The Chemical Spray, when it was just Jordyn and I, was designed to keep people away from us, the music acting as a sonic ward against sycophants, stooges in tapered black denim jeans, and all varieties of slouching hipster trash that would stand around with their arms crossed at a ritual disembowelling in a fucking Pavement shirt if they thought it might increase their non-existent street cred. The music was intended to blind people through their ears, to cause the paint on the wall to blister and peel, and to exorcise our feelings of rage and frustration with the world. But it was also a signal to others, those tawdry few hopeful supplicants who understood the transmissions of chaos and pain that we produced to be pleas for some new world where we could be free. We were pretty uncompromising in those days. Then Alice arrived like a premonition of dread. Her drum thunder turned us from distorted swirl of noise to full galloping menace. Parker joined The Chemical Spray about six months later and twisted the whole scene into a new shape. Suddenly we had a voice that could purr and shout. It was a voice that said, “I love you but would you please fuck off.” | image @nineinchnails