Victoria

It’s been super fun! I’m enjoying it a lot, doing all these different things, and especially working on electronic music and my own project, it’s something really exciting for me where I feel I still have a lot of stuff to share and to put out. Every little thing I put out feels like a little step. I’m enjoying it a lot. 

Yes. 

Yeah (laughs) yeah, basically. 

For sure. Being in a band really helped us grow up together and always have a safe environment around us. It happened from a very young age. It’s something we grew up with and we always created a protected environment between the four of us. Also, with the people we were working with who were often our friends or we had a really tight relationship with. I never experienced anything different. 

Yeah, for sure. I think it’s two really different things, what I’ve done with the band and what I’m doing on my own. It’s such different worlds and such a different way of working on music. Also the audience you reach, you feel it’s very different and there’s a different way to connect. I feel like it’s a new thing. Of course, in some ways, all the things we’ve done with the band have prepared me and given me a background of knowing how it is to be a musician. But I’m still learning a lot about this new world, cause it’s different as well. 

No, not at all. Growing up, I was facing all the insecurities of accepting your own body, your own change. Especially when I was a teenager, I was really struggling to accept my body, being confident in my femininity and stuff like this. Because when I was a kid, I was just hanging out with the boys and dressing super masculine. It really happened naturally. Growing up and especially being in the band, developing a passion for fashion and having fun with dressing up, doing shoots, the way you present yourself on stage. It gave me a lot more confidence and made me accept my body and be more free about it. 

I feel sometimes it can get really annoying. I always try to remind myself of who these people are; because at the end of the day, if you’re behind the screen, spending your day commenting on other people you don’t even know, their body or appearance, you really have a sad life. It’s something crazy to do. I’ve never done it. I don’t know any of my friends who have ever been in comments saying, “Oh my God, she’s so naked”, or “She’s fat.” It’s really sad and it tells more about who you are as a person, rather than what you’re commenting on.
You see comments of people judging you based only on your appearance, or they’re even saying something not true and trying to degrade you, just because of the way you present yourself. Of course, this always happens to women. At times you’re like, fuck these people, I want to answer back. But at the end of the day, I try to remind myself that we shouldn’t even give space to these people in our brain. Who are they to comment about me and why would I care about their opinion? I try to keep myself really balanced with this. 

Definitely, I agree. 

Yeah, it was really cool and random. Domenico [Dolce] randomly called me and he was like, “I had this crazy idea, I would like you to perform during the show and just play whatever the fuck you want.” It was like, do your own thing. I was like, okay, that’s amazing. But at the same time I was like, so what am I going to do? It was about five days before. So, I was throwing down ideas, practising. In the end I was just trying to have fun. It was also an opportunity for me to play a bit of a different vibe. I tried to play a slower set compared to when you play at the rave at three in the morning, to suit more this sexy fashion vibe. I think it came out super cool and I’m really happy I had this opportunity. 

Yes.

I love living in Rome and I don’t see myself moving away, to be honest. I love the fact that I grew up here, so I have all my childhood friends. Rome is a big city, but it almost feels like a small village. We have our usual spots where we hang out and stuff. I really love that there’s not much of an industry in Rome. There’s not really people in fashion and music, so nobody cares so much about what you do in your life.
There’s all these big cities where it’s really cool for me to go: LA, New York, Berlin, London, whatever. Where often a lot of people go to chase their dream. But always being in that industry, working all the time, I prefer to just come back home and be completely detached from it and just have a normal life with my friends. My life hasn’t changed much, since I went to secondary school with my friends here in Rome. It brings me down to earth. I also just love Rome. It’s such a beautiful city, it has good food, good weather, everything. So, I’m always a big advocate for Rome. I try to convince all my friends to move here. 

Yes, I need stability. My friends at times, they’re like, “Why? It’s so fucking boring. I want to move away.” I love this boring. I just love to be chill, be home, and my life is so chaotic with travelling all the time. So, I really feel like I need a place to come back to and just feel grounded. 

