Q&A: Vienna Vienna on Queer Rebellion, Glimmer Rock, and the Sound of Self-Invention
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NICOLE NGO ☆
Photo By Haley Blavka
IN THE AFTERMATH OF HIS ELECTRIFYING NORTH AMERICAN TOUR — with K.Flay earlier this year, Vienna Vienna has cemented his place in the alt-rock landscape with “God Save the Queens”, released in late January. His artistic journey is an ongoing iteration of renewal, revealing new fractures of identity untapped, elements of the self unexpressed, with every release. It is a pursuit of truth through chaos, an insistence on feeling the full spectrum of emotion without a flinch.
“God Save the Queens” is a hymn for the defiant: a gritty, glittery war cry that moves fluidly between rebellion and reverence. It holds contradiction not as a fault, but as a necessary state, gripping the tension between camp and confession, rage and joy, longing and resistance. The track locates Vienna Vienna within a lineage of queer artistry, where pop is used as a site for identity, protest, and radical joy — from Prince’s genre fluidity to Mykki Blanco’s boundary-pushing performance art. Joy remains radical, but here, it is carried with a kind of clarity, a willingness to take up space when the world fails to offer it.
Vienna Vienna crafts a sound that's less a revival than a reimagining, channeling the ecstatic defiance of ‘80s glam and ‘90s alt-rock through a distinctly contemporary edge. The video, with its neon-lit crucifix, leather-clad saints, and a cameo from Rupaul Drag Race’s Salina Es Titties creates a visual lexicon that is distinct to Vienna Vienna’s intent. Part drag fantasia, part punk communion, rage becomes ritual, and identity is unbothered, unbent. Like the queercore movement of the 90s or the radical aesthetics that have shaped underground scenes for decades, Vienna Vienna’s musicianship insists that queer music extends beyond expression, bleeding into disruption, confrontation, and reinvention.
From his debut EP Wonderland, released in 2024, Vienna Vienna has been steadily building upon his sonic and emotional world, committed to crafting spaces, on and offstage, where the self finds its full capacity through sound and expression: the relief it offers, the dances it invites, the love it yields, the connection it fosters.
Read on to delve deeper into the world of Vienna Vienna, one marked with an intent to reclaim and reimagine both past and present.
LUNA: I want to start with a line from a track that’s been stuck in my head, “God Save the Queens and all the in-betweens.” What did you want people to feel when they heard that line for the first time?
VIENNA VIENNA: I wrote this song to help myself feel empowered, I hope that feeling echoes outwards.
LUNA: The undercurrent of this track is colored with anger, but there’s also joy, glam, lust, grit. Can you talk me through the emotional multiplicities that inspired the track as you were writing?
VIENNA VIENNA: I was going through it honestly. I had really been struggling with myself, I was scared. For me, I was using all of those feelings as a way of breaking through that fear.
LUNA: You described this track as “glimmer rock.” That phrase alone evokes a world in itself. What does glimmer rock mean to you sonically and personally?
VIENNA VIENNA: Glimmer rock is about catharsis through live music. Flamboyant, emotional, and loud. It’s a bit of an homage to 80s and 90s alt—all dressed up in shiny packaging.
LUNA: This extends to the visuals of the release too. The video for “God Save the Queens” - It’s camp, it's revolt, it's cathartic. What was the starting point for building that visual world, and how did that develop?
VIENNA VIENNA: I loved this idea of curating fantasy. I used to spend a lot of time dreaming of places and moments like these. I knew I wanted it to be a party pretty early on-If there’s one thing us queers know inherently it’s dance.
LUNA: You’ve said before that you want it bold, you want it now - joy, freedom. What does it mean to write queer music in a cultural moment that’s still obsessed with policing queer joy and spirituality?
VIENNA VIENNA: Artistic expression is an essential tool for liberation. It’s an honor to know that there are folks out there who feel what I feel and that this music has connected us.
LUNA: When queerness finds its merge with raw joy and rebellion, it challenges systems that continue to uphold rigidity. I wonder, is music, to you, a process in which queerness - in its rawest, most invigorated form - a mechanism of protest?
