Interview: Hyper Crush's Holly Valentine Tells All

It's not secret that every member of Hyper Crush is sexy as hell. Holly Valentine, the group's only lady, spins the whole "nerds are hot" bit back on women. Recently, she took time to speak with me about a few things including their major label experience, what it's like working with a panther as a costar, and she even reveals the names of some not-yet-announced material. That's right, bitches. They've got a new album coming our way.

What made you want to get into music?

Probably would be my grandma. When I was very little she was a big influence for me. She got me my first saxophone and my first microphone. She got me into Jazz band. I hadn't really thought about it, but she definitely was a major influence.

Hyper Crush has been insanely popular lately, and without a label. Would you say that you guys are a bit better off without a major record label?
I don't know. A big part of the beginning was owed to Myspace. If it wasn't for that, I don't even know how we would have gotten our music out there. With a label, obviously the financial part definitely helps. But we do everything ourselves; the guys produce the music, Donny does all the artwork, I'm doing a lot of the styling, and Preston edits our videos. I think we are lucky to be able to do all of that. I guess the point is having a label is definitely beneficial because eventually you'll need a lot more money if you want to enter a bigger audience.

You were on a label, for a while.

Yeah, we were signed to Universal Motown. At first it was a great thing. You think they are signing you because they like what you are doing and it's gonna help. But I think we can all say it wasn't a good experience. They wanted to change things we were doing. When we first got into it, electronic music wasn't necessarily popular, so they were trying to make us into a different style of music. We are doing good signed to our own label Night Wave, but if it happens again we will know how to go into it.

There did seem to be a bit of a change. The Arcade compared to Night Wave shows a distinct shift from nerdy things like video games and anime to more sex appeal. Was that the label or a group decision?

Actually Night Wave was a group thing. It was what we wanted to do. Most of the songs we did on Motown we really didn't even do anything with. Night Wave was what we wanted. The Arcade still had a lot of sex appeal, but we kind of like everything and we wanted to show everything else. There is some nerd things from The Arcade, as well as some hip-hop like on Mixtape Volume One. We hope that our fans accept it. Our fans should know that from the     beginning we've been doing all kinds of stuff.

You just released your new track Visions of Coleco. Is this a lead in single for a new album, or just something to hold us over?

It is definitely going to be on a new album. We are hoping to put it out this summer, actually. It's pretty much done, and we feel really good about it. We originally wanted to put out an EP because we wanted to get material out there for the fans, but we just kept making more songs. We feel like the album is pretty strong, and we don't want some of the song to get passed or taken as a full album. We definitely have a new single coming after this, and we are going to be shooting a video for it in a few weeks at my house in my back yard.

Are you allowed to throw me some names for the single and album?

Yeah! Our album will be called Vertigo. The next single -- I mean we are pretty sure on the name -- is Rage.

That sounds amazing! But back to Visions of Coleco. The video was so well done! But I do have to say, I would have been terrified to have to work with a panther. Did that phase you?

We put so much work into that video.
We had to rent the animals, get a work
permit, get insurance for
them, we had to disclose where we were taking them, we had to have three trainers on the set. It was crazy. We had to do an intro course for the animals. I couldn't wear certain stuff. At one point I'm wearing a velvet cloth cape, and I wanted to wear it while I was walking the panther, but they said it wouldn't be good. Everything Libby [the panther's name] did was rewarded with raw meat. Every five steps she took she got raw meat. She had to keep her eating. I had those white contacts in that blurred my vision pretty bad. That was a good thing, though. At one point she swiped my hair a little and I didn't trip out because I didn't notice. When I watched it back, I was like "Oh My God!"

Will we get a version two now that the second edition of the song is out with Riff Raff?

If we could, we would definitely love to shoot a video. Either have him shoot something and edit it in, or all meet up and do a little video. It's just hard with our schedules. The song is pretty new, so we are totally down to keep it going.

Donny and Preston have been off on the side working on a project called MVTH [pronounced Math]. Why didn't you get involved in that project?

They are such good producers, and Hyper Crush is a group effort, so since we are never stop working people, they decided to keep going with more music. They are talented, so why not keep it going? Also at the time I had a side project planned, but we started getting more busy with producing the album, and I am better focused on one thing. I'd rather just be doing this. My heart is in Hyper Crush.

I've not found a lot of your response to the gay community. Electronic music is tightly bound to LGBT happenings. What response have you heard from your gay fans?

It's so awesome. Just the other day, we were talking about how we wanted to do gay pride again. We were part of a gay pride festival last year, and it was so awesome. We do have a lot of gay fans and we love them. Any time we do a festival like that we're stoked. It's what we are all about. Our vibe is totally being down for everyone being themselves and not caring what anybody thinks.

So it's safe to say that Preston is not offended that I hit on him constantly.

He's definitely not. [laughs] That's so funny!

Grab both versions (with Riff Raff and Solo) on iTunes today! Also, check out the video, and see how cute/intimidating a panther can be! You can follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook. If you're extra curious, Holly has her very one Twitter, too.