Switched on Pop - Why bands give us purpose (ft. MUNA)

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

A culture that rewards easily consumable individual identities produces plenty of pop stars and almost no bands. A significant exception: MUNA, the trio of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson. MUNA treats the band as a structure that grounds identity beyond the ego and makes any success feel shared among the three. Their new album, Dancing on the Wall, wraps that conviction in blaring, unapologetic '80s production: slap bass, brightness pushed to the front, and everything connected in one time and place.Links: ⁠Newsletter⁠, ⁠YouTube MUNA, "It Gets So Hot" MUNA, "Dancing on the Wall" Lionel Richie, "Dancing on the Ceiling" MUNA, "Eastside Girls" Yello, "Oh Yeah" Dead or Alive, "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" Pet Shop Boys, "West End Girls" Billy Joel, "We Didn't Start the Fire" Charli XCX, "365" MUNA, "Wannabeher" Bikini Kill, "Rebel Girl" Peaches, "Boys Wanna Be Her" Le Tigre, "Deceptacon" MUNA, "Big Stick" MUNA, "Anything But Me" Flobots, "Handlebars" MUNA, "I Know a Place" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from Fetch Pet Insurance. Do you have a pet? Every six seconds, a pet owner in the U.S. gets hit with a vet bill of over $1,000. And it's almost always an unwelcome surprise. That's where Fetch Pet Insurance comes in. Fetch is the most complete pet insurance. Get paid back up to 90% of vet bills. You can use any vet in the U.S. and Canada.

All vets are in network. Go to fetchpet.com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet.com slash save. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, economy. and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-U for free at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-D-com. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. I really think that everyone should try being in a band at least once. The most fun I've ever had has been playing in them. I had my high school jam band phase, then college indie rock, then post-college Americana. Even this podcast is kind of a band. We just talk instead of play. I'm not alone in thinking

that bands are important. I was recently reading a piece in time called In Defense of the Band, which makes this case that a band is a salve for our hyper individualized, hyper commodified world. It's a real opportunity to make a connection. It was written by Katie Gavin of the band Moona, which is Katie, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson. They're one of my absolute favorite bands right now. I wanted to talk with them because I wanted to hear from all of them why being in a band matters, and I also wanted to hear about their recent album Dancing on the Wall. It's got this big 80s, over-the-top production. On the surface, it's an infectious pop record.

Underneath, the lyrics draw on the collective, activism, mutual aid, the fights against climate change and war. But really, it's about how we can be our best together. Here's my conversation with Munah. Joe, Katie, Naomi. Thank you for being on the show. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having us. My first thing is I'm just wondering how we do this

because this is only my second time interviewing three people, which I did that a long time ago. Sure. And I'm just curious, what is the most effective way to make this great for all of you as a collective? Well, just, I feel like it's vibes. I mean, yeah, just vibe it out. You can correct questions at individual people

if you'd like and we can toss it around. Yeah, sometimes it feels like we tend to do that. Sometimes it feels like an attack And sometimes it feels nice. But I think we've gotten pretty good because we, like, as a rule, don't do, like, individual interviews. Like, we always get interviewed together. So I think we've gotten pretty good at. Yes, it was a good rule.

Yeah. Okay. I'm just going to trust. And this is going to happen. We got you. Trust. We're good at allowing. Well, I'm excited to see how that unfolds.

I want to start with last night I was really enjoying a conversation that you had with the songwriter, Dr. And Tranter. He's been on the switch on pop a couple times. His podcast Unfamous, really great. Absolutely. And Katie, you said, it's so crazy to me that most people aren't in bands. And I would love for you to elaborate what it is to be in a band and why you wish it upon others. And then let's open it up because I kind of want all your perspective on this.

Well, I think that I have like life partners and I have these people who like intimately know what my experience of my life has been. You know, like we're sharing this really crazy ride together. And I think it's a combination of like a best friendship, a marriage, and like a family. It's like a really, really close, insane, demanding connection. I think all three of us are very obsessed with meaning and purpose in life. And I think that these relationships, like, they ground our lives and they give us so much purpose. Let's open it up. How are we feeling about being in a band? What, uh, how are we feeling about Naomi? How do you feel? I think, um, I mean, Katie's summed it up pretty succinctly and

aptly, but yeah, I think for us, we exist as sort of this protective unit and space in which we are able to incubate our ideas and our creative vision and stuff. And I think we are in a culture that prioritizes individuals, individuality. I mean, yeah, we live in an intensely brand-focused neoliberal society. You don't say. Sorry, guys. And I think that leads to the prioritization of, like, easily consumable, singular individual identities, which is why I think we have so many pop stars and so few bands.

