News Drop Out Venus: ‘Why Can’t We Have Existed In The ‘90s?’

“I hear the same sentence spoken to me over and over and over again,” Iva Moskovich is speaking to DIY from a location she proudly describes as her ‘Deptford Penthouse’. “It goes ‘oh, you’re so great, you’re so great but you’re too weird for money,” she continues. “They always say: ‘If it was the ‘90s it would have been way easier’.”

Drop Out Venus are one of only a handful of new bands who’d fit into any decade with ease. Similar to an outfit like Savages or PINS, the emphasis is placed on a live experience and online hype-garnering is shunned for a more back-to-basics, word of mouth existence. But Iva and her band are frustrated. They feel cheated by the noughties. “Part of me thinks ‘fuck, why can’t we have existed in the ‘90s?’ Because if that’s all it takes for us to make a little bit of cash to continue doing this to support ourselves then yeah, build me a time machine.”

Iva is restless with new ideas. Her band are perhaps in the midst of their ‘struggling musicians’ phase, desperate to depart. “Nobody’s investing in the music scene over here… I’d like to work within the system and change it but I don’t know if I’ll ever be given the opportunity. I’ve recently been considering writing pop songs for pop stars, just to make some cash.” All of this seems like an incongruous situation facing a band on the receiving end of such an echoing chorus of praise.

Where’s the money? That’s the question our conversation runs full circle to on several occasions. “We’re not even that weird,” claims Iva. That’s true, they’re not. Their music is provocative - especially lyrically, where a spitting curse can stop you in your tracks, and their live performances, “often improvised”, are exhausting, in a good way. But there’s nothing intentionally obstructive about their music: it’s deliciously, darkly welcoming.

From a personal perspective, I was visibly shaken after seeing the band at this year’s Great Escape Festival. Iva claims that to have been “a terrible show.” “We had a very bizarre soundcheck and I felt like I couldn’t really play anything. I’m surprised that anybody liked it.” Back then it was like spying on a group of people sharing their darkest secrets. Iva looked vulnerable on the stage. Sometimes she’d kneel down and seemingly stare blankly at the wires taped to the floor, then all of a sudden she’d look up and “scream for cash,” as she so damningly describes.

“I think the one thing that makes us unique is the fact that we love each other more than anything else in the world. When we play it’s because we really need to.” Nine months into a career they’re experiencing the setbacks of being in an emerging band. It’ll be truly fascinating to see where they go next, whether it’s expanding their cult following or finding the cashflow they so require from a bigwig keen to invest in a band entirely exclusive to today’s musical landscape.

Drop Out Venus’s new single ‘Elastic Teen Rent’ is out now via Dirty Bingo Records.

Taken from the November 2012 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.