My Favorite x Holy Wire — Remix + Interview

Late last year, My Favorite released the Tender is the Nightshift EP, which featured the standout tune, “Blues for Planet X.” Little did we know that the artist behind the music had other ideas in plan, including a remix by Austin musician Holy Wire, as well as a getting to know you piece from both the artists. They reached out to ask us if we’d be inclined to share, and of course we jumped at the chance! So, if you’re looking for your everyday Bandcamp stream, you can jump right HERE. We’ve also got the great video for the tune streaming below too!

After the jump, you can check out the interview piece run by Michael Grace Jr and Alain Paradis! It’s filled with humor and insight into both artists and their work.

So before we delve into a series of quasi-ridiculous questions taken directly from

Smash Hits magazine circa 1983-1988, lets start with a couple more timely ones.

How is it that you came to work with one another?

Michael: I saw Alain perform a handful of times between like 2016-2018, just as I was beginning to restart My Favorite basically ten years after we had first called it quits. And I remember him playing synths, and guitar, and that voice. He just seemed like someone searching for something only they could hear. Sometimes artists do just the minimum required to get on a stage, so they can skulk about in bondage gear, which I mean thats totally cool but he was definitely doing more. So we met and became music friends. Then in 2020 he released a single with the singer/songwriter Devery Doleman as System Of Touch, and I thought that track, Gemini, was the best song of a very grim year.

So to make a long story short (which I am terrible at) I wanted Alain to do this remix because he really understands electronic music and new wave (however you want to classify this thing were both doing.) He tunes into the finer wavelengths, gets beyond the surface of stuff. Just an exciting artist, and a good guy.

Alain: I think initially we were supposed to play a gig together at Cake Shop but My Favorite had to back out because of an illness or something. I remember being on the mic talking about how they werent performing that night and a woman was in the audience screaming no! like a relative had died.

I think in general theres been a mutual respect. I think in this genre its special when someone puts the time and care into lyrics and prose that Michael does.

Why do you guys think people are still so interested in making and listening to this thing as you put it, Michael, which at this point began over 40 years ago?

Michael: Im not really sure. I think the music and aesthetics of the 80s were ultimately about transformation. This notion of a future where wed become something new. Machines? Mermaids? Mutants? Maybe we would evolve into something better, but more likely it would be something horrifying. But I think embracing that horror is ultimately more comforting than pretending we are living in some city on a hill, during some golden age. Being scary monsters and super freaks is just more honest. A chance to be who we really are. So I think maybe nostalgia for this music is mostly a longing for that feeling.

Alain: I think partly its obsessing over a particular point on the timeline that puts in context everything that exists musically now.

OK its time for actual questions from Smash Hits Magazine. If they were good enough for Duran Duran, they are good enough for you.

Who would play you in a movie of your life?

Michael: Im thinking Al Pacino in his tweaked out Cruising phase.

Alain: Would love to see what Nicolas Cage would do with it.

Have you ever committed a crime?

Michael: I committed many as a youth, though Im not proud of it. We were wandering around the suburbs in the 80s like feral dogs, breaking everything in sight, and violence was a kind of social ritual. Have you ever seen the film Over The Edge? Eventually things got so scary that I just stayed in my room for years listening to sad music which I guess is how we got here.

Alain: What isnt a crime these days?

Whats your favourite shop?

Michael: Ive loved the minimalist French clothing shop A.P.C. for nearly 3 decades, but lately Ive been more into the neo-prep line Rowing Blazers, who have a fun store on the Lower East Side. I also love to shop for old vinyl in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at places like Academy Records, the Captured Tracks shop and Record Grouch.

Alain: Im in my womens-XL-shirts-from-Goodwill era.

What’s your favourite Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark record?

Michael: Architecture and Morality.

Alain: I could be a contrarian and say Dazzle Ships, but its probably just the self-titled.

Were you good at art at school?

Michael: Considering Im now a part-time art professor not really? I was constantly drawing as a kid, but I tended to get lost in my own little world of doodles, and I wasnt exceptionally skilled in a classical sense. I was rejected from the gifted program and the advanced art classes. To be honest I had little interest in ribbons or gold stars. I was kind of half-there, really.

Alain: I wasnt good at any kind of school.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Michael: Im more worried about if they believe in me.

Alain: No. But when Im alone in a dark room, maybe.

Favorite singer?

Michael: As a stylist probably Bryan Ferry. But as a voice always Elizabeth Fraser.

What’s your greatest fear?

Michael: That love is not enough.

Alain: Drivers in Texas.

Do you have any recurring dreams?

Alain: Getting famous.

Who would you like to meet, dead or alive?

Michael: I used to hang around this SoHo bookstore hoping to run into David Bowie, because Id heard he used to go there. Im guessing it was just not meant to be.

