Song Exploder - MUNA - What I Want

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

MUNA is a trio from Los Angeles, made up of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson. They’ve been making music together since 2013, when they met in college. Their third album, which is self-titled, came out in 2022, and Rolling Stone, Stereogum, the Guardian, and others, named it one of the best albums of the year. Consequence of Sound called MUNA the 2022 Band of the Year. I talked to MUNA about the song "What I Want," which they co-wrote with Leland. Leland is an artist and songwriter whose other credits include Selena Gomez, Charli XCX, and Troye Sivan. In this episode, Katie, Jo, and Naomi, along with Leland, tell the story of how the song came together, from the original demo to the final version, and you’ll find out how a band that doesn’t really party ended up writing a party banger. For more, visit songexploder.net/muna.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. Muna is a trio from Los Angeles, made up of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson. They've been making music together since 2013, when they met in college. Their third album, which is self-titled, came out in 2022, and Rolling Stone, Stereo Gum, The Guardian, and Moore called it one of the best albums of the year. Consequence of Sound called Muna the 2022 Band of the Year. I talked to Muna about the song What I Want, which they co-wrote with Leland. Leland is an artist and songwriter whose other credits include Selena Gomez, Charlie XX, and Troy Civan.

In this episode, Katie, Joe and Naomi, along with Leland, tell the story of how the song came together, from the original demo to the final version. And you'll find out how a band that doesn't really party end up writing a party banger. Hi, I'm Katie. in the band. I am the singer and also the songwriter. I'm Josette, play guitar. I'm Naomi. I made the first iteration of the beat at the end of summer 2020. It was very simple. It was the baseline and the drums, and then that kind of ascending, like, pad thing.

I didn't flush it out a lot because I think I was, like, thinking it was, like, just fine, and I sent it to Katie just being like maybe she'll like this. I remember responding to that one. It was a slapper. It was a little slapper. I was in like a new relationship and I was just excited by the prospect

of like putting something on the next moon a record in acceptance of the desires in yourself that you previously might have had some judgment over. For me it was just about being an acceptance of my more hedonistic side. And then I

had a Zoom session scheduled with Leland. My name is Leland. Leland is a friend of ours who came into our life a couple years ago. Yeah. I executive produced the music for a TV show called Love Victor, and I would put an original song in every episode from an LGBTQIA plus artist. We all wrote a song that unfortunately ended up not making it in, but that was our first collaboration.

He just had like a warmth about him. He was always very, very kind. I don't know many people like him where he's trying to help other queer musicians out. I started out as just a genuine fan of their music, and I feel so fortunate because my relationship has the potential to go beyond fan. And when it makes sense to potentially collaborate,

so Katie and I wrote over Zoom. When he asked like, what do you got? I was like, I don't have a title or like solid phrases, but I want something that, feels really unapologetic and that feels fun. You know, he's really comfortable co-writing and I'm not as comfortable, but I'm comfortable with Leland. So what we ended up doing was taking five or ten minutes with the beat, like by ourselves

off of Zoom. And then we like came back and did some show and tell stuff. He had like the melody. I was hearing, that's what I want. They're not a wrong with what I want. And I knew I would love to hear Katie the same. something like that. In her tone, I can just hear it in my head.

It was very pandemic-informed where it was kind of like, I miss being out and around people. We found the lyric together, I want to dance in the middle of a gay bar and found the melody and the shape to go with it, how we were going to be able to emphasize the word gay. It was like kind of scary for me.

Maybe part of it is just being raised Irish Catholic. and also maybe carrying around internalized homophobia. And so part of what was interesting about writing with Leland was like we're two queer people. Katie and I really approached this song from a similar mindset. I grew up in a very structured environment where certain parts of me, out of necessity, needed to be repressed. And so I've spent more of my life not being myself than being myself

approaching this song from that place, I think it allowed Katie and I to not overthink the lyric. I remember a specific moment where we were coming up with the second half of the chorus like, I want the fireworks. And I was like, I can't say fireworks.

That's so, like, obvious. But he was like, no, we're saying fireworks. Like, you want the fireworks. You want the chemistry. It's fine to say the thing that's like down the middle. I remember feeling kind of inspired by how,

main pop girl, the lyric and melody sounded. And I was like, oh, I want to do a pre-chorus that has like some type of, you know, tut-to-to-do. I'm going to do one of those moments. Once we got a verse pre-chorus and chorus, I'm going to make. Once we got the complete thought, I was like, okay, this feels great. When I have a verse pre-chorus and chorus, the songwriting session is over. I'm like, a second verse I'll do later.

