Image Source: Danger Collective Records

Introductions can be hard, as Addie, the face behind the musical project “Computerwife”, admitted in our interview where we peeled back the layers of her artistic journey, her musical roots, and how she landed with her musical moniker of “Computerwife”.

Can you introduce yourself?

That’s always one of the hard things to do. Hi, my name’s Addie. I’m from Atlanta, I’m 23 years old. I started making music by myself properly when I was 18 and that was under the name Computerwife. Then things took off and now I’m stuck with the name and going to continue writing with that until they slow down and then I’ll come up with a new idea. Now I live in New York with my boyfriend Dalton and my cat. That’s pretty much me.

Why the name Computerwife?

Honestly, I was never intending to commit to it. I’ve changed it a bunch of times. I changed it a lot of times but it kinda ended up being the only one that worked for whatever reason. Basically I was on a Facetime call with my ex-boyfriend, at the time we were dating. I was in college and he was back in Atlanta and I was like “Oh, this is so funny you look so tiny like Plankton and I guess I’m Karen, the computer screen. I’m Computer wife”.  For some reason, I don’t know, I was like “That’ll be my name on Soundcloud” and then I stuck with it. I kinda regret it but I think maybe a lot of people feel that way because that’s just what happens. If you’re not coming up with something amazing right in the beginning, then you’re going to be stuck with what you have. It’s fine. A lot of people like it but I always cringe when I say it out loud.

What were the other names that you tried out?

I was really into Russian music for a little while. One of the names was Sochi, which is a city in Russia. But that didn’t really work. There’s just so many dumb names I tried. One name was after a strain of weed “Comfortably Dumb”. And then I didn’t want to reference Pink Floyd so that didn’t work. Then I had all these other Silent HIll references. Honestly, I would still switch over to a Silent Hill reference. Like Maria’s Dream, that was a chapter. All these things like that. I liked the simple one word names. I think the nice thing about one word band names is sometimes I’ll be reading or talking to someone and they’ll say it and it’ll instantly flash an image of the band. There’s something about it that’s really nice. I kinda wish I had gone with something like that. Just something so simple that it’s unsuspecting, I guess. 

You said that you started putting stuff on Soundcloud. You put so many songs on there. Is that your testing ground of where you normally put songs first?

Yeah, for sure. That was how the project started. I was listening to bands that inspired me in New York and was like “This needs to go on Spotify otherwise this isn’t going to go anywhere” since people don’t really listen to their music on Soundcloud. That’s how I initially transferred some songs over to Spotify. But it ended up working out. I give myself a week to finish a song. Just to make whatever I can. And then I can just upload it to Soundcloud. A lot of songs are private. I think right now I have 62 songs on there that are mostly private. It’s nice because then I can listen back to it. I get a little bit of judgement on there but it’s very mild. It’s mostly people saying which ones they like versus which one’s they don’t like. So that’s also easier. I can see how it feels for me to put something out publicly without it being super out there because a lot of people aren’t going to take the time and effort to go on Soundcloud. And that’s a really nice thing for me because I like putting myself out there and taking chances and risks but I need to be able to do it in a comfortable way. I’ll go too crazy if I’m putting something into the wild like that. I need to test it.

How do you think you’ve grown from those very first demos you put up on there versus what you have released now with your self-titled album? What do you think has changed in the way that you make music or you as an artist?

I don’t know. I think I’ve come up with my “algorithm” for making music a little bit more. I definitely have steps I do now. I also have specific sources that I draw from now that are very personal to me and I think that’s the biggest thing that’s changed. I think the process of making mistakes on the album is what made me feel solidified in how I want to do things. That very much helped. It was very experimental to me. There were deadlines where I had to make decisions about things and mistakes were going to be made because it just had to be finished in the way that any project for school has to be finished. So I think that I stopped taking musical influences from my contemporary people that are around me and started taking more business decisions from them instead. As far as watching how people roll out an album, that’s more helpful than taking musical influences because you don’t want to sound like somebody who is close to you. It’s just not going to feel right. So those were some mistakes I made. That’s the main thing I learned from the process. 

You said in an interview that you took inspiration from Grimes and how she started making music and you just decided to download Ableton. Is that still how you record music? I know you’re signed now. Is it a totally different recording process on how you make music?