Or at least there are so many bands, but they're not getting attention. And, yeah, I think we're just fortunate that we, like, got in at the very last second, you know, in the 2010s, and that we're able to do this with our lives. I just think doing it by myself or I'm sure y'all would feel the same way, too, it just would be really, really hard. So we're very, we're fortunate in that sense to have each other. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a few things. I like to collaborate. Like, my favorite act in music is collaboration. Like, I think I enjoy bouncing off of us. other people and like trying to figure out something that is better than anything I could do like by

myself. And also I'm like I could never exist in a public facing role by myself absolutely ever. Like I don't know how people do it. It keeps us sane. It keeps us grounded. Like it also just like gives us a purpose that is like so much more than anything that like is driven purely like by ego. I think that is the most useful thing about like being in a band because it creates an identity that is outside of yourself. And I think that's always been

part of like Muna's kind of vibe if that makes any sense. Yeah. Or like if we are having success, it doesn't feel like it's like me, the person is having success. Yeah. It feels like this like idea that we, that is a collective idea

between the three of us and also shared with the fans and the people who like our music. Like it feels like not just a win for me personally when something good happens for us. It feels like a kind of cool, shared experience. I love this. It's a little personal. I'm restarting a band getting back together with my old college collaborator two decades ago. That's so cool.

We had been in different cities forever. So we started writing again. So maybe some of this I'm also curious about some of the things that I can learn about how to be an effective collaboration. I think there's probably no better way than demonstrating our collaboration than talking about your new music. You have this album dancing on the wall. I want to start from the top.

It begins in a state, I feel like, of disorientation where we're in the summer heat in L.A. Sun beating down on concrete. No palm trees to block out the sun. It's a dance song, But at the very beginning, we can't even identify a downbeat. So we're like kind of lost. Eventually, forward to the floor, drumbeat comes in.

And it's kind of just like this repeated refrain. It makes me think of like a Donna Summer kind of song. It's not like first chorus. It's a pure dance song. Could you use this as an example of just how did this happen as a collaboration? And how did you decide to put this out first as the thing that we first hear? This is arguably like one of the most sort of like in the. way that people might stereotypically think of like band collaboration, this is kind of the closest

to that on this record. In the sense that like we were in Nashville with Daniel Tashin, who's an amazing songwriter who works with Casey Musgraves and a ton of other people. And he's, he really just has such an awesome vibe. He's so cute. He knows when to like step in and say something or to just like let you cook and be like a vibe curator and just create the space within which the music happens. But in this particular instance, he had been on a vacation with his family and he had this little like game boy looking ass,

like essentially portable doll, like machine. And he made this little synth loop. And he was like, I'm just going to play you guys some stuff. And then there was like a loop that was sort of, it is this. I mean, we've like edited the sounds. Yeah. But the baseline and the synth.

The baseline, the lead synth, I ended up like programming it on another, on another synth. But yeah, we took this beat from him, cut it up, made the form that it has, and we were just like looping it. And it was like stream of consciousness lyrics. But it was your idea to be like, it's something like it gets so hot. Yeah, we went to, we went to barbecue and it was really hot outside. Yeah, in the morning, it was, it's just one of those things that happens. I mean, it's been happening in, in L.A. and New York, the past couple

weeks were in May now, so the seasons are changing. But it's a pure dance song, but it's disorienting. and I think you're hitting the nail on the head there is something sort of unsettling and unsettled about the heat. It is like it penetrates the song and creates this sort of like dizzying, disorienting mirage on the top of a hill kind of like sense. Yeah.

I have a really specific feeling when it's getting super hot in L.A. In my 20s a lot, it actually like kind of induced like this kind of mania where it was like all of a sudden I would have like I would be staying up a lot later like not even necessarily going out, but like in my bedroom, I'd be like, I want to like smoke cigarettes. Like I just like go, I want to go like demon mode a little bit. And and also when I first moved L.A. and we were at USC, like that kind of burdensome sun on these like endless stretches of concrete in like food deserts. There's like a feeling of like I live in a dystopia. And so therefore I'm going to behave like a heathen.

