"We've put one leg of our big boy pants on."
Youth Code is one of Los Angeles' best. I saw Sara Taylor somewhere and I was like, "Yo, we should do an interview." It was probably at Cha Cha. She kindly accepted. So on Thursday, September fourth, we sat down at Fix Coffee and talked. Oddly enough, halfway through the interview Tim Presley walked up and we all talked about The Nerve Agents. I'm not sure if he knew the conversation was being recorded so I didn't include the dialogue and especially wouldn't include any talks of a Nerve Agents reunion.
Sara Taylor and I didn't talk about our weird things. But we did talk about how to properly tour with your boyfriend/bandmate. We did talk about how hard it is for Sara Taylor to trust anyone who doesn't like Motorhead or Pantera. So listen to "Consuming Guilt" and read all the wonderful things Sara Taylor said as I periodically interrupted with benign banter.
facebook.com/youthcodeforever
youthcode.bandcamp.com
Sara Taylor:
You should buy painfulburning.com.
Painful Burning:
My first question is, should I buy painfulburning.com?
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, I think you should buy painfulburning.com because it's not a market that's capitalized on yet. Do you think painfulburning is already a porn site?
Painful Burning:
I don't think it would be.
Sara Taylor:
It's a category, right?
Painful Burning:
Maybe. But it's gross.
Sara Taylor:
I feel like people are into some really weird things.
Painful Burning:
Do you have a weird thing?
Sara Taylor:
Sure.
Painful Burning:
Can you tell me about it?
Sara Taylor:
I think it's too early in the day for me to talk about the weird things.
Painful Burning:
Do you have youthcode.com?
Sara Taylor:
No. There's a very funny story about it though.
Painful Burning:
Tell me about it.
Sara Taylor:
I probably shouldn't because we still don't have URL yet.
Sara Taylor on the phone with her manager.
Sara's phone rings.
Painful Burning:
You are blowing up today.
Sara Taylor:
It's a pretty hectic day.
Painful Burning:
Sorry.
Sara Taylor:
It's all good, it's just my wonderful boyfriend.
Painful Burning:
Does he know that we're doing this interview?
Sara Taylor:
Yes, he does. He actually asked why you didn't come into the house because he wanted to greet you in his pajamas.
Painful Burning:
Is he mad that I'm interviewing you?
Sara Taylor:
No. He was actually happy about it. He is okay with me doing a lot of stuff. When we started it he was like, "I want you to feel as confident as I know you are capable of being." But I don't think that he realized that everyone was going to talk to me about stuff. He called himself my backup dancer once. I thought that was pretty funny. Although I don't agree because I think Ryan is the most important part of the band. It's funny to see that he enjoys taking a backseat on stuff. So whenever it comes to interviews or press requests or whatever, he's like, "Do whatever you want. I don't want to talk to anyone anyways."
Painful Burning:
I was hoping he'd be a little jealous.
Sara Taylor:
I'm sure he's a little jealous. I'm sure deep inside he's got some painful burning of jealousy.
Painful Burning:
Thank you. I wonder about this because you live together, how do you separate band time from hang out time? Normally when you see a bandmate you can formulate ideas with them or whatever, but you two are always together.
Sara Taylor:
It's difficult. It's not easy. The way that we write and the way that we do stuff is so weird anyways. I feel like it's a weird process. We'll say that we know we have a deadline, we have to have this by this time or else we're fucked. So we'll set these deadlines where we're like, "We have to get something done." It's usually super close to when the actual thing is. If we have a deadline for, let's say September tenth-
Painful Burning:
-Let's say September eleventh.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, September eleventh. We would probably start doing stuff on September seventh. And just rush and get it all together. Because we spend so much time together being a couple and going, "That's cool, that's alright. This is neat, that's not." It's never a band thing where it's like, "I don't live with you and then we get together." He'll be fucking with a synthesizer thing and I'll say, "That's pretty interesting. Alright. I'll touch on that later." And then when it gets closer to the deadline then we're down each other's throats and hate each other. But we get it done.
Painful Burning:
Instead of actually isolating time to work on the band you organically end up getting things done because of the deadlines.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah.
