just a serial killer.

MARCIE: Why the use of bawdy burlesque cabaret in your upcoming tour? How does that style of performance illustrate your sound?

VOLTAIRE: A good number of my songs are bawdy and some are straight up about having sex with zombies or corpses or characters from Star Trek or Star Wars. It’s certainly not the majority of what I do, but the live shows tend to be especially rum-fueled, bawdy and rowdy so I felt burlesque was a perfect addition to this particular tour. It’s not for everyone, I understand that, but then I’ve never tried to be everything to everyone. It seems like a really fun idea at the moment and that’s good enough for me.

MARCIE: You are described in your biography as, “a modern day renaissance man of the macabre”. What drew you originally to macabre?

VOLTAIRE: I don’t know. I’ve always loved monsters and I’ve always been fascinated by the macabre. I could go into some pseudo psycho-self-analysis about how my awful childhood made me interested in the concept of evil, but I won’t bore you.

MARCIE: You are known for your sense of humor, as you use comedy to educate. Sometimes it seems your music and art is meant to cheer up a Goth, and wouldn’t that result be paradoxical? How do you balance the grim and ghastly side of your art with the satirical, and tongue in cheek? Is some of your art self-mockery?

VOLTAIRE: Darn near all of my art is self-mockery. I learned a long time ago that I had to learn to laugh at myself and all of the awful things around me or die. I chose laughing instead, but it was very close.

MARCIE: You authored the popular gothic lifestyle guidebooks, “What is Goth?” and “Paint It Black”. How has your relationship with the conventions of Goth changed over the years? How much of your art is reactionary or steeped in pre-existing Goth aesthetic? With your popularity and with much of your work accessible to the mainstream, how much, at this point, do you feel your work is defining the genre itself?

VOLTAIRE: I feel that the Goth scene was more clearly defined twenty years ago so when I wrote my comic book series “Oh My Goth!” for instance,  it was easier to react to Gothic stereotypes and behavior and write about them. But eventually the Goth scene grew way beyond the bounds of what I knew and loved to the point of even including techno music of sorts and the wearing of bright colors, glow sticks, etc. There came a point where I didn’t relate to most of what Goth had become. So these days I don’t really think too much about it. I’m sort of back to where I was before I even knew there was a Goth scene, back when I was a kid. I simply love the macabre and that’s enough for me.

As far as how much has my own work defined influenced the scene or the mainstream’s perception of it, I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I think I would be the last to know. Though I do occasionally see things in mainstream movies that are awfully close to what I was doing almost twenty years ago in my comic books. I just chalk it up to the universal subconscious at work.

MARCIE: What makes you happy? Does creating make you happy?  What is the happiest moment you’ve experienced?

VOLTAIRE: Yes, creating is absolutely what makes me the happiest in this world. I don’t care if it’s a book or song, film or toy. It’s the act of daydreaming and then bringing those daydreams to life that excites me the most.  What was my happiest moment? I created a human being once. That’s right up there! And watching him grow and learn and become and amazing person is still probably my proudest achievement.

MARCIE: You choose to tell stories in many ways. Some ways, (i.e., Chi-Chian), are long and in depth character studies, and some stories are short and sweet, (i.e., in your songs).  Which medium is the most personal for you?

VOLTAIRE: Performing is instant gratification and there is a lot of pleasure in that. When I perform in front of a crowd, I can come up with a joke off the top of my head and I will get laughs, or I won’t, but either way, the reaction is immediate and that’s sort of thrilling.  Making a film, comic book or writing a book is a long, solitary process. It’s very, very different in that I’m in my own head for months or even years and only once it’s finished, do I get the feedback from an audience. Like anything in this world, the instant gratification is extremely pleasing but it’s fleeting. I rarely dwell on how I felt during a particular show. It’s the work that takes months and months of thought and sweat that tends to be the most rewarding and personal in the end.

MARCIE: Your “Chimerascope” series is a stop motion animation full of strange monsters.  It has garnered critical acclaim and roughly 20 awards in the short film festival circuit.  Each animation is narrated by singers, including Deborah Harry of Blondie, Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs, Gerar Way of My Chemical Romance, and Danny Elfman.  Why the fascination with using these voices commonly known for conveying words in melody? Why use them in a speaking capacity? Why not use actors and actresses who don’t sing?

VOLTAIRE: The most recent one, by the way, was narrated by Gary Numan! To answer your question, I chose people whose voices have moved me and as it happens, it’s easier to be moved by song than by speaking, I think. But that was always the idea, to use people whose voices affected me or inspired me in some way. But moreover, these films pick up where the station IDs I made for MTV twenty or so years ago left off and the fact that singers narrate the films do also give them a certain “Liquid Television” sort of feel, so that’s just an extra added bonus. It’s easy to imagine these films playing on MTV back in the eighties or on Night Flight.

MARCIE: Do you ever create characters that disturb yourself?

VOLTAIRE: No, I can’t say I have. If I set out to create a disturbing character, I really revel in succeeding when I do. The more disturbing he is, the more fun I’m having with it.

MARCIE: You have said, “I really try…to get as close to the subconscious as possible…to create this dreamlike quality”.  I get the sense you are so busy, you don’t sleep much.  Do you dream regularly?

VOLTAIRE: Back when I was a full time stop-motion animator, I slept every two days. Sometimes I didn’t sleep for three days at a time. Once I stayed up for the better part of ninety six hours! While it did indeed provide me with some surreal moments, I have to warn those who do the same that it’s very dangerous. I actually did damage to my brain staying up for long periods of time. You know those mild hallucinations you have when you’ve stayed up too long? You see things out of the corner of your eyes, things scurrying around that aren’t really there? Well, I see those all of the time now! And it all started pretty much after staying up for four days. I was directing and animating a Halloween commercial for the Sy Fy Channel at the time. So yes, I do love the surreal, and staying up late while animating does indeed add a level of weirdness to my films, but I would advise doing it in moderation because… if you’re not careful… you’ll end up like me! (laughs)

Voltaire online: www.Voltaire.net

 

Posted in: Interviews | Posted on October 8, 2011 by MarcieJoy