COURTNEY NEWBOLD of ANTI MATTER: The Inner Workings Of A Master Plan
An interview by Sarah Kidd with photography by Doug Peters.
We are the darkness that lives in your heart.
We are the electronic punk rock of a robot generation.
We are the ghosts on your TV screaming at you to live.
We are the vague experience of life and matter.
We are the master plan.Some people run from their demons, we party with ours.
Courtney Newbold is a girl on a mission; with music that draws from its own unique genre with nods to some of the more well-known realms of electronic and industrial dusted with a smattering of dance punk and laced with emo overtones. Under the moniker ‘Anti Matter’ Newbold reaches deep within herself to pull out and examine personal experiences; in turn they are cathartic, allowing her to dissect and examine and then release. But they are also a gift – by placing them out into the world she invites others to use them as they see fit; often encouraging fans at local events to join in with her during these almost spiritual exorcisms of the eternal head space.
Choosing Halloween to release her highly anticipated video for ‘Deadspace’ – Newbold is also gearing up for her performance this week at the semi-finals at Battle of the Bands being held for what will probably be the last time at the iconic Kings Arms Tavern.
I sat down with Courtney recently over some vegan Thai Food to discuss just how Anti Matter became what it is and the themes behind some of her work…
So how did you become Anti Matter?
“There has been two versions of it, and it’s now settled as me as a solo artist. It started as a demo project which helped me create the whole concept and the sound of what it is because I had someone else influencing me. He left and then I had a second guitarist who also later left; by that point I was looking for people to join the band and I just didn’t find anyone that I felt I gelled with on a creative level. I think I’m at the point now I’ll only bring someone in if we really gel.
So how did it become this way … I was very influenced by my first guitarist, he was very experimental and I was kinda learning how to use the Ableton software; so it did become this experimental thing and now I am kind of settling in to the way I sound”
How did you arrive at the actual name of Anti Matter?
“So it is actually from the Danger Days album by My Chemical Romance – they are most of the reason why I play music; like they’re that first big band for me that drew me in and that I became obsessed with! Anti Matter came from the following lines line in the song “Look Alive, Sunshine” where Dr. Death Defying says:
“A system failure for the masses, anti-matter for the master plan”
So that’s where it came from; I was a real activist at the time so it embodied how I felt. I was anti-everything. When I first discovered power structures and basically how corrupt the world is I was very angsty at the time, like I mean I’m still literally like a 25yr old emo. I am kind of through that now but I stuck with the name because it’s established and it’s become a part of the core to the sound; it kind of all fits together.”
Have you always been creatively driven to produce music – did it always come naturally to you?
“Writing music has, but playing and singing are not natural to me at all. In high school I was the worst at music. I was good at English and I was good at writing so I have always been a good lyricist but no, music has not come naturally at all!”
I honestly would not have thought that listening to you as both a live and recorded act! So did you have any formal training etc?
“Yes, so I did tertiary study at Mainz – for a long time actually – so that is how I learnt. It’s kinda like just finding the tools to do what you want to do already, so you’re already composing most of the time but you’re learning the tools of how to do it. For the most part I get around my crappy instrument playing by using Ableton software because you only have to play it once to write it whereas traditionally without the software you have to learn how to play the riff and then write from there, so it’s been quite good to have that.”
And what about singing – did you have any formal training or base yourself off anyone … or did you just do a whole lot of practicing in the shower?
[laughs] “Again singing has been the least natural thing ever to me.”
This is surprising as on stage you appear very comfortable and assured!
“I have been told my entire life not to sing, everyone has always been like – ‘you’re terrible, don’t sing, singing is not for you’. So I did a lot of training at Mainz with vocals, and the style that I settled on was like the yelling kind of spoken one with a bit of melody …” [laughs]
Yes, but it works!
“I hope so!” [mutual laughter]
So how did Anti Matter first begin as a live act?
