Built Not Bought: Inside The World Of FACTORY

With their explosive debut EP featuring the genre-bending tracks ‘BLOODLINE’, ‘STICKY TONGUE’, and ‘BHH’, FACTORY isn’t just launching music they’re launching a movement. Entirely self-written, self-produced, and self-managed, FACTORY is a rare force of creative autonomy. Made up of longtime friends and multi-disciplinary artists Halima, Von, Murielle, and Sophie Hintze, this all-female collective blends sisterhood with sonic innovation to deliver a three-track collection made to be screamed loud with your chosen family.

As the summer heats up, we caught up with FACTORY to talk about their origin story, their DIY approach, and the personal and collective experiences that shaped their debut release. From cathartic anthems to late-night dancefloor energy, this is FACTORY’s summer and they’re inviting everyone in.

You’ve all been best friends for almost a decade. At what moment did you decide: “Okay, now it’s time to form FACTORY”?

A few years ago, we were doing this weekly workshop where we spent every Monday just acting as interchangeable parts of each other’s teams for our solo artist projects. Whether it was mixing notes, PR outreach, photo edits, etc., we would show up to help each other hustle our own projects, and call those sessions FACTORY. We had never considered actually making music together, mostly because we have such different sonic identities, but after writing with each other on a whim, what came of it was too undeniable for us not to give it a shot. That was about 3 years ago, and since we’ve found so much fulfillment in synthesizing our unique artistic identities to make music as one collective.

BLOODLINE is such a powerful first release, born from your personal transitions. How did each of you interpret that word differently in your verses?

Halima brought us the chorus for BLOODLINE, intentionally not necessarily telling us the exact meaning she wanted us to take from it. The intention was for us to really interpret the meaning for ourselves in our own verses. What we ended up with was a song that touches on unrequited love, mother wounds, and making your family proud, all from really different lenses. That’s our process for writing in general now — coming up with a cohesive chorus idea that we all get to interpret individually for our verses.

STICKY TONGUE feels like a scream-along anthem for chosen family. What role has chosen sisterhood played in your journey as a group?

Sisterhood is our most sturdy foundation for sure. We all have really big lives, but in our 10 years of friendship, the moments we get to just sit around a table and talk with each other for hours is where we feel the most grounded. We really try to prioritize fitting that in, no matter how busy we get. We’ve always been each other’s biggest fans, and that’ll never change.

BHH taps into that late-night, sweaty club energy. Can you walk us through how that track came together — was it as fun to make as it sounds?

We had so much fun making that song. Alongside a really wholesome 10 years of friendship are some of the messiest nights we’ve ever had, haha. We’ve seen each other through the good, bad, and the ugly, both on and off a dance floor. BBH is about that indulgence, to just have fucking fun. It’s about closing out the club and everyone frantically trying to find a next spot that’s still open, all the while crossing your fingers that your crush isn’t gonna tap out and go home.

You cite influences from Brockhampton to MUNA to The Spice Girls. How do you balance those wildly different inspirations in your sound?

We don’t really consciously think about balancing them, but I think we instead feel excited about the breadth of our references when we’re making music. There’s a lot of different sounds to draw from. It doesn’t have to just be one thing or draw on one sound. We’re equally inspired by those groups’ ethos as we are their sounds, so making music from a place of autonomy and individuality is our main priority.

FACTORY is entirely self-run — no label, no outside machine. What’s the hardest part of doing it all yourselves, and what’s the most rewarding?

The hardest part is exactly that, haha, doing it all ourselves. We all have other jobs and our solo projects so it’s definitely a massive undertaking. But there’s something so rewarding about knowing we can do it ourselves and that we don’t have to compromise on our vision or our sound. We won’t sugarcoat that it’s hard, but being your own boss also has its perks that you get to choose how things are run. Everyone that works alongside FACTORY from us to our mixing and mastering engineer to our creative director to our publicist are all strong woman. We’re intentional about wanting to make the world of FACTORY within the same communities FACTORY is actually for.

Your music is rooted in friendship. How do you protect that bond when things get stressful or when opinions clash in the studio?

We’re not new to opinions not aligning, haha, being friends for this long means conflict resolution is just a staple part of our relationship. We really value communication. We know it’s essential. And more than anything, our priority is our friendship and supporting one another. We’ve learned early on that honesty and direct communication is the most loving way to work together, and we honor that even when it’s hard.

You’ve described FACTORY as more than a collective — as a movement. What does that movement look like to you five years from now?

We hope more female collectives will be visible, and be given respect for operating as such. We hope 4 female producers making music together won’t keep getting asked who their producer is.

How does creating as a group feed into your solo artistry, and vice versa?

We all feel a really exciting lack of pressure when we make music as FACTORY. We’re all self-sufficient and have interchangeable skill sets, so we’re able to remove our ego and seamlessly transition who’s in the producer chair with who’s laying down a topline, etc., and that feels really nice. We’re all quite precious about our solo projects, and not that FACTORY isn’t precious, but FACTORY is rooted in a more “just go with it” mindset. Our priority is just to have fun making shit together.

If someone screams along to one of your songs at a live show, what do you hope they carry home with them when the lights come up?

A deep sense of self and community, the permission to be unapologetically you, a new friend (or crush) you screamed the lyrics with, a hoarse voice, the car or train ride home with your own personal “FACTORY” with you, singing those same songs over and over again. One of Halima’s beads, a strand of Von’s red hair, one of Sophie’s rings, and Murielle’s lip gloss on your cheek. Hella love and empowerment <333

With raw vulnerability, fearless experimentation, and an unshakable bond at the heart of their music, FACTORY’s debut release is more than a summer drop, it’s a declaration. From processing familial pain to celebrating chosen kin and club-born desire, their music captures what it means to grow, create, and heal together.

As they continue to challenge the norms of an industry too often defined by competition and control, FACTORY stands as a testament to what’s possible when artists are given the space to be fully themselves. This is just the beginning FACTORY isn’t following the rules. They’re writing their own.

Stylist Assist: @elissadziersk Elissa Dziersk