So, for ‘Lacazette’ which is the latest song you released before the album drops, I heard that you wrote it for someone else first, and then realized that it does fit you. And in the end, you decided to take it for yourself. Was it in the process of writing it or did you choose it as everything was finished?

It was after it got passed on for another artist, that I was like, “Oh, this definitely is really cool” And I wrote it with my good friend Will, who produced the beat, he initially brought the idea to me, and I was just fucking around, throwing little lyrics in and when you are writing for someone else, you don’t necessarily put as much thought into it. Sometimes when you have your own music, it can be a little intimidating, you’re so focused on where it fits into your catalog. And a lot of my music has this underlying theme of self-empowerment and self-identity but with this one I was just having fun. Actually a lot of the songs on this project originally were for other people. Same thing for  ‘EPILL’. And I remember thinking, “you know what? This is a really great song.” I had so much fun recording it. Some of my biggest influencers are R&B singers, I love Post Malone, I love Kehlani. And this felt like that. I thought how do I make it feel like it fits into this project? So I took the ending, did that flip and made it a drum-and-bass ending, then it felt aligned with the rest of the album.

It’s really interesting, because it’s kind of a radio sound, but it’s still your own, still your vibe. It‘s really brave!
And ‘EPILL’ was also written for another artist first?

Yeah, it was, actually, originally, intended for Britney Spears, because it was, rumored that she was working on a new album and we had some connections to the camp that potentially, was working on that album. So if we write a Britney Spears song; that would be that. I was just on the microphone saying a lot of words that felt really cool and sexy and the beat was crazy. ‘EPILL’ is the one song I didn’t produce on, that’s fully my friend Akira and I remember just listening, being like, “This is the craziest drum I’ve, like, ever heard in my life”, It was just so cool.

It 100% gives Britney Spears and a little Lady Gaga and Troye Sivan, such a great sound. You have some heavy topics on the album but ‘EPILL’ feels really light and sexy!

Yes!! You’re just in the Club, I envision a vampire nightclub or even a German nightclub would be perfect for it, like, everyone is in leather *haha*

Absolutely! That’s what it sounds like!
And you mentioned Post Malone and Kehlani and in a different interview you said that, for example, Lady Gaga is a big influence on you. Who are some more artists that inspire your work?

There’s so many, I think for this album specifically, big ones are like Charlie XCX, A.G. Cook, Sophie, a lot of PC Music gang, and then more intrinsically, I like Ethel Cain, deadmau5, some Aphex Twin, and some of that, 90s garage house, kind of dirty industrial music, Nine Inch Nails. I have a lot of influences across the board, but I like to pick and choose where I’m drawing from. I also think SZA’s Ctrl was a big one. I just I adore her, to no ends.

How is the writing and production process for you? How does it get to a song?

it’s always a little bit different. It’s not always a clear idea, sometimes I’ll have little words that I write down that would be a great title, or a concept. And a lot of this project started just as puzzle pieces and I was working my way into a final product with those little bits and pieces. And that goes into the liveliness of the album. It feels a little bit unconventional how we made this, and how I pulled everything together. And I think, in the future, for more concept driven albums, I will probably have more of a specific process of writing it. But with this, I was just having fun and pushing myself lyrically and seeing where it goes. And the big thing was to always make a little bit of the weirder choice, and to indulge in that. Rather than just be “well, that’s too weird”, I’m like “No, if it was weird, let’s explore it”

It definitely shines through your music, it’s so good and it’s different, but cohesive and weird.

It definitely is weird. That’s one thing too, 90% of this album was exclusively written by me alone or exclusively produced by me. So I get to really choose, what I want to sound like and what I want to talk about, a lot of my music has this underlying theme of self-empowerment and self-identity. And then I have the perspective, so it all melds together. That’s found all over the album.

You do dive into so many different topics and also genres, like house pop, hyper pop, pop, drum and bass, a lot of dance and you already said it’s so much about identity and empowerment and I know your queerness plays a huge part in your music, you can feel it through every song on the album, which is so special. I was wondering if your music also affects your queerness, how you view and live it and not only the other way around.

