Rewrite and translate this title MUNA’s Katie Gavin: ‘Lesbians have always made the best music’ to Japanese between 50 and 60 characters. Do not include any introductory or extra text; return only the title in Japanese.

Back in 1996, singer Sarah McLachlan launched Lilith Fair, an all-women travelling music festival. Inspired by Lilith, known in some mythology as Adam’s first wife who was exiled from the Garden of Eden due to her alleged disobedience, the festival was an answer to decades of overlooking and dismissing women on festival lineups. Between 1997 and 1999, the festival’s stages hosted the likes of Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, Dido, Erykah Badu, Liz Flair, and Sinéad O’Connor.

Released last month, MUNA frontwoman Katie Gavin’s debut album, What a Relief, is a body of work that would have earned her a headline spot on the main stage of the festival. She even describes the album as “Lilith Fair-core”, both sonically and thematically, and the 12-track project features topics reminiscent of the music produced by the female indie-pop icons of the late 90s.

While the project has been years in the making, it was during what was intended to be a break for MUNA that Gavin decided to push the pedal on her own solo project. “It’s vulnerable putting out art and people are going have opinions about it. So you always are kind of like, ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’” she tells me over video call, just a few hours before the release of her debut album.

Despite being written over different periods of both Gavin’s life and MUNA’s era, the songs were all recorded within one month. In the album’s lead single “Casual Drug Use”, she confronts recklessness, youth and friendship. On “As Good As It Gets”, her voice melts effortlessly with Mitski as they sing about the mundanity of healthy relationships. And on “The Baton”, another standout on the albums, she delves into her intergenerational trauma.

Below, Gavin talks about her solo project, the lesbian renaissance, and why she’s so passionate about humanitarian issues.

Congrats on the album! You made these songs quite a while ago, does it feel strange to now have them out in the world?

Katie Gavin: Yeah, totally. In a way, it can also give it a healthy distance because if people are reacting to something that I wrote seven years ago, I kind of feel like that’s not even me. You change so much in such a long period of time.

Why does now feel like the right time to share these songs? Did you have a moment when it all clicked and you felt ready to share them?

Katie Gavin: I was trying to figure it out for a long time. When I started working on the album and thought it was going to be a thing in 2020. Initially, I thought that it would come out before our third MUNA album, but then that album cycle was really successful and long. That was good for me because I kind of gained the confidence I needed to go back into the studio with Tony Berg, who produced the record and got it done. All these versions of the songs [on the album] were recorded in a month in March. It was the right time for me as a person, I was ready to steer the ship.

Loads of fans were panicking when you first announced and thought you were leaving the band. It’s pretty cool you’re doing both, how did you react to the panic?

Katie Gavin: You take it as a compliment because they care about the project. We were never tripping because we know what it is and we’ve been trying to work on the next chapter for MUNA whenever we can. We know that that’s everybody’s priority. If you think of it in a poly way, MUNA is my primary relationship.

You’ve described the album as ‘Lilith Fair-core’. When did you first discover the festival?

Katie Gavin: The first memory that comes up for me was the first time I heard Tracy Chapman in junior high. I thought it was a man singing, and then when I found out that it was not a man I became super obsessed. I think in a way it was probably also part of my gay awakening. Then in high school and college, I got more into Sarah McLachlan and found Fiona Apple – who also played at Lilith Fair – and was a big influence for me. I just remember learning about it [the festival] in college around the same time I was learning about Riot Grrrl, other feminist movements in music and just really wishing that I had been there. I’ve had a bunch of very major influences who all happen to play the festival.

What is songwriting like for you? When writing about a moment or feeling, how does it get from the emotion to the actual words in the song for you? It seems quite journal-like to me.

Katie Gavin: Songwriting is just the most magical and mysterious process. It still happens for me in a lot of different ways, but I like what you said about it feeling like a journal. I think that that historically, has been something that is trashed or relegated to like this margin of, ‘it’s women’s confessional music’, but that’s exactly the only thing I care about listening to.

