9lives' Latest Single Pushes Sigilkore

The 29-year-old Toronto-born musician knows what it means to have to fight, and she’s not afraid to do it. The release of her new EP, Daddy Loves You, is the culmination of countless false starts, broken promises and years of legal battles over the rights to her own work. It’s a dynamic she’s been railing against since her former all-girl metal band, Dentata, “a sisterhood,” she told office, dissipated thanks to a hometown producer impeding the release of their record. And that’s just the industry side of things.

The untimely loss of her mother, years of exploitation at the hands of a predatory, well-known musician, and time spent navigating the pre-Me Too era of modeling as a teen preceded the struggle to seize control over her art. She’s exhausted, but she’s on the other side of it now, and ready to take on anyone who’s ever silenced her or told her no. 

“I definitely Me Too’ed some people, and just how I feel on the inside, just Dana at home, having said people’s names and called things out that were so fucked up that other people were afraid to do––how I feel with myself at the end of the day? I feel better, I feel happier, I feel lighter, I feel more free and I want to keep that going,” she said. “There’s no reason for us to be afraid anymore.”

With neither fear nor fucks left to give, Dentata presents Daddy Loves You––the darker, bloodier follow-up to last year’s DANAVI$ION; marking the dawn of a call to arms as revolutionary as it is radioactive.

Read office's conversation with the artist about demons, dicks and dispossession, below.

How would you describe the work you make?

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time and never felt like it was okay. People have always been really against it and telling me not to do it. It’s like the Joker movie, have you seen it?

I just saw it last night and I loved it.

You know how you kind of feel good for him when he’s doing the horrible things at the end, because it’s like, this is what you fucking get when you do this to a person? I feel like that with my music. Some people think my music is a lot, or intense, or too much. But this is what you fucking get when you do this to a person; when you do this to a woman. And then people still want it to sound pleasing and easy to digest. And I don’t think this is that, for a reason.

With your lyrics we get something that we don’t often see––this somewhat playful violence and this dominant sexuality coming from a woman directed at men. And I feel that so many male artists have gotten a pass to do that, and, people might call it edgy, but nobody would say it’s hard to digest the way they would about your music.

It’s like matching masculinity with masculinity. I’m coming forward with my masculine side, which I think makes it even more intimidating for men. 

You’ve said in the past it’s not that you’re a misandrist, but this is what happens when the type of experiences you’ve had manifest into raw and honest art. And I feel like you’ve had a pretty amplified experience as a woman.

Yeah I’ve been through some extremes.

Do you feel like that’s influenced your work?

Yeah. If you saw what happened to me in my life, it would make so much sense. I started modeling when I was 14, I was going to Milan when I was 15, living there by myself, doing all that, so you can imagine the kind of stuff I went through doing that as well. Being put in those situations, and then dancing… It’s funny, I was an American Apparel model.

Me too!

Really? We’re survivors. I'd stopped modeling, and then that’s when I was working at the strip club, and [American Apparel founder] Dov found me then and took me away, and I ended up living in his mansion in LA. He wasn’t there when I lived there so I didn’t have to live with him. It was when the company was crashing and burning. But that was a big part of my life for at least a year, two years. 

What a weird time. So what age were you when you were living in that mansion?

That was in my early 20s. I’d quit modeling because I hated it and never liked it anyway. The American Apparel thing just came to me and it was like, I was working at the strip club and this person came to me and said ‘I want you to move to LA, and we’ll pay for everything.’ I’m not gonna say no. It wasn’t even about the modeling––I didn’t even care about American Apparel at the time, I didn’t shop there because I thought it was too expensive. 

Do you feel slighted that you went through all of that right before the Me Too movement blew the lid off a lot of the industry abuse and people started recognizing that it was messed up?
 

With Terry [Richardson] and Dov, I felt very safe and protected because I put up a front where, like, Dov was afraid of me. I had been working at a strip club before that. This girl [warned me about shooting with him]. And I googled him, and instead of being like, ‘No I’m not doing that,’ my mindset was ‘Bring it the fuck on. I wish you would, bitch. Let’s see what happens.’ And then me and his relationship, it’s probably really unhealthy in a lot of ways, but our dynamic has always been that I’m more powerful than him. And he liked that. So for me and him it was like, you don’t do shit like that to me or you get your ass beat. Terry never was weird to me at all in any way. So I don’t feel slighted by it. I feel like it makes a lot of sense I ended up in that world based on shit I went through as a teenager. It’s the natural course.

