My Robot Friend: I was a super nerd
28/09/2006
Computer programmer by day Howard Rigbeg turned LED electro superhero by night My Robot Friend first emerged on the fringes of electroclash at the turn of the millennium and today has become one of most interesting and enduring characters to emerge from the now moribund scene. Mild mannered and polite and diffident to a fault, he’s also happy to admit to being a keen fan of Superman to the point of inspiration.
‘My relationship to the robot is totally like a superhero type thing. I have this costume, I put on the costume and I gain these social powers that I don’t really have,’ he explains.
‘Part of me wearing a costume is because I couldn’t do the stage stuff if I didn’t have the costume, I wouldn’t be able to express myself in the way I do. People don’t recognize me afterwards too; I can do a show and then I get off stage and walk out and no-one says anything to me.’With his alter ego’s robot suit featuring devices such as a flame throwing phallus it’s unsurprising that few recognize him in mufti though he’s more than pleased to avoid being corralled.
‘The main way I interact with people is that I’m onstage in my costume and I go out into the crowd and interact with people that way,’ he explains.
‘On occasion, I’ve gone out in the costume on the street for fun and after the show sometimes but I think people are intimidated by it. I don’t really have long conversations with anybody or anything like that, it’s more likely they want to take a photograph. It’s not like I’m having philosophical conversations or going on a date.’
While he’s not dodging interaction with fans he’s either working at his day job as a Manhattan programmer or being My Robot Friend, touring the world and working with such luminaries as the Pet Shop Boys and releasing records, including his new album Dial O, via unlikely Scottish indie giant Soma Records.
‘I was surprised to see me on Soma too’ he laughs when asked about the link.
‘I reached out for them, but I wouldn’t have expected them to bite, just because I think I’m very different to what they have on their label usually. It’s awesome, they are a really great bunch of people and there is a real family feeling being there. There’s not that many people that run it, but I know all of them pretty well, so it’s been great. They definitely get what I’m doing for the right reasons.'
Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Starting with the album, where did you start?
My Robot Friend: ‘It took me a while certainly compared to the first album which was done in a very short period of time at one moment in my life. This one was stretched out longer, because I was doing a lot more shows, so I worked on it whenever I had time, ie when I wasn’t doing shows.’
Skrufff: You came up very much via the electroclash trend, where do you see yourself fitting, musically, if anywhere?
My Robot Friend: ‘It’s tough. I came into this music world really as an outsider, I wasn’t a club kid, but in terms of where I perform the most, the club scene is where I seem to fit in. Although recently I’ve started getting booked at larger festivals, I would more often get booked at clubs, so I guess that’s where I fit in, although my taste and interest is more in alternative, pop type music. I feel an affinity with LCD Sound System and the dance rock stuff that’s going on; with Justice, things like that are things that I connect with musically, but I don’t know if you’d call that a scene.’
Skrufff: Is there a serious side to My Robot Friend?
My Robot Friend: ‘Yeah, I guess so. I try and keep it at bay as much as I can. I guess the new record is a little more serious than the first one. It was a darker time, because a lot of it is post electroclash. I was also more or less alone during that period of time so for me it wasn’t as happy and fun time as much as what was going on when I recorded my first one.’
Skrufff: Has it been a steady upward path so far?
My Robot Friend: ‘Musically, in terms of the opportunities that have come for me since the first one then, yeah, it has though it’s not like a giant trajectory but rather a steady upward climb. It’s been nice to see things grow and get a bigger audience, but it was more personal psychological feeling during this time.’
Skrufff: You have a degree in neuroscience – what made you choose to study that subject in particular?
My Robot Friend: ‘It was really just based on what I most interested in. My school was one of the few that had an undergraduate degree in neuroscience. It is more like a biology degree where most of your biology courses involve neuroscience. I was deciding between staying at school or going to art school. It was just what I had gravitated towards.’
Skrufff: What kind of school kid were you; very studious?
My Robot Friend: ‘Yeah. I never got a B in my entire academic career. I was like a supernerd. I still performed on stage and I had a sense of humour and mainly focused between doing sports and a little stage stuff. I didn’t have much of a social life, it was very much focused on working in some form or another.’
Skrufff: Was that the nature of your personality or did you have very strict parents?
My Robot Friend: ‘No, it was my personality. I’m still that way actually. It’s partially out of shyness. I like working a lot and I some social awkwardness, so even doing My Robot Friend is a way for me to go out and be social but have a purpose and I’m working, so it’s easier for me.’
Skrufff: Were you dreaming of being a popstar or rockstar?
My Robot Friend: ‘No, I didn’t even make music until I came to New York in the late nineties. The stuff I did in high school was like silly comedy stuff.’
Skrufff: Are you still doing a day job as well?
My Robot Friend: ‘Yes, I’m still working full time as a computer programmer. I like my office, it was a former printing press office; so it’s got a little character.’
Skrufff: How do your work colleagues view your alter ego?
My Robot Friend: ‘They are great here. It was funny because for a while I was really into them not knowing at all and totally being completely secretive about it, but now pretty much everyone embraces it, actually I have recruited some people that do design work here to help me with production on the records. They give me two months off a year to do the live shows, so it’s a really ideal job for what I do.’
Skrufff: What do you make of the cultural climate in New York?
My Robot Friend: ‘It’s been a weird time for a while. It’s changing a lot, mostly I think largely because of money. It’s hard to afford to live here now. If I was moving to New York today, I would move out in Brooklyn, when I go out there it feels more vibrant, more young, there’s more artists, but here in Manhattan it’s not as exciting as when I’d come in the 90s. It feels more tightly wound.’
Skrufff: Do you see there being a political edge in what you do or is it a question of you having fun and being an entertainer?
My Robot Friend: ‘I think my existence is political, what I stand for and what I do is political, in the sense the song have meanings and you can listen to them and hear that. But I’m not going to go and write an overtly directly political song, that’s not my forte and I don’t have a political agenda, but I do feel like what you represent, you stand for something; even if you just stand for weirdness or a sense of humour. Even if you stand just for a sense of humour it’s really hard, because you are totally asking to get bashed on by anyone who is a critic. If you have something that’s funny people react very strongly to funny.’
Dial O is out now on Soma Records.
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