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  It was early Tuesday morning when we received the call from Nichole Shade's personal assistant, Faith Browdy, that Nichole would be willing to do an interview with us later in the week. After talking to Ms. Browdy a little bit more, I learned that "later in the week" meant the very next day. We had been wanting to get an interview from Nichole Shade for quite some time now, but had been repeatedly denied each time by Ms. Shade with reasons varying from being busy touring, to that she just simply didn't like the person on the phone, and didn't want to agree to anything they had asked. After almost a year of asking, we had tried one more time, and were pleasantly surprised when Nichole said back that she'd "think about it." So even under the tight time constraints of 24 hours to prepare for the interview, we were still very eager to push forward.
Nichole Shade was in Japan when she accepted our request for an interview. Her widely known punk cabaret band, Vile Hour, was supporting Reported Failure on their eighty-four date world tour, along with alternative rock band Penetralia. Although I had suggested several quiet restaurants or cafes around the concert venue for us to conduct the interview, Nichole insisted on having it in her tour bus that she, her girlfriend Erica Kobayashi, and her three children were staying in for the remainder of the tour's Japan leg. When I arrived, the door to the bus was open, and Nichole sat inside alone, laid back on a small couch, her laptop computer resting on her lap. She looked up at me and flashed a little smile, saying, "Hey," before typing something out and closing the computer. "Sorry. I was just messaging Erica to let her know that you were here. She's staying in Castor's bus with the kids and Nina." Castor was Nichole's loyal drummer and bandmate, who had married Nina Drake in 2012 - Nina being one of Erica Kobayashi's bandmates, and former girlfriend. Nichole sat up on the couch, curling her legs around to make room for me to sit across from her.
From the exchanges that I had had with Nichole before this moment, I had had her pictured as very diva-like. I was both surprised and pleased to find that I was wrong. Her bus was clean, but cluttered - filled to the brim with clothing, makeup, baby supplies, and bras and underwear. None of this bothered Nichole, who seemed to be the personification of controlled chaos herself. She had on heavy eye makeup, but little of anything else, except for her extremely detailed and unusually draw-on eyebrows. Her clothes were ones that I could picture on any twenty-three year old - a black The Who t-shirt, jeans with holes in the knees, and barefoot. Before the interview started, she reached into a drawer behind her and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and then offering the pack to me. When I refused, she shrugged and then told me that she was going to tell Erica that I was the one who had smoked in the bus anyway. "I had said that I was going to quit when the kids were around. But that's easier said than done... plus, they calm the nerves." It was then that I saw that Nichole was obviously nervous for this interview, not knowing what information or questions that I would ask. I could tell that if I hit her with some of the harder questions first, she would instantly clam up, so I begun with interview with some light chatting as both of us got comfortable in our surroundings.
"It's really great having Erica and the kids here," she told me when I asked about them being on tour with her. "I felt awful leaving them for four months. I know it sounds really bad, but normally I wouldn't think anything of it. She and I have always been so easy-going with each other. One of us could just say, 'Hey, I'm going on tour next month.' And the other would be like, 'Okay, cool, have a good time!' And that'd be the end of it, really. But when I was offered a spot in the tour, it was the middle of Big Brother 4, which Erica's sister, Mariko, was on. And in the season, Mariko's relationship with her girlfriend was ending pretty publicly on the show, and it made me think, 'You know, if I don't start treating Erica with the respect that I feel towards her, then I'm probably going to lose her the exact same way.' So I took her out to this shitty diner by our house, and told her that I was going on this tour, and asked her if she was okay with it. I think she was actually shocked that I even asked. but there's been no bickering or fights between the two of us since I've been gone, which is a completely 180 from the way we normally are when we're apart - and now she's here with the kids, which makes it even better." I asked Nichole about her children, and her eyes absolutely lit up. "They're wonderful. They turned 1 last month, and I was... I don't know, I guess I was surprised. I never pictured myself ever being a mother - much less a mother to three children. I didn't think I would make it this far. It's awful, I know, but I really didn't." I ventured to ask what she thought would have happened by now. "I don't know. I just didn't picture myself getting this far with them. I figured maybe my mother would want to take them, or... Sam would come back and want them again. I don't know. Obviously I wouldn't want my children to be away from me, but I always assumed it was a great possibility."
