Melissa Scaduto on Sextile, Self-Confidence, and Sobriety
As the co-founder and tour de force of Los Angeles-based electronic-punk outfit Sextile, Melissa Scaduto has built a career out of daringly blurring the lines between punk grit and club-floor euphoria, vulnerability and defiance, chaos and clarity.
A native New Yorker, she first connected with music through raw, visceral moments — Nirvana sparking her first goosebumps, seeing Alison Mosshart’s band Discount at her very first punk show, and discovering her truest sense of self within the city’s most radical underground scenes.
After relocating to Los Angeles, Scaduto poured her unrelenting drive and lived experience — including her journey through addiction and recovery — into Sextile’s sound: an explosive fusion of post-punk urgency and throbbing electronics that has earned the band cult-favorite status worldwide. Across records like Push and the new yes, please., her fingerprints are unmistakable — not only in the pounding rhythms, but in the art direction, design, and uncompromising creative vision that define the band.
Now, with nearly a decade of sobriety and a body of work that pulses equally with survival and celebration, Scaduto stands as proof that transformation itself can be an art form — raw, restless, and relentlessly her own.
KP: I read that you were born in New York, which I didn’t know! As was I. Where are you from exactly, and how do you feel it shaped your sense of creativity and belonging?
MS: Well, I was born in Queens, but I actually left when I was 9. It’s kind of interesting — my parents divorced, and my mom took us to Florida because she had family there. So I kind of feel like I grew up in Florida, but then I moved back to New York when I was 17.
It’s sort of confusing, though — like, Where the fuck am I from? [Laughs]. My dad’s a born-and-raised Brooklyn Italian.
KP: Same!
MS: Yeah! And my mother’s from Chile, so it’s that classic New York tale of just being a mix of everybody.
But I really identify with being from New York in a lot of ways. Even when I was a kid in Florida, I’d tell people, “I’m from New York. I’m not supposed to be here.” [Laughs]. All I dreamed of was going back.
That said, I think Florida actually shaped me more in some weird musical way because the need to find music, subculture, and cool people there was so intense. All I wanted was to get back to New York to find it, but in the meantime, I sought it out so hard in Florida.
I’d go into the Virgin Megastore that we had in Miami and just buy CDs where the people on the cover looked cool. I found The Cramps and My Bloody Valentine that way — just based on the record cover and the fact that it was on display.
We didn’t have much of an indie record store in Florida at that time. Miami’s a big city, but the big thing there was electronic music. I was honestly sort of opposed to it at first. I was romanticizing The Velvet Underground and the Ramones — like, I have to get back to New York.
KP: When you eventually did come back, did you go to Brooklyn or Queens?
MS: Brooklyn. I actually lived in Bushwick in 2001, which is kind of funny because it was very different then — there were no hipsters at all.
My first month back, I was 17 and thought that I was a raging badass, living in a one-bedroom apartment with six people, all on the floor. I got a knife pulled on me on the J train within a month. I got robbed. I even tried to fight back, which is so stupid in retrospect. The guy tried to stab me. Luckily, I was fine because some guys on the train intervened, but he still stole all my stuff.
Then I moved to Greenpoint and stayed there for 13 years before moving to Los Angeles. So yeah, I definitely went to Brooklyn. The funny thing is though, back then, there weren’t a lot of parties in Brooklyn.
Where are you from exactly?
KP: I was born in Brooklyn. My dad’s from Park Slope, and my mom’s from Carroll Gardens. I’m half Italian, half Irish.
MS: Oh, cool!
Honestly, I miss New York summers. There’s something about the energy — that gratitude when summer finally arrives. It’s the sexiest summer, even though New York is dirty and humid as fuck.