How do you feel about having your music described as empowering, when men who are making music of a similar vein to yours don't really get that description?

It’s just how sad the state of music is, and how much women are controlled and brainwashed into being pleasing. I think there aren’t a lot of female artists that aren’t pleasing. It’s fucking sad thinking about that. No guys have to be considered empowering. But hopefully I can be really, really, really empowering, and a bunch of girls will spring up after me and it’ll be more normal. I’ll take the L for that, sure.

There’s been an insurgence of women beginning to take over the music scene in a really cool way, but we’re still not where I want us to be. I feel like you’re leading that charge and creating this space for girls that we didn’t have growing up. 

Or that I don’t have, either, that I want for myself. And I’ve seen firsthand, even with Dentata, every song was basically screaming about men being pieces of shit. I wrote a rap song about being raped six or seven years ago, and everyone in my life said not to put it out. But to me it’s the most empowering thing I’ve ever written and it made me feel strong after that happened. And I feel that other girls would feel that way too.

With the music you’re making now which is what you’ve always wanted to do and say, are you feeling angrier and more emboldened, or is it more of a release?

The release is never enough. I feel like I have so much in there still. Even now making this kind of music and living my truth and being as harsh as I want to be in my personal life, it’s almost like I’m sacrificing my relationships. But it doesn’t make sense, because that shouldn’t be a sacrifice. It just shows you how pussy men are.

Now in my real-life situations with everything I do artistically, guys are really intimidated by me and insecure with me, and have done even worse things now because of the level of strength and power I’m presenting in my art and who I am as a person. I’m just dealing with so much fuckboy shit.

Seeing how strong you are and needing to somehow top that, rather than just sit with it and being like, 'I fucking love this person. This person is so sick.'

Men can’t handle it! I’m actually shocked. That’s fucked up. What can’t you handle? That I feel safe and secure saying things that make me feel good? What is wrong with this world? I’m unfuckable because of that? I don’t get hit on after my shows. I mean, my friends are like, ‘Okay well you’re covered in blood,’ but still! All these fucking men on tour, so many girls after the show [are hitting on them]. People say, ‘Well it’s because you’re intimidating,’ it’s like, what?! Not that I want loser guys hitting on me, glad they’re not in those situations.

Working on Daddy Loves You, it’s really raw and dark but it’s still very danceable. What was the making of these songs like and do you feel like with this album you got closer to portraying something about yourself?

Yeah, because all the songs on it were made in places I felt safe, and it was a really good time in my life. I was really free. For the longest time I couldn’t find producers who weren’t trying to rape me or were actually doing what I wanted. So finally, there were a couple different producers who were making stuff that I felt was heavy enough for me. I felt really open, I was writing so fast. Pretty much all of the album was made over a year ago and I’d been wanting to put it out since then. It’s been a nightmare; I’ve had to fight this whole year just to get rights for those songs and for people to agree to let me use it.

I’ve pretty much had to threaten my life to get my own music back this year. It’s been dark and sad. My lawyer said it’s the worst song clearance situation she’s been through or seen. It’s almost like the world was trying not to let me do it. I felt like I was being silenced. I’ve been performing ‘Lil Blood’ for over a year now, and I would’ve liked to release it a while ago.

I’ve spent so many nights crying, so many nights feeling like I’m gonna give up, I’m never gonna win. I tried reproducing and rerecording it, but apparently they still controlled it even if I did that. I felt like I was trying everything I could and nothing was working, and I was at the mercy of a pig. Man, it’s been a really rough year. I’m so exhausted emotionally from having to fight.

How did you manage to deal with all of that?

I don’t know. I feel like I have depression now because of it. Just multiple situations like that, every day for a year, it really brought me to a dark place. I wanted to give up on music. I’ve felt like there’s been a curse on my soul since I was in [Dentata] and a man got in the way of releasing the album. I made an EP a couple years ago and then a manager had it taken down. I’m 29, this is the first time in my life I’ve been able to properly release a song. It’s just control and power and greed.

It must be mostly due to the type of content you’re making, right?

That’s what it feels like. As much as there are personal situations between me and these men, it’s still that men don’t want this to happen.

What inspired the album lyrically?