Not really. When I was five years old to thirteen, I was hanging out with all the skater boys. I was just dressing like them. So big t-shirts, big trousers, and just sneakers. I really didn’t care so much. But a bit before the band, when I started being more into music and playing, then I would look up like a music video of Marilyn Manson, and I would be like, oh my God, it’s iconic, and do crazy makeup and dress up crazy. I feel like Italy has the world of fashion, but Rome can be quite conservative at the same time. As I said, there’s not many people in fashion here.
So, if you walk down the street and you are wearing a crazy outfit, you can be guaranteed that everyone’s going to stare at you. But this was also something kind of fun for me, because when I was growing up, I would wear these crazy Buffalo heels with the platform, do my crazy makeup, and everyone was like, “What the fuck?” I was also enjoying it to piss them off a little bit. Also with the band, when we started playing, we would play in these school parties. A lot of people would look at us weird, like “Who are these weirdos?” That’s something that gave me the strength to push the boundaries even more and have fun with my looks and not really care about other people’s opinion but find it as a way of empowering myself. 

Yes. Milan is completely different. 

Yeah, it’s really sad. I’ve always been very outspoken about this, but at the same time, I feel like I’m very lucky. I kind of live in my bubble. All the people I’m surrounded by, I never experienced direct homophobia in my life, thank God. Okay, there’s stupid people in Instagram comments. But I’m really in a protected environment. It’s sad that still nowadays, there’s so much going on and that the government is really trying to take steps against the LGBTQI+ community. In everything I do, indirectly without me having to talk about it, I’m always representing myself and who I am, so I’m always being very open with my sexuality and with my body, the way I present myself and everything. I hope this can give a message. Even though it’s not often seen like that, especially by fucking Italian boomers, they’re just like, “Okay, she’s like a slut undressing for attention,” this is the typical comment. But this says even more about the society and the political view of many people in Italy nowadays, it’s sad. The main way of fighting this is to not be stopped by it. Just being yourself, being brave and unapologetic in what you do and who you are. So that’s what I try to do. 

There’s a lot of realities that are fighting back, people are trying to speak up or create safe spaces for queer people and all discriminated communities. Especially younger generations that probably have a bit of a more open mindset about it. I think it’ really going to be a super slow process. It’s really hard to change some people’s ideas, once you think of something and you learn it like that for so many years and you’ve grown up and that’s your political view, you’re not really going to change their mind unfortunately, most of the time. But everyone has to keep fighting for it. You can’t stop, even if it’s hard to see results. We all wish we could fucking change everyone’s mind like that and end all this bullshit. At least, if you even compare now to five years ago, it’s a lot more spoken about. A lot more people can be open, even if you see famous actors or singers coming out, being gay, being lesbian, whatever. Ten years ago, it was such a rare thing. There were really few people, and now it’s something that people feel more confident doing, because it’s more spoken about and there’s a community supporting. Even if it’s low, there is an improvement, and I hope it will continue like this. 

Totally. This is also really important in everyone’s daily life, even if it’s a small change. I see also in our group of friends, there’s a lot of queer people and a lot of girls, but there’s also some straight guys that maybe some years ago were not as informed and they were not fighting for it and stuff like this. Now even all the straight boys, they’re allies. I really love to see that. My friend, the other day was like, “Yeah, this friend of mine, he’s so uneducated on these topics, I was trying to explain to him.” Like, yes! It’s even a small change, or even to your own family and to older people that sometimes, they have to get to know all this new stuff that’s happening.
I see that a lot of people, they are scared, or they feel they’re being attacked if they’re being told that what they’re doing is not right. It’s also important to explain it in the right manner to the people that surround you, so you can give them the tools to understand. Of course, there’s a lot of people that are just assholes and homophobic, and they don’t even care about listening or improving. But there’s also some people that are just uneducated on it and uninformed. Maybe they have lived in an environment where it’s normalised to make these slightly homophobic or misogynist comments, and they just don’t see what’s problematic in it. So sometimes it’s important to also show them and explain, and if they’re smart enough they will have an open mind and learn from it. 

So much. It’s really important, for me, I really get inspiration from a lot of different things, especially visual. Many times, you’ll see a great movie with a great soundtrack and you’re like, fuck, this opened up a whole new imagery in my head and want to make a track about this. It’s all connected, all these forms of creative art. You have your own thing that you know best, but they all speak. That’s also why music is so important in movies and fashion. At the same time, fashion is so important for all big artists. The way the performance is staged, it’s all intertwined. It’s impossible to not be inspired by other forms of art. 