Out in LA, it’s hot all the time, so you take it for granted. When I moved here, I didn’t even plan on it — I came for rehab and stayed. It was February when I left New York; it was snowing, and I was detoxing here. I remember feeling the sun on my face and thinking for the first time that the sun could heal me. That was such a foreign concept because in New York, I mainly lived a nightlife lifestyle — bartending, not waking up until 4 p.m. — I didn’t have a sense of what was normal. Now I’m always in the sun; I can’t get away from it.
KP: Well, when you wake up at 4, you don’t see much sunlight. I remember it well. [Laughs].
MS: I still romanticize New York. I miss it. I see my friends posting, “I’m at Beach 86th today,” and I’m like, Damn — I wish I could hop on the train and go. But here, I’ve got to get in my car. It’s just a different lifestyle.
Still, I think the quality of life for me is better here. That came with growing up — not messing around with self-destructive shit anymore.
KP: For sure. They’re two poles for sure, and you just need to go with whatever suits your life best at the moment, right?
You cite Alison Mosshart’s band Discount as your first punk concert that you went to at the age of 12. I spoke with her a few years ago, and she told me all about Discount, so it felt very full-circle reading that. It’s so cool that you got to see that. What specifically about that show resonated with you? Do you feel that it sparked this sense of need in terms of performing or composing music?
MS: It was her — it was really her just being up there. At the time, I think she was also a teenager. I was 12; she might have been 16 or 17. She was chubby and super cute, with a shaved head. I particularly remember her wearing a shirt that was backwards and inside out — the tag was in the front. That’s such a funny little detail to have stuck in my mind.
Even though I was already into Hole, L7, and other female-fronted bands before this, I had never seen a version of myself up there. It was still a foreign concept to me — being in a band.
By that point, I had already been playing guitar for a couple of years because of my obsession with Nirvana. They were the first band that made me want to learn guitar — I had to learn those songs. But it was seeing her that made me think, Shit, maybe I could do this.
It’s funny, though — it took me years to actually get my shit together and play music. Once I got to New York, I thought, Okay, I’ll start a band here. But I ended up choosing drugs and partying instead. People would have me play in their bands, but I’d always mess it up. Or I’d start my own band and then be the one showing up three hours late to practice.
KP: It was a good primer for you to see that, though.
MS: Yeah, I never forgot it! And a lot of people have actually told her this through me. One of my best friends plays in Interpol, and they’re good friends. Random people over the years have told Alison this story because it’s a memory that I’ll never forget. It’s such a cool experience to see somebody that early on. It really stuck with me.
KP: It really is.
You met Brady [Keehn] in recovery and managed to form Sextile in the process. I think it’s a great testament to the power of transformation and how many beautiful things can come from starting over.
What has sobriety taught you about yourself? And what did it inform in your music, if anything?
MS: Well, I think I replaced all of the drugs with the need to make music — and that’s still very much a thing. I’ve noticed that if I’m not creating every day, I mentally spin out. I feel this weird desperation, kind of like I used to when I was using drugs.
I learned a lot from being in a 12-step program. I’m not in one anymore because I smoke weed now — I’m “California sober.” [Laughs]. But nothing got me sober until I did AA. I know a lot of people shy away from it because of the God stuff, but what I didn’t realize was that I had been experiencing “God” all along through music — that spiritual rush that we all get from it.
I was afraid of AA because I hated organized religion. I thought it was all bullshit, and something about it felt really square to me. But eventually I realized that being addicted to drugs is actually one of the lamest things that you can do — you end up enslaved to a substance.
If you love art in any form, there’s so much that you can give and receive from that world once you’re free. Art really does change culture, and as Americans, I think our biggest export is culture. When I travel the world, I see that — and I feel honored to be a part of it now.
Recovery taught me so much about myself — even just the ability to get sober changed how I saw the world. I was so black-and-white about everything back then. I got sober at 31, and I remember thinking that I was old and that it was too late for me, but that’s total bullshit. There are no rules.
I always think about Sleaford Mods — they started in their late 40s, early 50s, and now they’re huge. Granted, they’re men, so they’ve got a leg up, but still — it proves that all of these so-called “rules” about age and success are made to be broken.
