Babes in Boyland : Do you have specialties, how do you share the different tasks? How do you build up these complex structures, crossing genre boundaries between drum'n'bass, punk, digital Hardcore...? Is it talked about before or do you create by jamming all together?
Phallus Über Alles: First off, Sindy is great at getting us gigs and promoting the band… she really is the Queen of Networking. Remy is the production wizard and labors over the minute aural details in the studio, while Diesel usually gets the broad strokes of the song down and then hands it over when she wants outside input or when the computer starts crashing. Usually one of us will get an idea for the way that a song should sound or we hear something elsewhere that really inspires us (a sound, a rhythm, a style of music) so we start working it out on the computer. We keep a running list of song subjects, things that really infuriate or tickle us, and we’ll decide one which one should be the theme of the lyrics. So, we listen to the song and eventually Diesel works out a delivery and lyrics, often times in a matter of minutes. The live instruments are often developed after the song is written, but sometimes we’ll record those instruments directly into the computer if we hear a line that would suit the song. As for the cross-genre sound, it is in some ways deliberate as we are aware that we have a distinctive sound and try to keep that in mind while writing. In other ways, it is spontaneous and seems to be the result of our love of many kinds of music.

Babes in Boyland : Are you still in touch with the ones that have left the band? What do they do? Is the band in perpetual mutation? 
Phallus Über Alles: We do keep in touch with them. All three of the former members are in school at the moment. If at any time any of them wanted to return to the band, we would be more than happy to have them because they all lent so many wonderful talents to PÜA. The band is in many ways in perpetual motion. Diesel and Remy will always remain the core members, but our live line-up seems to change quite a bit as we continue in our nomadic course around the world. That’s often good for us, as it keeps our perspective fresh.

Babes in Boyland : Do you feel the recorded part can be limiting on stage as far as improvisation is concerned, or do you feel like it's a rich layer from which you can create a more complex chaotic outlet in the performance? 
Phallus Über Alles: Having the beats on playback does make the set more rigid than many bands would normally find but we can consult with the laptop just as we could a live drummer to change the track order, at least. We are working on being able to manipulate the beats live (we need a more powerful laptop) so that we do have more flexibility for improvisation, of which we are very big fans. The benefit to having some of the electronic elements as a backing track is that anything we do live only serves to create a fuller, harder sound. We would love to add a live drummer who could augment the electronic beats.

Babes in Boyland : What does Phallus Über Alles mean to you? Where is the feminism in that statement? Can you explain a bit more?
Phallus Über Alles: Phallus Über Alles is a very tongue-in-cheek statement about the way that the world operates, that the penis is supreme. It was less than a century ago that women were given equal rights to men and so there are many ideas about women that still persist to this day that are summed up in the statement “Phallus Über Alles.” The penis is still over everything, the penis trumps the vagina in the social mind. There is also a certain level of militancy to the name as it is borrowed from “Deutschland Über Alles” by way of “California Über Alles.”

Babes in Boyland : The band's name is referring to the nazi nationalist Deutschland Über Alles, and the sickle to communism both being condemned as the repressive male ideologies they are/were by this woman, sitting as she would on a swing. Would you then say that "Iron Woman" refers both to the iron curtain (she could have torn down would it still be up) and to Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady... thus widening your criticism of oppressive behaviour to women as well? or should I stop using illegal substances? 
Phallus Über Alles: We do widen our criticism to women, not so as to bring our fellow women down but to acknowledge that we sometimes help perpetuate the beliefs that oppress us. For instance, whenever a woman blames a legitimate emotional response on her hormones, she is pandering to the perception that we are ruled by our womb, that we are not capable of making the same rational decisions as a non-womb-having man. We sell ourselves short by legitimizing modern day concepts of “hysteria.

>page3