Nicole Montego, You Will Always Be Famous
Nicole Montego at Subculture, shot by David Nikolic.
I met Nicole at the release party for her 2024 record, Estrogenesis. The album title intrigued me, and the artwork matched the dress I'd bought that day. I raced my way over to a flower shop in Venice, arriving right before showtime. Everyone there was fucking cool. Within hours, I met eclectic Youtube savant John Marx, prolific producer Luke Lullaby (then known as Mirror Boy), experimental artist Vita Kari, and iconic DJ/producer/multi-instrumentalist Evian X Lucy. If you’re only as good as the company you keep, Nicole was in fantastic standing.
Estrogenesis, 2024.
Gently swaying side to side, Montego cruised through the setlist, adding in some of her greatest hits. “Trannybop” stuck out to me. It was like a chill, spaced-out version of Ayesha Erotica, just as funny, but with a distinct coolness and sense of irony that defines a lot of Nicole's discography.
I spoke with the legend behind the myth, Trinity Angelus.
Nicole Montego at Subculture, shot by David Nikolic.
⭐️ You have a song called “Who is She?” It’s one of my favorites, so I wonder… who is she? How would you describe Nicole Montego?
NICOLE MONTEGO: She is me, She is we, She is you, and She is I. And just like the song itself, she takes on many shapes. I wrote it in 2018 for a different persona named Staciana Quattroporte. I released it as a double single… so there’s actually two other “Who is She?”s in the world… and a music video too. It’s on YouTube somewhere. But Nicole Montego is different — I’d say she’s an esoteric feminine entity. She’s dynamic, she’s enigmatic, and she’s lived a lot of lives.
⭐️ Do you see her as a character? If so, how did you construct her?
NM: I have sort of a hard time figuring out who and what Nicole is. When I first started out with her in 2020, she was just a character, but way raunchier back then. Like on “Dollar Store Diva,” the entire [story] is about her being a lot lizard and sucking dick on the Sunset Strip. “American Royalty” was about fucking Larry Craig. When I identified as a trans woman, she became a lot softer — more refined, but ambiguous and arcane. This was when I first started playing shows and made theNicole by Nicole EP and a large majority of Estrogenesis, so I think a lot of that energy came through in those projects.
Single artwork for “I Ride the Bus to My Plastic Surgeon’s” from Nicole by Nicole, 2023.
⭐️ What inspires you musically? Which influences do you find yourself returning to?
NM: I’m really inspired by repetitive sounds in the world. Like, the sound of escalators twisting around, dishwashers, printers printing, train tracks… anything with a freaky but unintentional rhythm really. Catching a BPM in the wild is very inspirational to me, and I’ll try to replicate it. I’m working on a song right now that samples a fax machine, so my inspiration can really come from anything.
The foundations of my inspiration come from the only stuff I heard as a kid. My parents only played like mostly Christian alt-pop vibes but often drifted to more contemporary. In the 90s, my dad was in a few Christian metal bands called Deliverance, Betrayal, and Medusa. He toured through Europe, and I was really inspired by him. Still am. He was the drummer in our mega-church’s band when we lived in the High Desert.
On my mom’s side, we would rock out in her minivan to Sixpence None The Richer, which was my favorite, but we also loved listening to “The Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani. I don’t know why, but Gwen Stefani was always around when I was a kid. It was one of my first introductions to secular music. My dad would give me his iPod so I could listen to “Rich Girl” on repeat, but I was prohibited from listening to “Hollaback Girl.” My grandma and I had a special bond too because we both fucked heavy with Fergie. She’d pick me up in her 350z for the sole purpose of cruising around and listening to The Duchess with the sunroof open. She understood me as being queer before I even knew I was. It’s one of my core memories from being 9.
As an adult, I always come back to Arular by M.I.A., Madonna’s Ray of Light album, Volnicura by Björk, and pretty much Robyn’s entire discography. I’m quite inspired by Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette’s songwriting too. SOPHIE is also really really impactful on my work, especially in a gender-expressive way. She’s the one that really inspired me to start making music, so there’s glints of her legacy in all my work.
So I guess you could say my core inspirations are fax machines, mom rock, Sheryl Crow, SOPHIE, the High Desert Church band, my grandma’s Nissan 350z, and Björk.
Nicole Montego at Subculture, shot by David Nikolic.
