Q&A: Magdalene Eats the Rich with New Single “Sexual Relations With a Wall Street Banker”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY MOLLY PECK☆
Photo Credit: Dalton Fisher
MAGDALENE HAS NO INTEREST IN WHAT YOU THINK OF HER—She’s doing her; it’s your choice whether you pay attention or not. But if you like pop music with a side of satire, then you should be paying attention.
There aren’t many artists who can arrive on the scene as fully formed pop acts with unique sounds and perspectives. It usually takes years to develop a persona, a look and a style all their own. Magdalene isn’t exactly one of these mythical acts either. She has put in years of work as an artist, playing with bands like Current Joys, Surf Curse and Brutus VIII, so when she decided to commit to her solo career, she was ready. She was reborn as Magdalene in 2024, with the release of her debut single, “Delusional.”
A new era began for Magdalene with the release of “DJesus” this past February. The track feels like a love letter to 2010s Lady Gaga, with the heavy club beat contrasting Magdalene’s powerful vocals and Catholic imagery peppering the lyrics. In the music video, Magdalene belts out the bridge while wearing a crown of thorns and dragging an enormous cross covered in light bulbs through a grungy parking lot. The track was the first to be included in a new playlist on Magdalene’s YouTube channel titled “American Heroine.”
That playlist now includes Magdalene’s past four singles: “DJesus,” “P*rn in the USA,” “Red Siren Pick Up” and “Sexual Relations With a Wall Street Banker.” The cheeky, satirical tone of each of the four tracks doesn’t distract from Magdalene’s musical sensibilities; instead, it enhances her sound. She dabbles in punk, grunge, synth and hyperpop across the four tracks, while keeping the themes and overall style cohesive. The overarching motif tying them together is Americana, whether that means Lana Del Rey’s brand of Americana (“Red Siren Pick Up”) or Nirvana’s (“P*rn in the USA). The chaotic, dramatic, passionate way that Magdalene creates music shines in these tracks, reflecting the way she feels about the current state of the world.
“Sexual Relations With a Wall Street Banker” draws the most inspiration from the late 2000s punk and emo scene of Magdalene’s singles thus far. It is a rebellion against conservative American culture from start to finish. The music video pulls imagery from the 1980s just as much as from the 2000s, with the backing band wearing full suits complete with wide-cut ties and topped with animal masks, while Magdalene balances an enormous vintage camcorder on her shoulder, relaying her affair with a Wall Street banker to the listener. She steps delicately around piles of $100 bills in sequin-covered stilettos and fishnets while singing, “Mr. President, happy birthday/You’ve been a good boy,” in a voice dripping with irony. The video culminates with Magdalene wearing a sparkling devil mask, a see-through bodysuit and a red tutu while giving an actor in a Donald Trump mask a lap dance, and then shoving a cake in his face. An American flag hangs limply in the background.
Magdalene insists that these aren’t calculated criticisms of the world we live in; it’s just how she feels. Her music may not dig into her personal life, but it is still personal. She expresses her frustration and desire for change through satire, comedy and, of course, music. Her message, musical style, fashion and visuals meld together to display an artist with a strong sense of self and perspective.
Luna recently sat down with Magdalene to discuss personal style, confidence, irony and more.
Photo Credit: Dalton Fisher
LUNA: What were some of the musical inspirations behind “Sexual Relations With a Wall Street Banker”?
MAGDALENE: Definitely A Fever You Can't Sweat Out by Panic! At The Disco. I've been describing it as A Fever You Can't Sweat Out by Panic! At The Disco meets The Fame by Lady Gaga, combined with Chicago the musical.
LUNA: Many of your songs ride the line between different genres. Which genres did you pull inspiration from for this single?
MAGDALENE: This is my rock opera, my rock-meets-theater song. It has a punk-ness to it as well. It's like punk-rock theater.
LUNA: This single plays with Americana and critiques our current political climate. What made you want to write about that and take the song in that direction?
MAGDALENE: Honestly, it wasn't a calculated choice; it's just the reality of our everyday life. It's so in our face right now, especially with the presidency. Around the time when the Epstein files were coming out, it was all so fresh in my mind. I didn't walk into the session thinking, “this is what we're writing about.” We just started writing about it because it's so prevalent in our culture, and it's so disturbing. It weighs really heavily on me, and with where I'm at in my career and in life, I'm more interested in writing about the world around me than writing about my personal life.
Shit is so fucked right now, it's hard to process. I'm trying to process it through satire and comedy, and trying to use my platform. When you're pursuing a career in pop music, it's the most elite version of a music career. I came up in the indie rock scene, and the spectrum of what a music career can be is so broad. To pursue pop, that's the most elite version of it, and it makes me feel like I have the responsibility to use that platform and use music as a way to point my finger at certain things in culture. There's a lack of that right now. Because of the way cancel culture got out of hand, people are afraid to rock the boat. I'm really interested in rocking the boat and pissing people off, and being a polarizing artist. To do that, you have to speak about shit that is scary to talk about, but that is very much affecting our country and world.
LUNA: The music video for “Sexual Relations With a Wall Street Banker” feels both gritty and theatrical. What was it like combining those elements and creating a concept for the video?