100% I mean, I love that question, and I’m so glad that you inferred that. This album really represents transformation for me. I was in such a different place when a lot of these songs came to be. I’ve been transitioning for a little bit over a year, and my life has totally changed, the way I’m perceived, even in the world, has completely changed. So this album really laid down the groundwork for a deeper exploration of my lyrical and inanimate sense of trying to find myself, I have to completely disregard all of that I was before, to embrace this new girl that I’m becoming and figuring out how I fit into her. What does she look like, how does she act? That’s all gone hand in hand. This album feels like a precursor to really discovering that self-identity and it’s exciting too, because whatever I do next is going to be the precipice of being in that girlhood era, so I’ve just yet to scratch the surface of what I have to offer as an artist and what makes me unique.
Also queer artists in general are the next huge wave in pop music. Queer people for so long have been curating culture and not given the credit that they are owed for making such incredible things and incredible spaces. And I just hope to be remembered as an incredible queer artist who was able to transform the music landscape, but also be a part of that wave of incredible up and coming pop-LGBTQ acts.

Thank you, I’m really excited for what’s to come and I’m sure it’s all gonna work out for you!
We just talked about weirdness and that you like to push it so I bet it was an intentional choice for you to have a song called ‘The End’ but not have it at the end of the album, tell me a little bit about it!

So ‘The End’ is such a cool one, it was a song that I had done with my friend Ruens and he’s strictly a drum-and-bass, dubstep artist. He’s such a cool person. I’ve known him for like, two, three years now. And we just wanted to make something really cool and different. It pushed both of us out of our comfort zones. So he had this song that was mostly piano driven that had this crazy drop. It almost feels like Halloween to me. It’s very sneaky. And when he released that as a single, I wanted to incorporate it on the album, because it fits a lot of the tonality of the project. And it’s such a great sonic endeavor. I love the way I sound, I love the concept of it, and that song is like the dark period of the night where you’re in the midst of sad moments, we all have them. Have you ever been out at night and you’re having a great time, it gets too late, or you get a little too drunk and you start to contemplate your life choice? It’s like a bad trip. I don’t do drugs, but I think if you do, that’s what that song would be.
So that is the dark period before you get to the actual final song on the album, ‘Sing Me To Sleep’, which is softer melancholy, but then gets happy and euphoric.

Yes, so ‘Sing Me To Sleep’ it’s the song that yet has to be released but I got the chance to already listen to it and when I did I just sat there and felt so touched, it felt very personal and intimate. I thought it was brave to put this song as the album closer, so it would last for the person that listens to it. I would love for you to tell me a little bit about what this song means to you.

Oh my god to hear that means so much to me! I’m also just so appreciative. Always taking the time to listen to it, because that song is definitely one of the most special songs, if not the most, I’ve ever made. It’s really experimental in terms of structure and sound. Its five and a half minutes. I was thinking ‘Is this too much? Does this not make sense?’ But I wrote that at a very dark period in my life where I was really distraught in the moment. I remember lying in my apartment floor in LA and I was seriously contemplating self-harm, and wondering “how do I get out of this without doing that?” So I had this guitar riff that was so beautiful and the lyrics of the first verse into the pre chorus and then into the first chorus were all freestyled pretty fast. I remember, it just felt so poetic, so different, but also so personal to me, and I wanted it to end on this really uplifting, high place. So the song took many different forms for about eight months while I worked on it, and I just couldn’t be more proud of that. It’s the coup de grace of the album. It’s the defining character of the whole series. And it incorporates every element of what this album means to me. I just love it so much. It’s one of the only songs I can listen to without being critical. I can just enjoy it. And one of the artists who influenced it the most was Ethel Cain. I love her so, so much. I remember wanting to try to make a long, experimental song and I wanted to make it a dance record; it’s very much a dance ballad. I think this is the song that a lot of people will be surprised by, and also hopefully, really resonant with. And the more that I’ve built my fan base, the more I’ve been honest, people are like “that’s what I want more from you” And that’s so amazing because all we want is to connect.

