WEBVTT

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- I wanna start first with
"Grave," your new single.

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- Yes.
- Which I love.

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The lyrics,

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"You said things you
thought you'd never say,"

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and, "You're lucky, I'll
take that shit to my grave,"

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and I'm paraphrasing.
- Uh-huh.

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- But heavy stuff here.
- [Zolita] Oh yeah, oh yeah.

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- What could have possibly served

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as the inspiration for that?

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♪ I'll take that shit to my grave ♪

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- Now, apart from the single,

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you have some really
exciting stuff going on.

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Obviously, on tour right
now, I mean, it's a lot.

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How pumped are you to be in this moment?

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- Oh, my God, I'm so excited.

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It's been so fun.

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I've been opening for Bebe
Rexha on her summer tour

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and it's going until July 1st.

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So it's cool that I
have this little moment

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to leave the tour, go do Gov Ball,

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and then I jump right back on the tour.

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- What does an opportunity
like that mean to you?

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- Oh, my God. Well, it
means so much to me.

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She's such an inspiration.

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Just like you said,

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has been writing so many
fucking amazing songs

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for so many years, and
she has just like...

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If you watch the set,

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it's literally back to
back to back, back hit.

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Like, you know every single song.

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And I actually, I used
to work for a magazine.

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I interviewed her in 2016,

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so it feels very full circle
for me to get to open for her.

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And it's also so cool

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that she's having a very
openly queer artist like me

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and spotlighting me during Pride Month.

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♪ Oh ♪

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♪ Why wait ♪

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♪ When we could have forever ♪

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♪ Yeah we could have forever ♪

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♪ That's what you'd say ♪

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- I mean, going back a
bit to your artistry,

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your visuals are like
everything to your songs.

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For you, like "The Somebody
I F*cked Once Trilogy,"

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especially, like, why is it
important to have visuals

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and this very visual
narrative storytelling

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to accompany your music?

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- I think that's what my
project's always been about.

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It's like the marriage of
the visuals and the music.

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And as a storyteller,

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I love getting to use
both of those devices.

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I started out as a visual,
I went to film school,

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and yeah, started out as a visual artist,

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and music was always kind of a hobby.

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And then now, obviously, it's
become the main thing, but...

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- That's amazing.

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What purpose for you

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do you think the visuals kind
of like serve for people?

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Why is it important

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to not just paint the picture with words,

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but also have that marriage?

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- Yeah, I feel like a lot of the...

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I think back to "Glee," right?

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Or shows where there's music in it.

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And when you hear that
song that was in the show,

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then you think back to the
characters and the storyline

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and it feels so much more impactful.

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And I think I wanna do that.

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Yeah, I wanna do that with my music, too.

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- I love that you've held
space for kind of like...

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And depicted, really,

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the entire queer sort of love experience,

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as it pertains to joy, of course,

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but also like jealousy, rage,

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longing, loneliness, et cetera.

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Like queer rights, but
also queer wrongs, too.

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- Yeah, yeah.

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(Zolita laughs)

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- Though we kind of
have these conversations

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here all the time, given it's Pride Month,

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what queer stories do you feel like

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have yet to kind of get their due

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in just general artistry, not just yours?

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- I mean, I think queer stories
with happy endings for sure.

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Which is why I try to do
that with my work so much

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because I feel like either
we get period pieces

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that are really fucking sad,

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or we get sci-fi, or
just like really fantasy.

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There's not a lot of just
like normal queer stories

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with happy endings.

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- Yeah, it shouldn't feel
radical, but it's something-

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- Yeah, it was, yeah.

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Totally.
- Yeah, yeah.

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You've spoken before
about kind of growing up

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and not seeing a queer femme pop star.

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that really resonated.

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Is it fair to say that
you're in your artistry

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trying to do that and be
that for somebody else?

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- Oh, definitely, 100%.

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Yeah, yeah.

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With everything that
I've done, I've, yeah,

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trying to make the work that I
wish I got to see growing up.

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(upbeat music)