MUNA
Photography by Isaac Schneider. Interview by Heather Hawke.
With MUNA’s newest album – Saves The World – Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson wanted to convey how taking care of oneself by claiming and owning up to responsibility can be (or lead to) saving the world. We chatted with the band about their beginnings as a college band at USC, touring with Harry Styles and how that started a time of “inner-transformation”, and of course this new brilliant album lead by the amazingly unabashed self-love anthem “Number One Fan.”
I want to start from the beginning. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? Was creativity a part of your childhood? Did creativity play a big part of your childhood?
Katie Gavin: I grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, right on the edge of Lake Michigan. I remember my childhood as being full of make-believe. I was very encouraged to be creative as a child; when my childhood home was renovated my mom advocated for a small stage to be built in our basement. I started writing songs when I was 9 or 10, possibly even earlier, but that was when I started writing with a guitar.
Josette Maskin: I grew up in north east Los Angeles in La Canada Flintridge. My childhood was pretty normal. I grew up with a menagerie of animals, an older brother and my parents. Creativity played a big part in my childhood. I knew from a young age I wanted to be a musician so I spent most of my time playing guitar and trying to write songs. I found refuge in playing the guitar and writing songs. It was the place I could go for hours and hours on end.
Naomi McPherson: I grew up in San Diego in a very musical family and being creative musically was a huge part of my childhood. My family are jazz musicians but I grew up playing classical piano, then guitar. I was obsessed with music from day one.
Tell me about your musical upbringing. When did you first become aware that music was going to be a part of your life? What was your formal / not formal music education like growing up?
KG: I knew I loved singing from a very young age. I felt it was the perfect way to express the emotions that would well up in me as a sensitive child. The first instrument I played was violin, the second was guitar. I went to well-funded public schools that had good music programs. My grammar school had a program called Young Composers, which was an opportunity to write and perform your own songs for the school. I remember it feeling like the most natural thing in the world to write music and lyrics and being surprised that not everyone was doing it.
JM: I knew from a very young age that music was gonna be a big part of my life. My dad would show me old Bob Dylan and Neil Young records that I fell in love with. I don’t remember a time in my life before music. I always wanted to play the guitar and sing. I just always knew it was something I wanted to do. I started taking guitar lessons when I was a preteen and continued throughout high school. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go to music school and continued my musical education at USC where I met the other members of the band.
Let’s talk about your formative years. What was the very first concert you attended? Did you play any sports / go to summer camps? What music were you and your friends listening to in middle school / high school? Were there posers on your wall when you were growing up?
KG: I think my first concert was the Spice Girls, but it could’ve been the Backstreet Boys, too. I struggled through AYSO soccer and basketball. I was always afraid of the balls, happy to jog around the fields half-heartedly and avoid any high-pressure situations. I would say my best friends and I were the “indie/scene” kids at our school once we hit Junior High. We loved Death Cab For Cutie, Regina Spektor, Bright Eyes, Fiona Apple….anything that was extremely emotional but not full on emo.
JM: The first concert that I attended growing up was the Backstreet Boys (lol). I went to a lot of classic rock shows with my parents which helped form my musical taste as well. I played a lot of sports growing up. Baseball, soccer, and basketball. When I went to high school I started focusing solely on music. In middle school I was listening to Incubus and Damien rice. High school I listened to a lot of Jeff Buckley, Little Dragon, and St Vincent. I was consuming all kinds of music all the time. I wasn’t confined to any one genre. Growing up I had a Pearl Jam poster and a doors poster on my wall. I have always related to the aesthetic of Jim Morrison and Eddie Vedder.
NM: First concert was in the womb! My mom fondly recalls taking me to a James Brown show and I couldn’t stop kicking, apparently. First solo concert of my own volition and money was Fall Out Boy when I was in middle school. I played soccer — I was a good goalie because I was always the tallest, ha.
I know that the band started off as a college band at the University of Southern California in 2013. How did you all meet? Were you all looking to start a band?
KG: I met Josette in my performance class and Naomi in a class called African Diaspora. I knew I was looking to start a band – in fact, the story goes that I told Naomi they could be in my band the very first time I met them. I probably said the same thing to Josette. There’s no denying I had an agenda when I showed up at that school.
JM: I met Katie my first day of class at USC. We had the same major. I knew I wanted to be in a band with Katie soon after we met. Naomi I met through Katie. I didn’t know Naomi played music until later on in our friendship. As soon as I heard her play guitar I knew I wanted to make music with her. The three of us jammed and the rest is history.
NM: I wasn’t looking to start a band – at least I didn’t think J was. I was looking to get into academia, maybe become a professor. In many ways I was running away from being musically creative because I knew how hard the career was, I’d seen how difficult and taxing it could be. But we just clicked and I knew we had to pursue it.
By the middle of 2017, after self-releasing your debut EP (More Perfect), releasing your debut major-label EP (Loudspeaker) and then debut full-length album (About U), you all were taking the stage as the opening act for Harry Styles on his North American and European tour. What were your emotions / feelings while still on the road then? Were any of you writing / looking forward to creating or were you feeling ready for a break?
KG: I think of that time as the beginning of a big inner-transformation. I had a kind of manic desire to write, impatiently pestering Naomi to send me beats I could build songs on and working on my own tracks in the back of the sprinter van. I was living through a heartbreak while simultaneously experiencing a huge career high. I think part of me was drawn to writing then because I thought if I could write about it all I could somehow stave off having to feel it all. But the feelings definitely came for me once we got off the road.