It really feels relatable; it’s very special that you’re speaking so honestly. And it is a dance song, but it’s also very comforting. And, in a good way, not like I fall asleep, but it almost felt like a lullaby in the beginning, and then there is this moment of “now I’m free” So you painted it perfectly through the sound. It’s really beautiful.

That’s exactly what it is. You hit the nail on the head! An artist who influenced a lot of that sound was Above & Beyond. They’re a trance group with the style of that almost super euphoric dance music that I grew up listening to. And, I think, one of the most important ways we can release our pains and struggle is through dance and through listening to music.

Your whole album has the dance and electronica sound but you do have a background in classical music, what made you go with the dance sound in the end?

I think it was as I was developing in my teen years. I do love classical music. I’m so inspired by it. And growing up, I did musical theater, so I loved performing, being on stage. When it came time to understand my voice. I thought I should study classical, jazz and opera technique. I did that for probably four and a half years with my teacher very critically. In that time I was really enthralled by composition and music theory. I’m not good at math, but music theory made sense to me. Because I can equate you a note and have it build this chord, but if I augment it slightly, it becomes this whole new thing. And that’s how my brain works a little bit. Then I started to develop my tastes of what I listened to. I found pop music is just all of these things put together and I don’t have to make things so deep and meaningful, but I could just have fun. I think every classical musician, who turns into making pop music, once they understand the rule book can just take it, skew with it and create something different. And it was actually dance music that made me go, “you can make classical music with synthesizers”, that was a really big breakthrough that led me down to starting production and writing, all of that is influenced on this project as well. Whatever I do, I want it to feel big and exciting. And that’s a byproduct of classical music. And you either love it or you hate it, there’s no middle ground.

That makes so much more sense than I thought it would!
And you’re already working on new music?
What do you see for yourself in the future?

The future is feeling very big and bright right now. I’m at the early stages of some ideas, I have some demos and I’m just really excited about what’s next. I think I’m not going to make the same type of project as m.w.u. I’m going to lyrically expand upon some of what I was doing but I want to go back to my roots and make bigger pop music, stuff that feels more anthemic and stadium-ready, and I’m hopefully touring by the spring and maybe opening for another artist. This is the beginning of the World Takeover. This album is gonna find a home with the right people, and people are gonna resonate and be moved by it. So we’re at the beginning and there’s so much to be done, and I’m just so excited to see how it all unfolds.

That sounds very promising and exciting!
Do you also have some hopes or wishes for the music industry in general?

The big one would probably be to see it become less gate kept and less like you have to jump through these impossible hoops to get appreciated. I think back in the 80s and the 90s, if you were a great band or you had a great sound, people were more willing to take a chance on you. Unfortunately, social media has made things a lot harder for independent artists to be seen and to be taken seriously. So I think that would be my wish in general. I would love to see it become a little bit more digestible for a variety of different types of artists. But then again, queer people now take the commercial reign. For so long, we’ve seen pop music be ran by corporations or people making the shots behind the scenes and they impose these things on to whatever pop star that they’re marketing. I would love to see more flamboyancy and more pop superstardom from trans people, queer people, and I think we’re getting there.

Alright, so do you have one ending statement, something you’d want your fans to hear?

I would say, always believe in the power of change, because that is the most beautiful thing about life, being able to be one thing one day and then to realize that’s not working for you and pick up and work towards being something else. And for my fans, it’s so important for me to feel like they are being seen by me and by my music. If there’s another trans person listening, who’s scared to take this leap, I hope that this record could give them the confidence to do so and also anybody who’s listening to it, I want to have them feel seen for like five minutes. I hope that my fans can find and impede their home on these songs.

That’s a beautiful message! Thank you so much! I can’t wait for tomorrow and the response, it’s gonna be great!