Sometimes it does start when I’ll be journaling, and then there’ll be a phrase that feels more crystallised. Sometimes it’s from picking up an instrument. I just get this feeling sometimes that I have a song in me. It’s almost like I build up like a balloon with this emotion and [I know] if I sat and played guitar right now I would have a song in me. I find that a lot of bilateral stimulation can help, I walk a lot, and I’ve written a lot of songs by the river in the neighbourhood that I live in. I would love to talk about it more and try to teach people more of what I know about songwriting one day, but it’s so mysterious.

What was working with Mitski on this record? Such an exciting feature.

Katie Gavin: I’m just really, really grateful that she said yes to being on this song with me. It feels really significant to me because she’s my favourite songwriter of our generation. I just texted her the song, and it was Phoebe [Bridger’s] idea that it should be a duet. She got back to me really quickly, and she didn’t want to change anything and just said she’d sing the second verse as it is because the song is beautiful.

Do you have a favourite song on the album or one that you enjoyed working on or writing the most?

Katie Gavin: There are two. I like ‘The Baton’ and ‘Inconsolable’. I think it’s maybe just because they’re the songs that have fiddle on them and Sarah was so amazing to work with. They just feel really needy and tender.

You’ve spoken about finding the ‘grey area’ on this project. I think it’s easier to see something or someone as inherently good or inherently bad but seeing the middle ground is sometimes hard. You do that so well on this album, how do you find the balance?

Katie Gavin: So this happens every time I put out something, and it’s so funny you’re never sure how it’s gonna happen or what the themes of a record are until it’s being released or it’s been released. But I think I’m having to look a lot at my relationship with uncertainty and the grey area. It shows up so much in my work because it is so hard for me. I have a lot of black-and-white thinking and unfortunately for me, it normally shows up if I do a bad thing or I make a mistake that means that I’m a bad person, and it makes it can make life really hard and exhausting.

It’s really out of necessity that I had to start picking up tools that helped me be more comfortable with uncertainty and the grey area. It’s maybe as simple as I’ve had to do a lot of therapy and seek a lot of different help in a lot of different ways. A lot of the wisdom in these different modalities has to do with being willing to kind of fit in that grey area and just be present in life itself, instead of making up a story about it all the time.

“If you think of it in a poly way, MUNA is my primary relationship” – Katie Gavin

People have been saying 2024 is the year of the lesbian renaissance – especially in music. Do you agree? 

Katie Gavin: Yeah, I see it, and I feel it. I am excited about it, and I think it’s about fucking time. I personally feel like lesbians have always made the best music. So I’m like, yeah, we’re gonna keep doing a little thing. You can clue into it or not, but lesbians are the best.

Do you feel lesbians are still been treated differently in music? Especially with everything happening with Chappell and how she’s been treated recently for trying to establish boundaries. 

Katie Gavin: It’s not a very sexy answer but we talk a lot about how we are paid differently than our male counterparts. I also think it goes beyond identity to just so much – whether you’re talking about fan culture or the music business itself – there are a lot of changes that need to be made. It may be better for us in a lot of ways, but we’re still in a position where we like to have a successful career, for most musicians, it also means that it is very unlikely that you are going to own your own music and like be able to make money that way. 

At the same time, there’s been a lot of improvement and I also want to say I feel really fucking lucky in general. I don’t think that MUNA has dealt with a level of fame that has been traumatising in the way that fame can be. 

You’ve always been vocal about your beliefs and politics, why are you so passionate? And what keeps you going?

Katie Gavin: That’s a good question. I think for me, it has been about building relationships at home in my life with other organisers that are going to hold me accountable. I do work at home with this organisation called Resource Generation. I’m someone who comes from a lot of financial privilege, so when showing up in activist spaces, it’s important that I’m showing up honestly with my whole self, and that I’m held accountable in different ways. RG helps me with that. There are a lot of wonderful people in RG who just keep me plugged in.

With the Palestinian fundraiser that I did on my Instagram a couple of weeks ago, that was my friend Poppy, who is in touch with a lot of families in Gaza and families who have evacuated but still need help meeting their basic needs. She reached out to me. I just think it really works like that, you have to make relationships with people who are also doing the work. If you have friends that are going to make asks of you, that has helped me a lot.

