Rita Lukea on Power, Pixel Grip’s Latest Album, and Existence as Protest
Born to disrupt and dressed to destroy, Pixel Grip’s tour de force Rita Lukea was never just here to perform — she came to warp sound, bend gender, and rewire the blueprint of desire.
With a sound that blends industrial grit, synth-pop sheen, and punk ferocity, Pixel Grip has forged a space where identity is fluid, resistance is loud, and every beat pulses with unapologetic defiance.
Their 2019 debut album, Heavy Handed, received riotous praise for its ability to bridge the gap between rock clubs and dance floors, with tracks like "Diamonds" showcasing their ability to craft songs that were as haunting as they were rhythmic. Their sophomore album, ARENA, delved even deeper into themes of empowerment and agency, with tracks like "ALPHAPUSSY" challenging societal norms and embracing a radically defiant, emblematic femme aggression.
Now back with their latest record, Percepticide: The Death of Reality, Pixel Grip remains steadfast in their mission to create music that celebrates queer identity and provides a sanctuary for those seeking connection and empowerment through the transformative power of music.
As their electrifying iconoclast, Rita Lukea stands at the crossroads of ecstasy and apocalypse — igniting movements, dismantling boundaries, and dancing unapologetically in the face of a world that’s violently desperate to silence her.
KP: You’ve said, “When someone really weird makes really good art, all of a sudden it’s cool to be like them… Be a fucking weirdo. Keep subverting until there’s nothing left to subvert.”
I wanted to start here because I feel like this embodies so much of your identity. You often label yourself as an outsider, which I definitely connect with.
What does that mean to you, and what was your outsider journey like?
RL: I think that I've always felt like an outsider. It started in school just being different, feeling bullied, having an immigrant father — being the daughter of an immigrant. All of that just kind of implanted this feeling in me that I was an outsider.
I think what it means to me is that I want to create a space for other people. If I feel like I don't belong anywhere, then I need to create my own space, and I can do that through music. When everyone is watching a show at a music venue, you're all there because you love the same music. I love that — the music venue is my church. It's a place where a bunch of people who feel the same way can all get together.
Music definitely soothes the feeling that I have of being an outsider.
KP: That’s definitely true. And for women who struggle to embrace their differences, what advice would you lend them?
RL: The thing that makes you different is your superpower. If you can harness it and tap into it, then you can become a powerful person. Instead of letting the things that make you feel alienated get you down, you can harness them and become empowered through them. Even with this album, I turned the things that really hurt me into music — something that ultimately was cathartic and empowering. I feel like we all can do that with the things that hurt us or make us feel like an outcast.
KP: Going off of that, this record, you’ve said, is a “cognitive distortion and symptom of trauma… My dream is that the expression of my rage can help someone feel empowered and, at the very least, less alone. You’re never stuck, and you’re never alone.”
Can you take us back to the beginning of the writing of this record? What did your life look like at the time, and what led to the album’s development?
RL: ARENA had just come out, and then a really traumatic event happened in my life. I completely changed — my personality changed. I lost 20 pounds, I shaved my eyebrows off… I was a total shell of myself. I did not feel like myself at all. And the trauma that happened was not something that I could get justice for. The only form of justice that I could get from it was by internally soothing myself through the catharsis of music. Like, you can't go to jail for what you did; no one's ever going to get you. I'm never going to get this feeling of accountability, but I can write a song. And so the beginning of the songwriting process was just me feeling so broken. I was not tethered to reality — my cognitive systems of reality were just completely broken. I went to music because it was my tether. It was my only form of justice — this form of catharsis.
There's something really satisfying about writing a diss track about somebody, and it rhymes, and it's a fucking great song. You can say whatever you want about me, you can do whatever you want to me, but you can't take this song away. This will be here forever. I wrote a lot of songs like that. I wrote hundreds of songs, and I made a lot of demos. It was just my way of helping me get through this traumatic event.
And then more traumatic events happened, like the band broke up. Things just kept on happening — it was just a really shitty period of my life. But I just kept on writing songs. We picked 12 and recorded them.
KP: Well, you have an incredible record to show for it, so I'm glad you were able to find this genius silver lining.
I thought “Crows Feast” was a brilliant way to open the album; I really fell in love with it. It deals with intense feelings of betrayal, but it feels so atmospheric — almost meditative, in a sense.
I imagine everything that you just spoke about led to its writing, but how did you decide on its production?