KP: They definitely are.
What advice would you lend to the many women that are struggling with addiction of any kind? If there’s one light at the end of the tunnel, what is it?
MS: The light at the end of the tunnel for me — every time — is remembering that things always change. I still have moments where depression comes in, like post-tour depression, and that old brain of mine starts thinking garbage again.
I had this drug counselor in rehab, a hilarious guy from Compton, who used to say, “Melissa, you’re listening to Radio KFUCK.” [Laughs]. I think about that all the time — my broken-ass thinking — and he was right. Whenever that “station” gets tuned back in, I try to remember that life is always shifting. Even in the darkest times — breakups, bullshit, whatever — it will change. You can’t see it while it’s happening, but things are always changing — slowly but surely.
Do you know the YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly?
KP: I do!
MS: A lot of people on there talk about how nothing changes for them, and I get that — if you repeat the same actions every day, it will stay the same. But if you make even the smallest changes daily, it will shift. There will be a light at the end of the tunnel.
I think we all deal with some level of mental illness, but for some people it’s a lot harder. I used to be in a mental health program here in California for homeless people, and now I’m somehow playing stages worldwide. When I got here, I didn’t even have a bank account.
The other day in the shower — for some reason, everything comes to me in the shower — I was thinking about that program, called Prototypes. It was for people who were homeless and mentally ill. I didn’t have a car, so I’d walk there and back every day. On the way, I’d pass this strip where people prostituted themselves, and I’d get stopped constantly by men asking, “How much?” It was upsetting. And there were moments — in my most desperate early-sobriety days — when I thought, Could I do this? But deep down, I knew that if I acted on that in any way, it would have led me straight back to using. Looking back now, I know that I made the right choice. That would have traumatized me and left me feeling like absolute shit.
One thing they taught us in the program was to not do things that make you feel guilty. That includes the small stuff — not lying, not taking things that aren’t yours, and even something like not throwing your cigarette butts on the ground. In early sobriety, I wanted it so badly that I wouldn’t do anything that might leave me with shame or regret. And honestly, that probably helped me the most.
KP: Everything that you said is so spot on, particularly about change. Small changes add up to total metamorphosis.
The sudden death of Eddie [Wuebben] led to a hiatus back in 2019. How did you summon the strength to eventually continue on, and what is one thing that you’d like to share about him?
“Life is always shifting. Even in the darkest times — breakups, bullshit, whatever — it will change. You can’t see it while it’s happening, but things are always changing — slowly but surely.”
MS: Well, Eddie had actually relapsed before we broke up. And it was obvious that it wasn’t just weed. I felt guilty because we had all started smoking weed before, and Eddie wanted to try it. In my gut, I knew that he couldn’t just smoke weed. Everyone’s different in recovery — I have friends who could smoke weed and be fine, and others who smoked weed and then died… Eddie being one of them.
I later found out that it didn’t even start with weed. His best friend from Ohio told me that Eddie had gone home, started drinking, and then came back saying, “I’m smoking weed — it’s cool, I can smoke with you guys.” But soon he started acting erratically, like he was on meth. I didn’t want to admit that to myself, so I kept blaming the weed.
Then things started spiraling. He sold one of the band’s guitars a day before a show. I was furious. We gave him an ultimatum, and he basically told us to fuck off. He quit the band and called us dictators.
After that, Brady and I put out an EP on our own, Disco, which ended up being some of our most successful work. But eventually — because money was tight and things were difficult between us — Brady and I broke up, and Sextile went on hiatus.
During that downtime, Eddie came back into our lives, apologetic and wanting Sextile to reunite, but Brady and I weren’t in the right place — we were working on separate projects. Over the next two years, Eddie stayed around, but I started hearing things. I met a girl at an AA meeting who was hanging out with him, and she told me that she was using heroin. I knew then that Eddie was, too. I tried to talk to him, but of course he denied it — that’s what addicts do when they’re drowning in shame.