If you were an animal, what kind would you be?

Michael: Probably a leopard. They have these particular ones in Sicily they call gattopardi, that stalk the mountains at twilight. Lonely and elegant and powerful. Something thats scary but doesnt mean to be.

Alain: A cat, but a cat that thinks its a dog.

What’s the most obnoxious thing you’ve ever done in a nightclub?

Michael: Probably perform. But according to Alains Cake Shop story it was not performing.

Who was your first crush?

Michael: I think it was Sheila E.

Alain: A French girl named Julie.

Where’s your favourite place in the world?

Michael: I went to this beautiful, ancient city atop a mountain once called Taormina. Most people I knew had never heard of it. Then White Lotus season 2 happened.

Alain: If I travel somewhere cool for like ten days Ill probably fall in love with the place.

Do you know anyone called Bob?

Michael: I do not, but I have seen him on a police sketch

When did you leave home?

Michael: I left at 18, but it didnt take. Tried again at 20 and moved into this dire basement apartment, in this little slum of student houses near Stony Brook. Somehow moving 30 minutes from home felt like such a big deal. But thats Long Island.

Alain: I think I was 25.

Can you think of a rhyme about Bananarama?

Michael: I drank a pia colada at the Copacabana.

Alain: Banana camera.

What do you wear in bed?

Michael: Old band t-shirts and black boxer briefs.

Alain: Uh.

Can you think of a poem about Arcadia?

Michael: I can not.

Alain: Yes.

What’s your favourite drink?

Michael: Alcoholic? Im usually happy with a cold Singha or Chang beer. But a properly made, extra hot Americano Misto is probably the beverage that brings me the most pleasure.

Alain: Im sober and really just want them to have an NA version of a crappy light beer.

Who’s the best-looking member of Spandau Ballet?

Michael: The singer, the dude with the shoulder pads who looks like he traded junk bonds on the side.

Alain: My vote goes to Spandau.

What’s your favourite song?

Michael: Wow. Thats hard to answer. Probably Five Years by David Bowie, or Clean Heart by Sade.

Alain: Dont have a favorite one as a listener, but as a songwriter Im obsessed with the melody of Born on a Train by Magnetic Fields.

What’s the greatest present you’ve ever been given?

Michael: When I was a little kid, it was a Commodore 64 computer. I spent a year and a half trying to code a Dungeons & Dragons type text-only game to no avail. Recently, it was a mint condition copy of Madonnas Sex book, still in the mylar.

What colour is happiness?

Michael: Sky blue?

Alain: Hunters orange.

Are you a sex symbol?

Michael: To some.

Alain: Is there such a thing as a celibacy symbol?

If you were a domestic appliance, what would it be?

Michael: A Xerox machine? Does that count?

Alain: A feather duster.

Did you have any strange habits as a child?

Michael: Did I have any that werent?

Tell us a secret about Psychedelic Furs.

Michael: Apparently that they are great.

Alain: Theyre actually classified as Psychotropic by the FDA but that didnt have the same ring to it.

Where were you born?

Michael: A hospital in Jamaica, Queens, NYC.

Alain: San Francisco.

What’s your favorite film?

Michael: Its not the best film, but favorite? Donnie Darko.

Alain: Favorite Ive seen recently is In the Mood for Love.

What makes you angry?

Michael: All the ways in which being a human being is very hard in this country. Racism and oppression. Our joke of a health care system. The collective delusion that we arent basically serfs in some techno-feudalist Dark Age of disgusting avarice. People talking about Jesus Christ and then acting in direct opposition to everything he believed in.

Alain: People that drive trucks.

Have you ever dressed as the opposite sex?

Michael: Yeah, a couple of times. I wish I was as suited for it on the outside as I sometimes feel on the inside. The stubble doesnt help.

Alain: Yes. A pretty lady, I do not make.

Have you ever fallen off a skateboard?

Michael: More times than Id care to remember.

Alain: I think Ive broken somewhere like six bones skateboarding. Gave it up when I went to college.

Are you ticklish?

Michael: Not exceptionally. Ive met more ticklish people.

Alain: Yes, but I just pretend Im not so I wont get tickled.

Do you frighten the neighbours when you practice your singing?

Alain: I can only hope.

What’s your favourite Indian meal?

Michael: I really love chaat with cold potato & chickpeas, crunchy stuff, yogurt, and chutney. Tandoori chicken and mutter paneer.

If you had to be on a TV show, what would you be on?

Michael: Ive always wanted to play a pretentious, petty mafioso on an episode of Law & Order.

Alain: Home Movies. Also bring back Home Movies.

Do you think the world will end this century?

Michael: It certainly will for me.

Alain: Who wants to know?