RL: I composed the song, and I wanted it to feel like I was really betrayed. I needed to get that off of my chest. I performed it for Tyler on the PA one day. I was just like, “Hey, I wrote the song. Can I show it to you?” He plugged me into the mixer, took all of the mixes from it, and he worked on it. He added all of those atmospheric elements — Tyler helped me produce it. I feel like it really gave all of the emotional quality to it. He was really able to harness it and understand it — to see what I was going for — and added these really beautiful synth pads that were just devastating. I never would have thought of that — that was all Tyler. And Jon, too.
“The thing that makes you different is your superpower. If you can harness it and tap into it, then you can become a powerful person.”
KP: I really loved the writing of “Moment With God” and “Jealousy Is Lethal.” Can you tell us a little about them?
RL: “Jealousy Is Lethal” — I love that song. Honestly, I love how every line builds up and then it has this punchline at the end. It's all sets up for this devastating blow of “Jealousy is lethal / Hope it kills you soon.” Every stanza sets it up; I've never written a song like that. I was really stoked when it came out. I was looking at what I had written… I've always wanted to write a song like that, but I've just never been able to.
Every verse kind of talks about a different person or a different institution that can fuck you over and betray you. It can be all of the people around you — it can be social. If you're trying to keep me down, clearly you feel that there's something to keep down. If you're trying to silence me, why? The concept is turning that on its head, like, why are you even trying to do this right now? I think it’s a beautiful way to take your power back.
And then “Moment With God” — I feel like if the album is going through different stages of grief, “Jealousy Is Lethal” is very accepting, like I'm ready to move on, but “Moment With God” is when you're still like, just give me one fucking moment, please. You don't always feel like that, but sometimes you just feel fucking hopeless, just begging for one moment of respite.
KP: I think that’s something that we unfortunately can all relate to. I know that I can.
Your work often blurs the line between eroticism and power — how do you navigate that tension so seamlessly? Or would you say that they’re often one and the same?
RL: I feel like it's just a part of the human experience. It doesn't need to be your entire experience. Some artists are super erotic, and their whole project is super illicit, and that's totally cool. I love it. I felt like with Percepticide, though, I had a whole range of things that I needed to say.
And I often tell people to imagine you were thrown in jail on false charges — imagine all of the stages of grief that you would have been in. Some days you're just gonna want to be in the yard pumping iron, thinking about what you're going to do when you get out, and some days you're going to be sad. Some days you're going to be horny. It's just one thing that you can feel, and it's definitely not everything, but we are humans — we are animals. We are animalistic. Sexuality, I think, is a huge part of who we are, but it's definitely not everything.
So yeah, throw one horny banger on there. [Laughs]. I don't know.
KP: No, it worked! I love it.
As a gay woman myself, we’re always dialoguing about the differences between being a queer artist versus being an artist that is queer here at Noir. Does Pixel Grip ever feel a responsibility to either represent or challenge queer narratives in any way? Do you find more radicality in being a queer artist or an artist who just happens to be queer?
RL: That’s a really good question.
KP: I think about it all the time.
RL: I think that existence can be radical. Just taking up space and being present can be a form of protest — being subversive and queering narratives is our way of creating that space. We don't need to say it so explicitly, because there's just this implicit form of subversion happening in the project and also in the audience. When you're at a Pixel Grip show, you just look around you and you can see it. You realize that you're not in a regular space; this is a totally different thing. Something that I'm really fucking proud of is that Pixel Grip shows have made a name for themselves for being that. People are like, “Dude, it's Pixel Grip — you have to dress up. You have to!”
KP: There's definitely a community around it.
RL: Exactly! There's a community around it. I am so proud of our audience, what we do, and the community that we bring together. I think just existing and dancing and expressing joy when people don't want us to — that’s protest. It’s about existence through protest, or protest through existence.
KP: What’s something about you that may surprise people?
RL: I think I have a very private life. I have a very internal world that’s very, very different than the external world that I project. I think that people view me as really aggressive or sexual, so I think they'd be surprised to realize that I'm very wholesome and sweet. I like to cook... I think people would be surprised by a lot about me, honestly.
KP: Me too! I'm a housewife. Not that anyone would ever, ever think that. [Laughs]. I'm so domestic. I like to cut my flowers and bake. No one would ever think that my apartment is actually my apartment — it’s a princess palace. Totally different from my closet.
RL: Yeah, I love all of that stuff. I mean, goths like cooking and gardening, too! [Laughs].
KP: Exactly! [Laughs].
You’ve said that your head is “an arena. Swinging from mania to depression, struggling with my body image and eating disorders, addiction, anxiety, and gender confusion. When you are different, you don’t have a seat at anyone’s table… Fuck your table.”