Painful Burning:
That makes sense. I know touring can be stressful, how does that effect-
Sara Taylor:
Touring is actually super easy on our relationship and cool.
Painful Burning:
How did you know I was going to ask that?
Sara Taylor:
I don't know. You said that it could be stressful.
Painful Burning:
That was the question.
Sara Taylor:
Was it really?
Painful Burning:
Yeah.
Sara Taylor:
I didn't read any of your notes. I'm not looking at your hand of cards.
Painful Burning:
I don't think you can read my handwriting anyways.
Sara Taylor:
I can't. I actually can't.
Painful Burning:
Before I interrupted, you were saying it's not stressful.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, nothing is bad. I was worried at first. I lived on tour. Right when I left high school I started going on tour. For me it's natural. I'm used to never having my own space or never having my own bedroom. I didn't get my own apartment until five years ago. I've lived in apartments before but I rarely ever pay rent. I'd usually throw my stuff at my mom's house and figure it out when I got home. Ryan hadn't done a lot of touring. He toured but not to the extent that I had so I think for him it was a little stressful at first getting used to being like, "I'm with my girlfriend but there's other people around us all the time." When we shared that van with Coming we always made sure we got our own hotel room. I always tried to make sure that Ryan had enough time for him so he could chill and think about things. I think he gets finicky when he doesn't have time to reflect with himself. And I think it's healthy in a relationship to get that sort of separation. We've gotten it down pretty good. But I don't like to do things without Ryan anyways so it's better for our relationship that we get to travel and see the world together. When I have to tour and do stuff with other bands, because I still go out and tour, I hate it. I hate having to Facetime my boyfriend or Facetime my dog. It's fucking annoying.
Painful Burning:
It's so crazy you two met in Moscow when you were both touring, it's a very rock 'n' roll romance story.
Sara Taylor:
I met him in Red Square.
Painful Burning:
It's crazy, it sounds like you're making it up. And with all this history you've had with touring you know how to set it up so the problems that could arise have already been paved out.
Sara Taylor:
We wouldn't have even gotten close to where we were if I hadn't been able to iron out all the kinks that could've existed with touring stuff. I know how to bargain with rental van companies. I know what areas are good to book shows in. Who you want to talk to. All these things I just learned from sitting there selling t-shirts for metal bands forever. I think that's why it's a lot easier.
Painful Burning:
At what point in your relationship did you decide to start creating something together?
Sara Taylor:
It was super weird how Youth Code started. It all started because I had some weird moment of having pride. Ryan had talked about wanting to get the red ESX Sampler for a while. I was on tour with Behemoth, I found it for super cheap, and I had a bunch money. I was like, "Okay, I'll just buy this sampler, whatever happens happens." We hadn't really decided we were doing a band or anything. Vacation was doing an employee only showcase and asked me to DJ. I was like, "No, I have a band." They were like, "No you don't." And I was like, "Yeah, it's called Youth Code." They were looking at me so strangely.
Painful Burning:
Because you were lying.
Sara Taylor:
Because everybody knew I was lying. I went home and we wrote three songs in five days and came up with some weird ambient stuff. That's what became the demo tape. That was it. It started and hasn't stopped since.
Painful Burning:
The band started with a deadline.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah.
Painful Burning:
Which is what you said is the whole process of the group.
Sara Taylor:
That's how it works. I just create a stressful situation or one of us gets into some sort of stress with time and then it happens. When we did this last EP we had written stuff, decided we didn't like it, knew we had headline, scrapped the whole EP, and rewrote it within the time of the deadline.
Painful Burning:
That's very Kevin Shields of you.
Sara Taylor:
It was so stupid.
Sara Taylor and Ryan William George are Youth Code.
Painful Burning:
Would you guys ever consider adding a third member?
Sara Taylor:
We've talked about having hired gun people for live. But I don't think there would ever a be a third member in the writing process, no. Ryan only has two hands, right? I can't sing and flail around and do synthesizers at the same time. I think electronic musicians are usually pretty boring on stage because they don't have that front person thing. There's a dude with a laptop and a Madonna microphone. Not that I mind that, but it's just not what we are. We're more akin to being a hardcore band and running around and being chaotic. So I think that if we were to add anybody it would be somebody that could just assist Ryan with live arpeggiation or live synth stuff. But there's never going to be a third real member of Youth Code. Ever.