I mean, I’m really open to it. At the moment it’s not something I’m focused on. At the same time, if I would do it, I really want to do good and not this bullshit of a famous musician, like just in a trashy movie. You can really tell if it’s something authentic that the person really resonates with. I’ve been offered so many times, to do this movie or this show, but I was always like, no, because I’m not an actor and if I am not resonating with it then I wouldn’t be able to even give a good result. So, I feel if it’s something that I would ever do, it would be because I really resonate with the director or with the idea of the movie. And it’s something I would have to put my full time into, which at the moment is not in my plans, but who knows for the future. 

Yes! Oh my God, yes. 

Yes, that would be amazing. Yeah, Gaspar Noé, that movie is insane. 

Basically I was in the studio with Tommy and two other writers, Alex Chapman and Jesse Saint John. They came to Milan and we were in the studio for three days. It was so much fun. Usually when you’re meeting in the studio with new people, sometimes people are really uptight, or you don’t really vibe, or sometimes it can be a bad vibe, you know? So, we were like, okay, we don’t know them, there’s so many people etc. And then we just clicked from the first moment. It was the funniest session ever. We were just not caring, we were getting drunk, only making cunty songs with the craziest lyrics. So, we were really having fun dancing on the couch, and it was really just pure energy for three days. We had the song initially just with Tommy, but then I loved Miss Bashful’s stuff and I always wanted to make a track with her. We had been talking on Instagram for a year, so I was like, okay, this could be the perfect track to do this. But I sent it to her ten days before it had to come out. It was really an impulsive thought. I was like, hey, do you want to do this? You have one day to record this! She was like, “Fuck, I’m in Mexico. Okay, I’m going to go to the studio!” It was really a chaos, but in the end, it was so worth it because we made it work and she’s so amazing. We finally met in person on the set of the video. We had been talking for so long, but we never met. She has the best vibe, energy, she’s iconic. In the video, she was really slaying on the pole. It’s just so cunty, so I love her. 

Yes, of course. I mean, it’s the most important thing about my music (laughs). 

Totally. It’s my whole belief in general and that’s what so many people don’t see. That even if you’re posting a sexy naked picture of yourself because you’re owning your own sexuality and you’re feeling hot and confident, and it’s your choice, it’s not someone else objectifying you while you are not wanting that. I feel that’s such a subtle difference for many. But it’s not subtle at all. It’s the whole difference. Many people have such a hard time seeing it, people are like, “Oh my God, you’re just a porn star, look what you’ve done to yourself.” But it’s the total opposite actually, because I’m owning it. I’m deciding for myself, for my body, how I want to show myself, and I’m not caring about your comment. It’s really something that some people don’t get, but I mean the people who get it, get it. 

I don’t know. I don’t really give a fuck about it. When I’m at the beach with all my friends, every time we’re all topless and everyone’s literally staring at us. Sometimes you can get uncomfortable, especially if you’re alone around a couple creepy men. But at the same time, I really don’t want to give that up. I’m on the beach. I want to tan. I don’t want tan lines. I don’t care. Why can all the fucking men be in the restaurant topless and I can’t even lay on the beach without having comments? It’s insane. It’s so stupid. But I mean, I understand girls that don’t feel comfortable doing it because objectively you get a lot of looks and it’s really nasty. It’s so fucking sad, but what can we do? I mean, we have to keep doing it. 

I don’t think it should be up to us at all. I mean, it should be up to the people. It’s these people who are on the wrong side. It’s the people that shouldn’t look at you, or comment on your body, or tell you to cover up or stuff. It shouldn’t be on us having not to care. But I think that unfortunately we’re not in this place yet. It’s really sad for some girls that maybe don’t have enough confidence to say, “Fuck that — I don’t care about getting looked at.” Which is totally valid, because everyone’s made differently and some people have tougher skin than others, and this is not something you should be blamed for, or have bad repercussions because of, it should be the people.
That’s also why it’s important to speak up for the people who sometimes are not strong enough in that way. Even if there’s comments on me being topless, I don’t care, but I’m still going to answer back to him because he has to learn that he should not fucking do that. Everyone should be doing this. Even an old man should be speaking up for what’s right, even if it doesn’t regard his body. Everyone should try to speak up for what’s right. Only then we can dismantle this belief and this behaviour. It shouldn’t be up to the girl, but unfortunately it is nowadays. 

