The Coven Magazine Issue No. 2

ALLI COATES

JOHN BARCLAY

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Hannah Hart. These girls that are doing it for themselves and you just know that they’ve been through a lot to get to where they are, and they really have a voice and they’re funny and they’re smart and people look up to them. Women like that, that are really doing it, that aren’t just the sidekick to the guy on a TV show. I would love to one day be one of those people.

What’s your all time favorite band and why?

The Knife. The Knife have played such a crucial role in my life. They didn't release any music for almost a decade and then they put this new album out last year that I didn't love as much as I love so much their first two albums. Which makes me a little reticent to still say The Knife, but I just think they are fucking genii, geniuses, the two of them. They are really pushing the boundaries of what experimental pop and electronic pop can be.

Still essentially those first two albums are pop music but it’s how far you can go with experimental music before it just becomes too much for your head and you just can’t listen to it, and they still made these two really listen-able albums. The stuff I listen to now is very electro-pop and synth-pop. A lot of it still comes out of Scandinavia, which is constantly turning out brilliant electro and synth-pop music.

I think so much of that comes from The Knife and what they did and what they started. We Share Our Mother’s Health is my most favorite song ever.

On a day off what are you most likely to be doing?

I’m very all or nothing. I always want my weekend to be the best weekend of all time.

I’m also annoyingly such a morning person, I will be up early and text everyone else that I know is up at that hour. It normally involves running the Williamsburg bridge, brunch and then just adventures. I just want to

go on endless adventures throughout the whole day.

Walking around, playing with puppies, going to pet stores, eating delicious food, finding farmer’s markets, going to Rough Trade. I like going to find new areas of Brooklyn and new areas of New York that I’ve never been to before.

I just want an endless day of adventure and walking around. I hope that doesn’t get old for me.

What brought you to New York City?

For some reason since university I’d had this thing in my head that I wanted to come live in New York in my 20s.

It’d always been something.

I would save money when I was in university and when I worked at the record label to come here by myself for a

I’m very all or nothing. I always want my weekend to be the best weekend of all time... I just want to go on endless adventures... few days and for some reason I was just obsessed with this city and I couldn't work out what it was. Then when I did the TV show in the UK every couple of weeks or so I'd fly here or to LA or somewhere to do interviews for a couple of days, and loved it. When I finally moved here I realized the thing that is so intangible but is so magnetic about this place is just this energy that’s in everyone, absolutely everyone I meet here. This energy to keep moving, to keep doing stuff. People at home, and I was guilty of this too, kind of just moan about things not happening, or not being the way they want them to be, but didn't seem to be

making an active decision to do something about that and change it. Here I constantly feel like everyone is very driven, and are really trying to do whatever they want to do and put whatever they are doing out into the world.

There are just so many creative people. Honestly New York is the hardest place in the world when things aren’t going your way, and when they are it’s just the best because you’re surrounded by all these really motivating people that make me want to be better, make me want to be on their level and as creative and as motivated and as driven.

It’s really an addictive place to be and I have a very addictive personality, so it really suits me.

At age 15 what did you want to do?

There’s a radio station in the UK called BBC Radio 1, it’s like the biggest station in the UK and, I don't really remember this, all the way through my childhood and teens I would tell my parents that I was going to have a show on Radio 1. That’s really all I wanted to do. So I think since I was a kid I wanted to do radio. I was always going to acting class and showing off. I had a fight with someone once where she told me I just always wanted to show off and be on screen and I always thought I didn't, that it just happened, but now I think about it and I think I always did show off and want to be on camera.▶

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ILANA SAVDIE

LINDSAY DEGEN

SHERVIN LAINEZ

ALEXANDRA ROXO + NATALIA LEITE

ALY SPALTRO

LEAF CHANG

THE HERMIT B Y TAYA KE N N Y

I L LU STRATI O N B Y STACE Y TOTH