Q&A: Mothé on Finding Chaos, Freedom, and Fun in Total Popstar
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
QUEER ARTIST, DJ AND PRODUCER Mothé has always existed at the intersection of chaos and catharsis. Their new record, Total Popstar, captures that duality in full force: a messy, fearless, and deeply honest body of work that thrives on spontaneity. Written and primarily freestyled in their 1800s Victorian home after long nights out in Los Angeles’ underground rave scene, the album feels as much like a diary as it does a dance floor soundtrack. Each track pulses with the energy of late-night freedom but also carries the weight of raw self-reflection, exploring the emotional complexities of love, identity, and self-discovery.
For Mothé, this project isn’t about perfection: it’s about truth. Across ten tracks, including the singles “CLAW,” “YOUR ORBIT,” and “BEAT, DRUGS, SEX, LOVE,” they embrace vulnerability with a sense of playfulness, creating something that feels daring, unfiltered, and wildly alive. It’s a record that reflects a year of extremes - the highs of messy nights and the lows of confronting personal chaos - and channels it into a sound that demands listeners not just to hear, but to feel.
Beyond their own music, Mothé has also produced for artists like Indigo De Souza and The Wrecks, and brings their sharp ear for rhythm and mood to DJ sets that light up underground parties. With Total Popstar, they’ve bottled that same energy into a project that feels like an invitation: to let loose, to feel everything, and to dance through it all.
LUNA: Total Popstar feels raw and fearless. How did the messiness of the year you were living through shape the sound and storytelling of the album?
MOTHE: I think the messiness forced my brain to be split in half. I was encountering so many things every day, positive, negative, large, small. I became an agent of chaos for everyone around me and they loved me for it, so I was being rewarded for continuing to be explosive in my personality. It made me feel empowered to say ANYTHING, which created my most fun and incriminating album to date. In many ways the messiness allowed me to relax on myself, so I finally wasn’t worried about how I would come off when I wrote lyrics.
LUNA: You’ve described much of the record as being freestyled in your Victorian home after nights out in the underground rave scene. What role did spontaneity play in the creative process?
MOTHE: Spontaneity is the entire soul of the album in my opinion. I kept so many of those takes from when I got home because I couldn’t beat them the next morning. There was something special about just going in unedited that felt dangerous and exciting. I’ve been making music for a long time. I feel like I could breathe out a mediocre pop song in a day for the rest of my life, but I wanted to do something that made music feel daring to myself again, so I just salvaged so much of what had been done late at night. They’re not technically “the best singing” but I think we’re well past that point in art. They were honest.
LUNA: Singles like “CLAW,” “YOUR ORBIT,” and “BEAT, DRUGS, SEX, LOVE” showcase different sides of you. How did you decide which songs would lead the album rollout?
MOTHE: I struggled a lot to come up with the singles because I really wanted to have it received as a full album, but part of it simply came down to timing. I released “CLAW” first because it was the only song that was finished, and by the time it came out I didn’t even have a second single done. It forced my hand into snapshot decisions about what would come next because it meant I literally had to start that one next! That’s exciting to me, I’ll probably do that again next time.
LUNA: You’ve said the album touches on the “emotionally complicated aspects” of your life. Was there a particular track that felt especially cathartic or difficult to write?
MOTHE: The first song “Dreams” was a very wild one to write because I did it on a long subway ride in New York. I had just come across Neil Young’s “Organ Solo” and fell in love with it. I was alone for a while in that city, saw friends, family, but ultimately I felt out of my element. I listened to “Organ Solo” on repeat while I was walking around towards the end, and the whole song just fell out of me on top of that track. I was writing every word frantically and two lines would come to me before I’d written the first one down. That writing process felt extremely rare. I had to cut the song in half even, there were a few lines I regret not being able to squeeze in like “watching people smile makes my lungs hurt, a quarter life crisis when I’m actually at a third.”
LUNA: The title Total Popstar has such boldness to it, almost tongue-in-cheek but also very self-claiming. What does being a “total popstar” mean to you?
MOTHE: I had the title of the album picked out before I had even started writing for it. I got so bored of indie because at the time it was so safe and everyone just stood around with their arms crossed being held hostage by whatever the singer wanted to say into the microphone. I thought to myself “Where are the fireworks? Where’s the glam?”. Eventually I got to a point where the thought of being cool and dusty just felt disgusting. I wanted to make the biggest, brightest album I could possibly make, because being a “total popstar” is about taking up space. It’s about getting people to WANT to dance, not just forcing them to. It’s about being culturally relevant because you speak for the people and speak for their best interests. Right now, we need to have a lot more fun than we’re currently having. Our government wants us sitting alone in front of the TV buying random objects from cheap warehouses overseas. It is morbidly in our best interest to dance with each other.
LUNA: Beyond your own project, you’ve produced for artists like Indigo De Souza and The Wrecks. How does producing for others influence or contrast with producing for yourself?
MOTHE: They couldn’t be more different! My favorite part of producing for others is trying to force myself to consider the artist’s priorities while also putting a bow on it that creates the most accessible version of their idea. This is what I mostly do for a living currently, so I spend a ton of time doing it, but when I produce for myself I’m often alone and it’s an absolute party. I’ll try any insane idea I have because I know I can simply redo it if it doesn’t work. I’m way more willing to accept the risks of my own behavior than I am if someone’s paying me to make their work more successful. Lately I’ve been trying to change that though, I’m about to come at other people’s albums with a little more chaos.
LUNA: As a DJ, you curate sets for underground parties. Do you feel like your live DJ experience bleeds into the energy of Total Popstar?
MOTHE: DJing completely changed my relationship with music. I used to go to multiple shows a night, typically an indie one in the early evening and then a late-night DJ set. I thought to myself “why can I only listen to 30 minutes of live music from bands before I’m tired, but 2 hours of a DJ set hypes me up?” It became my goal to curate the album like a DJ set, just relentless and hard-hitting from top to bottom. I figured if someone did that ethos with a live band it would be explosive. On top of that I was always having to prepare hours of music from House and Techno archives, so the research exposed me to so much new material I had never considered before. The Total Popstar album is impossible without DJing.
LUNA: A lot of queer artistry right now is pushing boundaries and reimagining what pop can look like. Where do you feel your voice fits into that larger movement?
MOTHE: There are a lot of artists holding down the tender aspect of queerness right now. It’s incredibly important and I’m glad they’re doing it, but I have a louder perspective on it. My favorite early queer media exposures were artists like Peaches and DIY drag shows, they were exciting and messy. I don’t want queer people feeling like they need to be put together if it isn’t natural for them, and in some ways it’s nice to keep the queerness as a more arbitrary part of the project. I feel pretty casual about it, like why wouldn’t I have gay sex? If you feel that’s daring it probably says more about you than me.
LUNA: If someone were stepping into your world for the first time and could only hear one track off Total Popstar, which would you want them to start with, and why?
MOTHE: It’s hard to say, but “Obscene” feels like the best bet. It tells the most about where I came from and where I’m going. I put traditional indie guitars over a club beat, and it was the first time I really understood the album I was making. Plus it’s sexy and fun, which is all I ever wanted Total Popstar to be.