I have a demon that’s usually with me for a lot of things I do, I talk about the demon a lot in the music. Girls just started calling me Daddy, and I started to embrace that and get really interested in why they were calling me Daddy, exploring that through my songs. I’m exploring a lot of my own sexuality through my songs too. I was doing femdom and stuff. With the lyrics I write, the life becomes the art and the art becomes the life. Everything becomes real if I’ve written it in a song; it can happen after.

So you feel like coming out with these stories in your songs is broadening your identity and experience?

Mhm, yeah. Definitely. When I do a performance I learn so much about myself. I did a performance with my demon on a chain with a mattress on the ground and a TV, and the performance art was based around this mattress. The set was different aspects of a relationship with a man. It starts out with me antagonizing him and him bothering me, and us going back and forth, fighting and then we end up forgiving each other and Netflix and chilling on the mattress, watching “Hellraiser” and then there’s this end piece that’s the sex scene, but the sex scene is him ripping my angel wings to shreds and eating them and carrying me away.

For me it represents how you can give somebody your all, give them everything, and they’ll still just be an egotistical asshole and absorb it all for themselves and rip it to shreds. Taking something pure and ruining it. 

What does the demon represent performance-wise?

My inner demons are always around me and around us. Specifically for me, men have been demons in my life. They’re all fucking demons to me. So I figured I might as well have it around just to show, yes, I’m standing here and doing this, but there’s always a fucking demon lurking in the shadows, and let’s just call it what it is. It’s surrealism but it’s also realism, because this is what it’s like for a woman to exist––there’s always a fucking bloodsucking demon standing behind you.

That’s so on point. It might seem surreal but everything else that’s not addressing it is the actual dream. Growing up music-wise, who did you have to look up to?

The first one for me was Britney Spears, I went from her to Marilyn Manson. I thought Britney was God. My mom took me to her concert and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m seeing Jesus Christ.’ She was so powerful, even though she was like, a 16-year-old girl being exploited by everyone. Kind of reminds me of me in a way, all of us, being exploited as teenagers.

Really Marilyn Manson and Eminem have been since I was 10, my favorites.

Eminem’s another artist who I love but some of his songs I just can’t even pretend to go along with, they’re so misogynistic.

It’s been weird for me because I’m so influenced by him. I wanna be him. And I’ll be rapping “put Anthrax on a Tampax and slap you til you can’t stand,” and I don’t know why I love it so much, you'd think I wouldn't. But I don’t feel like feminism should be like, ‘We don’t do this and we choose this.’ There is no right and wrong, there’s a gray area. I don’t feel like I have to hate Eminem’s music. Listening to it now it’s like, at least times have changed enough that people aren’t writing about murdering people. But his music is like a horror movie, it’s really bad nasty terrible things for our enjoyment.

There shouldn’t be this right and wrong mindset with feminism, but I guess the problem is that there hasn’t been a counter-action to it because it hasn’t been allowed. If women and men can shit on each other equally, then that’s cool. I think it’s just the lack of the other side.

Yeah, that makes sense. Why isn’t there the female version of the song “Kim”? That song is pretty gruesome and hard to listen to but it’s still an expression and it’s still art, and I see space for that––but why isn’t there the female version out there? God forbid a female artist comes out here with their eyeliner smudged, that’s what that is. 

I think it’s really cool that you’re being open about the struggles behind this album release, because the only way that you can transcend it is by confronting it and making it known.

I hope so. I think the culture has changed a lot. I definitely Me Too’ed some people, and just how I feel on the inside, just Dana at home, having said people’s names and called things out that were so fucked up that other people were afraid to do––how I feel with myself at the end of the day? I feel better, I feel happier, I feel lighter, I feel more free and I want to keep that going.

There’s no reason for us to be afraid anymore.

What’s coming up for you?

I’m playing Rolling Loud in LA December 14th. It's a huge rap festival that is so broey. I’m so excited to play. 

I think you can handle it.

I specifically seek out these types of shows and tours because there’s a whole scene right now and there are barely any women in it. And you’d think they’re not gonna understand me because they’re all frat boys or whatever, but that’s exactly the people I want to scream this shit at! It’s for women and I want to play for them, they’re there, they’re at these fucking frat-boy shows too. It makes me want to play my stuff even more, to infiltrate the system.

Yeah, you’re doing God’s work. I want to see you live and get my teeth knocked out at your show.

Yeah, female moshpit, where everyone is respectful and doesn’t push the limit too far, just enough. 

Right! It’ll be so safe. But if I don’t leave your show having to go to the hospital I’m gonna be disappointed. 

Yeah, I do it to myself sometimes.