What a Relief is out now via Saddest Factory Records.

Back in 1996, singer Sarah McLachlan launched Lilith Fair, an all-women travelling music festival. Inspired by Lilith, known in some mythology as Adam’s first wife who was exiled from the Garden of Eden due to her alleged disobedience, the festival was an answer to decades of overlooking and dismissing women on festival lineups. Between 1997 and 1999, the festival’s stages hosted the likes of Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, Dido, Erykah Badu, Liz Flair, and Sinéad O’Connor.

Released last month, MUNA frontwoman Katie Gavin’s debut album, What a Relief, is a body of work that would have earned her a headline spot on the main stage of the festival. She even describes the album as “Lilith Fair-core”, both sonically and thematically, and the 12-track project features topics reminiscent of the music produced by the female indie-pop icons of the late 90s.

While the project has been years in the making, it was during what was intended to be a break for MUNA that Gavin decided to push the pedal on her own solo project. “It’s vulnerable putting out art and people are going have opinions about it. So you always are kind of like, ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’” she tells me over video call, just a few hours before the release of her debut album.

Despite being written over different periods of both Gavin’s life and MUNA’s era, the songs were all recorded within one month. In the album’s lead single “Casual Drug Use”, she confronts recklessness, youth and friendship. On “As Good As It Gets”, her voice melts effortlessly with Mitski as they sing about the mundanity of healthy relationships. And on “The Baton”, another standout on the albums, she delves into her intergenerational trauma.

Below, Gavin talks about her solo project, the lesbian renaissance, and why she’s so passionate about humanitarian issues.

Congrats on the album! You made these songs quite a while ago, does it feel strange to now have them out in the world?

Katie Gavin: Yeah, totally. In a way, it can also give it a healthy distance because if people are reacting to something that I wrote seven years ago, I kind of feel like that’s not even me. You change so much in such a long period of time.

Why does now feel like the right time to share these songs? Did you have a moment when it all clicked and you felt ready to share them?

Katie Gavin: I was trying to figure it out for a long time. When I started working on the album and thought it was going to be a thing in 2020. Initially, I thought that it would come out before our third MUNA album, but then that album cycle was really successful and long. That was good for me because I kind of gained the confidence I needed to go back into the studio with Tony Berg, who produced the record and got it done. All these versions of the songs [on the album] were recorded in a month in March. It was the right time for me as a person, I was ready to steer the ship.

Loads of fans were panicking when you first announced and thought you were leaving the band. It’s pretty cool you’re doing both, how did you react to the panic?

Katie Gavin: You take it as a compliment because they care about the project. We were never tripping because we know what it is and we’ve been trying to work on the next chapter for MUNA whenever we can. We know that that’s everybody’s priority. If you think of it in a poly way, MUNA is my primary relationship.

You’ve described the album as ‘Lilith Fair-core’. When did you first discover the festival?

Katie Gavin: The first memory that comes up for me was the first time I heard Tracy Chapman in junior high. I thought it was a man singing, and then when I found out that it was not a man I became super obsessed. I think in a way it was probably also part of my gay awakening. Then in high school and college, I got more into Sarah McLachlan and found Fiona Apple – who also played at Lilith Fair – and was a big influence for me. I just remember learning about it [the festival] in college around the same time I was learning about Riot Grrrl, other feminist movements in music and just really wishing that I had been there. I’ve had a bunch of very major influences who all happen to play the festival.

What is songwriting like for you? When writing about a moment or feeling, how does it get from the emotion to the actual words in the song for you? It seems quite journal-like to me.

Katie Gavin: Songwriting is just the most magical and mysterious process. It still happens for me in a lot of different ways, but I like what you said about it feeling like a journal. I think that that historically, has been something that is trashed or relegated to like this margin of, ‘it’s women’s confessional music’, but that’s exactly the only thing I care about listening to.

