L.A.-based industrial rock outfit Health has redefined dark electronic and industrial music for nearly two decades, constantly evolving and pushing the boundaries of noise rock. With a new album, Rat Wars, under their belt and a tour underway, the band is ready to strike out again and seduce more fans into joining the industrial world.
John Famiglietti (bass, pedals, electronics) says the popularity of Health was less of an explosion and more of a slow grind over the years. “It’s definitely the best time,” he says. “From my perspective on the ground, it’s just been incremental gains, you know?”
Health has built a steady fan base since 2007 after Crystal Castles remixed its track “Crimewave”, and in 2008, Health’s remix album Health/Disco was a critic favorite, leading the band to support Nine Inch Nails on its Lights in the Sky tour. After a few video game soundtrack appearances, Health released Death Magic, Disco3, Vol.4: Slaves of Fear, and its Disco4 series, finally leading up to its latest, Rat Wars, released in December.
The band has always boasted a unique sound that can be hard to define by genre, but even without a standard descriptor, audiences have embraced it. “It’s like a joke we make,” Famiglietti says. “We’ve always been this bleak dystopian music about a bleak or sci-fi sort of future in certain ways. And the times just caught up to the music, so now we’re just making appropriate music for the time. Maybe that’s it. Or also, these kids, like, they’re just fucking depressed.”
Health’s fanbase is skewing younger; keeping up with the scene has never been a chore or a challenge. Rat Wars took a new direction with heavy 1990s inspiration, taking the guesswork out of classifying Health and streamlining their ability to reach new fans. “We want to be reaching the people we’re trying to reach,” Famiglietti says. “We’re still conservative in terms of, like, we started with regular songs, and we don’t want to annoy anybody, but we’re always looking for new sonic gimmicks and new sonic inspiration and trying to always listen to new music and get inspired.”
At the crossroads of nostalgia and the near future, Health recently released a cover of Deftones’ “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” for Spotify’s Metal playlist. Blending the industrial sensibilities of Health with the nu-metal and shoegaze elements of the ’90s alternative radio is the band’s use of vintage anime aesthetics, with Famiglietti even wearing an Asuka “plugsuit” from Neon Genesis Evangelion in pictures. “It only works because it’s genuine and only works because it’s really fan-derived,” he says.
“I talk to the fans every day,” on the group’s Discord server, he says. “They’re introducing me to stuff, they’re influencing the band.”
He adds, “When we post memes … these are my favorite memes from the Health discord, and all these things kind of just start growing on itself. … It starts coming from the fans, and then it becomes this thing, and now we’re all really into it.”
Health takes inspiration from other media, and Famigletti laments the lack of inspiring American cinema. “I think for kids now, American movies suck dick,” he says. “There’s just no light. They’re so sterile and weird, and all this stuff on streaming, it’s fucking trash. Kids are watching classic or new anime, and it’s full of all this fucking life and just bizarreness, and it’s touching kids. That’s why anime is the biggest it’s ever been. It’s way bigger than it was during the ’90s, you know, so it’s just like, certain pieces of media in the same way that cool bands back then would always reference the coolest movie out, because it was just like, you’re guaranteed to be a fan of both because it was just the coolest shit. And there’s just not a ton of stuff like that right now.”
In a callous and often cruel world, Health’s thesis statement is, “You will love each other.” Taken from John Robbins’ Diet For a New America, Famiglietti says the phrase instantly struck him. “It’s, like, the end of the sort of biblical passage because it’s sort of a command, so it had this creepy thing where it’s you’re not exactly sure the meaning,” he says. The sentiment permeates the ideology of Health with its promise of dedication to one another.
While the goth and goth-adjacent genres seem to be under daily scrutiny from the participants, Health’s place has been cemented in the pantheon of greats, but they don’t stress about the future. While trends change and the internet keeps rediscovering the alternative music wheel, Health continues to adapt and grow.
“We're never gonna do anything that we don’t want to do, or we just feel is just lame or artistically invalid,” Famiglietti says. “We will stay true to ourselves and always, so if we can make that align with what’s going on, well, that’s very good.” For now, the members of Health are happy where they’re at and proud of the community they’ve built. Pixel Grip and King Yosef will support Health on the tour, bringing a sexy Industrial EBM show to Detroit. Famiglietti promises a killer vibe. “We’re going to blow your dick off,” he says. “How about that?”