And then I sent it to the bros. When I first heard the song, I was stoked. But I was like, oh, those drums sound like shite. They have to go. Like, now. I remember I had a day where I worked on it in Allie's guest bedroom. Allie is Naomi's partner. Yeah.

And I fleshed out the drums, new drums and new bass sounds. My dad's a drummer. My mom's a bass player. So that's just like where my head is at most of the time. And then, yeah, there's like a little loop that cuts in and out in the chorus that added a little bit of motion that wasn't there in the verses. And then the little camera sounds. I just liked it.

After the first time you hear her say, I want the full effects. Felt like 90s supermodel energy. Like Shalom. Harlow, like Naomi Campbell, Linda Vangelista era, like tearing down the runway, killing it. We started working at our friend Joanna's studio. She has like a little place like under her house. And that's where we call it Princess Work, where we work from like 12 to 5. And we came up with that string moment.

Like with the sample that kind of sounded like the violins that are intoxic. That's toxic by Britney Spears. And I know most people probably know that, but I just wanted to clarify. just in case. Okay, as they were saying. We all love Toxic. It's just truly one of the best pop songs ever. Once that was done, it was like, well, now we just have to, like, figure out what the hell we're going to do on guitar. Especially in a pop song like this, I think we're adding, like, single stacked notes as a way to, like, create movement. So we'll, like, record, like, a bunch of me going up, like, a single note.

Sometimes when we're recording vocals, Katie either wants our input or she wants us to leave her completely alone. And I think this was one of the times because I don't think any of us knew how difficult this song was going to be to sing. But oh my God, it was insane. I got pissed. Yeah, you were angry at the mic. But it was because I didn't feel like I was doing good enough. There's not a lot of space to breathe. in this song. And then that also has like a mental effect of like I can start to feel like panic.

I just get it in my head. And then and then sure enough like I can't sing something because I'm scared to go for it. And so I know that what I really need is for my friends to tell me that I'm doing a good job. So I said, I need everyone should be say something nice to me. And that's what happened. Our bassist who engineers for us in the studio a lot. He, This was the day where you asked for a compliment. Yeah, and he said this changed his life, so. Because he didn't know that you can do that. Ask for a compliment or something.

Ask for support. You're great at that, especially in those moments. Yeah. By the end of that day, though, we had the vocal. Like, it was so clear. There were just a lot of hours spent putting in work to do little changes. But I would say that writing the bridge was my respite from the endless sea of details.

I really just wanted to say psychosomatic, yeah. I just remember her literally saying out loud, I really want the bridge to use the word psychosomatic. And we were like, okay. And I knew that I wanted it to go back into like, too, too many years. This is when we were vibrating at an extremely high level. I remember doing flips.

She was singing the lyrics. We were just like, this is going to take us back into the chorus. That is so fun. This song needed to be bombastic. Harmony stacks just help make a moment bigger. None of us really party at all. So it is funny that we have this song. I think we had a lot of conversations around like,

what if this is going to make people think that it's okay to go and get really fucked up all the time? And like from my mid-20s to I just turned 30. And that's kind of been like in on and off. Like, oh, I'm sober for a while and then I'm not sober. And I think just after testing it out for a few years, like I like it more being sober. But there's something very freeing about just being like, okay, I'm using the metaphor of the party to still try and express something that's true for me. I spent way too too many years not knowing.

Also like honoring that nightlife as having such a fundamental and important history for queer people and marginalized people to like be able to gather and feel safe. I was co-writing it as a fan and co-writing it as a gay guy who wants to be absolutely euphoric losing my mind in the middle of a gay bar dancing to this song. And that has happened multiple times now. and it truly is the best feeling. I remember playing it for my little sister and her saying, like, yeah, I would think that you, like, partied a lot. We're in our slut era without being sluts. Yeah.

That's all it takes. I think it's like slut in the heart. Slut in the heart if you're also a slut in the heart of your best friends. Yeah, absolutely. And we're sluts to each other. Yeah, absolutely. And now here's what I want by Munah in its entirety. Or visit songexploder.net slash muna.

You'll find links to buy or stream what I want, and you can watch the music video. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music

talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings,

John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website. RishiCash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode of Song Exploder was made by me, Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi-Hirway, and you can follow the show at SongExploder. You can also get a SongExploder t-shirt at song-exploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh Hirway. Thanks for listening.