Yes, for sure. She plays me all the Brazilian hits, so I’m super influenced by that. She has so many Brazilian friends, and every time we go party they have an insane energy. They’re all twerking. Since I went to Brazil some years ago, even before meeting her, I was so in love with the energy and the people there, and every time I went to the club and everyone just had this insane sense of community, and what we’re talking about owning your own sexuality, empowering yourself, being confident. I feel it’s really such a strong thing there. And you see a lot more women being really empowered and just dressing sexy and not caring. It’s more normalised in a way and I really love that.
What made me fall in love with electronic music and the club culture is really that sense of community. When you’re in a crowded club, but you feel like you’e in a safe space and you’re surrounded by people who understand you, won’t judge you on how you look, how you’re dancing, whatever, they don’t care. That’s also what I want to recreate in my music and my sets. That’s what I’m channelling. I really want to make a fun, freeing, sexy, hot experience. I am so influenced by Latin Club music. I love the culture there, and I love their approach to it. Even when I was playing some tracks there, I could really tell the difference. 

It influences and inspires a lot of people, because it’s such a powerful experience. When you go to a good club, like a good party and there’s good music and all the people are engaging with that, that creates such a powerful thing. So many people I’ve spoken with, even creative directors in the fashion industry will say “Oh my God, twenty years ago I went to this rave and it was so magical. I still remember it and I got inspired to do this thing.” It holds such a strong energy and this sense of freedom, of a safe space, it is really rare to find that somewhere else. Artists like FKA Twigs or Charli, have actually been doing this for years, but I’m really happy that now it seems more people are resonating with it. This is cool because it’s giving space to something different in the fucking main charts. It gives freedom to weird sounds, weird structure. There’s not a hook, it’s just spoken word. I love this type of music, so I’m super happy about this. It’s really great to see a lot of people who found out about Charli through “Brat”, and now they love these more niche techno producers that they never heard of.  I feel like every time something blows up in the mainstream that’s coming from a non-mainstream place, it always gives more light to where it came from. So that’s amazing.

In a way I had both experiences, because when I was with the band, we were just doing rock music and I only knew how to play bass, I wasn’t digging into this at all in the earlier years. I was just like, fuck electronic. I only love rock and roll analogue gear! But when you open your mind, you see there’s nuances in everything. Electronic music doesn’t even really mean something, because there can be such different music. It can be super commercial EDM, that you hear on the radio and it’s like a pop song, but it’s still electronic. Or it can be fucking rave industrial techno. Electronic doesn’t really mean anything, it just means you’re producing it on a computer and not on analogue gear.  

There’s a lot of space and freedom. That energy, for me, that I found in rock music is that punk attitude. Saying, I’m doing something different, something with edge, with its own character. I can see that in so many different genres. Charli, she’s like punk in what she’s doing. What I love is that edge I find in different genres. That’s beautiful. In electronic music, there’s such a big range of things you can do, so it’s really hard to label it, but it’s often seen by people who don’t know about it as less valuable than playing an actual instrument. It’s not at all because there’s so many things you can learn. There’s infinite space for creativity. You can do amazing things or even super shit stuff. It challenges your creativity and makes you see things in a different way, at least for me. 

It’s exactly this, this space of freedom and of community that comes from the club scene. It’s literally where it was born. During the day, you are in this normal society and you’re like, fuck, nobody understands me. Then you go to the club at night and it’s only queer people dressed in crazy outfits and nobody’s judging, everyone’s understanding, and you’re just all sweating, dancing together, bonding, and there’s no judgement. That’s why club culture is so important in the queer community. It was born as a safe space for people.
You can tell when it’s a good party, with a good crowd and such an open environment compared to a bigger club, where everyone is there and there isn’t really this feeling of having a safe space. These smaller, underground parties are where people found their community and their freedom. It was a space of inspiration and sharing ideas, creating something. That’s why there’s so many amazing women in electronic that are doing this. It’s so beautiful to see, as you said, Isabella Lovestory, Miss Bashful, Slayyyter, Arca, Cobrah — there’s so many girls that are owning it and saying, “Fuck it, I’m owning my body, owning my sexuality. I don’t care.” Electronic is the space for that. 

I’m really happy where I am right now, how I am mentally, all the balance in my life, the people in my life, how my career is going. I just want to have fun. Sometimes I stress a bit too much about the work side. In my personal life, I feel completely happy. When it comes to work, of course it’s sometimes stressful, you tend to compare yourself to others, or maybe you always want to reach for bigger results. It’s important to remind myself that at the end of the day, what matters is just that I’m happy, that I’m doing what I love and having fun with it. I want to chase this mindset. 

Yes, exactly.