Dearest Plague Rats,

Tomorrow, I’m scheduled to record an electric violin solo for the new single "Girls Will Be Girls."

I'll be playing the same e-violin I've used since my early teens, back when I needed something loud enough to be heard in jazz bands—my first secret tiptoe outside the strict confines of classical music.

Emilie Autumn playing the violin in concert.

This violin would go on to appear in television performances with Courtney Love, record Opheliac in an attic, impersonate Brian May in a "Bohemian Rhapsody" cover, and finally take center stage on the metal Unlaced album.

Emilie Autumn playing the violin in a photoshoot.

This morning, as I put on new strings and tested their tuning, my second and third fingers curled around the neck and landed on two notes: G and C♯.

The tritone. The devil's interval. The opening sound of "Liar."

Close up of Emilie Autumn's fingers playing the violin.

In that instant, my entire career flashed through my mind and I saw that it didn't begin with the Opheliac album, as I always say it did. It began with that song—with the first gorgeously distorted, wicked sound that tore a hole in the gothic musical landscape of Germany and became the channel I could finally speak through.

And that is why I still use Elgar (that's her name). No upgrades. No new models. Despite everything she's been through—repainted, battered around on stage over the years with questionable regard for her long-term wellbeing—she's still here. Like me. And I'll keep playing her until she falls apart in my hands. At which point I'll make her into a hat, because anything can be a hat.

See you in the studio.