I kept trying to spend time with him, hoping to pull him out, but I don’t think that he could admit where he was. Then one morning, around 6 AM, his best friend called to tell me that Eddie had died the night before. I had just been texting him, trying to get him to come to a rave with us. It was a shock.
Weirdly, it made me grateful for Sextile and what we had built together. Eddie believed in that band — and in me — more than anyone else. I met him when I was 30 days sober. I had just gotten out of rehab, relapsed, overdosed, and had my ribs broken by paramedics performing CPR. It took me six months to heal physically, and I don’t know if I would have made it through that without Eddie’s energy.
He was so positive, so grateful for everything, and so lit up by life. In recovery, they say, “We’ll love you until you love yourself.” That’s what Eddie did for me. When we’d talk, he’d light up. I’d tell him about music and art that he hadn’t heard of, and the way that he looked at me genuinely made me love myself more.
But it wasn’t just me. One of my friends — now a designer for Lady Gaga — dated Eddie years ago, and she says the same thing. He saw something in her before she even started her career. We both get emotional talking about him. She told me that she cried when she saw Sextile play the Hollywood Palladium because she remembered seeing us as a tiny band and knowing how much Eddie believed in us. We just wish that he could be here to experience this with the both of us.
Brady and I reconnected in our grief for Eddie. That led us to revisit old Sextile memories, and when Goldenvoice asked us to reunite for Cruel World — offering more money than we had ever been paid — we thought, Should we actually do this?
By that point, during the pandemic, people had discovered the band in a way that they never had before. Fans, friends, and people who loved Eddie — all of that energy brought us back together. Now Sextile is our full-time job, something that it never could be before.
I just wish that Eddie were here to actually get paid for it, because back then, we were all struggling.
KP: He’d be so proud of you guys; that I know for sure.
I really love your music — it carries so many incredible influences, yet you’ve completely made all of it your own. If you had to name a few albums or songs by other artists that have been most formative for you, which would they be?
MS: Well, I feel like the thing I know most about is music. I’ve worked at record stores, and it’s what I love to talk about. Brady’s a gearhead, and I’m just a nerd about actual music, pop culture, and all of that.
But I go through phases of obsession, so it depends on what era we’re talking about. I was just listening to Nirvana again yesterday, and I was thinking about how crazy it was that they really sparked so much for me in wanting to be a musician. The spiritual connection that I have with music, I don’t think I ever felt it before hearing Nirvana. It was the first time music ever gave me goosebumps. So I’d say that Nirvana influenced me in a lot of ways.
But right now, what influenced Sextile the most, honestly, is Underworld. I discovered them from the Trainspotting soundtrack when I was 12. I saw the movie in the theater, then got the soundtrack. That was my introduction to electronic music, aside from Aphex Twin around that same time.
But Underworld’s “Born Slippy?” I even have a stupid tattoo for it. [Laughs]. That song changed my life, and it still does. It’s one of those songs — like, in my top ten greatest of all time — where no matter how many times you hear it, you just go, Holy shit. I want to dance and cry at the same time.
David Bowie’s “Heroes” is another one like that. No matter how many times you hear it, it’s like, What the fuck? I feel the same way about The Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.” That song makes me want to break shit and fight. And it’s so dirty; it’s such a massive “fuck you” to put that out in the ‘60s — especially with lyrics about getting your dick sucked. Lou Reed had the biggest balls. That’s why those people become icons. Every time I revisit them, I think, Damn — nobody’s done it better. All of us have been trying to reach that.
These days? I wish that I could mention more modern bands that inspire me, but honestly, I just really love Fontaines D.C. A lot of my friends write them off as similar to Idles, which I don’t like. Idles feels very masculine to me; it’s just not for me. I need my music with a dash of queer energy. If the men can’t be even a little feminine, then I can’t relate.