There was an obvious pause before Nichole said Sam's name - Sam being Sam Fischer of death metal band, Acts of Hate, and Nichole's ex-husband. I saw this as an opportunity to drive into some tougher stuff - namely Nichole's ex. I asked her to tell me what had happened between her and Sam to end what seemed like a great relationship between the two of them. Magazines and online gossip columns had given their opinions and assumptions, but never had Nichole ever given the true story of what happened. Nichole took in a deep breath before starting her story, looking down at her lap now instead of at me. "It was only a few months after the kids were born that things started to fall apart. It was so surreal, because I remember that Sam was the one who wanted to have kids, and he just adored all three of them, and he was such a good guy. I mean that - he really was a great guy. He never drank, he never did drugs, he never said anything negative or disrespectful to anybody. He was just this awesome person that, most of the time, I felt like I didn't even deserve. I threw so much bullshit at him while we were together, and he never once yelled at me or broke up with me. He took it all. I thought he was so strong." She sighed and looked up at me with the look of a woman whose been hurt and has been trying not to show it for a long time. "The kids were maybe four months old when he left. He never really gave me a reason as to why, but I think the pressure of having a wife and kids got to him. I know people younger than we are have kids, but mentally, both of us were still teenagers. I'm not mad at him for leaving, not anymore. But I hope one day he can get himself together and be part of his kids' lives." I asked her about Vile Hour's latest single "Dead to Me," and she let out a little laugh and then nodded. "Yep, that's about Sam. That song was the last bits of my anger coming out. I had to channel it into something, or else I think I'd be knocking on every door in Canada, trying to find his ass." She scoffed in disgust when I ask about the people who have said that the song was about her girlfriend's ex-wife, Natalya. "That's so ridiculous. That's just people trying to make drama where there isn't any. I have more respect than that for Natalya - and even if I didn't, I have more respect than that for Erica. I would never do that to her."
I nodded and hesitated a bit before going on to my next question, because I knew that this topic was going to be an even more difficult one than the topic before. As gently as I could, I asked her about her relationship with Erica while Erica was still married to Natalya. Nichole took a few moments to collect her thoughts before responding. "I'm not going to lie to you - or anybody - about this. Yes, Erica and I were having an affair when she was still married to Natalya. My husband had left me, and it... just happened. It was never something that either of us planned." She looked me straight in the eyes as she responded, and I believed her. There was something so desperate to the way that she responded that I had to ask her why it was important to her that people knew she never planned to have this affair. "Because I think a lot of people see me as a villain because of it. And maybe I am. But I know that I'm not evil. I didn't know that the affair was going to happen. I didn't plan my month around it, you know? It was situation that both of us got caught up in, and maybe it was a mistake, but it's a mistake I would make again if I had the chance to." Nichole pauses for a moment before continuing. "I think a lot of people have it in their mind that right after Natalya's death, I just took her place, and that was the end of it. That's absolutely not true at all. After her murder, Erica and I both had to take a step back and reexamine our lives and where we were before we did anything together. Erica was a mess. She was doing coke 24 hours a day, trying to stay awake, terrified that if she fell asleep, something awful would happen. Obviously we weren't having sex, and we definitely weren't discussing our relationship. I was staying with her, but only as a friend and a support system. When I first saw Erica after she found out, she was sick with grief, and delirious from lack of sleep. Everything about that whole event was horrible. And the status of Erica and I's relationship was the last thing on my mind."
I asked her about what happened after the initial shock of Natalya's death, and how their relationship eventually progressed. "I had bought an apartment in Prague a month or two before, so I took Erica and Takara [Erica and Natalya's daughter] and moved them out there. I thought that things would be easier for them if they were out of Japan." In mentioning Prague, I could see an intense sadness drift over Nichole's face. I knew immediately what she was thinking about, but I asked her to tell me in her own words what happened in Prague. "I'll always hate myself for it because I didn't even see any signs that she was even thinking the way she was," she starts, her eyes filling with tears instantly. "I thought, maybe, things were getting better. Erica wasn't doing coke anymore, and I had gotten them away from Japan, and things were starting to look at least a little bit better... Erica had gone out that afternoon. I thought that was a good sign, that she was starting to go out into the world again and do things. Then the hospital called me, telling me that they had found her in that bathroom." Nichole took a deep breath in, tilting her head back so that the tear ran sideways, around the edges of her face. "When they told me that she had tried to kill herself in a public bathroom, I thought that they were crazy. I thought, 'Not my Erica. My Erica would never do anything like that.' But it... but it was her." She sniffed a little and then looked back at me. I can see that it's painful for her to speak about, but I still asked her what life was like afterwards. "She wouldn't let me see her in the hospital. I think that was the worst part of the aftermath was not being able to talk to her, or even to understand what had happened. When she left the hospital, I was... I was hurt and angry. I couldn't believe she was willing to leave her child like that. We only spoke about it once afterwards. I guess I always knew why she did it - out of grief and guilt - but it was just... so unreal when it happened. I never even thought that it was in the realm of possibility at the time. Erica loved Takara so much, I didn't think that she would ever try to leave her like that."
