What's the origin story?

I was in another band called Black Flamingo that was breaking up. I was breaking up with my long-term boyfriend and moving out. I was homeless. I was playing roadside songs. That was the beginning of Dræmings, because it was the first time I ever wrote and produced everything by myself. Up to that point I had always doubted that part of myself. I just did it; I made demos and got signed. That's how it started. It was a total heartbreak project that I just did because I was in so much pain and needed to write about it. It was the first time I had the confidence to just do something by myself.

There's a consistency throughout your songs, a bittersweetness with a streak of light shining through the darkness.

It's great that you see that. I have a really difficult time writing happy songs. Life is happy, but it is really bittersweet all the time. There is always something that goes wrong, and I think it's about navigating through that. Figuring out how to see the light while you're engulfed in darkness. I feel that's what our music is about. I write for myself rather than trying to go for the next viral hit song, and when I'm being authentic to myself, that's when I'm happy. I'm really lucky with the band I have now. We all have really different musical tastes, but we all align in a certain way, there are certain things we all love. Thorson, who plays keyboard and bass, is super into electronic music. Our guitar and keyboard player Christopher is a punk rock, rocker dude. He writes super-uplifting, catchy pop stuff. My drummer loves Nine Inch Nails. I love both pop music and experimental music because I grew up listening to both. I used to listen to Goth music and techno as well. I always had a little bit of both. We all bring our own little thing to the band, so that's our sound. We don't sound like The Cure, and we don't sound like Depeche Mode, but you can tell these are some of the bands we love.

The guitar solos on the new EP, is that you or Chris?

Some of them are Chris, some of them are me. Chris is an amazing guitar player. He taught me how to play. We play very similarly, but if they sound super-crazy epic, it's probably him, if it sounds sad, it's me!

Punk rock and electronica. How come the two are such a good match?

I moved from Germany to the middle of nowhere, Colorado, where either you'd listen to what was on Total Request Live, or to what you bought at Hot Topic, which was punk rock. My friend Susan Langan (our families have been friends our entire lives) introduced me to jungle when I was 15. She lived in San Francisco, and my family would go visit her and she would sneak me into raves. This is actually how I met everybody that I know now, including John Tejada who became a lifelong friend.

I hate to assume stuff, but can I assume that John was the guy who introduced you to Elektron instruments?

Yes, he was 100 percent the one who introduced me to Elektron. He started doing his live sessions using all Elektron instruments, and he's always been teaching me as much as he can about them. I'm excited and a little bit overwhelmed to learn all Elektron instruments, other than the guitar pedal, and I think the Digitakt will be next for me.

He's such a nice guy. That was one of the first Talks I did, a long time ago.

John is great. I've always loved exploring electronic instruments, but there's always been that initial fear as well. It's like; it took me years to realize I'm a guitar player, even though I was playing guitar in bands. I'm surrounded by so many geniuses that are so proficient at it. I love exploring it, though, and that's what I love about Elektron instruments, and music in general: you never stop learning.

Does the band use any Elektrons other than your Analog Drive?

Thorson uses the Octatrack. He's such an inspiration when it comes to cool gear, and he's an amazing producer. He's great at explaining how everything works in the studio in simple terms, and he's not like "I'm the producer, you're the songwriter and let's keep it like that." I really love when people are open to exploring their art with you. I'm pretty sure he has an Analog Rytm too, but the Octatrack is just so crazy. We use it live. It's just such a magic box.

How's life with the Analog Drive?

It's great. I got it early this year. Actually, I was able to borrow it for a while first but you know, letting me borrow it was the best sales trick anyone has ever done! You know, bill me, because I'm never returning it! It has the best sounding distortion and fuzz ever, and you can do so much with it, it's crazy. I feel I'm still using just the top layers of what it can do. I love the tone of it, and there are really only certain kinds of distortion I like. The Analog Drive has a really warm, heavy and visceral sounding distortion to it. You can dial in if you want it to be specific to one tone, or you can use it to create just a raw wall of sound. I love tones. With everything I have on my pedal board right now, the Analog Drive just feels like me. It feels like my personality.

Is it primarily the delicate coloring or wholesale wreckage of sound that appeals to you?

I think both. It's so easy to switch between the different settings, and you can do so many. I have four or five settings that I use heavily. Some for when I need my guitar solo to cut through five synths layered on top of each other, others for when I create texture. There's one I like that just makes my guitar sound like it's running through a refrigerator, humming! So far it's just been my guitar running through it, but for the upcoming album we're going to be running other instruments through it as well. It's such a great pedal, and everyone's really jealous that I have it!

If you could keep just one of the eight effects circuits, which one would you choose?

Big Dist or Harmonic Fuzz.

If the Drive were a fruit, an animal or a flower, what would they be?

It'd be a kumquat (Citrus japonica), just because that's my favorite fruit, a unicorn (taxonomy unknown), because I've never seen a pedal like it, and a Japanese death flower (Lycoris radiata) because it looks beautiful, but it can kill you.

You recently came back from Tokyo. What was that like?

It was so amazing! I fell in love with Tokyo. Everything about it is inspiring. From now on, I just want to have a music career in Japan. I don't care about success in the United States anymore [ laughs ]!

When will the new album be out?

We'll finish recording it in November and December. I'm really excited. The world is going through some crazy stuff right now, sometimes it feels almost like the world is coming to an end, and the album is going to reflect a lot of that. How many hurricanes and earthquakes can happen at the same time? It's almost as if all the sadness, loneliness and fear of people is reflected by the earth itself and takes the form of natural disasters. What if we're actually calling these disasters in by having so much fear and so much anxiety for the future?

Can you share a prank you remember?

Well, there's one from when I was much younger. When I was 17 I was playing in a band with a bunch of drum & bass producers who did pranks all the time. I was really emo at the time, and at one time when I was trying to unplug something under my keyboard, the keyboard fell on me. It knocked me out, but they thought I was just being emo, lying on the floor! They continued playing, and when I came to they asked me why I was on the floor the entire time. When I told them I was really passed out they were like: "oh my gosh, we thought you were just being emo!"

What keyboard was that?

A JP-8000.

I guess you'll never go near one of those again?

Just tiny synths now!

Interview by Daniel Sterner