So Fontaines D.C. are different — they’re emotional, their lyrics are great, and people make fun of how they dress, but I think it’s awesome. They wear skirts on stage.
KP: I listen to them, too! I love “I Love You.”
MS: Aw, yeah! That is, to me, a modern-day “I Wanna Be Adored.” The Stone Roses are another band that, every time I revisit them, I’m like, Goddammit, I need to get better. So many bangers.
These days we make electronic music mostly because it’s hard for me to write something new on the guitar. Whenever I pick it up, it just feels mediocre compared to what we can do electronically. That’s why Fontaines inspire me — they probably start a lot of songs on acoustic guitar, and I’d struggle with that. I’d think it’s corny and uninspiring, so I tend to start with drum beats and basslines now. It’s also nice to see a band like Fontaines incorporate string arrangements into their stuff.
Do you like Turnstile?
KP: I don’t really listen to them.
MS: They’re another huge, mostly male rock band, but they’ve brought hardcore into the mainstream. They have a female guitarist now, but when I saw them live, they brought a hardcore show to 20,000 people at a festival. They’re all super fit — you can tell they’re sober and work on themselves — and the positivity just radiated off of them.
Hardcore purists hate on them, but I think it’s impressive. Their music has really classic ‘90s guitar chord structures. The record before Glow On got nominated for a Grammy. They’re from Baltimore — working-class hardcore kids — and they’ve been a band for, like, 15 years.
KP: I have no idea how I’m not familiar.
MS: Well, I only heard them about 5 years ago, even though I have friends deep in the hardcore scene, so I also kind of missed the boat.
KP: Alright, you’ve given me homework! I’m into it.
Sextile is named after an astrological term. What role has astrology, spirituality, or numerology played in your artistic or personal worldview?
MS: That literally all comes from Eddie. That’s also one of the things that feels really sad about losing him.
I never really noticed numbers before I met him. But Eddie would always point out when we saw 333 and say, “Oh, we’re on the right path!” Now, whenever I see 333, it feels like a little wave or a hello from him. Like a weird hug or reassurance that I’m doing okay.
Then, the astrology part… So the band name actually came up because we had our first show booked, and Brady was proposing a name that was so bad. I was like, There’s no way we could use that. Eddie was talking to someone about their sign and birth chart — he’d meet people and never remember their names, only their signs. Like, he’d say, “You know that Scorpio chick?” And I’d be like, “Who the fuck is that?” [Laughs].
He kept saying something like “sextile,” maybe talking about a planet or something in astrology. I didn’t get it at all. But when I kept hearing the word “sextile” come up — like six or seven times — while we were sitting around a fire smoking cigarettes, we just decided to use it as the band name. It was kind of accidental.
And funny enough, Brady didn’t like it at all at first. He was like, “It’s kind of dumb that it has ‘sex’ in it.” But I was like, “No, it’s cool as a single word, and it has ‘sex’ in it, which is punk as hell.”
KP: No, totally. It was the right choice.
MS: Thanks, I appreciate that! I like the name, too. But Brady still sometimes says it’s dumb because of the “sex” part, which I think is totally wrong — especially since our music accidentally sounds pretty horny.
KP: And I’m not an astrology person at all, so I didn’t even know the real meaning until I read up on it later and was like, Oh shit! That’s what it means. I just thought it was a sexy name. [Laughs].
MS: It’s also so LA to have astrology references. I don’t really get into astrology — it goes in one ear and out the other for me. I’m a Virgo, if it matters.
KP: You’re my favorite sign! I love Virgo women. My girlfriend’s a Virgo.
MS: Really?
KP: Yeah! Almost all of my favorite women in culture are Virgos, too. It’s weird.
MS: What’s your sign?
KP: I’m a Capricorn — December 24th.
MS: I’m September 20th.
KP: Oh, the day before my girlfriend!
MS: Oh, yeah? So we’re both almost on the cusp of Libra.
KP: Yeah! But that’s almost getting too complicated for me. [Laughs].