Nichole takes a couple of moments to wipe her tears from her eyes, and I let her have that time. I can see that it's not often Nichole lets somebody - especially a perfect stranger like myself - see her cry, and I'm appreciative of that fact. When she recovers, she continues to tell me about her life with Erica. "I think it was a couple months later that Erica announced that she and I had been having an affair on Twitter - not exactly the way I would have handled that, but whatever. That was the moment more people in the music world started being openly upset with us, although I think it was Scott Rose-Hilton that kind of opened that floodgate on that, saying something to Erica about taking somebody into your bed before it's even cold - like this fucking Hamlet or something." She laughs, shaking her head, a small smile now on her face. You wouldn't even know that Nichole had been crying only minutes before. She almost seems cheerful to be discussing this topic. Because Scott Rose-Hilton had previously been such a huge supporter of Vile Hour, I wondered what comments like that did to her friendship with him. "I wouldn't say Scott Rose-Hilton and I were ever 'friends,' per say. He was a music legend who was a pretty big supporter of Vile Hour, and I really appreciated and enjoyed all the things that he had to say about our music. I don't know how he feels about us now, but his feelings towards Erica and I are completely out of my control." I ask her how other people reacted after Erica confessed to the affair through social media. "I think most people assumed or already knew that Erica and I had been having an affair, but admitting it just gave everybody a reason to comment on it. I don't remember everything that people said. I know that Honor Wynter made some mentions of it to Erica, which put everybody in a rather awkward position." Nichole smirks and looks around the bus, seeming to be thinking about the situation. I watched as something in Nichole's brain switched, causing a small grin on her face to grow. I see the Nichole that I have pictured, and seen on stage and in pictures so many times come out in her, and I know that she's about to say something that might be a little antagonistic. "You know," she starts, that smirk still on her face. "I'm not the only celebrity to be the 'other woman' in a cheating situation. The problem really is that I was the other woman, and I wasn't more attractive than Natalya. Honor Wynter was the 'other woman' for months before Kai Rollins got a divorce, and left his wife for her, and they got Couple of the Year." Nichole laughs and shrugs. "I'm not trying to say anything bad about Honor. I don't really feel anything negative towards her anymore. In fact, this isn't even really about her. I just think it's funny that she can get away with something like that, and come out completely unscathed, but I can't. It's proof that hot women can get away with anything. I'm not attractive enough to be just another woman in love." She glances to her left, still laughing about the situation, before turning back to me. I'm surprised that Nichole is backing off Honor, whom she openly had many problems with before. I ask her about this. "Honor is one of Erica's friends, and I couldn't put Erica through having to choose between her friend or her significant other again. I tried to do that to her so many times when she and I were just friends and she was dating Natalya, and it always ended in tears. I don't know what Honor thinks of me, but really, I don't give a shit. If she's a good friend to Erica, then she'll see that Erica is happy with me, and she won't say anything negative about it."
I see, since the door is open with the mention of Nichole's spats with Honor, I should ask her about one of her other favorite people to fight with, Suzie Stockholm. At the even mention of her name, Nichole shakes her head. "I really don't want to talk a lot about Suzie, since I think that talking about her just encourages her. Let me just say that I don't know a lot about this guy that she's marrying, but I hope he treats her with the respect and dignity that every woman deserves. Somewhere along the line, I think Suzie stop recognizing her own self-worth. I'm not a big believer in the idea that a man can fix you, but maybe that's exactly what Suzie needs."
With my prepared list of questions slowly coming to the end, I decide to switch gears and ask Nichole about what she has planned for her future, career-wise. "After we finish touring, we're going to go back into the studio and start finishing up the EP that we're working on, that'll be out by the beginning of next year." I mentioned that an EP is an interesting choice, seeing how quickly they produced their first two albums, leaving less than a year between the two, and now such a large gap before they release their next project. "'My Phoenixes' took a lot out of us, both emotionally and mentally. And honestly, we just needed to take a break before we launched ourselves into another round in the bipolar world of fans. 'Sympathies with Satan' has been out for over a year, and I still weekly receive death threats and hate mail because of it. We write songs that make people feel think and maybe feel a little uncomfortable, that's what we're good at. Sometimes the fans like us for that, and sometimes they don't. Both Castor and I's plates are pretty full right now, even without working on an EP. We're just not ready to start on a full album yet."
The interview was coming to an end, and we both knew it. Nichole hid the cigarettes again and then walked me to the door, smiling brightly the entire time. It had been an emotional rollercoaster for both of us, but I could tell that Nichole felt a lot better after talking, and I felt a lot better after listening. I went to shake her hand, but instead was given a hug as she told me thank you, and that I could call for another interview any time. As I stepped out of Nichole's bus, I could see Castor's bus across from her's. Through the window, I could make out the shape of Erica with two children sitting on her lap, looking happy. I looked behind me to see if Nichole had noticed this as well, and saw that she had, smiling brightly as ever. I walked away from the buses with a pleased feeling, seeing now that Nichole isn't the type of person that wants to make people like her. She's realized that she's the type of person that you either love or hate, and she's more than fine with that - an unusual trait in the world today. For a women who has dealt with so much negativity, it's fantastic to see that she hasn't bitter towards the world yet, and that she still does what she loves despite what the public has to say. I know that people like her are going to be the ones that will ultimately come out on top, while the ones who doubted them remain at the bottom.
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