Painful Burning:
Hopefully when you add a third member they don't read you saying that.
Sara Taylor:
I hope that they do read me saying that. I hope they know I would be paying them for their time only. That would be like if Ryan and I had a baby and then we said, "Zed, you're other dad. But your title is 'Dad.'" Wouldn't that be confusing for the baby?
Painful Burning:
Yeah, but I think I would make it cool for the baby.
Sara Taylor:
I'm sure you would make it cool. I'm sure anybody that wanted to add to our band would probably make it cool. But we don't need that confusion in our baby's life. We just want one mommy, one daddy. We don't need Three's Company 2.
Painful Burning:
Are you informally asking me to join the band right now? It sounds pretty obvious with the analogy.
Sara Taylor:
Maybe you could add some elements.
Painful Burning:
We'll talk more about that off the record. A Place To Stand is your new EP coming out on Dais. There are original tracks and remixes?
Sara Taylor:
There's four original tracks and four remixes. The remixes are super cool because I grew up listening to a lot of these remix EPs. Skinny Puppy would put out twelve inches that had remixes. Fear Factory did that Remanufacture record that was Rhys Fulber from Front Line Assembly redoing the Fear Factory records. Everyone had all these remixes from KMFDM and Günter Schulz. I fucking loved that shit when I was growing up. Remixing is a cool way for people also involved in different aspects of things that make up electronic music doing their take on what we're doing. It's fucking sweet. It always sounds completely different but within a spectrum that we'll understand. As much as I like doing the new songs I was more excited about the remixes and what other people would add to the element of what we were doing as a band. For me there's four corners of industrial production. There's the heavy and metal side of it. Everyone goes, "Industrial is sort of similar to metal but not." So we got a metal dude, this guy Sanford Parker, who played in Corrections House. He's a really amazing producer. He was in Nachtmystium for a little bit. He's a fucking really talented dude. He brought the metal element of it. Then we had Clipping, which is that hip-hop group that uses all power electronics and noise to do all of their beats. Rap also has the same production style as electronic music.
Painful Burning:
Same software.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, same thing. Then we had a true industrial act which was God Module who brought their take on it. Then we had Silent Servant which is a minimal techno dude add his aspect to it. So it was all these different corners of electronic based production or industrial influence that we had for the remixes and it all came out fucking great.
Painful Burning:
Using your analogy with the kid it's like they were babysitters.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, we had babysitters.
Painful Burning:
And they all did different songs?
Sara Taylor:
They did songs off of the last LP. I don't know if I'm allowed to give away what songs they did. I'm sure I could tell you off the record.
Painful Burning:
I won't prod too much.
Sara Taylor:
Chris Hansell might get mad at you.
Painful Burning:
Because I'd be the one who published this information?
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, you're the narc on what's going on.
Painful Burning:
Why should I fear Chris Hansell?
Sara Taylor:
Have you ever seen Warthog play? He's a crazy dude.
Painful Burning:
No, he's not.
Sara Taylor:
Yes, he is. He has that one dangly earring and he could beat your fucking ass, Zed. He could beat my ass.
Painful Burning:
He's a nice guy.
Sara Taylor:
He's really sweet, and he comes off as a cuddly person but he's not scared to whoop an ass.
Painful Burning:
I've been in a fight with him.
Sara Taylor:
No, you haven't.
Painful Burning:
Yeah. Not against him.
Sara Taylor:
You were fighting side by side with Chris?
Painful Burning:
Yeah.
Sara Taylor:
No way.
Painful Burning:
We don't need to get into it.
Sara Taylor:
Really? You fought with Chris?
Painful Burning:
Yeah.
Sara Taylor:
He probably beat a fucking ass. You guys should be on WWF. The Punks, with an x.
Painful Burning:
So you have four new songs including, "Consuming Guilt," which seems well liked.
