Spiral Staircase

Audie Ellis is not yet eighteen and has already recorded two great albums, “Serotonin” (2022) and above all “The Perfect Child” (2024), works immersed in those disturbed and disturbing sounds that essentially revolve around the theme of gender dysphoria. Below, our interview with the artist originally from Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

Hi Audie! First off, tell us a little about yourself.
Yes! My name’s Audie Ellis, I was born on July 25th, 2007 in Connecticut. I moved to Pennsylvania sometime between 2013-2014. My childhood memory is kind of shaky for some reason, but as far as I remember, I’ve always been obsessed with music and art. Music has surrounded me my entire life as most of my family members were involved in playing instruments, music production, theater programs, and generally listening to alot of it around me. The earliest thing that got me hooked was my mom and dad showing me lots of 90s big beat and electronica, specifically The Crystal Method, The Prodigy, and The Chemical Brothers. I essentially became obsessed with electronic music, constantly surfing the iTunes shop on the family computer playing the short previews for hours on end until something scratched my brain just the right way, then I would nervously ask my parents if I could buy a song. I also constantly looked for apps that had cool songs, and CDs in my parents' collections to play on the speakers. What got me really interested in making music was fiddling around with GarageBand on the computer at like 4 years old. I kept making new personas to export my songs under names like “Cowboy Jack” and “DJMission” and forcing my family members to listen to them. Flashforward 13 years later and I’m basically doing the same thing but I’m making music on Ableton and using Bandcamp and Spotify to force everyone else to listen to it. I currently run the netlabel Parking Spaces with Brandon Hunt.

Where does the nickname High Priestess come from?
I am a practicing Wiccan and Spiral Staircase is a coven.

What kind of musical background do you have? Before the Spiral Staircase project, had you already played in any bands?
Well, from ages 4-11 I used the name DJMission for the shitty electronic music I made with loops I found. After out-growing that I changed it to “clutrrglych”, which is the name I still use to this day for my more electronic stuff. In 2020 I started getting involved with the Bandcamp netlabel scene and started experimenting with using other alias names for smaller projects like Tweedguy, Hurineth, and Mother. In 2019 I started my first non-solo project with my friend Mailli called Lemon Toad where we made experimental pop music. This became the first somewhat “successful” project as it garnered some attention (not a ton) on Soundcloud in 2020. In 2021 I met my friend Brandon Hunt on Discord. He played guitar and was just getting started recording songs and putting them up on Soundcloud, so he asked me how I produced stuff and got it on streaming platforms. Within like one or two weeks we started collaborating on music and we started The Newrids, my first venture into making any sort of “rock” oriented music.

How the Spiral Staircase project came about and why did you choose this name?
Spiral Staircase started out as a one-off project based on this poem/rant thing I wrote while feeling very depressed. I wanted to release something on my friend Stockport Swimming Team’s netlabel called Welcome to Clydebank. I was originally going to just release the title track by itself and never revisit the idea but I wound up making a second song (fall further down) and SST convinced me to make a couple more songs and make it an ep. I decided to make spiral staircase a completely anonymous project and made a persona to hide behind with alternate accounts. The self-titled album was also partly intended as a love letter to Nine Inch Nails, as I was and still am obsessed with them. I eventually gave up the mystique a few months before the perfect child came out.

You have several other musical projects under your belt, including Clutrrglych, Patience 333, The Newrids and Norberts Orb. Can you introduce them to us? Which one do you feel closest to and why?
Clutrrglych, as I briefly talked about before, was my main project for a long time. Started as a name change on my Soundcloud account sometime in 2019 which was previously named DJMission. PATIENCE 333 is my harsh noise and crusty digital hardcore side-project I started in 2021. The Newrids is probably the one I feel the closest to as it introduced me to making noise rock, singing, and actually recording real instruments. Even though our debut album “Death is Futile” sucks complete ass in retrospect, I learned so so so much from making it. Brandon and I are just finishing up our next big album as The Newrids. It should be out within the month hopefully. Now Norberts Orb is another story. Started amidst my Ween hyperfixation, my friend Doober and I tried making the worst music possible and Norberts Orb is the result. We have an album we made that might come out at some point. Norberts Orb is some of the most dread-inducing music you may ever listen to.