MS: No, me too. [Laughs].
KP: Your fourth studio album, yes, please., just released in May. What can you share with us about its writing or production? Do you feel that it was a departure from or an expansion of your past work?
MS: I feel like Sextile is an expansion, because we don’t really have strict rules about what we sound like or what we’re going to do.
We started writing a bunch of songs because we had this European tour coming up that was all flying tours. I was like, let’s just make a bunch of electronic bangers so we don’t have to bring so much gear. That’s exactly what we did. We wrote “Women Respond to Bass,” “S is For,” “Freak Eyes” — all those songs — in about a two-week period, which is kind of crazy. Brady and I just went really hard, like 14 hours a day, sitting there trying to come up with stuff that we thought would work well live. Honestly, most of my favorite songs from the record came from that two-week stretch.
When we came back from that tour, we finished the album. Some of the sadder, more vibey songs came from that later period. We actually wrote 7 more tracks that didn’t end up on the record. Some of them I’m like, Why the fuck didn’t we finish this one? This is better than some songs we did put on the album. So we’re working on some of that stuff right now and trying to write new material. We always have this desperation to keep working as much as we can because without making music, we don’t have shit. You have to keep putting stuff out.
I’m most proud of yes, please. I think it’s our most cohesive record yet. I thought way more about the track listing than I did for the previous record.
“Pursue things no matter what. Take all of the shit that people say and use it as fuel for your fire.”
KP: People really love it. I posted a track from it on my Instagram story last week, and so many people responded like, “I love this record.” It’s such a good album.
MS: I’m so glad to hear that because sometimes I can’t tell what the actual response is. You can’t really just look at Spotify monthly listeners, especially since we took down one of our biggest tracks, which had like seven million plays. We took it down because we own the rights now and didn’t want to deal with it anymore. It was funny because taking that track down dropped our monthly listeners by like 60,000 overnight. Watching that happen was crazy. And I was like, Dude, I cannot live as a musician measuring success by Spotify listeners.
KP: There’s a whole conversation going on right now about whether Spotify should even show monthly listeners. A lot of artists are debating it.
MS: Right now I feel like I don’t even know if yes, please. was a hit or not. But our label, Sacred Bones, tracks physical sales, and in this day and age, the amount that we’ve sold is kind of crazy. So I know that our fans are buying the record, which is good. And ticket sales are solid too, so I have to base my success on that.
Spotify is so driven by algorithms and playlisting, and I didn’t know this before, but some artists actually buy monthly listeners. It’s fucked up. There are companies that set up bots to play their songs to inflate numbers. It’s like Instagram followers — you can buy those, too. So you can’t base success on those metrics.
KP: It’s funny, because I’ve been in publishing for 17 years now, starting in 2008 when social media wasn’t really a thing like it is today. Now I get pitched so many times a day by PRs, and they lead with the artist’s name and monthly Spotify listeners. I’m like, Tell me about the actual work, not streams or followers. I don’t give a fuck about that. But those metrics have become such a big part of promotion.
MS: We have to stop paying attention to that. At first, I wanted my success to be shown that way, but after seeing how much it actually affected me — like watching our monthly listeners drop when we took down that song — I realized how much one track can skew everything. That song constantly got pushed by the algorithm, and a lot of people told me that that’s how they first found us. But honestly, we have way better tracks than that one.
KP: And speaking of other tracks, I really love “Kiss.” There’s something so intimate and charged about it. What does that track represent for you personally, and can you tell us a little about its development?
MS: That one almost didn’t make it on the record.
KP: What?! No way.
MS: Yeah! We literally wrote it the week before the record was due.
KP: Honestly, it’s my favorite track.
MS: Really?
KP: Yeah, I’ve been listening to it a lot lately. That’s the one that I posted on my Instagram, and everyone was loving it. And I’m not just blowing smoke — people never usually message me saying, “I love this record,” but so many responded to that story with exactly that.