⭐️ Your style is interesting. There’s an element of Y2K celebrity pop like that of Paris Hilton or Heidi Montag, but it’s not channeled in a super bubblegum pop direction. For example, “Celebrititious” manifests celebrity with a tone similar to “When I Grow Up” by the Pussycat Dolls, but the production is pretty dark. How did you arrive at that combination, and is there a larger narrative behind your work?
NM: There’s just something so fierce about going to the dark side. Whenever I’m making a beat, I always start out with dark synths and heavy subs. I’ve got this one song that I wrote at a cafe in Rome that I keep returning to. It goes, “twinks turned to dolls, f*gs sucking on balls,” but it sounds so sinister and darksided. I want the beat to be so good that it scares you — but then I want the lyrics to bring you back to the club.
The singles I’ve already put out for Hyperambient, “Infernal Celebrity” and “Rich Bitches Can’t Enter the Kingdom of God,” follow the same trend. “Rich Bitches” is supposed to be super freakish, especially toward the end. I wanted it to sound like you were in a cathedral, but the cathedral was an Erewhon in flames.
“Infernal Celebrity” is a song that follows three acts, where the listener is the main character and the hero of the story, but this time the character is supposed to be a wannabe celebrity, a transplant micro-influencer who’s a gentrifier barista in Venice or something. A celebrititious person. They are the hero of their story while simultaneously being its greatest antagonist. At the end, the hero ends up washed up and insane… hence the tinnitus sounds, ocean waves, and the gorgeous, distorted, oscillating chants from Ti Steele. It’s my favorite song I’ve made so far.
A lot of Nicole is inspired by a distorted, twisted, and larger-than-life vision of Southern California that people in other states and countries might think is reality. A dark and sinister but sparkling version of the region. As someone born and raised here, it’s one of my favorite aesthetics. So that’s kind of where the combination of ambient and dark with sexy and dancey comes from.
Nicole’s next album, Hyperambient.
⭐️ I know your last project, Estrogenesis, was well received. What do you have coming up in terms of musical projects? Is Nicole back on for 2026?
NM: I’m currently working on my third album, titled Hyperambient. It’s titled after the genre I feel the album is. Ambient music that you can dance to in the club. There’s so much more I want to add to it that I get overwhelmed at times. I’ve pushed it back like three times now. It was supposed to be out in January of 2025 as a remix album, but it just took on a life of its own. I need to see it become its true form. Realistically though, it’s almost finished, so it’ll be out around summer. I like a summer release.
I also have a few features that’ll come out at some point. My boyfriend Luke Lullaby is working on their new EP right now, and we’ve been making some pretty incredible stuff.
I’m also planning on writing a second book. It’s very much in its infancy, so I’m not 100% sure on what it’ll be about, but my grandma liked my last one and wanted me to continue it. I’m also feeling autobiographical, but we’ll see. I wrote my first book in two weeks, but I’ve been a very slow writer recently, so that might be a 2027 thing. In the meantime, go read Trials & Tribulations of Something Something. I got it as an audiobook too, read by yours truly.
I also want to put out another mixtape on SoundCloud. I’ve made a few over the years and my last one, Dolls Run L.A., came out three years ago… so I think it’s time.
Dolls Run L.A. mixtape, 2023.
⭐️ Do you have any collabs you’d like to manifest in print?
NM: I wanna be in the studio with Björk and Arca at the same time. I’m a huge Volnicura and Utopia stan, so I just love everything they’ve made together. I feel like I’d be too shy to just be with Björk because I’m a Cancer rising and she’s a triple Scorpio. Arca, as a Libra, would be the like in-between person who Björk and I both fucked with.
I also want Katy Perry to consult me for another rebrand. “Woman’s World” and 143 in general were so annoying, and I just know if I was there it would’ve slapped so hard.
⭐️ I like to close out interviews with this question. What, to you, makes a perfect party? What do you want to see, feel, hear when you go out?
NM: The club needs more binaural beats and float tanks. I want shit at raves to be more intentional. Like SOPHIE’s Heav3n Suspended set is like top 5 most perfect sets ever. Conversely, there needs to be more Eurotrance. If the DJ played “Stereo Love,”“Heaven,” and “Better Off Alone” back-to-back at a party or rave I think I might die. Actually I think I’ll do that for my next mixtape. If you want something done right, do it yourself.
Nicole Montego at PARTIMNSTR.
⭐️ Anything else you’d like to share?
NM: Make art for the sake of art. Sing like nobody is listening. Write like nobody will ever read your writing. Make music like nobody will ever buy your work. Dance like nobody is watching. And fuck ICE.