What bands have influenced you the most?
Swans at #1, Nine Inch Nails, Broadcast, Jane Remover, Mid-Air Thief, The United States of America, The Prodigy, Spirit of the Beehive, Ween, Pulgas, Black Midi, Have A Nice Life, Unwound, Quadeca, Weatherday, Car Seat Headrest, Haley Heynderickx, Peter Brotzman, Sweet Trip, Sprain, The Microphones, etc, etc, etc.

Would you like to trace a little bit of the evolution of Spiral Staircase music starting with your first, self-titled Lp?
The self-titled was a way of me trying to express the emotions I had at the time with no boundaries set for myself. It's rough, it's corny, it's melodramatic, but after all, I was 14 years old. But I had the right ideas which I carried onto "Serotonin". "Serotonin" is basically a re-doing of my first Lp with a much bigger idea, a lot more effort, and way more depression. I spent about a year on and off making "Serotonin", and I learned a ton from making it. The last two songs off of serotonin had me moving in a more melodic and softer direction which I knew I wanted to delve deeper into with the next project. I started working on "The Perfect Child" almost immediately after serotonin was released.

The dominant theme of your latest album is gender dysphoria, all set in a rather dark, depressed, and suicidal atmosphere... But your music evidently also has a cathartic value. Do you want to tell us your opinion on this?
I try to express emotions and mental states through my music as well as possible, as I like it when art is capable of truly making you experience a mental state unfiltered. I try my hardest to do this as well.
Also, I’m somewhat surprised that gender dysphoria is often the only theme people pick up from this album. While yes it is the most prominent theme, people try to read lyrics from songs that aren't entirely about dysphoria and get confused because they aren’t reading deeper into it. The songs a confession and predators for example; these songs are mostly about a grooming and the PTSD that came with it. The worst part is, by not being 100% open about the full meaning of these songs, people end up placing these songs on the same lists as the literal artist whose community is responsible for the trauma these songs are about, probably because the artist in question has similar themes of mine in her music.

Some of your tracks are really long. I mean, you take as much time as you need to give space to your emotions. How do your songs usually come about?
Well, there are a few reasons why my songs are as long as they are:
1: I like long ass songs
2: I am desensitized to long songs (as long as they are interesting and not over 3 hours long, unless it is really really good)
3: I think longer songs are a great way of getting you fully submerged in an atmosphere. Most of the time, something happening in real life in real-time isn't usually going to be 2-3 minutes, it's something that happens over 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, or two, because time doesn't cut between shots to keep your attention. Using time and building an emotional atmosphere feels alot more visceral and real to me.

Who is Paige?
Paige is the personification of gender euphoria.

Your music is a mix of different genres: how would you define it?
I ask myself this question alot. To be honest I have absolutely no clue. Something along the lines of post-noise rock, post-industrial, and '''''shoegaze''''' or I guess doomgaze.

On "The Perfect Child", your collaborators are Brandon Hunt, Stockport Swimming Team, and Lavender. Can you tell us about them?
Brandon Hunt is my closest friend. He lives in Sydney, Australia, and we’ve worked very closely together since we were 13. He's flown down to Pennsylvania a couple of times now and he's played a giant part in my growth as a musician. He makes music under My Shirley Remains currently and we make music together as the aforementioned project The Newrids
Stockport Swimming Team was the first person to know about Spiral Staircase, and contributes alot to the textural noise layers in both serotonin and the perfect child. They are from Glasgow, UK and I’ve known them since 2020.
Lavender is another close friend of mine, she currently makes music under the moniker Mothbloom and runs the netlabel “side onlose”. I recommend listening to her album Revive. We originally met through her being a fan of serotonin, and we’ve worked closely since then.

