Meet President Evil

Prepare for some delicious heavy-hitting industrial goth jams served up by the one and only President Evil. The solo project of Harlan Steed (Show Me The Body) President evil is an absolute force to be reckoned with. Harlan creates cold bleak soundscapes only to smash them to pieces with driving drums and shredded vocals. In our latest interview, we chat with Harlan about their latest self-titled album, the origin of President Evil, and NYC.

A self-portrait by, President Evil

Some Questions With President Evil

With this being a solo project how important is collaboration to you?

Collaboration is very important to me. I was fortunate to collaborate with some old and new friends on this project. It would not have been the same or possible without them. My manager India Watne, drummer Andrew Tassin (of Dogbreath), bassist and tinkerer Tati Turin (Headbind, Mockcharge), producers Sam Irwin and Gabriel Millman, and label Corpus all helped me get President Evil over the finish line.

What was the catalyst that brought on your work under President Evil?

The catalyst was a combination of things. I always wanted to create a project through which I could express myself fully in both sonic and aesthetic realms. Having enough time to do so was always the obstacle, so isolating and being grounded for a year gave me the opportunity to do it. I was also heavily inspired by the video game/film franchise Resident Evil.

What kind of narratives do you want to tell under this project?

The narratives I focused on in my first record were reflections on both personal and global absurdities I’ve experienced in the last few years. President Evil was a way for me to learn how to sing and to confront fears and demons. It was also a way to synthesize the happenings of the world into a piece of music, which many of my favorite records tend to do in either overt or subtle ways.

The project has a very distinct take on the industrial sound. What gear was essential in finding your unique sound?

The gear that was indispensable for many of the sounds were: the Akai “S series” rack samplers from the 1980s-90s, various modern Modular Synthesizers from the 2010s-2020, a drum set, and a couple of Bass guitars. President Evil was made with a long list of gear— I tried my best to create each song with different instruments/performances and did so over the course of the last 5 years. There are parts of Kein Punkt, Spoiler!, and Halloween that were recorded around the time that Body War by Show Me The Body was made and when my gear collection was much more primitive. The first version of Grind was made on my laptop in a tour van while driving 100 mph on the autobahn across Germany.

How do you feel about the reception of your self titled 2020 release so far?

I'm really happy with how the album was received— the music was listened to in places around the world I’ve never been to. That’s more than I could hope for.

Who built the metallic spider for the album cover of your self titled 2020 release?

I built the metallic spider and was helped by my friend Elijah Maura of Corpus and Ceno to arrange its legs. The spider is inspired by a “camel spider” which I became obsessed with after being shown a photo of one by Abe El Makawy of Aint Wet. It’s technically neither a spider or scorpion as it has 10 legs instead of 8… it’s biologically somewhere between the two and supposedly has no venom. My friends have often described my music as “spidery”, and I’ve always been inspired by the terrifying elegance of arachnids.

What is the best thing about being a musician in NYC?

Being in proximity to other artists and collaborators. I grew up in Queens and despite having toured and seen many cities there is no place quite like it.

President Evil