MAGDALENE: Very natural. Those are the two worlds that I come from: the underground punk scene and being a musical theater kid. Creating the video was super fun. Me and my friend Kevin Zimbrano, we co-creative direct my videos. He's an old friend of mine, and this one was extremely fun to make. The other music videos I've made have been a lot more narrative, and this one is very conceptual. There's a narrative in terms of the message, but it's more conceptual. There's no “The video starts here, and then we have to get to this point.” We were trying to make the most zany, outlandish, bombastic, punk-y theater, poking fun at and trying to humiliate the millionaire, the 1 percent, catching them in the act. It was super fun.
Photo Credit: Dalton Fisher
LUNA: Your outfits and styling in the video pull a lot of inspiration from vintage Americana, especially the 1960s and the 1980s. Why was invoking those eras important, and what do you like about the fashion from those times?
MAGDALENE: It's something that's so not calculated for me. If I'm totally honest, it's just something that I'm drawn to right now. Low–key–you can say this, I don't care–I ran out of my meds for five days, watched the No Doubt “Don't Speak” video and chopped all my hair off. For some reason, it unlocked something in me. It made my face make sense to me, and I was like, “Whoa.” People kept saying, “You look like a 1920s silent film star,” or “Your face looks like it's from like a different time.” I was like, "That's so true!” For some reason, when I started dressing in this “80s does 60s” and “80s does 20s” style, it made sense with my face and made me feel very individual. I've been leaning into that and the theatricality. I want my look and my music to feel very timeless, and not be playing on what people are into at the moment. I want it to exist in its own world. It lends to the music, and it all makes sense together, and it is like referential to so much shit that you can't necessarily pinpoint it. It's mostly the haircut. I was like, "Oh, fuck,” because it made everything make sense to me.
Fun fact: after shooting the music video–I styled the whole thing myself, everyone in it–I got home that night and was like, “Oh, I should take all this out of my car,” but I was so tired. The next morning, the car window was smashed, all of it gone. All my vintage costumes, everything. At least it's captured in the video.
LUNA: What was your favorite part of the video to shoot?
MAGDALENE: The first scene where I'm walking through all the people in the masks. That felt really fun because of the way it was looking on camera. The shot was so sick, and we were so excited. That was the first thing we shot as well, and it was coming out exactly the way I'd envisioned it. Also, it felt very satisfying to shoot me giving Trump a lap dance in a devil mask. It was the one scene that I was super firm on getting. Everyone was like, “I don't know,” and I was like, “No, we're fucking getting this.” People were even like, "Take the devil mask off, we can't see your face,” and I was like, “That defeats the purpose, just fucking trust me!” When we got that, everyone was like, "Oh, okay, that's sick.” It was really satisfying because that shot specifically felt really important to the video. The whole thing was so fun to shoot, and it was with all my friends, God bless them. It was so fucking hot, and they were in masks that they couldn't fucking see out of, and like full tuxedos.
LUNA: Your musical style is bold and unapologetic. Can you talk about developing the confidence to tackle these big themes and put yourself out there?
MAGDALENE: I'm 30 years old; I think that has a lot to do with it. I've been in the game for a long time. I toured in indie rock bands all through my early 20s, and I had a whole other project before this one. I'm a grown bitch, I know who the fuck I am, and I'm not afraid. When you're younger, the idea of criticism, especially with something as vulnerable as music, is scary and makes you feel some type of way about yourself. I'm at a point in my life where I don't give a fuck. I truly don't give a fuck.
I grew up in a small town, and I was thinking a lot about the type of pop artist that I was interested in. Growing up, I wasn’t pop-obsessed, but there were certain pop stars that I fucked with a lot, like Madonna and Lady Gaga–and Britney [Spears], but for this purpose, Madonna and Gaga. They really push culture forward, and they use their voices to say something that matters and to speak on the state of the world. They are quite political, and I'm drawn to that and to being that type of artist. Not to say every artist needs to talk about politics; that's actually kind of insufferable. Art is for many different reasons, and one of them is escapism. There need to be people who aren’t talking about shit, but at this point in my life I'm like, “What the fuck am I doing this for?”
I have a deep desire to be polarizing, rock the boat and start conversations. I find it very fulfilling to look in the comment sections for my music videos and see people arguing about Christian nationalism or arguing about how women are treated in America in the public eye, and the differences between how men and women are treated in the industry. That feels like success to me. After chasing this for so long, it's been like 10 years, there has to be something that is fulfilling that's not numbers. I'm interested in having a legacy that matters. I want people to talk about me the way they talk about Madonna. She had to hold press conferences before her Truth Or Dare tour to fight for her right to creative expression and to do her masturbation choreography on stage. It's less about being so brave or courageous, and more so not giving a fuck and pointing my finger at these things with some humor. It is fucking insane, what is going on in the world. It's batshit crazy, and we have to laugh at it, but it needs to be talked about in art. We need that.
LUNA: What is coming up next for you? Is there an album in the works?
MAGDALENE: I have another single coming out, and there is definitely an album on the way. More videos, another single soon and definitely an album before the new year.
Photo Credit: Dalton Fisher