VIENNA VIENNA: Yes - and more. Music is a manifestation of the desire for the human soul to understand itself. Sometimes through its own righteous anger, or the love it shares, or the grief it holds. That kind of self-exploration is to me inherently threatening to this growing disease of the simple, rigid, and boring.
LUNA: You called this track a response to corny bitches in cargo shorts, which I love. I’m also curious, how do you hold space for rage and resilience in the same breath?
VIENNA VIENNA: When you forgive someone it always ends up being for you, it’s so that you can find some peace. But don’t consider for a second forgetting. That helps nobody.
LUNA: From Wonderland to now, there’s been this arc of claiming or rather even, reclaiming space, emotionally, sonically, physically. What’s changed in the way you approach performance now versus when you were first starting out?
VIENNA VIENNA: I’ve been performing these songs since before they were out, and while I’ve always tried to center oneness in shows, now it’s truly become a group effort. It’s becoming more and more beautiful and rewarding. I’ve become much more comfortable on stage now, knowing that audiences are meeting me halfway.
LUNA: “God Save the Queens” is charged even further by its interaction with the people who connect with it. So much of your artistry is evidently rooted in bridging yourself and your creations with the audience. What’s the most powerful moment you’ve had performing it live, or performing in general?
VIENNA VIENNA: Something came over me in Washington DC. I don’t know if it was the setting or the timing, but I connected to that song in entirely new ways. I felt the love I always wanted.
LUNA: What does live performance unlock that the recordings can’t? And vice versa. How do they complement each other?
VIENNA VIENNA: Recordings to me are about precision, crafting an attitude and performance that’ll last forever. Live shows are nearly the opposite, it’s about crafting moments that are entirely temporary. I think they’re more special in that way. Recording happens first and the songs really get a chance to breathe and grow during shows. It’s exciting to watch them change.
LUNA: What do you want people to feel after they leave a Vienna Vienna show?
VIENNA VIENNA: Relief through connection and community.
LUNA: When you’re not making music or melting faces on stage, where do you disappear to?
VIENNA VIENNA: These days mostly the studio, but I get fixated on things. Right now I'm playing Minecraft and getting back into D&D. I’m always going to other shows. Seeing LCD Soundsystem this year, which I’m really excited about. Just saw Youth Lagoon at The Regent which was truly inspiring.
LUNA: Do you have a quiet place? What do you do when everything gets too loud?
VIENNA VIENNA: I think journaling keeps me grounded. It’s a great way to remember how you felt at certain points in your life. I’ve learned a lot looking back through old pages.
LUNA: I love that - how an outlet for peace can serve also as a way to concrete memories. What was the first moment, growing up or otherwise, when you felt music could be something more than just noise?
VIENNA VIENNA: Growing up, I had a Vocal Coach named Shaun Royer. He passed away a couple years back. He really showed me what I was capable of, all the reasons I should believe in myself. He put into perspective the value of what I was doing. I’ll always miss him.
LUNA: Thank you for sharing that. It’s beautiful how artistry can be so shaped or driven by even one person. As an extension of this learning, is there something you used to be afraid of that you’ve now completely embraced?
VIENNA VIENNA: I’m still working on it but hopefully one day— myself.
LUNA: You just wrapped your tour with K.Flay, playing 20+ cities on tour. Do you have any on-the-road routines? Any pre-show superstitions, advice you’ve held close?
VIENNA VIENNA: I bring my steamer with me everywhere. It makes a massive difference on days when I'm not feeling well, keeps my voice hydrated and relaxed. On the road sleep is your best friend, so I try to focus on that as much as possible but it’s not always easy.
LUNA: If you could share the stage with someone, living, dead, fictional just for one night, who would it be?
VIENNA VIENNA: I’m going to have to go with Freddy. I’d love to be able to sing with him, to hear his voice up close.
LUNA: What would you say to someone who’s afraid to take up space, to be angry, who wants to fight, or who has been fighting for recognition, understanding, love?
VIENNA VIENNA: You deserve everything you dream of. That light you see out of the corner of your eye sometimes, that glimmer, if you will, it’s not going anywhere. You will be who you always were. It’ll feel like coming home.
LUNA: And lastly, when all the lights go down, it’s just you, what’s the thing that keeps you coming back to music?
VIENNA VIENNA: Knowing the lights will come back up again.