Sometimes it does start when I’ll be journaling, and then there’ll be a phrase that feels more crystallised. Sometimes it’s from picking up an instrument. I just get this feeling sometimes that I have a song in me. It’s almost like I build up like a balloon with this emotion and [I know] if I sat and played guitar right now I would have a song in me. I find that a lot of bilateral stimulation can help, I walk a lot, and I’ve written a lot of songs by the river in the neighbourhood that I live in. I would love to talk about it more and try to teach people more of what I know about songwriting one day, but it’s so mysterious.

What was working with Mitski on this record? Such an exciting feature.

Katie Gavin: I’m just really, really grateful that she said yes to being on this song with me. It feels really significant to me because she’s my favourite songwriter of our generation. I just texted her the song, and it was Phoebe [Bridger’s] idea that it should be a duet. She got back to me really quickly, and she didn’t want to change anything and just said she’d sing the second verse as it is because the song is beautiful.

Do you have a favourite song on the album or one that you enjoyed working on or writing the most?

Katie Gavin: There are two. I like ‘The Baton’ and ‘Inconsolable’. I think it’s maybe just because they’re the songs that have fiddle on them and Sarah was so amazing to work with. They just feel really needy and tender.

You’ve spoken about finding the ‘grey area’ on this project. I think it’s easier to see something or someone as inherently good or inherently bad but seeing the middle ground is sometimes hard. You do that so well on this album, how do you find the balance?

Katie Gavin: So this happens every time I put out something, and it’s so funny you’re never sure how it’s gonna happen or what the themes of a record are until it’s being released or it’s been released. But I think I’m having to look a lot at my relationship with uncertainty and the grey area. It shows up so much in my work because it is so hard for me. I have a lot of black-and-white thinking and unfortunately for me, it normally shows up if I do a bad thing or I make a mistake that means that I’m a bad person, and it makes it can make life really hard and exhausting.

It’s really out of necessity that I had to start picking up tools that helped me be more comfortable with uncertainty and the grey area. It’s maybe as simple as I’ve had to do a lot of therapy and seek a lot of different help in a lot of different ways. A lot of the wisdom in these different modalities has to do with being willing to kind of fit in that grey area and just be present in life itself, instead of making up a story about it all the time.

“If you think of it in a poly way, MUNA is my primary relationship” – Katie Gavin

People have been saying 2024 is the year of the lesbian renaissance – especially in music. Do you agree? 

Katie Gavin: Yeah, I see it, and I feel it. I am excited about it, and I think it’s about fucking time. I personally feel like lesbians have always made the best music. So I’m like, yeah, we’re gonna keep doing a little thing. You can clue into it or not, but lesbians are the best.

Do you feel lesbians are still been treated differently in music? Especially with everything happening with Chappell and how she’s been treated recently for trying to establish boundaries. 

Katie Gavin: It’s not a very sexy answer but we talk a lot about how we are paid differently than our male counterparts. I also think it goes beyond identity to just so much – whether you’re talking about fan culture or the music business itself – there are a lot of changes that need to be made. It may be better for us in a lot of ways, but we’re still in a position where we like to have a successful career, for most musicians, it also means that it is very unlikely that you are going to own your own music and like be able to make money that way. 

At the same time, there’s been a lot of improvement and I also want to say I feel really fucking lucky in general. I don’t think that MUNA has dealt with a level of fame that has been traumatising in the way that fame can be. 

You’ve always been vocal about your beliefs and politics, why are you so passionate? And what keeps you going?

Katie Gavin: That’s a good question. I think for me, it has been about building relationships at home in my life with other organisers that are going to hold me accountable. I do work at home with this organisation called Resource Generation. I’m someone who comes from a lot of financial privilege, so when showing up in activist spaces, it’s important that I’m showing up honestly with my whole self, and that I’m held accountable in different ways. RG helps me with that. There are a lot of wonderful people in RG who just keep me plugged in.

With the Palestinian fundraiser that I did on my Instagram a couple of weeks ago, that was my friend Poppy, who is in touch with a lot of families in Gaza and families who have evacuated but still need help meeting their basic needs. She reached out to me. I just think it really works like that, you have to make relationships with people who are also doing the work. If you have friends that are going to make asks of you, that has helped me a lot.

What a Relief is out now via Saddest Factory Records.