Sara Taylor:
I think people like it, I think it's doing decently. It was produced by Josh Eustis who does Sons of Magdalene and Telefon Tel Aviv. He's such a monumental electronic artist that he really helped shift our sound, to bring together what we wanted to do. As far as production wise, Ryan and I can record all day in our house and it's not going to sound as good as this dude who's a genius. Really knowing how to EQ stuff. We didn't really know what we were doing when we started. Even when we did the LP we had Jeff helping us but we rush, rush, rush, rush, rushed. The mix is what it is. On the LP it really captured this essence of us that was like, "Fuck off, this is what we're doing." Like, "It doesn't have to sound good, this is who we are." On this we wanted to come back and be like, "Okay, we've been doing this and we've figured out a couple things." So, this is who we are, but we're a little bit more grown up. We've put one leg of our big boy pants on.
Painful Burning:
Then the next recording is going to have both legs in the big boy pants?
Sara Taylor:
We're going to pull the pants up. We'll officially be wearing the big boy pants. I think, I hope.
Painful Burning:
It's important with the responsibility of having a kid.
Sara Taylor:
You got to be a really good parent. I can't just feed our kid Craft Mac 'n' Cheese forever.
Painful Burning:
No Capri Suns.
Sara Taylor:
I could give it a Capri Sun but then it'll grow up to be a dick.
Painful Burning:
The EP is you guys starting to juice and then the LP is going to be cold pressed ten dollar juices.
Sara Taylor:
Yeah, definitely.
Painful Burning:
Have you guys started even thinking about the LP?
Sara Taylor:
We've started putting stuff together here and there. Ryan's started getting new gear which is cool. Ryan's fucking super smart. When he gives me an idea, I go, "That's cool," or, "That's uncool," or, "I want to do this," or, "I don't want to do this." Ryan's writing dictates where I'm going with how hard I want to go with vocals. The way we write is, "Let's get some skeletons down first and we'll add some muscle and tissue and figure it out from there." I don't know, maybe we'll scrap everything a week before the record is due and rerecord something.
Sara Taylor looks off camera.
Painful Burning:
What are you doing between now and when the tour starts?
Sara Taylor:
Next Wednesday we're going to go to Japan for a week. We've got some stuff we're doing there which will be fucking cool. It's mostly a paid vacation. We just filmed a video yesterday for "Consuming Guilt." That was tight.
Painful Burning:
And 2 Chainz wouldn't be in it?
Sara Taylor:
No, we tried. I just found out my manager knows 2 Chainz so I should've dropped her name. I hate doing that. He was doing a video next door to us. Have I known that information I still wouldn't have been like, "Hi, 2 Chainz, how are you?"
Painful Burning:
Mr. Chainz.
Sara Taylor:
Did you know he used to be called Tity Boi?
Painful Burning:
Yeah.
Sara Taylor:
What if I called him Tity Boi, do you think he would've been mad?
Painful Burning:
Yes, because he should be addressed as Mr. Boi.
Sara Taylor:
Okay. Mr. Boi Chainz. Boi Chainz?
Painful Burning:
Chainz Boi. Chain Boy.
Sara Taylor:
Chain Boy? I don't think he would like that. I wouldn't have talked to him anyways because I'm super intimidated by people. Especially rap people. I just feel like once you're on a certain level having your bodyguards around you all the time you don't want some shithead punk girl coming up to you like, "What's up, man? How are you?" Maybe I'm wrong. I'm usually pretty shy.
Painful Burning:
Maybe they want the shithead punk girl to come up because that's different than the normal rap fans.
Sara Taylor:
Maybe. Maybe we'll do a 2 Chainz collab. I know that Lil B follows us on Twitter. I think he follows a lot of people though.
Painful Burning:
The collab with him would be called Based Code.
Sara Taylor:
That would be fucking sick.
Painful Burning:
Who directed the video for "Consuming Guilt?"
Sara Taylor:
This guy, Grant Singer. He's done a bunch of really rad videos. He did stuff for Soft Moon and Sky Ferreira and stuff like that. He approached us about doing a video.
Painful Burning:
That's awesome. But your neck hurts today?
