Christine and the Queens

I remember growing up and feeling all the time not pretty enough, too rude, too loud, taking too much space because precisely I wanted to maybe be bossy and loud and unapologetic and not really smooth all the time, and those were not really qualities that were valued for me.

Because I'm experimenting so much with gender-bending and listening to everything that happens to me in terms of genderless energies, I have a hard time finding partners that can match me.

The gender question has always obsessed me.

For me, the male gaze is oppressive. And I hope if we are building a female gaze that it's inclusive, and it's about pure desire and not how I want people to look in order for them to be desired by me.

There's a lack of ambition in politics in terms of what we expect from the government, what it means to have a state.

Gendered performance is just constant theater.

For me, everything is a performance.

Festivals are happy places, and you don't really want to enjoy them on your own.

I don't remember my 20s as a good place.

The success of the first album was almost an anomaly, and it could remain a fantastic anomaly. It was not crafted for commercial success. I remember meetings with my label saying it had no radio singles. For me, the second album was a gesture of independence.

That's part of what made me interested in theater as a kid. It made it acceptable to be a man for an hour onstage.

Christine and the Queens is about not being safe.