Neither A Computer Nor A Wife: In Conversation with Addie Warncke of Computerwife

Photo by Shannon McMahon

When I first sat down to interview Addie Warncke, an Atlanta native and the brilliant artist and musician behind the project Computerwife, I never dreamt that our conversation would touch on subjects as profound and diverse as Buddhism, mental health, or using Tumblr usernames as lyrics. Upon my introduction to the Atlanta music scene, I was repeatedly told to “Check out Computerwife, you’ll love her!”. As soon as I hit play and heard her jangly, noisy, poppy brand of lo-fi shoegaze and the lyrics “Fuck fuck, shit shit, oh”, I knew Addie was onto something. Keep reading below to figure out what it means to be a “Computerwife” and what it was like to open for Panchiko.

First thing’s first: what’s the meaning behind the name Computerwife?

A: I was looking for band names and had some in mind…I was gonna name it after something really stupid but I won’t even mention that. I was on a FaceTime call with my long-distance boyfriend at the time and I was like “Oh, you’re so small! You’re kinda just like Plankton from Spongebob and I’m Karen, like the computer wife”, so I just decided to name the project “Computerwife”. It also reminded me of Serial Experiments Lain, which is one of my favorite shows. It kinda makes me cringe sometimes but I guess it works.

How did you first find out about the Bakery?

A: I always associated the Bakery with music but I like it because it’s always had a lot of different things happening. It was the perfect place that thought of everything. I used to work at the Fellini’s in Candler Park and I would meet a lot of people in hardcore bands through that; me and my brother were a fan of Drool, so my first time at the Bakery was for a Drool show. We started going more randomly later on; I’ve been to some harsh noise shows, fashion shows, and random installations. I saw Lauren Tosswill - whom I wrote a paper about - do a noise performance with just a microphone, a chair, a loop pedal, and her phone. It made me cry. The last thing I really remember going to before I moved to New York for school was a Shinguard, Callous Daoboys, and for your health skramz show. 

It’s so cool that you were able to see a female noise artist! As an AFAB person in the ATL music scene, I’ve found that it’s incredibly male-dominated.

A: Yeah…I don’t think about it much any more but I definitely used to think about it more. I’m usually one of two non-male-identifying people in the room. But there are a lot of good female and nonbinary noise artists! Just maybe not in Atlanta, I don’t really know what’s going on down there at this point. 

Right, you mentioned that you went to New York for school? Where’d you go?

A: I did the music program at NYU and stuck it out for all four years, and I’m now graduated, thank freaking God. Are you still in school?

Yeah, I go to Georgia Tech!

A: I know how that shit be, my long distance boyfriend from high school went to Tech too. His friend group was really good and they did a lot of stuff with music! That’s when Under The Couch was a thing. I liked it, we did all sorts of shit there. It was a good little scene at Georgia Tech, but it was small! Honestly, there was a lot of fratty shit happening, surprisingly. 

*The conversation then got a little derailed because we chatted about bandmates and mutual friends…back to the interview!*

What’s your favorite lyric you’ve ever written? And what does it mean?

A: I honestly don’t even know if I like any of my lyrics but the first one that pops in my mind is “I don’t mind that I don’t matter/ Nothing matters in my mind/ I just want to do what I want”. That’s the one that sticks out in my head the most; it’s not very metaphorical. My philosophy is just to try and avoid wanting things in general and avoid thinking about myself as more important than I probably am. Just trying not to think about myself at all and not expressing my desire. I mostly just live on a daily basis of what I want to do.

Have you looked into Zen Buddhism? As a practitioner myself, it sounds a lot like what you just described!

A: I practice witchcraft and I know that they draw from pretty much every religion in that, so I’m sure I’ve unintentionally practiced Buddhism. I’ve also learned about it in school and I know that that is the philosophy but I don’t think I’d ever identify with that religion personally. But if there were one religion that matched how I try to live my life, that would be it.

Since you try to live in the moment and creativity is often very forward-thinking, what does your writing process look like?

