Q&A: Magdalene Manifests Her Success and Pop Superstardom in “Lucky Girl”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
MAGDALENE’S “LUCKY GIRL” IS A MANIFESTATION ANTHEM ROOTED IN STRIP CLUB SISTERHOOD — Magdalene’s universe is a place where manifestation meets maximalism, where underground grit dances in stilettos across the shimmer of pop stardom. Her latest single “Lucky Girl” is an anthem and a proclamation of self-made destiny. And the visual that accompanies it, directed by Madeline Leary, is a love letter to the women who live that ethos every night under neon lights and dollar bills.
“Inspired by the premise of the song,” Magdalene explains, “the director went to The Den back in September, as it’s the most popular strip club in the most rural part of Wyoming. She fell in love with the stories of the dancers there and knew it was a perfect storytelling and visual fit for the track.”
The result is a video that’s as raw as it is reverent. Shot over two sub zero, adrenaline-charged days at The Den, “Lucky Girl” features seven of the club’s regular dancers—real women, not actors—who taught the cast and crew about pole movement and strip club etiquette. “We were lucky enough to get to know these unbelievable women and the sisterhood that exists between them,” Magdalene says. “The sexy, powerful optimism of the song was a perfect fit for these women hustling in less-than-easy conditions while making it all look effortless.”
That same effortlessness is what makes Magdalene’s rise so captivating. Despite only a handful of singles released—including the sharp-edged “Radio” and the glitter-drenched “Delusional”—her sound arrives fully formed. There’s a refined, razor-sharp polish to her work that suggests a far deeper catalogue. But that’s the magic of Magdalene: her music distills pop history, absorbing its juice from every chapter of the great pop Encyclopedia and spinning it into something freshly squeezed.
She cites Madonna as “Mother,” praises the era of Dirrty-era Xtina and Blackout-era Britney, and celebrates the chaos and catharsis of the early 2000s club-pop explosion. But she doesn’t stop at the iconic. Equally integral to her blueprint is her own mom—who raised her on True Religion jeans, No Doubt CDs, and Portishead records blasting from a vintage Escalade. That duality, the sacred and the profane, the underground and the glamorous, pulses through every beat she creates.
Magdalene is not new to the stage either. Under various iterations, she’s toured and performed with indie darlings like Current Joys, Surf Curse, and Brutus VIII, and has shared stages with rising acts like Momma. Most recently, she wrapped a string of shows at SXSW, appearing alongside the likes of CDSM and Catcher, bridging the downtown New York rock scene with the sky-high ambition of pop’s grandest visions.
“Lucky Girl” acts as a personal ritual. Magdalene wrote it with the intention of manifesting her own success each time she performed it, and to offer her listeners an anthem they could use to manifest their own dreams into reality. As far as introductions go, it’s perfect: a glitzy, gritty, and grounded portal into the world of Magdalene, where everything is bigger, brighter, and fully within reach—if you believe hard enough, and dance even harder.
Photography Credit: Christina Bryson
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
MAGDALENE: I’m deeply inspired by fashion and completely obsessed with the pop Holy Trinity—Gaga, Madonna and Britney. I grew up as a musical theater kid, so naturally, I gravitate toward pop because of its theatrics, its maximalism and the pure performance of it all. It’s the drama, the spectacle—the gag of it. Theater is a huge influence for me too—think Bob Fosse, Cabaret, Chicago—those are iconic, cunt theater moments. But with my project, I’m taking that energy and pushing it into the future. It’s like musical theater meets the club. That’s really what this whole thing is about.
When I started making this music, I was going through a really difficult time—so dark that I couldn’t even listen to sad music. I was genuinely depressed, but instead of sinking into it, I needed the opposite. I needed to listen to LMFAO-level party tracks. That’s where this project was born. I wanted to make music that people can dance to—music that creates mass catharsis. I want my shows to be a space where people can scream, cry, laugh, and dance their hearts out. Pop has always been my lane, but this time it came from a real place of needing joy.