MS: I love that. It’s funny, because the song is about me and Brady fighting, but we thought it was hilarious to talk about it like that. Brady hated that it went into this EBM bassline and really wanted to change it, but I was like, “No! That’s what makes it so sick.” It completely changes the vibe, but we still managed to fit the vocals perfectly. Plus, I thought it’d be great for DJing because of that.
I’m really glad that we put it on the record. Honestly, we were on the fence about it one day — debating whether to take it off or keep it — and thank god we kept it.
KP: It’s so good. I have so many favorites on the record, but that one definitely stands out.
Is there a track of Sextile’s that feels especially personal or important to you that you feel is often overlooked? If so, which is it?
MS: It’s actually a song that I didn’t want on the record, but Brady pushed for it. It’s the last track — “Soggy Newports.”
I wrote it when I was in a hospital on Roosevelt Island — they’ve since demolished it and built a CUNY school there now. Back in 2011, I had a motorcycle accident that put me in a wheelchair, and that nursing home was basically a mental institution for people who were forgotten or who didn’t have green cards. I was selling dime bags of weed in there and scoring heroin on the fourth floor from a paraplegic man. I wrote that song while I was in the hospital. The lyrics are really sad.
At the time, I wrote it as a country song on guitar — I even have a demo recording from that hospital. It’s called “Soggy Newports” because I found a pack of pissed-on Newports in the smoking room and sold them after drying them out.
I thought it was kind of funny and told Brady, “Listen to this funny country song I wrote.” He was like, “Let’s use it on the record,” but I felt like it didn’t fit Sextile at all. It really doesn’t. It’s just a weird, sad song that closes the record.
Most people don’t understand how heavy that song is for me. I still have problems with my leg — I need a full knee replacement. I shattered my tibia and have a metal rod in there. People don’t realize it because of how I perform on stage, but if you look closely, I’m always jumping off my left side and not my right.
A lot of my closest friends visited me in that hospital, so they know what I went through.
That place was intense — you’d walk down the hall, and people were just screaming. Honestly, I’m surprised that I didn’t get raped in there, because a lot of messed-up stuff was happening. I was 27 and in a wheelchair.
Sometimes when I listen to that song, it makes me really sad. There’s a line where I say, “When everyone here is put to sleep, the skyline turns on its lights.” That’s because I was on this island between Manhattan and Queens, watching the city lights, knowing that all my friends were out partying while I was stuck in a wheelchair and my life had completely changed.
I’d become used to living inside the system; nobody was going to help me get out. I was stuck there for a long time because I didn’t have family. But my buddy, Matt — do you know Molasses Books in Bushwick?
KP: I do!
MS: Yeah, he took me out of there. He let me stay at his place for a few months, visited me often, and was like, “Dude, we’ve got to get you out of here.” Once I started walking again — with a walker — I was finally able to leave. I was in the hospital for 6 months, but the whole ordeal lasted 8 months — from when I crashed the motorcycle that didn’t even belong to me. I was so reckless back then — I didn’t give a fuck about anything. I’ve broken so many bones. But this one... it was serious. I almost lost my leg. Doctors were shocked that I could walk again — they told me that I’d need a cane for the rest of my life. It’s pretty crazy that I’m still functioning like I am now.
KP: That’s remarkable.
MS: Yeah. So “Soggy Newports” is definitely the most personal song on the record, and now you know why.
KP: Bouncing off of that, you’ve gone through so much transformation — personally, creatively, and spiritually. When you look back at who you were 10 years ago, what feels the most different about you now? What are you most proud of?
MS: I definitely have way more confidence than I used to, so I’m proud of that.
I still struggle with that self-hating, critical voice in my head — like a harsh parent talking shit — but 10 years ago, I never would’ve wanted to be out front in a band. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one leading at all. And honestly, that’s what I’m most proud of now — that I chose to do it. Even later in life, with the band, it’s become my favorite place to be.