As a culture — particularly a queer culture — we’ve gotten so into micro-labeling that it feels incredibly reductive, at times quite misogynist, and, ironically enough, heteronormative.
As someone who struggled with gender as a child tremendously, at some point I realized how ridiculous it was to angst over a fucking social construct, and I just decided to identify as my sex to keep it simple and fuck gender altogether. So I love the idea of saying “fuck your table.”
Do you find freedom or imprisonment within labels? How do we ultimately say “fuck the system” altogether?
RL: I think that labels help some people, right? They go through life not understanding themselves, not feeling understood, and feeling unwell, but then they discover something — a label or a word that helps them understand what they're experiencing and assists them to move through it.
But I do think that there are some oppressive archetypes with labels that can definitely feel like a prison. I, myself, have noticed that femmes are treated like a porn category or some fucking sex object. And that's not empowering, right? That really doesn't help. It doesn't help anyone.
But I think you have to do whatever you need to do to move through authenticity. Being yourself is literally what saves people's lives, so whatever helps you to feel well and find your tribe is important. If that is using a word, then we need to access it in order to experience authenticity and joy.
But that definitely looks different for everybody. So yeah, as long as you can access that, I think there's no wrong way to do it.
KP: I'm asking you tough ones today! I'm sorry. [Laughs]. Alright, the last ones are easy.
Pixel Grip has resonated with the most incredible artists in music, from Peaches to Nick and Brian from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Peaches being one of my favorite artists and The YYY being my favorite band of all time. It’s no surprise that I love you! [Laughs].
What does that mean to you, and what legacy do you hope to leave behind?
RL: I mean, it's the fucking world.
KP: Yeah, it’s sick!
RL: When Peaches put us on a playlist, I literally felt like I was getting shot up with heroin. It was the best feeling in the world to have somebody that you looked up to… I mean, who was playing on my iPod, like, walking the hallways of fucking middle school and high school, and now I'm brushing shoulders with these people in green rooms. And they all affirm me; they're so sweet. They really embrace me and embrace Pixel Grip. It's surreal.
But in terms of a legacy, I just want to write one hit. I feel like music is kind of like architecture — it's a structure that you can build and leave behind. I guess there's some sort of subconscious fear of death, where you want to leave something behind that will still be erect when you're gone. I feel like a song can be that. So the legacy that I want to leave behind, obviously, is just great tunes.
But besides really good music, I think that people will realize that our legacy is the expression of sacred rage — sacred femme rage. I think that will probably be a big part of the legacy. I don't think that you see that a lot. It's really cathartic for me, but I can tell it's cathartic for the audience, too. I think that will be a big part of it.
KP: There’s nothing that I love more.
What advice would you lend to women who want to get involved in music? What advice would you lend them about life in general?
RL: It took me a really long time to find my voice in a studio setting or in a venue setting, talking to sound engineers — men, obviously. Music is a male-dominated space. I often felt talked over or silenced, not being listened to for so long. It took me a long time to figure out how to be a bitch. Being like, “Oh, no. I said this,” like, “No, I want this, and you're not going to talk me out of it. You're not going to explain to me that I actually don't want the thing that I asked for.” Figure out how to be a fucking bitch.
And then I would give them the same advice that I would give everyone else, which is to work every day. Be delusional. Touch your gear every day. Write something every day. And work really hard. And I already said it, but be delusional.
KP: Yeah, no, but that's the most important, so say it again.
RL: Be delusional. Be delusional and be a bitch.
KP: There we go! [Laughs].
And for our final question, what do you feel makes a provocative woman?
RL: People say that they like confidence, but I've noticed that they actually don't like when you're confident. When you know that you're good — they don't like that. When you say the fucking truth, when you emasculate people because you're so smart, because you’re so talented, it provokes them. You will provoke somebody by just being that good and that confident. Sometimes women don't even have to do anything to provoke anyone — just standing there can be provocative.
I think my favorite kind of provocative woman is the self-confident, unlimited self-belief women — the Peacheses of the world, the Marie Davidsons, the Miss Kittins — the badass fucking women who are in male-dominated spaces, who say things, who are unafraid, who take up space, who take it from the people who want to keep it from them, and do it unapologetically. That’s the kind of provocative woman that I want to be.
KP: I think those are the best kind. Thank you so much for doing this — I love your work, and it was truly a thrill to have you.
RL: I’ve got a lot to think about now.
Photography: Yulia Shur