“Live is my favourite part; like I live for the live because it’s that moment in time. I always knew that from the beginning that Anti Matter was going to be a live act. I had never actually played live with anyone else – like I had done the odd gig in high school and the odd gig at Mainz while I was there – but I never actually gigged until Anti Matter. So for me the goal was to take it live because I really enjoy the live environment; I vibe off the crowd and the crowd vibes off you and its fun!
It’s just a moment in time where you share something special. The cool thing about music is that it’s like emotion you know? You’re just sharing parts of yourself and parts of your emotional journeys with people and that’s like really exciting to me!”
Yes, when you did battle of the bands a couple of weeks ago you invited an audience member to sing the chorus with you he replied – rather tongue in cheek I might add – that he didn’t use curse words. So you changed the lyrics on the spot just for him and completely won him over and instantly developed a rapport for the rest of your set … it was brilliant!
“And that’s what is so exciting about live, you meet new people and interact with them! I want people to be part of my show, I don’t want to feel separate from the audience, I want them to be part of what I do!”
Hence why you often leave the stage get up close and personal with people…
“Making people yell back at me” [laughs]
Obviously My Chemical Romance is a big influence – who influences you currently?
[laughs] “I’ve started to discover with my new stuff – like my stuff that I am writing now – the Sad Boi culture! I am quite fascinated by the fact that it fits with what I have been writing. I literally refer to myself as a twenty five year old emo because I’m still writing that kind of dark lyrical content!
I’ve written a whole bunch of songs this year – they’re still awhile off being played live and being released – that are almost post-emo, like how emo has kind of filtered into the mainstream genres.
Lyrical and vocal style wise – La Dispute. 21 Pilots have always been a massive influence for Anti Matter; since I started covering ‘Car Radio’ I’m getting into the way that Tyler Joseph will kind of frantically rap. Like the way he is quite yelly about the way he raps … I have been getting into that with my current writing.”
So let’s talk tracks – tell me about ‘Deadspace’.
“The whole thing behind that is that I wrote it at a time when I was incredibly burnt out from studying. I had never experienced burn out before and I didn’t know what it was or that it even existed! Like I guess I knew that it could, it just wasn’t something that was on my radar because I was like twenty-three when I got burnt out; what the fuck kind of twenty –three year old gets burnt out??
It was a bit of a cognitive decline because I had always been incredibly academic and always so onto it as well as really articulate and like I just stopped. I was trying to do assignments at course and I couldn’t, it was like having clouds in your head! I don’t even know why it popped into my head – cause with that song I started on the backing track and it was kinda spacy – there’s that video game ‘Deadspace’ I have never actually played it…“
I’ve played it – it’s great!
“Yeah! So there’s like zombies or whatever in space..?”
Horrible creatures trying to eat your face…
“Yeah! And that whole concept was really appealing to me because my brain felt like space – like they call it your head space – and it kind of felt like it was dead or like I was existing on a different kind of level that a zombie would. So that whole concept appealed to me and that is what the whole song is about. I think it is a topic that is really important to discuss – I don’t know anyone who has written a song about being burnt out before so I was like ‘fuck it’ I’m gonna do it!’”
What about that infamous track ‘Fuckboi’?
“A lot of people like my song ‘Fuckboi’ which was a lighthearted way to deal with emotional abuse. This person had metaphorically fucked me so much that I was like ‘I don’t know how to deal with this, so I am going to write a song about it!’ I don’t get into meme culture but I do think there is an appeal to addressing popular terms and that was one of them. For me being a feminist to finally have a term that we could put on men – because let’s face it there are all these derogatory terms that we use for females…”
Oh yeah … the list is very long.