Being signed doesn’t change that much in the process. Being signed, they advance you a loan that you repay with your music. You don’t ever technically have to pay it back but that means that you’ll never make any money off your music because it’s going towards that loan. For the most part that money that they loan you, you have to think about how you want to play it. Do you want to live off debt and make a super grandiose thing and live off that loan that they give ? The pop star life? Or do you want to not take 100% of the loan, think reasonably, and then start making 50-70% of your income later on. That’s the decision that I’ve made. I don’t make a living off of music at all. I have a little boost in my living from music is how I would describe it. That money didn’t change the process that much. 

Going into Grimes, I wasn’t necessarily taking influence from how she made music as much as the overall philosophy of making music that she had. Where anyone can do it and technology can give anyone the tools to do it. And the ideas of expressing yourself through textures and not having to express yourself through a whole song. I’ve never been able to write a really good song, a regular song. I’ve maybe done 2 or 3 in my life. I tried being a songwriter growing up. I tried doing the singer songwriter thing and for some reason it just doesn’t work for me. It’s too frustrating. So the idea of working with textures first and working with structure and thinking about it almost as a sculpture instead works for me. That’s what I got from Grimes. Just her talking makes it so simple that anyone can get into it, that’s what made me start.

I can’t imagine starting from scratch on Ableton. Having a creative concept in your head and not being able to apply that through the medium.

I think that part of the game is that you have to be okay not executing the creative concept, and allowing that. Visual arts are different. A lot of visual artists think about art very differently and almost get angry when you think about art in the way that a musician would. A lot of musicians think about capturing an emotion or capturing a time period. A lot of visual artists think about having to have a full concept. It’s much more idea oriented while music is much more message or memory oriented in many ways. It’s almost like one is trying to capture the present to create some new form of it or an idea that doesn’t exist. I feel like it’s about the time you put into it and exploring the medium you’re using.

Do you have any other creative mediums you use besides music?

I think music has become my main one because of time constraints. But honestly the other art that I enjoy doing that I ended up being good at is sculpture. When Covid was happening and we were all in Zoom classes, I used to buy clay and during class make little sculptures. For some reason, it was really easy for me to reference a 2D image and then make something 3D out of it. They were all these utilitarian sculptures. They were pipes for weed, incense holders, and vases all based on little creatures I liked. I’ve tried drawing. I’ve tried photography. I can’t paint. I can’t dance. Sculpture is pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to do. 

You used to DJ for WYNU, NYU’s college radio station. What was your show like?

I only did it for one year. I submitted all these different show ideas and then they only accepted one of them so I was like “Okay, this is what I’ll do”. It was Russian bravewave witch house music. At the time it wasn’t my favorite genre of music. It was something I was just interested in. It did become my favorite genre while doing and then it exerted itself. I wasn’t really meeting any people that I was supposed to be working with, which was the whole point, because I had a late night weekend show. So I just kinda walked away one day and just didn’t come back, to be honest. It was fun while it lasted. 

Where do you see Computerwife going in the future? You just did a tour, played with some amazing bands, do you plan on playing more shows? Or are you focusing on releasing more music?

Yeah, I’m already focusing on another album but I’m very much at the beginning stages. I’m making all these demos right now. I want to have a year’s worth, like I said, working on them once a week, before I make decisions about what’s going to be on the album. In the meantime, I want to advance other parts of the project. I do want to record the album in a studio this time. Still using the same technology and the same ways of making music but with just a better recording setup. Stereo recording and a producer who can really get these things clear and mixed properly. I also want to practice making music videos in the meantime. The music videos that I made, I like them but they remind me of something that maybe a 15 year old might make because that’s my level of understanding for that. I want to make something proper and mature looking with clear imagery. So those are some things I’m focusing on right now, I guess. And then there’s a million other things along the line and down the road. So I don’t know. But those are the next plans right now.

In our interview, we were lucky enough to explore the creative mind of Computerwife, the passionate musical project created by Addie. Her insights on the philosophy of music and on how creativity can be viewed through different lenses and mediums shines through in her extremely expressive and diverse discography. It’s clear that the core of Addie’s music is deeply personal. KCR looks forward to her demos in the making and the way she weaves music and visual narratives together in her next album. Thank you Addie!