JM: I think that time was just very exciting for us. We got the opportunity to explore the world whilst on that tour. We got to go to places that I never thought we would have the opportunity to play. I felt very alive and just very thankful for the opportunity. I was looking forward to writing but I don’t think I knew exactly what that meant. I think I thought it was going to be a much easier process than it was but I am grateful for the growth writing the second album brought to us.
I read that post tour you felt disconnected and had to rebuild up your self-confidence as individuals and you all were left wondering if your work was worthwhile. Making Saves The World was a process of reclamation of yourselves and a process of growth which took a lot of “ego death” and what you’re trying to push with the album is the idea of learning how to take care of yourself and take responsibility for yourself, and how that process of saving yourself can be the same thing as saving the world. Was there a specific marker in the creation process of Saves The World that was a turning point into helping you all build yourselves up?
KG: We got off of tour with Harry in November, and we turned in the first version of our record the following February. We ended up getting feedback from our team that the record we turned in was not as strong as they believed it could be. They believed we were capable of better work. I think before that February we were operating from a pretty egocentric place, really believing that we could control the creative process. I think being humbled by their honest feedback allowed us to surrender and admit that we were not in control. We had to just keep showing up and keep the faith that the inspiration would eventually work its way through us.
JM: I don’t know if there was a specific marker that helped us in the creation of the record or our personal growth. It was just a long journey uphill with many moments of hard work and self-reflection that got us to the end of the journey that produced Saves The World. Every song in the creation of the record was a turning point when it was being created. Was a moment by moment process of growth and creativity.
NM: I think the marker is less specific for me personally — the shift happened over the course of a few years and although we had some epiphanies along the way I think taking the time to really delve into ourselves beyond just what we were comfortable with helped make the shift. We also are fortunate to be in a band because we are able to big each other up.
What was the writing process like for Saves the World? Was it an individual thing that came together over time, or was it a group effort? Did the writing process change since the last time you sat down to write for a recording? Is that process something that’s shifted for you over time?
KG: The writing process was such a gargantuan and amorphous thing that it’s kind of hard to describe. In the beginning there were kind of marathon writing retreats. There were attempts at co-writing sessions that were encouraging and inspiring but ultimately fruitless. Along the way there were little gems, waiting to be discovered late at night driving alone or early in the morning making oatmeal in the kitchen. Some songs were fully-formed from the start and others required some serious toying with. I think the process is something that will always be shifting for us, and I think that’s kind of the goal.
JM: The writing process for Saves The World was many things. Our creative process changes from song to song but certain elements remain consistent in terms of who is doing what. I think with this record we were more open to collaborating with one another and with outside producers. We got the opportunity to work with some amazing co producers who helped us expand our sound and our understanding of music. The creating of the record opened us more up to the endless possibilities of how creation can occur.
There was roughly two years between the release of About U and Saves The World. Are you always writing? Was there a specific moment when work on Saves The World began? Or did the line between the writing for both albums sort of blur? How much did you, and the new album, evolve in that time?
KG: In short, yes, I am always writing. I think Saves The World maybe began with “Grow”, which was written in the van and recorded in a green room on the Harry tour, and which contained within it the intention and the prayer of the record: “I want to grow up.”
JM: We are always working on music. The creation of music never stopped between About U and Saves The World. It did take us time to change as musicians to be able to create Saves The World. I think we evolved immensely between the creation of About U and Saves The World. We became more experimental and confident but it took a lot of time for us to realize what the album was supposed to be.
NM: The lines definitely blurred, although we did have to evolve sonically in order to take the songs we made in 2016-2017 into 2019 and have it make sense. We needed to grapple with the huge changes that had occurred, but also the huge changes we needed to make in order to ensure the sustainability of our own lives; of our friendships and the project. “Who” and “Navy Blue” and “Pink Light” and “Never” are some of the older songs to make the record; “Memento” was made a week before deadline in about 2 hours. We learned to trust our instincts, to make bold sonic choices but not choices that stemmed from insecurity or fear of not playing, singing, doing enough. Just to be in service of the song.
Where did the lyrics from Saves the World come from? Where were you at physically, mentally when you wrote them? Was there an event or a specific timeframe where a large chunk of the lyricism came out?
KG: What a mystical question! The real truth is, obviously, that I don’t know where the lyrics came from. The ether? The universe? My imagination? But in a more grounded sense, they did come from my lived experience. I was all across the board writing this record. I think I wrote this album during a time where I was kind of de-numbing myself to the experience of being alive. Therefore, this record has more despair on it than the first record, but also more joy. Darker darks and brighter brights.
How important is it to you for the art that accompanies your music to represent the sound and the lyrics? Do you aim for a conversation between the two, or are you more interested in an aesthetically cool package?
KG: I think we definitely aim for a conversation between the sonics and the visuals of our work. It’s okay if they aren’t perfectly in sync with each other, but they must be in conversation, perhaps relating to each other as counterpoints.
NM: I think we care as much about the aesthetics that accompany the campaign as the music itself. They’re inherently in conversation with one another and a lot of research and discussions between us, our stylist Olivia Khoury, and our photographer and video director Isaac Schneider before we ever stepped in front of a camera. A lot of thought went into the “look,” despite the whole goal of this campaign was to evoke a rawness and effortless cool reminiscent of the mid-late 90’s rock bands. I think we felt that the last cycle, looks included, had a layer of pretense and we wanted to strip that back and step into our true selves—nothing fancy. Hence why we put an image of ourselves on the cover. We wanted to be the heroes of the story of this record, standing in front of a picture-esque blue sky.