And I think that that was enough to work with for, like, to build this world of the song. And Naomi has said before that, like, that track on the album kind of serves as the, like, in-fair Verona of the record. Like, it's, like, it's setting the scene of, like, this is where we are playing out this drama. I feel like it's really appropriate then maybe to go to the title track, which comes right after that, dancing on the wall. Because I feel like it is a big dance production, but something is wrong. Yeah. That's classic moon. Something is not right.

If I'm not crying on the dance floor, something's not right. Yeah, that's kind of a special view. I don't know if it's supposed to be a 90-degree turn from Lionel Richie's dancing on the ceiling. I think you really established this pristine 80s pop production. I was wondering maybe Joe, if you could start with, how do you go about in your collaboration deciding on what the sound and the vibe of the thing is going to be. I feel like a lot of it came as a post reaction to our last record where we kind of felt like Muna had to be as expansive as possible.

This record, we really wanted to make a record that feels like everything is connected and it's in a time and space. And I mean, it was the first time that we actually had a studio that was ours that we could like really. tap into and focus on like this is what this record is and I think just like the 80s of it all it's kind of the music that we I feel like love the most like in our core and felt the most attracted to and I mean it's funny that I don't know if I feel the record is bright in a way but I feel like we were bright it's like a lot of people do 80s things but they just like put on a gated snare yeah

totally and they're like oh it's 80s and there's like a juno and you're like it's like no The 80s is like really like almost blaringly bright. Totally. And you've got like slap bass. You've got like things that are in your face. Making George. Unapologetic. I think there's also like a political.

Yeah. You're affected by everything. As well. Like I think there is a reason the music of the Reagan Cold War era had this kind of shiny, metallic, futuristic, bright, but also like something's off feeling to it. and the, you know, the anxiety about the future and like... A hundred. I think we all feel that now, too.

And it's... So it makes sense that there's like a natural sort of, at least for us, like, there's a clear connection between our current reality as we experience it in this sort of conservative backlash with a lot of future anxiety and anxiety about the climate as sort of expressed in it gets so hot. And it makes sense. on a sort of academic level to like go back to that place because it's still rich to pull from. And yeah, there's so many parallels.

So there's a lot of vision that I'm hearing from you all in that like, you know, you want to make something that sounded consistent. Yeah. Is that something that you all are checking in your gut in the room or are you whiteboarding? It's both. There were a lot of songs that like we had a few different like sessions where we would. would like listen through everything. And also this had to do with the fact that like I had put out a solo record in between our third album and this album. And I was like going out on stints for tour and then like would come back and we had to like certain amount of time and past and I had

done like a certain amount of demos. And they had also worked on stuff when I was gone. So it was kind of like we need to like keep doing these like states of the union. And yeah, it started with like we had like A list, B list, C list. Um, and. And I think at a certain point, like, songs did get put on the chopping block because they were not cohesive enough with the rest of the album. Like, it would, like, count as a strike against them. I think we, like, were like, this is important enough to us to make something that is, like, sonically consistent. And then, you know, like, when it gets to the farther end of the process, then we had, like, a piece of paper on the wall that we, like, rolled out. and it had like the songs not in track, not an album like order,

but it took us a long time to get there. And there were definitely like several conversations about, I think I felt like I had some moments of being like, this is really, really, really hard to meet the standards of like this record. And like we had some good conversations about like what I needed as the like main songwriter of the band. I needed a lot of positive reinforcement. at different points to be like, don't give up. Like, you're doing a good job.

And, like, we're going to get there. It's just that, you know, we're going to be tough on you because we know that you can do this. Yeah. I think about, I know, like the songwriter Dan Wilson has this amazing deck of cards. They're, like, tools for effective songwriting and collaboration. And a lot of them are like, do the improv thing. Like, yes, and. Just like, keep going.

Yeah. What's really different about a long-term relationship is, like, you know each other on every level. You've probably had every kind of conversation. So I'm just curious at this. at this stage, when there is something that difficult that needs to be said, how do you approach that? You know, you were saying there was some vulnerability and needing some support, but also needing to push at the same time. So how do you all approach that? I think we have different tactics.

I think I'm the most, I probably approach things with the least amount of tact. Like, I don't mean to be. I don't think you have a choice. I think you just got to. Yeah. I think I will say there is an understanding between. us that we are trying to make the best piece of work that we can. And so when things are said, even though it can feel personal, and I think we each have to work through that like personal

like sting of if it like hurts, that there's an understanding that we are just trying to make the best art possible. That doesn't mean that when something is said, it doesn't hurt your feelings. You know what I mean? And sometimes we have to work through the feeling, part to get to the part that's about the work and then we just try, like, no matter what, but I don't know, we each kind of go about it a different way, and I think we each have different needs, but it's also, it's just like so moment to moment. True. But it just does always come with the understanding we are trying to make the best art

possible. You're serving something larger. Always, always. So it's like any long-term relationship. where it's like, where we just have to continually see ourselves as a team and, like, no, we're going to get through it, but, like, not be in denial about those tension points is a lot. We can't have closeness with some conflict. Yeah. And learning to navigate it, I think, is always the sign of a healthy relationship.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to target a production question to you, Naomi, about dancing on the wall. Sure. Though bright 80 sounds, which are invoking this whole sort of political idea. identity. They're there, but there's also a whole lot of other contemporary things poking through. Sure, yeah, totally. Can you take me to the bridge? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the halftime bridge. Yeah. This Moena record has probably more halftime moments than anything we've ever done.

Yeah, the drums kind of switch up completely from a sort of Lynn drum world to more kind of, yeah, process like 909, you know. universe. The synths kind of warp and shift and glitch and the vocals kind of get sucked into this other, I don't know. It's an awesome moment. World, thank you. Yeah, we really were gunning for the halftime bridge kind of from the beginning. We were just like, this is a good idea and we should pursue it. What does it do for you and for the song? I think we're just not comfortable not having like some kind of little curveball moments here and there in songs. Not that they're like world shifting transitions or anything like that. But I do think the bridge is this more like anxious introspective kind of like, yeah, looking at the clock like as the seconds are

ticking and it, you know, it felt right to not have that just be like blasting through with the same beat. Like it didn't serve the story of the song. There's some, there's just a little like something about, yeah, wanting to pull the listener into this other kind of narrative reality that was just like an instinct thing that we did in the studio. Yeah, and there's also like crazy harpsichord stuff. Yeah. You might need to, everyone needs to re-listen again, but there is harpsichord. It's crazy.

It almost does that thing of like, because it is a dance floor song, it's almost like the bridge is like the transition in between two other songs and experience on the dance floor. You need a little chill out moment to yourself. Totally. That's the vibe that it gives me. Yeah, yeah, certainly. It also is like, you know, in movies

when someone is like in a club and in the sound, you know, is kind of like getting more and more low past. Yeah, and like as someone is becoming more like in their head. Yeah. Kind of that. Totally. Yeah, the place where you go internal on the party

even though they're surrounded by people. Totally. Yeah. It's hard to not get cinematic. with it like the the songs I were not synesthetes but I do think there is an aspect of sort of like a visual thing like you want it to feel like how something would look if X Y and Z and then try to figure out how to make the music get there let's go the next song let's go to you said girl I did not know that you wrote a song for me I did not know that you wrote a song for me that I was an East Side girl, but it just brought me home because I lived in your collective neighborhoods for 10 years. And so I was just like, I went to all time a lot, which is all very sweet.

But it's a song that has, I feel like, a lot of very specific place, very specific feeling. It's so joyous in describing the beautiful dingy hellscape, which is the boulevard in Los Angeles. How do you think about managing specific? versus universality in your work and who you're speaking to. Honestly, it's like funny now that we're performing it, especially like, you know, we've just done a bunch of shows in New York. And it's like, it's not like it's a disc track to New York, but it is like there's this funny line in it about like she's leaving you for New York City.

What a pity. I roll. It is funny. It's like, I don't think I really thought about it that much. I think there was an interest for us in, like, we've been in those neighborhoods for, yeah, like 10 years now. And we were interested in, like, capturing kind of a sense of the local. My approach to, like, organizing and political stuff, like, has become a lot more, like, localized, I think, out of a sense of, like, despair for affecting things. like on a global scale, it's become like either more like just like a one to one like mutual aid relationships or like focusing on really local issues and like my local, my community. And I think that kind of led to this interest in like, yeah, like having a song that for

us is like it's really cute because it's like we had a friend who had a birthday party at Capri last week and like and this is a bar and eagle rock and like we like have basically have a song for her you know it also feels kind of fun because it's i think it's very accepted and commonplace for people to want to shit on l.A for some reasons that are maybe grounded in some truth and then some that are just like patently absurd and so it felt i don't know felt kind of like punk for us to like be like no we like it and toes down yeah we're holding it down but i I think it took on an added layer of meaning for us. We wrote it, or Katie brought the demo to us in maybe the summer of 2024, I think.

And we started working on it. And we were instantly once we got that like the chant, like post-chorus moment, we were like, oh, we got it. The song finishes itself from here. We figured it out. And we had been working on it. And then at the beginning of 2025, the wildfires happened. And it added an emotional layer for us that wasn't there before, colored it sort of differently. A lot of friends displaced, a lot of burnt-bound homes.

Yeah, yeah, it was horrible. But a lot of people being like, I'm like staying because this is my home. And I love this place. Yeah, and people stepping up for each other in a way that I think goes against the stereotype about Los Angeles. People don't know shit about L.A. They don't. They know about certain areas. Yeah.

Which is great. You also wrote a song, which is about a specific era. Yeah, yeah. And it's not even... All time's not even... All time's not even in the East Side, but we won't even go there. It was just a behavior that we found was common in people as a first state suggestion. It's on the wrong side of where I understand.

But the East Side is like, it's just like a feeling. I mean, I literally wrote... The East Side is in New York. The East Side is in the... Oh, definitely. You know what I mean? Like, you can be specific, but it's like, everyone knows. We're like celebrating and lampooning like hipster.

Yeah, the song about fucking hipsters. Yeah, it's Bushwick. It's, well, You know, it's Williamsburg back in, I don't even know, now, you can even. Yeah, it does so much more than just joyous, poppy, infectious thing. One thing I wanted to start with was the sort of low baritone vocals that sound, they remind me, they're like, east side girls. Like, they remind me of like, oh, yeah. Or like, spin me right round.

Yeah, it's definitely, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a reference. to, what is it a reference to? I can't remember the name. I'm not, I, I, I don't remember. Are you thinking of West End Girl? Yes, but also the vocal thing is definitely, I mean, it's just like, it's not an 80s rip, but it's an 80s rip. Yeah.

Yeah, I literally don't remember. It's fine. Okay. The chant. I'm laughing at you being like, it's a reference to. I'm like, you're usually yes and. Yeah, I'm experiencing collaboration right now, which is like, Joe can't find it. You are.

And turns out we all can't find it. We all can't find it. One day we all will. But it is. It's just like it exists somewhere. It is 100%. Yeah. Okay.

But once again, we have to go to the bridge. This is one of my favorite bridges of all time. Girl and haircut, safety, in Detroit, Tokyo. All things astrological. Nashville. Fuck, she's not monogamous.

Maybe some references here. It feels very. I didn't start the fire. It's this sort of like free association of so much about Eastside community. Could you tell me about how this bridge happens? Okay, so it started with me thinking about how at that point we were like, this might be a single on the record. So I was like, okay, I want to like have that moment, that like classic pop moment where you're naming different cities. I was like, we haven't done that shit. Like, let's do it. Because I think we wanted to have that idea of like the east side exists

like everywhere, whether you're on the east side or not. It's just like a feeling. And I just started like Free associating, yeah, like things that are, to me, like, a part of the mood board. And, yeah, it just went, like, queer, like, haircuts, people with adjusting their outfits with safety pins or, like, wearing a safety pin in their ear. What's after that? Dietrichin. All things astrological. Like, just, when people are talking about astrology, you're probably on the east side. All the lesbians I know are drinking, like, ngronies or, like, they care about what kind of gin.

They're like drinking, if they're drinking. Pull back to the fancy restaurant from earlier. Right, right. And then fuck, she's non-monogamous is like, you know, just the experience of like all the like hot non-binary people that are non-monogamous on the east side. It's like they're all the heartbreakers. Props to arriving Paris with non-monogamous, by the way. Thank you so much. Thank you.

You know, that's why they pay me the big bucks. And you want to like pick up the pace, right? So we drop the cities and we're starting to just like hit him with it every time. role play rent fair gender confirmation care and then like the rest of it is kind of just a love letter to like our story of like our first shows that we played were like house shows and then now we have our own studio and you know just like our time growing up and like what we've been through there um when we were making our second record i lived in a house in glendale with like five or six roommates and it was just that's the house that doesn't have a c yeah that's the house that doesn't have a c um so that's

roommate drama that's a that's like uh yeah that is a reality of that is a reality TV show in the making. Yeah. Five people, L.A. No A.C. Everybody would sleep like in the living room together in the summer. Katie lived in like the attic. Yeah.

It was crazy. I loved it. It was cool. Yeah. And then pick me up Joyride album on the hard drive. 365. Shout out Charlie XX. I feel like also production wise, we just didn't.

I remember when we were doing it. This is just simple. In a way, like this is exactly what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You didn't want the courts to be what they were. They wanted to go. They wanted to go to the six. and have this kind of like emotion

and I was like I wanted to be exactly what it is like straightforward On the one the whole time Yeah I think we had already had an argument about like the dancing on the wall bridge I was like you guys are like just trying to make everything weird You know what I mean But they were completely right

That like it needed the six to like give it a little bit of a emotional feeling Of like The six is sad the X minor and C Yeah and just like that feeling of like I love us you know That's what makes me feel when we're doing it live. It makes it less sort of like, not that it's not kitch, but it is.

It makes it have a feeling. It imbues it, yeah, with more emotionality, especially as we get into the parts that are more like, I guess, political gender confirmation care. I mean, ridiculous that it's even a political notion. but and then the nostalgic as it sort of resolves like back into the chorus which is very unlike us to have a song that is so in and around the one like we don't like the one

we really don't like it's too safe we like to dip into the one and then leave it but Eastside Girls is very insistent on the F yeah in a way that I feel like we actually haven't done in a funny way it's been a minute and in some ways a lot of the decisions on that song we were trying, I feel like in this album in general, we weren't afraid to do, like, I feel like we've always felt the need to try to be different. But in this song, we were trying to do like, this is what the song is. Let's do what the song is and like playing like power chords or like playing like the simplest baseline like for what it was. Yeah. Is the decision that we wanted to make. Like we were fine to embrace like older pop music that I feel. like we at one point were like, this sucks, kind of.

Not trying to obscure the fact that it is basic or something. Yeah, like 100. And that's why we were at the one, you know. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

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So we've got a song about our local community and the whole world. Yeah, the whole world. Kind of, yeah. The East Side is a state of mind. Yes. I want to move to a song that is about your musical references. I want to be her. A reference to Bikini Kill, Rebel Girl.

Will you speak to how that song and that group is important to you and why you wanted to invoke it on your record? Yeah, I mean, when we started, we, I think there were, like, aspirations of having, like, a Riot Girl, punk band and like being in the canon of riot girl and and the truth is that it's like we just weren't meant to make punk music in that way that wasn't our actual musical lineage but it is absolutely like our ethos like lineage and I think to me it's like it's bikini kill and it's also it's also the song boys want to be her by peaches oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, for sure.

The energy of the verse is. Yeah, the energy. Energy of Peaches. Yeah. It's funny because that verse for Wanna Be Her is like I wrote that in like 2017. So I would have been like, yeah, very early 20s. Oh, it's got some early 20s energy to it. It has some early 20s.

It's super confident. Yeah. And then we like figured out the rest of the song with our collaborator, Leland. Yeah, we were kicking around chorus ideas because we had. She had all the verses. There's, like, more verses that aren't on the song, I feel like. Yeah, there are. And we kind of, like, picked between them.

But, yeah, we were kicking around ideas. The early demo of that song sounded like a cake song. Like, it's, it was like, I think there was, like, cowbell. Yeah. Cake is in the genealogy. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Some subtle ways.

But, yeah, Bikini Kill kind of, the specific idea of, like, the sort of, like, parallel of, like, trying on the dress and being best friends, like, aspect that exists in Rebel Girl. I think really from a musical standpoint point, sorry, we were going for like a Latigra Decepticon thing. 100%. Which is, you know, it's still in the

Yeah. Shout out. JD. You did teach it. Didn't J.D.? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, there's a decepticon element. Yeah. And I think it's like a little bit of a nod. We're not like in full like nostalgia era. But I think that it's It's a little bit of a nod and an homage to like that feeling that we had when we were starting of like our relationships to each other where it's like you're just really cool.

And I like want to be connected to you in some way. And like I'm confused at what way that is exactly. And the last thing I'll say about it is I think that a lot of these songs we made because of our excitement about like how they would feel to play. play live. Totally. And that song is so fun to play live. Yeah. Well, you all are in a band together. And what's interesting is that, you know, typically we think band, we think guitars, we think drums and bass. And obviously, there's a lot of electronics and production and computer work that takes place to make this music, the sort of just like amazing pristine thing that it is. We are computer. You are computer. Yeah. I can see Megan laughing at me. We are computer.

Is that my vocal standpoint? Computer. Okay. Joe, you often have an instrument in hand. Yeah. What is the importance of having live instruments in electronic productions? Well, I mean, like, I think it's just a choice. It for us, you know what I mean?

But I think it was a choice based. Okay, so when we were first taking you back to 2013, 13, so we made some songs and this is one, Katie was like the primary person behind the. computer and like I remember we played like one of our first shows without this like art place and it was Naomi and I with two guitars Katie with a MPC MPC and we were playing and we were like this fucking sucks. Yeah. Like the show the show the show was like just didn't have the ass like that it needed. Yeah. And I think the more that Muna developed, the more we realize like yes we like certain. drum sounds like in the actual recordings, but having real instruments in a room, in a live show is the most like cathartic thing, like, that you can bring and seeing somebody like actually hit something and feeling that hit, like, is so important to the live show, which is such a

different, I mean, I think now, like, those two spaces are the most like commingled as they've ever been. But if a song is different on a record, it needs to change for the live show. If it can't be communicated in a way that it's going to feel like you are having some sort of catharsis. But I think at this record, we did the best that we could to bring those two spaces together. But I mean, like, when we're making stuff, we're just trying to make like whatever is right for that song as opposed to like needing to play something. And I think that. that took us a long time to do. And Wanna Be Her is honestly a good example of that. There is a simplicity that I think with a lot of these songs, even simplicity for us, because I know

like it's never actually that simple. We're throwing things as often and as much as we can. But for us, it's a simplicity that I think took us a long time to reach in terms of like the musical aspect. And it's still really complex. But for us, that song, And East Sidegirls are, I think, a good example of, like, us trying not to, like, over-salt the chicken. Mm-hmm. Yes. I wish we could talk about every single song on this album. I really do.

But people have to go listen to it. Totally. So maybe just we could talk, I think, for a long time about Big Stick. There's a lot happening on this song. Yes. When I put it on, I make it look super cute so I can make you want to make you want. But one of the things that really stands out to me about it, aside from some, like, very strong overt politics, which are powerful. The underlying nature of this song feels a little bit

different than some of other songs here, where I feel like so often one thing I love about Muna is that you are so good at giving permission to experience pleasure for people and that joy is available. This song deals with desire and maybe the sort of like flip side of desire. Totally. And I was hoping that you could talk about how you arrive together at this place of desire as not necessarily the thing that is serving us collectively. Right. It's interesting. I think like this the third record was so much about like this idea of reclamation of

desire and pleasure as these like implicitly, I don't know, beneficial. Or like benevolent. Benevolent, uh, undertakings. And then yeah, I think that was almost intentional. I think that was a conversation we had like with this and the record as being like an inversion of that sort of like pure. the idea that like our desire can lead us down paths that are self-destructive like on dancing on the wall. Mm-hmm.

And then in Big Stick, like it's some, you know, a conversation more writ large. But I saw a really cool series of videos that a fan made about like talking about desire or the theme of control like over our records. And like it was like kind of a breakdown of like control. on dancing on the wall. And first of all, it's so cute and cool that, like, people spend that much time. You know what I mean? Like, I love hearing, like, if somebody wrote, like, a paper for,

like, college course or something on, like, our music, I just think that's so cool. But she said something that I thought was astute and honestly, like, helpful for explaining it, which was, like, that a lot of times, like, in Munah songs, I'm talking about desire and feeling like a loss of control over desire, or like maybe I'm the one in a dynamic who has the control

or I'm taking back control in like a song like Anything But Me, but like Big Stick is a song that's talking about like larger forces that have control to manipulate our desires. And I think that like in this day and age, it's an experience that everybody with a smartphone has that like our behavior is being like modified. by the technology that we're using. And like our desires can be manipulated in so many ways.

Like whether it's like the type of media that we're consuming or like the conversations that we're having with people around us or like the manipulation of just like financial need. Like so then you have to like have cognitive dissonance to like repress certain things that you know are wrong and just keep moving forward. The song gets to a place of like at the end of the line there's like always like the manipulation of just like hard power. If you speak up too much, like, you can be put in jail or worse, you know, and like, actually my

reference for this song was that song Handelbars by Flowbots, do you remember this? I don't know this song. You do. You do, but you don't know. I can ride my bike with no handlebars. Yeah. I can ride my bike with no handle bars. No handle bars.

No handle bars. I can ride my bike with no handle bars. No handle bars. No handle bars. I was a kid when that song got super popular, I think. I don't know exactly when it was. But like, I just remember being like, this was such a cool experience of like, like you're kind of drawn into the song by like the catchiness of it and the imagery that he's

presenting. And then it kind of feels like the like wool is pulled off of your eyes where it's like something in the beginning that feels quite innocuous like is revealed to be like evil. And I was like, I want to try to do that with big stick. But it's also like, last thing I'll say about it is like, this is one of the times where like we write something and then like when we wrote I Know a Place, that was like we wrote it like six months before the pulse shooting in Orlando. I wrote imagining like a space of laying down your weapons, but I was like this is not, I wasn't thinking like this is a literal thing. And it was like really heartbreaking that that became the case. And then it also was really humbling that like our community used that song as, you know, like an anthem to kind of heal in that time.

And with Big Stick, I will say that like I wrote that line about if you have a problem with starving kids in Palestine, then you'll end up in jail and like we'll send you to Louisiana. I wrote that about Mahoud Khalil. But I didn't put anything in the song about being murdered by the state because I was like, well, we're not there yet. And then between writing the song and the song coming out, we had two people be murdered in Minneapolis, like, by the state for speaking up against the ice rate. So it was kind of like this thing of like, it really is this bad, you know, at this point. Like it's, it's, the song feels really escalatory, but it's like, this is where we are. And I think it feels so good to be able to like have a song like Big Stick that's so explicit that like, I think a lot of times like right now people feel speechless. Like we just like, what do you fucking say like in the face of everything that's going on?

So I think it's really nice to have a moment where we can like be saying the same words together and be angry together like collectively. Like that is its own like weird kind of like it feels good. It honestly does. And hopefully for some people it will be helpful. This song which sort of talks so much about the negative impacts of desire, the experience of as a band and as an audience is the inverse of that. Is it like the freedom from those things which are oppressing you. By naming them. By being like I see what's going on.

Then you have like one second, of course. And then we finish the show and I go back on my phone. Yeah. I mean, I think it also just. speaks to like me and this is a heavy like a headier topic but I'm like why is there desire on any part of this record like why is there the need to like chase somebody who's not fulfilling you when we live in this world that is unjust I just think like we're all trying to satisfy a need and this is maybe the one time that we're really poking at like the real thing that's

really happening yeah yeah powerful moment and you've final advice as I go start a band, what are some things that I should, just any one thing of what can I bring into my collaboration to be a great collaborator? That's a good question. Open to anything. Yeah. Put on your Craigslist ad. Open to all.

Open to anything. Yeah, I think communication, above all, ask questions. Check in all the time. Check in all the time. And don't be afraid to ask for what you need and ask your collaborator what they need and just talk a ton. Throw effects on the master. Totally. Put an effect on the master.

Totally. Who knows? It might sound awesome. I appreciate you all. Yeah. Thank you for doing us. Thanks for having us. All my friends.

Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz. Additional production by Sahara McCrush. Engineer by Brandon McFarlane. Edited by Lisa Soap. Illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Video by Nick Rips. Music by Zach Tunario and Jossi Adams of Arc Iris, who we're going to be featuring later this week in their very own special episode.

They have a new album. called I Tomorrow. It's a dystopian sci-fi ballet. Really, it's gorgeous. Go check it out and listen to them in our feed in just a few days. Remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production vulture, which is part of New YorkMag. You can subscribe at NYMag.com.

We'll be back again later this week with ITomorrow from Ark Iris and on Tuesday with a regular episode. Until then, thanks for listening. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice a lot. much attention to your ads than they do on social, let me introduce you to fans. And they're

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