With Their New Self-Titled Album, Muna Goes Full-Throttle

In the meantime, they continued piecing the puzzle of the album together. One of the first songs to come about was “No Idea,” which was co-written with Mitski and pays indirect homage to the slick Y2K pop of Max Martin’s work for the Backstreet Boys. In previous interviews, they’ve joked about the album having “dyke boyband energy,” but in all seriousness, do they ever think about what shooting for the heights of pop stardom might look like? “I think ‘No Idea’ started this interesting conversation of imagining ourselves as one of the most successful groups in the world [20 years ago],” says McPherson. “That obviously being a complete fantasy that would never, ever, ever, in a million years have happened due to how deeply homophobic and queerphobic society was back then—it just wouldn’t have been possible. So I think there was something fun to us about writing ourselves into this imaginary place in the canon, but also knowing that it would never have been a reality.

“I think so much of life as a marginalized person does exist in fantasy and the realm of radical imagination,” they continue. “I think that’s always been a part of the Muna story, but this challenge to ourselves was just like, oh, man, imagine if that would have been possible? Absolute LOL. Unless?”

While the trio is quick to note that they never felt held back from expressing the nuances of their queer identities in their music while working with a major label, they still see this new era of Muna as something of an opportunity to reintroduce themselves. It’s no accident that the album is self-titled, despite it being their third record. “We’ve been lucky enough to always work with individuals who encouraged us to be ourselves, but it’s interesting, because sometimes when you’re queer, that validation doesn’t have to come from the outside,” says Gavin. “There’s an internal cop that makes it hard for you to know what you want to express. How you express your queerness and how you express it in your work is such an individual journey for everybody, and I do feel that a lot of it just has to do with getting older, and the work we’ve done in our own lives, which sounds very L.A., I know,” she says, laughing. “But going to therapy is probably a bigger deal there than any label partnership we’ve had.”