Alison Wonderland on Whyte Fang revival, Coachella, and pregnancy: “The baby would steer me in certain ways.” 2023

Alex Scholler joyfully waves a box of Vegemite Shapes towards the camera around 4pm in Los Angeles. “This is one of my cravings,” she says, taking two and laying the box aside. “Australia shipped them. I’ve eaten them throughout pregnancy.”

Alison Wonderland has a hectic few months.

Alison Wonderland has had a busy couple of months. Scholler announced she was having her first child with her boyfriend Ti in mid-March and released a new record, “Genesis,” under the moniker Whyte Fang a few days later. Scholler was also furiously building the Whyte Fang live show for Coachella on Friday, the same day her record launches.

Whyte Fang may be new to her audience, but the initiative isn’t. It precedes Alison Wonderland. Scholler, a cellist who was inspired by The Knife’s ringing electro-pop, established the alias around 2010 while learning production. She claims Whyte Fang was her production training. “Even though I didn’t realize that.”

She secretly uploaded tunes to SoundCloud, including “Thy New Sound,” which BBC Radio 1 and Sydney’s FBi noticed. Her close friend and manager Garth Crane didn’t even know Scholler had published anything Whyte Fang-related until he heard it on the radio due to the project’s obscurity. “Oh, this kind of sounds like you,” he said. “Surprise, it is,” Scholler recalls.

Whyte Fang lost FBi’s 2011 Northern Lights competition to Rainbow Chan and Oliver Tank, who were flown to Iceland’s Airwaves festival. Flume, a lesser-known performer, also finished second. After the competition, the two young producers became friends, and Scholler smiles as she says they still talk about how much the defeat hurt.

“Being so personal and singing and doing everything is hard. I wanted to stand back and employ a different creative brain.”

Alison Wonderland, Scholler’s second project, was taking off while Whyte Fang purred. EMI Records signed Scholler in 2011 after seeing her at Sydney clubs including Candy’s Apartment, where she worked as a doorwoman. No Whyte Fang.

Scholler claims Whyte Fang had no face. I DJed everywhere and played several events with Alison. Alison Wonderland was more enticing than a faceless person. I took my things to EMI and the rest is history.”

With Alison Wonderland, Scholler quickly became one of Australia’s most popular dance exports, performing at major festivals worldwide. After 2015’s “Run,” Scholler released 2018’s “Awake,” which explored her mental health struggles and emotional abuse. Wonderland released “Loner” last year.

Scholler never abandoned Whyte Fang, knowing the day would come. Scholler chose to leave Alison Wonderland after three albums of exploring her deepest feelings. “It’s hard to be so personal and sing and do everything,” she says. “I just wanted to step back and use a different part of my creative brain, and make tracks that wouldn’t necessarily be highlighted if I had put them out under Alison. These tunes needed a solid home.

“I said, ‘Fuck it’, I’ll do Whyte Fang. It seemed appropriate.”

Whyte Fang is a dark future bass and trap artist, unlike Alison Wonderland. The Knife and The Bloody Beetroots are still present, but Whyte Fang Scholler expands into industrial, drum’n’bass, and even techno (note the middle portion of the powerful “333” or latest song “Genesis”). Nearly every track on “Genesis” was made in the past year by Scholler.

After Coachella granted her a place, Scholler considered recording a whole album as Whyte Fang. “I thought, ‘OK, if I’m gonna play this show, I’ll go hard and use it like every opportunity I’ve ever gotten’. So making an album and having something to play at Coachella would be incredibly satisfying.”