“I feel like we don’t exactly sound like all of our influences,” says
McPherson, whose parents are jazz musicians. At thirteen, she discovered
emo and pop-punk, and then rock. “From there, I got into poppier music
in general and realized that there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a really
amazing hook and a poppy chord progression if it makes you happy,” she
continues. “There’s a lot of pretension, and I’m just not really interested
in participating in that. I like what I like. Denying yourself pleasure just
to be cool is so stupid.”
When the girls of MUNA sit in a room together to talk about how they
got to where they are now, they fact-check each other’s stories, marvel
at how much time has passed since college, and repeatedly explode into
laughter. They say they’re addicted to hanging out with each other, and it’s
easy to see why. “That’s what’s been the key to everything,” Maskin says.
“We believe in each other so much, we know how to get what we deserve.
The people who end up surrounding us are the people who also see that
and believe in it.” For MUNA, that group of people is only going to keep
getting bigger.
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