Are there any other artists and/or bands you feel connected to? I mean, artists and/or bands that make music that you feel is similar to yours?
Uboa, Blemishes, maybe samlrc. I feel pretty connected to Cime in an odd way even though our music is not alike. Sometimes I feel like I'm ripping off Have A Nice Life, The Angelic Process, and Jane Remover.

In addition to your album, this year I also appreciated other albums by artists who, in one way or another, address the theme of gender dysphoria or a, let's say, "problematic" sexuality (Floral Tattoo, Cime, Vylet Pony, etc.). It seems, in short, that rock music is a pretty good relief valve, in this sense. What do you think?
Well, I guess rock music generally tends to be more expressive when it comes to that kind of turmoil. It's easier to translate emotions to sound when actual physical instruments are involved, as your human touch is directly needed to play them. In my opinion, “human-ness” and honesty are the main attributes that play into art expressing emotions. AI art and music are perfect examples of how emotionless it can truly get. Though this is not to say electronic music and heavy production are incapable of emotional expression, it all comes down to how the person uses it. I used a shit ton of digital mangling and synthesizing in the perfect child, you would be surprised to see how much MIDI I used. Other than midi, I think synthesis and digital mangling can be used to express very complex human emotions that simple instruments can't do. I abused the fuck out of software and samples and analog gear to make sounds that made people lose their shit emotionally, me included. I'm extremely inspired by glitch music, Onkyo, industrial, and electroacoustic production, and I love incorporating it into my music as it pushes the boundaries of the listener and can be used to make them uncomfortable or disoriented, or it can express a psychological dissonance that's incomprehensible, surpassing the usual natural feelings that physical instruments might be able to convey.

If Audie Ellis was a novel, what would it be? What if it was a movie?
If I was a movie, it would have been directed by David Lynch (RIP) or Damond Packard. If I was a novel I think it would make a lot of people grossed out and confused.

What are your 10 favorite albums and why?
It is hard to put in order so only the top 4 are kind of in order.
1: Swans – “Soundtracks for the Blind”. This album is terrifying but I want to live inside of it. Probably the most influential album to me ever.
2: Black Midi – “Hellfire”. This album makes me so excited I cannot explain why this is as good as it is
3: Car Seat Headrest – “Twin Fantasy”. This album’s writing and pacing is unmatched. This got me hooked on lyrical motifs and extended metaphors.
4: Broadcast – “Tender Buttons”. This album makes me cry so much, and the production is so unique and beautiful.
The Microphones – “Mount Eerie”. One of if not the most beautiful and human album ever made.
Haley Heynderickx – “I Need To Start a Garden”
Weatherday – “Come In.”
Death Grips – “The Powers That B.”
Pulgas – “The Book of Pulgas”
Sprain – “The Lamb as Effigy”
This list is only sort of accurate, I have phases where I like certain things more than others and I love so much music that it gets impossible to rank it all.

Your 2024 favorite albums…
Cime – “The Cime Interdisciplinary Music Ensemble”
Geordie Greep – “The New Sound”
Mount Eerie – “Night Palace”
Chat Pile – “Cool World”
Bagel Fanclub – “Encore County Ground”

What are your next steps?
I’m hoping to get a live band for Spiral Staircase together soon so we can play live and get our name out there more. Many of my songs are made with playing them live in mind.
The new The Newrids album should be coming out very soon as I talked about. It’s alot shorter and more accessible than my past stuff.
Lastly, I'm already starting work on the next Spiral Staircase album. I plan on putting an exhausting amount of effort and time into every song, I plan on trying to make it a little bit shorter and dense, and I plan on making it exponentially better than the perfect child. I’m especially excited to collaborate with some amazing artists for this project. I have no idea when this will be officially announced as it's very very early in production. Could be 5 months from now, could be 4 years from now. I guess we will see.