Sara Taylor:
I have an insane pinched nerve in the back of my neck. It's super tense. I did a lot of pretty brutal shots yesterday. I don't want to give away too much about the video but I did some brutal shots, then went into doing live footage, and now my neck is fucked. So I don't know what I'm going to do when I get to Japan. Do I get a massage this week? Do you think that'll help?
Painful Burning:
Yes.
Sara Taylor:
Acupuncture maybe?
Painful Burning:
Yes. What else are you going to do this week?
Sara Taylor:
What are my plans this week?
Painful Burning:
What do you when you have a week off before touring?
Sara Taylor:
I have to practice because we've never done any of these new songs live. So we have to do some practice stuff. I might go get a manicure. I just got one though. I always have dreams of my nails falling off.
Painful Burning:
Most people have dreams where their teeth fall out.
Sara Taylor:
I never get that one, I always get my nails falling off. It's centered around a lot of shame.
Painful Burning:
Are you consuming guilt?
Sara Taylor:
Lots of it. All the time.
Painful Burning:
Speaking of painful situations, are you going to be playing any Magic: the Gathering this week?
Sara Taylor:
I wish. I haven't tapped any mana in quite some time. I'd really like to.
Painful Burning:
I was going to ask you about the vegan thing.
Sara Taylor:
Who cares?
Painful Burning:
I do.
Sara Taylor:
I think if you're vegan it's cool, if you're not it's cool. I don't really care.
Painful Burning:
Why does it bother you so much that Ryan doesn't like Motorhead?
Sara Taylor:
I can't trust him. Do you like Motorhead, Zed?
Painful Burning:
I like that song, "Ace of Spades," but I'm not avidly listening to their albums. The mood I'd be in to listen to Motorhead I'd rather listen to Black Sabbath.
Sara Taylor:
I don't know about that decision.
Painful Burning:
What is the specific mood to listen to Motorhead?
Sara Taylor:
It's the same mood as Pantera. I'm going to fucking do something, anything, and I'm going to do it full force. Motorhead is louder than anything else.
Painful Burning:
But why does it bother you that Ryan doesn't like it?
Sara Taylor:
Because it's crucial music. I don't understand people who don't like crucial things. Ryan also doesn't fuck with Pantera and it hurts me inside. I feel like Pantera is so real. Pantera and Motorhead are a state of mind. You like things that are slower than Pantera, that's why you said Black Sabbath instead of Motorhead. You're a slower vehicle.
Painful Burning:
I'm slow.
Sara Taylor:
Right now I'm in the Lamborghini of metal and you're in the Datsun of metal.
Painful Burning:
Or maybe I'm in the Prius.
Sara Taylor:
Maybe you're in the Prius, I don't know.
Painful Burning:
What is the group that you don't like that bothers Ryan?
Sara Taylor:
There isn't any.
Painful Burning:
Because you're perfect?
Sara Taylor:
Well no, because I listen to so much different shit and Ryan has really good taste. I fuck with the stuff that he fucks with. There's nothing he listens to that I'm like, "Ugh, god." He listens to sad boy music and I fuck with that. He listens to a lot of electronic stuff. I fuck with that. He listens to hardcore and I fuck with that. He just doesn't like hessian stuff. That's fine but...
Painful Burning:
He has short hair.
Sara Taylor:
He does have short hair. He's very militant. He doesn't fuck with any long hair stuff. That's fine. I've had to learn to trust him even though he's kind of suspect.
Sara Taylor is captured.
Painful Burning:
When you spoke to your manager did they advise you not to do this interview?
Sara Taylor:
No. They don't really get the opportunity to advise me against anything. If I'm pretty head on about doing stuff I'm really fucking head on. I'm Zed on.
Painful Burning:
I'm Zed on as well.
Sara Taylor:
Do you ever say that when you're going out on an adventure? "I'm going to Zed on out to this."
Painful Burning:
No, I used to more, but I feel like it's arrogant when I say those things.
Sara Taylor:
I would say I was Zeddin' on out.
Painful Burning:
If your name was Zed?
Sara Taylor:
Yeah. Zed is also just Z in many modern languages so I'd say, "Z you later."
Painful Burning:
Okay, I'll Z you later. That's the end.
-Z
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