Girls especially scream my name when I come out on stage, and I never thought that would happen. All I ever wanted was to be accepted by women. Sometimes it makes me want to cry because I just can’t believe it. I’ve had young girls tell me they look up to me, that I’ve changed their lives. One even wrote me a letter saying interviews with me helped her stop doing drugs. That kind of stuff is what I’m most proud of, because I never imagined that I’d be in a position to inspire anyone. I’m really grateful for it.
Getting older and becoming comfortable in my own skin, being okay with presenting who I am on stage — it’s not a character. It’s just me. Brady used to say that my smile was a little goofy, and I’d tell him, “No, it’s not — it’s authentically me.” And funny enough, people have told him that’s what they love most about me — that I’m visibly having so much fun.
You can really see the difference between early Sextile videos when I was playing drums and looking so stressed about playing perfectly, and now, I’m up there being a total goofball, dancing with people. It’s clear that I’m just happier in this role.
So yeah, I guess confidence is what I’m most proud of.
KP: I love that for you so much. And with transformation always comes acceptance. Is there a part of you that you’re still trying to reclaim — or learn how to love?
MS: I guess part of me is still learning to love myself physically — to find myself beautiful and to have confidence in that. Sometimes when you’re on tour, you get those moments like, “Oh, we have to do a photoshoot,” and honestly, sometimes I’m just not in the mood. And then my ego starts talking shit.
I want to be free of all of those thoughts, of even caring about what I look like or aging or any of that, because it doesn’t matter. We’re all going to age if we’re lucky, you know? I live in LA, where so many people do work on their faces, and you see it all the time.
I think that every woman struggles with that, living in a world that judges us. But then you see icons like Peaches, who just don’t give a fuck — getting up there in her 50s in her underwear — and you’re like, “Fucking queen, thank God for Peaches.” Those people are like my spirit animals.
I don’t really think that hotness is one thing; it’s perceived differently by different people. If I can be confident in being hot by not being perfect, then that’s what I want to get to.
KP: I think that’s a journey that we’re all on, so I totally relate to that.
What advice would you lend to women who seek to enter a historically male-dominated genre?
MS: Honestly, there are no rules. You just have to keep pursuing it, no matter what people say. I’ve had so many men talk shit to me. Even when I first started playing drums in Sextile, this one guy told me that I wasn’t a “real” drummer because I was playing standing up. Then later, I saw videos of that same guy playing standing up in another band. And I was like, “Fuck you, bitch.” Playing standing up is a legit style — it’s not lame at all. There really are no rules about how you play anything. There are just no rules.
So my advice? Pursue things no matter what. Take all of the shit that people say and use it as fuel for your fire.
KP: What advice would you lend to women about life, work, or love?
MS: I feel like love is the hardest thing. Nobody really knows what a “good” relationship is or what “normal” even means. What I’ve realized over the years is that mutual respect is key. If you don’t have that, there might be some comfort, but the truest comfort comes from being able to fully be yourself and actually feel supported by the other person.
I think it’s about someone who shows up for you — not in a codependent way, but in a way where you support each other while still maintaining your individuality. That balance is so important.
But honestly, I still don’t really know what “normal” looks like — like being annoyed with someone and then working through it. It’s tough to know what a normal relationship really is.
What I’ve noticed that actually works is full acceptance and understanding.
KP: What do you feel makes a provocative woman?
MS: Confidence is the sexiest thing. I’ve seen women walking down the street who are definitely much older, but the way that they carry themselves, they’re the hottest women that you’ve ever seen. It’s crazy how much confidence can do.
Like Amyl and The Sniffers — when I see Amy, I think, “This woman is superhuman.” She’s up there like Wonder Woman, ready to fight motherfuckers, totally confident. And she’s just so cute. I just saw them play in Belgium again, and I was like, Damn, Amy’s hot as fuck. It’s because she’s so free.
So go out and be confident.
