Model/Actriz are turning pain into dance-pop gold: “I always knew it would be great source material”

Model/Actriz’s live shows are the stuff of urban legend. Local venues get turned into industrial nightclubs, shrouded in smoke, with the volume turned up to the max. This is the perfect setting for frontman Cole Haden to prowl through the audience, delivering a sermon-like performance that channels glamour and pathos in equal measure.

It’s no surprise that the New York four-piece quickly garnered a cult following, not only for their live spectacles, but their debut album, 2023’s ‘Dogsbody’, which had an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach to production. The songs were sexy yet menacing; guitars sounded like they were shrieking, drums were thrashed to pieces, and Haden’s growling vocals explored themes of queer desire through intoxicatingly macabre lyricism.

Their second album ‘Pirouette’ shifts in sound, the band leaning into pop and techno elements, dropping the dark ambience of their debut record in favour of Gaga-esque melodrama. Haden’s lyrics feel more open and honest than ever – something he credits to his experience writing for Miley Cyrus.

“When she said, ‘Do what you want to do, or whatever feels right,’ I hadn’t yet arrived at a place in myself where I felt like what came naturally to me was the right thing to do,” he says. “Writing for her made it so that when I was writing ‘Pirouette’, I was in a place where if it was my truth, I knew it was worth telling.”

‘Pirouette’ feels like a confident step away from ‘Dogsbody’. How do you feel the songwriting has strengthened?

Cole Haden: “My challenge with this record was to be more transparent. And I was only able to present that challenge to myself because of the confidence I gained from releasing the first album, and the ways it allowed for a new, deeper inquiry into myself that was ready to be shared more openly. I don’t know if I would call that a strengthening of my songwriting, only because it was a goal that I think I met, but you know, the idea is to always improve.”

The music has always been quite dark and atmospheric, but now it feels like you’re really leaning into quite a few dance – and specifically, techno – elements. What inspired that?

Ruben Radlauer: “We were listening to techno and house, and that was our reference and entry point. But I think with this record we let ourselves get closer to it, rather than cloaking it in a sort of noisy format. As Cole was saying, we gained the confidence to just try to swing at it and make our version of techno or dance pop without feeling the need to cloak it in heaviness. I think the response to ‘Dogsbody’ emboldened us to be a little bit more vulnerable with that and have a little bit of space to challenge ourselves.”

Cole, you were working with Miley Cyrus on her album around this time. What was that experience like, and what came from that collaborative experience?

CH: “She’s the easiest collaborator in the world. It’s been confirmed that it’s a visual album, and she walked me through a rough idea of what some of the visuals for the album were going to be. There was yet to be a script at that point, and she just invited me to contribute to writing the unfinished songs. I didn’t get around to writing any lyrics, but I sent over poems, because she wanted stuff to be sprinkled throughout. And the one thing that made the cut was a whole piece I’d sent for the opening. I’m just very honoured and pleased that it made it. The experience taught me that I can trust myself – she’s like the first person that ever asked me to write for someone other than myself.”

You came out swinging with ‘Cinderella’. Why did you decide to lead with it, and why’s that song so special? 

CH: “It harnessed a lot of the aspects of the album. There was melody, there was a more obvious push in the dance direction, and it spoke to the ways that this was going to be a theatrical record. And I think it’s one of my favourites on the album. I think it’s a statement that says this is going to be emotional, but it’s not going to be painful.”

“I sweat as much as I do on stage for a reason, because I’m giving my body in service to the art” – Cole Haden

The music video is a lot of fun; there are ugly stepsisters, rat puppets and choreography. What was the idea behind it? 

CH: “Nathan Castiel [the director] was like, ‘How about we do our version of a Cinderella story?’ And I actually hadn’t thought of doing that. But I knew immediately that I wanted to include dance, and I knew that I wanted to dance with another man, and I wanted to lean into being a drag queen as closely as possible, while still feeling like it’s a way that I could perform.

“But yeah, on set, it was just a heartwarming experience. The night that it came out, it was exactly the kind of birthday party that I would have asked for as a kid; I blew out my candles, and then we watched pop music videos.”

RR: “It just felt like a moment where we got to live out our music video dreams. We’ve been talking about wanting a sort of pop, synchronised dance sequence for a long time, and we finally had the space to do that, and it was just really special to watch it unfold.”

Are you thinking about the visuals while you’re writing?

CH: “I’m thinking about the show. I’m thinking about the ways I want to perform the emotional arc of the set, thinking about the kind of theatrical references and the poses and gestures I want to make, and what words would fit those moments.”

A line from ‘Poppy’ springs to mind here: “As flesh is made in marble / As marble captures softness  / As softness holds a violence / Within a pure expression.” There seems to be a lot of references to suffering for art in your music. How does that relate to your own experience?

CH: “Directly. I always knew that the pain that I was feeling would be great source material, and that if I could endure it, there would be a reason that I went through all of it. And that’s not to say that I can’t be melodramatic, but I think being melodramatic is to take control of the external factors. As a kid, that inner world was so vast and heavy that the amount of emotional processing that happens dancing alone in my room prepared me for what I’m doing now.

“I would play pop music out loud from the speaker when my parents were out of the house and dance around the living room. But then once everyone was home, I would go up into my bedroom and dance quietly, or just even stand still and dance, using just my arms and lip syncing to myself, I would practice crying beautifully in the mirror, and I would present an opera to myself every night.”

Flesh, bodies, and dogs all come up in this song, too. Like the line, “For all I’ve caused, the dogs begin to circle me / Their teeth, their jaws, my body in its vividness.” To what degree does the gothic genre inspire you? 

CH: “I mean, gothic architecture and literature are very God-fearing. They’re very solemn, and I’m just drawn to things that are a little bit liturgical. But the dogs specifically are from an image that I saw when I was 17, and I drove to New York to see The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. At the opening, as you were getting your seats, her obituary was in a newspaper, and she and two other lookalikes were in caskets on the stage. And there were these athletic-looking Dobermans eating meat off the stage, while they were in these caskets.

“So, that’s what I was thinking about. I was obsessed with her in high school. She is the ultimate ‘I offer my body to art,’ and I am a student of that ideology. I don’t know if I want to take it as far as she does, but I sweat as much as I do on stage for a reason, because I’m giving my body in service to the art.”

“The response to ‘Dogsbody’ emboldened us to be a little bit more vulnerable” – Ruben Radlauer

Your shows are absolutely wild. How did you want the record to channel that experience? 

RR: “I think the record feels more like a self-expression for all of us and for the art we want to make. And the live show feels like a space to discover it in different ways and see it how other people see it, and give our thanks to the people there by giving it everything we’ve got every night. It’s like it truly feels like we’ve let ourselves down if we don’t give our all.”

Are you already thinking about how you’re going to bring this album to life?

CH: “Things are going to be switching up in the next run, not that the current shows will be any less bombastic. But in the autumn, it’s going to be about the music and the visuals as well. So come back in the autumn for a different show, and we’ll be happy to see you.”

Model/Actriz’s ‘Pirouette’ is out now via True Panther/Dirty Hit

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