A: I’m screwed up right now because I don’t even know if people want things from me or what. People are definitely watching me and they ask me all the time if I’m going to release stuff and I know some people on my team were disappointed when I said I wanted to spend more time working on my album. I just want it to feel cool. I tried writing an album for a whole year and basically nothing came out of it, so I’ve gone back to my usual process. I just spend an hour (maybe more if I feel into it) making music as my diary, so making a little production about how I feel. As soon as the inspiration stops coming to me, I just go like “Ok nevermind” and post it on SoundCloud, and then I can come back to that in two years or I can merge them together. I have this album done now with a bunch of songs but I want it to be witchy and cool and interesting, and I want it to flow, so I think I’m going to try and make more sound collages going into and out of every song. But who knows, I say that now but it could end up just being pop music or something. I just know I need to be done soon. 

Going along with our discussion of lyrics and writing, one of the lyrics on “Ignore Facts” is “I’m a girl so I’m upset”. I absolutely love this line and how it encompasses a lot of womanhood in a really simplistic way! It reminds me a lot of stuff by Rayne Fisher-Quann, Darcie Wilder, and Honor Levy. Can you elaborate a little more on what you meant by this line?

A: This song means something to me, but I did write it entirely out of tumblr usernames. I went through everyone I followed and took the usernames I liked and strung them together and connected them in ways that made sense to me. The song is a story; it’s about a really bad mental breakdown I had in 2019 that was honestly drug-based. I didn’t even have time to get addicted to what I was doing, it just fucked me up instantly - like within a week. I ended up coming back to Atlanta for a while to connect back with my roots and the easy shit - the way I was used to living. In New York, work is really hard and I didn’t have friends, so I was just being crazy. I made so much money because I worked so hard, but I had no one, so I was just crazy. I came back and started working at Fellini’s again and got myself back on my feet. The second verse takes place after I’m back and is about my boyfriend Dalton. I was just like “What the fuck, why would you even want to keep up with me? I’m gone.” I thought that everyone hated me and no one would know that I was gone. “I’m a girl so I’m upset” is about how being a girl can be an excuse for feeling feelings, but sometimes I change it to “I’m a girl so I’m obsessed”. “Minor wounds are useful again” is saying that people are actually noticing that I’m self-sabotaging or self-harming. That whole verse is basically about people noticing that I’m gone and me being like “You’re better off without me”.

Photo by Ali Salifov

Is a lot of your music autobiographical?

A: The previous EP captured the beginning and end of that experience; the songs are semi-random and very far apart. The music I’m releasing now still has songs that were made in between all of those, but that was definitely a whole story. Every song on the new album is, too. Some of them tend to be based on an idea I had or a decision I made about where my morals and values are or a conversation I had, but yeah every song is autobiographical. I think that everyone’s music is probably a little bit. Alex G writes his songs about other people, mostly, but inside they’re probably about him too. 

Of the songs you’ve released on the EP, which one encapsulates who you are the most?

A: Probably “Ignore Facts”, it’s kind of my shadow self. But also I was really sad when I wrote “Melancholia”, that one’s pretty vulnerable. I wrote and produced it and finished it all within 30 minutes so I was definitely just feeling it. If you look at it it’s literally two chords, very simple drums, and a synth, and I just sang over it. I was in my dorm and I had to go somewhere so I just finished it.

Photo by Francesca Touma

Did you start doing music in college?

A: I started making music as early as I can remember. I started off making jingles for my family; the first song that I remember writing was called “Larry the Unicorn” because that’s what I’d named our Roomba. But yeah, I used to think I’d make jingles for a living, but then I got into The Beatles and Taylor Swift. I started taking piano lessons and writing songs on the guitar, and then I started getting into “smoking my first cigarette” alternative music and being in bands. I produced my first song when I was 17 or 18 but I only started doing it seriously when I came to school because I met people who did it. I had seen a Song Exploder episode with Grimes where she talked about her process and I was like “I can definitely do this”. And it’s true, anyone can!

So has music always been the dream for you?
A: Yeah, I remember every fucking time I saw a shooting star or blew out a dandelion, I would wish that this would be my career. And now it is and it’s really hard! But it’s really interesting and I really like it, too. And I feel like I’m doing it.

What’s the hardest part?

