What’s the best way to say goodbye to 2015 and hello to 2016? By listening to avant garde Los Angeles artist Kate Crash—a lady who is equal parts performance artist, pop singer, anime character and fashion muse. First co-signed by legend Joan Jett (Jett’s label Blackheart Records signed Crash and put out her first EP in 2010), Crash has since created a new project: Kate Crash & the UFO Club. You could call it electro-house, glam, punk or indie-pop—just know that their single “Play it Hard” (with the chorus "Live! Live it Loud! Live! Live it Loud! Play! Play it Hard! Play! Play it Hard!") is the best anthem to the new year you’ll ever get.

Hometown: You’ve never heard of my planet but I hail from Hollywood for you earthlings.

Homebase: In a broken down space craft with my band on a roof off the boulevard.

What’s Kate Crash’s origin story? How did you discover performance art and music?

Straight out the shoot I was obsessed. My first word was “musica.” I loved the alternate realities you could live in for the moments those notes hit. When I was three my big sister introduced me to the Pixies and I felt they knew everything that was cracked about my existence. I wanted to be swept away in the dream of guitar feedback and deep beats that gave it to me as it was, took me away, spoke of secret things I could not speak of because kids didn’t understand, and when you’re a kid you think nobody understands except the women and men screaming and crooning through your speakers, devastating your heart, freeing your sorrow, allowing you to escape the confines of a class or bedroom.

What's your anime connection? Why dress up in costumes?

People often describe me as living anime. What you call costumes I call daily interpretations of my surroundings.

What’s the story behind a collaboration with the UFO club? (Or, you know, the evolution to a full band?)

I wanted to further explore collaging sounds. Dance music, pop music, 70s British glam rock and punk. I wanted to make the music I wanted to hear. My band mate Michael Maio and I produce all of our new songs now and it’s amazing to collaborate with someone who appreciates Roland S. Howard and Max Martin. Between the two of us we can play and write in any genre so we love the sonic freedoms we allow one another by being a team.

Why is your album called Play it Hard!? What inspired it?

The hardest most girl power track on the EP is called "Play It Hard!" It’s all about not letting the darkness and tragedies that spin around in this world and daily life take over and being the light you want to see in the world.

What's your songwriting process like?

Not one thing or another. Sometimes I sing melodies into my phone or write a whole song with voice and guitar, sometimes I lay down a beat and just sing a poem over it, sometimes I’m midway through a dream and I wake up with the idea. They are all good ways.

Talk about the first time you realized you wanted to sing and perform for others.

I was always oscillating from shutdown and shy to over the top ham. As a kid I would create characters and perform them in real time so I guess that may be where it started. I first started playing piano at 2 then went through all the instruments, clarinet, violin, sax, bass guitar, etc, until I fell in love with the guitar at 11 or 12. I started writing poetry at about 7 and songwriting soon after.

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?

I can’t remember the first song I wrote but I used to make up these on the spot ditties to cheer people up. I can remember a little ska song I sang as a kid that went “I got a wocket in my pocket and a bat in my hat… I got a.. I got a…” It was for an older stoner skater boy I was trying to woo… Needless to say it didn’t work but I did get a lot of laughs. I liked to sing as different people and make up songs the characters would sing.

Who are your musical heroes?

OOOO SOOOO MANY!!!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Bowie is transcendent, a rare and beautiful bird that will take you to strange and untranslatable worlds while Iggy will savage your heart roll around and screw your eyeballs into pixie dust. Raw. Real. Present. Real. Real. It’s hard to get that now a days so much. I love Patti Smith’s spitting broken licks and Santigolds beats and strange voices that séance the bones. I love so much and so many. But this is not my dissertation so I’ll just add in the Jesus and Mary Chain, Hole, Nirvana, everything NICK LAUNAY produces, and THE BIRTHDAY PARTY!! AHHH!!! ROLAND COME BACK FROM THE GRAVE PLEASE SO I CAN LAY NEXT TO YOUR GUITAR AMP UNTIL ALL MY POURS BLEED YOUR TRANSLUSCENT MIGRATORY DREAMS!!!

What is your connection to Tokyo? How did you end up in Los Angeles and how does it influence your songwriting style?

I’m Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist so I started going to Japan to visit the head temple at the base of Mt. Fuji. I met some awesome people who gave me an apartment to live in in Tokyo, I met Hiro Super, and we started doing street shows and strange videos. You can see Sub:Way of Samurai on Youtube where we re-enact a famous samurai battle on the subways of Tokyo. Tokyo is where I started this whole thing. But wherever I go somehow I get sucked back into the vortex of LA that I love to burn up my nights in and suck around the languid days in the dirty haze of smog and art. Tokyo inspires me with fast lights, neon anime, bursting colors, trains, sounds, fashions, traditional art forms, everything. Everything influences everything.

What's the craziest thing a fan has ever done for you?

Move from a foreign country to join my band.

What are your new year's resolutions?

Pop it off in 2016!!!

Tour, write more songs, be a better person, smile.