MUNA was made for the summer. The band’s signature brand of euphoric synth-pop always shines extra bright in the warm weather season, and their latest album, Dancing On The Wall, is no exception. And yet, groupmates Katie Gavin, Naomi McPherson, and Josette Maskin are already looking ahead to the fall, thanks to their forthcoming Gets So Hot tour and a new back-to-school-themed campaign with Ugg.
The campaign sees the three-piece band cosplaying as high schoolers as they take over the auditorium, make themselves at home in the music room, and pose for Picture Day while sporting the brand’s newest shoe style, the Ultra Mini Bailey Bow. “We’re all in our 30s, so it was fun to mess around at Santa Monica High School for a day,” McPherson told NYLON exclusively. “We’re happy that we could be anything related to, and play the role of, high-school-aged people with our wonderful skin,” Maskin agreed, to which McPherson quipped back, “We’re doing a Grease thing where they’re in high school, but everyone’s 40.”
Before they hit the road (and the classroom) in September, we caught up with MUNA to get the lowdown on their upcoming tour, Ugg-styling preferences, and, most crucially, their song of the summer contenders.
What kind of summer are you all having?
Josette Maskin: We’re having an Ugg-filled summer. We are having a summer that will involve us dancing on the wall in our Ugg shoes.
Well, it might be summer, but the campaign is all about fall. How did this partnership come about?
JM: I’m friends with [the brand marketing director at Ugg], and we’ve always wanted to work together and do something involving very good shoes. He figured out a way that we could combine forces to do something really cool for queer people, Ugg, queer art, and for everybody involved.
I’m loving the back-to-school vibe of the campaign. How involved were you all in the creative?
Naomi McPherson: The creative was pitched to us, and we just went with it. I went to a nerd school, so we had no sports teams and no varsity anything. That was a fun element of it.
If you could take one class over again as an adult, which would you pick?
NM: I need to go back to high school and start from the beginning. I’ve forgotten everything. So, all of them.
JM: I think we need to get our GEDs.
Katie Gavin: I don’t know any math anymore and I loved math, so I would be interested in retaking math. But the real class that I feel like I would do better the second time around is a class at my school called Great Books that was kind of like a replacement for AP English. It was reading the classics, but also reading Virginia Woolf. I was way too sleep-deprived at the time to actually get anything out of the material. I think we’re all kind of those people who started reading a lot more once we got out of school.
NM: I loved reading. I was a gay nerd. I’ve gotten worse at reading now in the past five years. I’m working my way back.
JM: They’re selling themselves short. Naomi is smart and can read, and so can Katie.
How do you all style your Uggs?
JM: I wear my Ugg shoes every way I can. I wear them with pants. I wear them in the nude. I wear them with a robe. But the main way I wear my Ugg shoes is when we’re making a record. They are my shoe of choice because they make me feel so safe. That, I think, really could help kids out when they’re in high school. If you’re neurodivergent and you need a way to feel safe but look normal in public, Ugg is the right shoe for you.
KG: I’m from the suburbs of Chicago and I was in high school in the late aughts and early 2010s. The style that I still feel connected to is, if I’m wearing [the Ugg Classic Tall], I do a Puss in Boots-type of thing where I like to tuck them into barrel leg jeans. Now, I have the little booties and I wear them with mini skirts.
NM: Katie’s a fashion icon for the girlies. They should be taking notes when they go to wear their Ugg shoes.
You’re in rehearsals for your upcoming tour. How are you feeling? How’s that going?
JM: Well, how’s that going, Katie?
KG: I’m feeling great. This is my favorite rehearsal I’ve ever been at.
JM: Naomi and I are in rehearsal and Katie is in Cherry Grove on vacation living her best life. Katie doesn’t use her lead singer capabilities often, but when she does, she does it in a beautiful way. We’re holding down the fort, getting ready to reunite and play a beautiful show. Once Katie’s done with vacation, we go back to work.
KG: I’m bringing a really important part of back-to-school, which is that in order to maximize your back-to-school slay, you have to maximize your vacation slay. This is my tour plan and it’s really working for me. I’m very grateful to my band for the hard work that they’re putting in so that we can eventually combine our joint slay when we go back to tour.
Uggs seem like the perfect shoe for the tour bus. What other essentials are you bringing on the tour this fall?
JM: Katie is going to get Naomi and I a hot plate and an air fryer for the tour bus as payment for missing rehearsal. Naomi and I will be frying up some tofu and I’ll be eating whole rotisserie chickens to get jacked on tour.
You’re also playing Lollapalooza next week. Anything you can tease about that performance?
JM: Immediately after I’ll be going into my Ugg shoes, so you can imagine my feet on stage and then going straight from the stage to my Uggs. But I think this is going to be a classic powerhouse, MUNA-takes-it-on. It’s going to be the best show [the audience] has ever seen. They’ll be dancing, jumping, crying, singing. They won’t even know what’s about to happen to them. They’ll think, “Am I at a festival or actually am I at the gates of heaven?”
What other artists are you trying to see at Lolla?
JM: Adéla’s before us, I would love to see Adéla. Tate [McRae] is later that night. I need to see the girls throwing it. I need to see things that I could never even imagine to do with my body, these incredible dancers.
What are your picks for song of the summer?
KG: I have a very traditional gay person’s pick, which is “Jeep” by Kim Petras. I just love that song. I really am loving the Confessions II album.
NM: I might have to recuse myself from the question, because for the past few months, I have been so terrible at listening to new music that I texted a couple of people two days ago being like, “What are we listening to?” I’m literally going, “What are the popular songs right now?” and the top six, I have no idea what they are. I’ve been stuck in the past.
You know what song I really like? “Music” by Underscores. That’s my song.
JM: My song of the summer is “Eastside Girls” by the band MUNA. Name a song that feels more effervescently like summer.
What kind of fall are you trying to have?
NM: I’m trying to have a peaceful fall.
JM: I would like to have a fall that’s full of MUNA concerts. That’s going to happen to me, but I hope it happens to everyone else.
KG: What’s exciting about the fall tour is that we’re going to be back with our best friends doing the thing that we love to do the most. I feel very lucky when I think about us going “back to school,” because —
NM: [Tour] is back to school.
KG: This is what I love to do and I’m really excited for these shows. We’re lucky to get to play so many shows. We’re going through the fall. It’s a headline tour in North America into a European tour, and then it’s Christmastime.
JM: We’ll be having an “It Gets So Hot” fall to a “Winterbreak” winter.
KG: I feel like you had a Mad Men energy on this call. Everything’s becoming a slogan.
JM: Maybe that’s the class I would take, but it would have to be elementary school Advertising.
KG: I’m sure you would slay.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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