A: It’s not as natural as it should be anymore. Sometimes the way the industry is set up directly challenges my values. I value spontaneity, not caring what people think, and not planning, just doing. The more successful you become, it seems like you’re able to do that less. I also don’t really value monetary gain, but then there’s people who rely on you to make money. You have to make physical products in order to make money, and I know that people probably want merch, but it just feels weird that I’m just printing something on a t-shirt and selling it for over 10 times the price I got it for. But it’s also the only way you can fund things. There’s also a lot of clout stuff that I don’t really worry about but that the people around me seem to worry about, and it’s kind of a lot for me. I just really believe in living your life simply and in the moment, being generous, not thinking about yourself too much, and not having too much desire. I feel like I think about myself and my goals all the time now. It’s exhausting because I don’t know what people want, and maybe they don’t even care. Different people expect different things, so I feel like there’s a pull in different directions sometimes. On top of that, I’m a waitress 40 hours a week. I just wanna go for walks and be outside, but I can’t necessarily do that.

Your most recent tour [as of this interview] was with Panchiko: how did that relationship start?

A: I have a really good booking agent, his name’s Yi Wei. I think he was like “I wanna send you guys [Panchiko] on a tour, you have no idea how famous you are and I think that a lot of people will want to come see you.” They said yes and basically resparked the band and their music careers. They just let Yi Wei do his backend stuff and connect them with the right bands and they said yes to whoever. They didn’t know who julie was, they didn’t know who TAGABOW [They Are Gutting a Body of Water] were, they didn’t really know who I was. I think they listened to my music a little bit but I don’t think they were super familiar with what I did. That’s how those big tours go: I heard from the lead singer that they just do a lot of Spotify backend stuff and connect the numbers in a way that makes sense. And then Panchiko took a listen to the record and said “Yeah” if they liked it. It was such a fast-moving tour that I don’t think any of us got a chance to solidly sit down and get to know each other. 

Best tour food?

A: I got to eat La Fonda during our Atlanta show, so I was really grateful for that. I try to eat really healthy on tour so a good salad, those little snack packs with fruit and nuts, and White Claws - they help me feel less nervous.

Can you explain what the album art is on your debut EP?

A: I don’t think that anyone really knows what it is. There’s a lot of pictures in it; I found this image on Tumblr of a fairy holding a little flower. It was really weird and scraggly and just a fucking, like, little monster. I made a collage of all of these different pictures I liked and it was huge but I just took the tiniest picture of it. The bottom corner is a pair of bunny ears and the main picture is a fairy; you can tell she has antennae and really scraggly hair and wings. I made it black and white, pixelated it, printed it out, put it in the collage, took a picture of it, changed it again, put the Computerwife sticker on it, and then printed it out. So that was it. My boyfriend is the only person who actually sees it as a fairy.

Who are your biggest inspirations for the Computerwife project?

A: I’ve always been inspired by music that came out twenty years ago; there’s this Jucifer album that came out in 2002 called “I Name You Destroyer” that I really like. I really like cloud rap, like AERO GROS M and Delroy Edwards. In a business sense, I’m really inspired by Pretty Sick because she’s about my age and it’s pretty easy to learn from her. She’s really smart about planning and tracklisting; if I’m ever confused about what I should do, I’m always like “What would Pretty Sick do?”. In terms of this album specifically, for “Ignore Facts” I was inspired by Negative Gemini, for “Melancholia” it was My Bloody Valentine, and “Death” I was inspired by Part Time. “Leave Me Be” is a mix of “Breed” by Nirvana and “Coffee and TV” by Blur. If you listen to it, it’s an exact combination of the chords of “Breed” and the rhythm of “Coffee and TV”. “Cut It Out” was inspired by my boyfriend Dalton; it has the same drum beat as one of the songs on his EP.

Photo by Dalton Salisbury

Last question and it’s a big one: What’s the best thing about being you?

A: That’s such a nice question, holy shit! I have ups and downs with my mental health and I’m really grateful to be alive, so I think the best thing about being me is that I’m alive. I’m glad I have eyes and a body that can move. I really like what I like, and I don’t feel that self-conscious about what I like. When I ran away back to Atlanta, I lost everything I owned because I ran away from my apartment and didn’t bring anything with me. So I’ve had phases of my life where I didn’t have any belongings and I just had to be with myself. Now that I’ve built up everything in the past three years and I have books and clothes and music, I’m just really fucking glad that I can listen to music and see. I like my style and I like going for walks outside; I’m just glad that I’m a human, I guess!

A great big thank you to Addie for the lovely conversation and for answering all of my questions. If you haven’t heard any of her music, please do check her out!!

Thanks for reading!