“…to have a term that we could use for guys after so long was really appealing to me. I am not a slut-shamer, I don’t care who you sleep with, it’s the way you go about it and for like a Fuckboi – this person had come into my life and made me think that I was like the biggest thing in their world, all the while he was banging … I think I counted like four other people after I unraveled the whole thing…”
Wow…
[laughs] “meanwhile I had no idea! He like made out like he was this completely different person and he was so innocent and the only way I knew how to deal with something on that level – because it was probably the most fucked over I have ever been by a person – was to write about it. It is a light-hearted song, it’s kind of funny actually that you can be like a year down the road and all this person is to me now is a song. But there’s something cathartic in creating something out of a situation like that, like creating positivity out of that situation. Music is often predominantly male and you don’t get a lot of artists who get up there and say like ‘Here’s a female topic’ so now with this song there’s women in the audience who can go ‘Oh My God’ …”
I know a guy like that? Heh, yep we all know one…
“Yeah! Like everyone knows one; my favourite thing is when I ask the audience who’s a Fuckboi and their friends will always point out one person. I think it’s kind of cool to have the call out culture, not like in a mean way but in a ‘maybe you should think about this ‘way”
I know we have talked about your spontaneity but is there anything you do in preparation before performing live?
“Most of the time I try and do vocal warm-ups and then the rest is about getting myself in a positive head space … I think that is way more important than people realise.”
Especially when you’ve got quite ‘in your face’ music!
“It’s polarizing and when you write polarizing music you have to be in a really good place to be able to get up there and just be fearless about it! So for the most part I treat live performances as something I don’t really worry about. Things go wrong – like I once read this quote where it said ‘Everything will go wrong … eventually’.
I’ve had like microphones cut out … like everything that can go wrong on stage will go wrong eventually so I like just take it. Honestly like it doesn’t bother me, the first couple of times something went wrong I was like ‘Oh my god, my performance suffered!’ but you just have to run with it and just enjoy it.”
So tell me about the new video for ‘Deadspace’.
“I actually filmed it and edited it all myself – and that was a very challenging process but I think it’s important as an artist to only put stuff out that you’re happy with and I’ve had other people make videos for me that I haven’t been happy with – I filmed it in my bedroom. [laughs] So the whole concept with the video is that it depicts these two different versions of me. I thought it was important to have myself be the star of it so to speak because it was about my head space. So it starts out with me in a spaceship which is the alien version of me and then there is the zombie version of me; which I feel like are the two juxtaposing versions of me in the song as well as lyrically.
So the alien version, her hair colour changes so that’s like the real dark inner side that’s inside my head and then the zombie version of me, it starts with my make-up being fine at the start of it and then it kind of like dissolves into water running down my face towards the end of it. It’s kind of like me divulging my mental state, like how it is falling apart.
I felt like the zombie part was the physical representation of me during that time; I was burnt out, I don’t know how obvious it was to people and I find that most of the time your mental state isn’t that obvious to people and that’s why it is very important to communicate.”
And talk about mental health.
“Exactly.”
So Battle of the Bands, what’s happening there?
“Well Anti Matter was a finalist last year so that was exciting, therefore I decided to enter again this year. But what I like about Battle of the Bands is that you get exposed to people that you would never usually get exposed to. Whereas I find with gigging throughout Auckland, it is kind of saturated, like it’s the same kind of people in the same bands. So that’s why I love Battle of the Bands – also there is something kind of nice about playing with people who don’t play a lot!”
And you’ve made it to the semi-finals?
“Yes! Which is happening this Thursday, November 2nd at the Kings Arms.”
Brilliant! So if you had one, what would be your message to anyone out there reading this?
“I like to think of Anti Matter as being a hope for people who are misfits. If you’re different or there is a weird part of you that exists, it’s ok! I really just want to put that out there – to just do you! It’s really important for me to communicate that because I’m a solo act you know, like that’s a whole weird and different kind of scenario to be in!
If that part of you is a bit weird and is a bit of a misfit then be proud of that! And that’s what I want Anti Matter to be, I want people to know it’s alright to make weird as fuck music, or genre-less music and just get up there and be fearless!”
Anti Matter released the new video for ‘Deadspace’ today (which you can view above), and will be performing in the semi-finals of ‘Battle Of The Bands’ this Thursday (2nd November 2017) at The Kings Arms Tavern in Auckland. For more information on Anti Matter you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube.