“You will be hearing this record, whether you like it or not,” Josette Maskin said.
Maskin plays guitar in the indie pop band MUNA, alongside Katie Gavin and Naomi McPherson, and the album in question is “Dancing on the Wall.” It’s the band’s fourth studio album, released on May 8.
The recent project is MUNA’s first album since their self-titled release in 2022. Maskin said the bandmates were able to use those intervening years to find the dark, synthy sound that permeates this album. They had their own studio space for the first time in the 10-plus years they’ve been making music together, which helped them create what they call their most cohesive album yet.
Maskin said they’re planning to let this album have its moment in the sun before jumping into their next endeavor.
“Even though we love making art and love making music, I think we don’t want to feel the rush that is produced by capitalism to keep producing,” Maskin said, “and we want this record to have its time.”
“Dancing on the Wall” is a departure from MUNA’s previous work, trading the sunshine-y pop instrumentals, country influences and sweeping ballads of their self-titled album for gritty, atmospheric tracks influenced by 1990s punk.
One of the album’s singles, “Wannabeher,” is MUNA’s take on the themes of “Rebel Girl” by riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill. Both songs explore the line between admiration and desire. Lead singer Gavin also cites alternative musician Peaches as inspiration for the “feminist punk DNA” of MUNA.
“Part of the lore of MUNA is that when we met in college, I really wanted to start a riot grrrl punk band, but the issue that I ran into as that came into fruition was that I don’t really like punk music,” Gavin said. “We all kind of balanced being interested in a punk aesthetic, but all kind of having a love of popular music.”
The punk ethos comes through on another track from the new album: “Big Stick.” Before the album dropped, MUNA listed the song on the music distribution site Bandcamp and donated money from sales to Pal Humanity, an organization run by two Palestinian physicians providing medical care, distributing aid and schooling children in Northern Gaza.
Set to a quick-tempo, pulsing beat, the lyrics in “Big Stick” sharply criticize America-first rhetoric, tough-on-crime policing and manufactured consent. One verse lays out a number of things the U.S. gives the rest of the world, including “weapons to dictators in apartheid states” and “kids in Palestine PTSD.”
The song’s title is a reference to President Theodore Roosevelt’s adage, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
“Teddy Roosevelt is kind of like the poster boy of American imperialism. And obviously, the big stick that he was quoted as saying to just ‘carry’ was obviously something that was used,” Gavin said. “It’s kind of saying that if we have all this money and power invested in the military industrial complex … that is going to get used, and that’s definitely what we’re seeing now.”
While “Big Stick” may be MUNA’s song with the most overt political commentary, Gavin, Maskin and McPherson have made their stances on political and social issues clear as long as they’ve been in the public eye. They’ve regularly spoken up for Palestinians living in Gaza and recently signed an open letter to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency urging the closure of the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, which holds children and families detained by immigration agents.
“I think we’re all very politically minded individuals,” McPherson said. “We live our politics in our creative pursuits as well, as most people with marginalized identities kind of inevitably end up doing. You can’t help but be political.”
For as long as musicians have been talking about politics, critics have been pushing back. More than 20 years ago, fellow three-piece musical act The Dixie Chicks, now known as The Chicks, denounced former President George W. Bush and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It triggered widespread backlash, with people telling them to stick to the music, not politics.
McPherson said that rhetoric has been directed at MUNA, too.
“I think this is something that’s told to people to keep them feeling powerless and small,” McPherson said. “It’s an intimidation tactic to keep people with platforms from sharing stuff that’s important to them that doesn’t have to do with the music and just has to do with being a person. And for us, it has to do with being an American in this country right now. It just feels very, very important. It’s kind of a no-brainer to us.”
Back in 2016, MUNA played their first festival gig: Lollapalooza. The three musicians wore handmade T-shirts condemning then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
In the 10 years since, their activism has changed, though Maskin said, “We might need to bring the shirts back.”
Gavin said she and her bandmates have been focusing less on short bursts of direct action and more on sustained activism by joining organizations and leaning on others. She said community can offer a sense of accountability and keep momentum going.
“It’s exhausting,” Gavin said, “and it’s also extremely life-giving and inspirational to see how many people are showing up for each other right now.”
The members of MUNA have said that queer joy was the essence of their 2022 self-titled release, and they often still think about how joy relates to resistance. McPherson said LGBTQ+ people have deep roots in activism, and queerness inherently resists structures of patriarchy and societal norms.
“I think it’s not inherently, necessarily, in and of itself, in a vacuum, radical,” they said. “Queer desire and joy can bring you into community with people, and that’s really where the radical aspect can take hold.”
“Dancing on the Wall” ends on a somber note. The final song, “Buzzkiller,” explores personal aches and insecurities, but also a sense of existential hopelessness touched on in other songs like “Big Stick.”
Gavin said she struggled with the decision to release a song that expresses hopelessness when she thinks it’s important to keep fighting against what she sees as injustice. But ultimately, she said her greatest allegiance is to honesty in her art. She cited an idea from organizer and educator Mariame Kaba: “Hope is a discipline.”
Gavin said it’s OK to feel hopeless, as long as you keep showing up for the people in your life and the causes you believe in.
“I think there’s something about being able to express that to people that you love and being heard that then allows for a space for hope to start growing again,” Gavin said. “I have to express hopelessness in order for the cycle of hope to rebuild.”
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Grace Griffin produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Micaela Rodríguez. Griffin also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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