People often underestimate pop. They think it lacks depth because it isn’t always pouring out emotional lyrics. But to me, pop is about feeling. It’s about the release, the freedom it gives you. It’s not just what’s being said—it’s the experience it creates. That’s what I’m trying to channel with Magdalene. It’s emotional, it’s theatrical, it’s a party—but it’s also deeply real.
LUNA: What kind of atmosphere or emotional space do you aim to create for your listeners?
MAGDALENE: For me, it all comes down to three things: freedom, catharsis and cunt. I want people to listen to my music and feel fucking amazing—hot, empowered, femme, joyful—whatever it is they need in that moment. I want my music to be that release, that confidence boost, that invitation to dance and party and just feel. That’s what I’ve always turned to pop music for: release, catharsis, fun. And when it comes to the visuals and live performance, it’s the same. I want to be the kind of artist who puts on a show—something that feels larger than life. I live to perform, and I love watching performers who bring drama, theatrics, storytelling—more than just a little choreography. I think pop is on its way back up, but for a while we lost that magic. We were missing the spectacle.
I want to create an escape. Pop music is escapism at its best. Especially now, when the world feels like it's on fire and the economy is collapsing, people need somewhere to go. And when pop music gets fun again, we get “recession pop.” When everything sucks, people don’t always want to hear about the struggle—they want joy, fantasy, freedom. That’s what pop does best. That’s the world I want to build for people.
LUNA: What is the ideal environment to experience your music? Is there a particular setting, mood, or time of day that enhances the listening experience?
MAGDALENE: I love blasting music in the car and driving fast down the highway. I think that blasting the music in the car, in the club, getting ready to go out, working out are the best atmospheres. I think nighttime generally. I like to dance or to work out, or driving in the car, when you need to just feel it.
LUNA: You just released your newest single “Lucky Girl” and I love how you dive even deeper into your pop realm. What influenced the song and what themes or emotions do you explore?
MAGDALENE: This song is the ultimate cuckoo girl anthem. I wrote it during my first year of sobriety, which—let me tell you—is a psychedelic experience in itself. It's really fucking crazy to have to be present for everything you feel, especially if for your whole life have been numbing yourself out to everything. I was at a point where I was like nothing was fucking working. I'd been doing music for a while with my old project, it was just like nothing was going my way, and I just tapped into this way of thinking. I remembered this interview I saw as a kid with Lady Gaga. She said, “Before I was famous, people thought I was famous just by the way I walked down the street—because I believed I was.” That really stuck with me.
I decided to tap into that energy—to start living as if I already had the things I wanted. That’s where the verses of the song come from. It’s a manifestation anthem, like everything’s perfect—even when it’s not. And the chorus is poking fun at myself, like if you want to get high on the weekend, I can show you how to do it without getting fucked up. I'm on such a weird fucking trip that's crazier than any drug that you can be on, so that's really what the song is about. It's having a song to sing to, manifest my dreams into reality, and then poking my fun at myself for how fucking psycho that really is, and the way I was not living in this reality. For anyone else listening, that's just a manifestation anthem, baby. I also was like, I need to be saying these words every night on stage, and maybe that'll do something.
LUNA: You’ve described “Lucky Girl” as a manifestation anthem. What were you hoping to manifest when you wrote it?
MAGDALENE: Fame and success. I want to be a fucking pop star. I think, pursuing a career in music, it's not the way it used to be, like in the 80s, where it was a one in a million chance you get discovered by a record label, and there's only so many people that make it. There's this large spectrum of making a living as a musician, whether it's an indie-rock band that tours and makes enough to live a normal life, or being some huge success. Obviously, I came up in the indie-rock scene, so I have a lot of friends doing that, and I did that. I toured in indie-rock bands for a long time. I think trying to pursue a career in pop is the most psycho version of pursuing a career in music. It's like the top tier. It's the hardest to attain and so I think in order to do that and mentally believe in yourself to that degree, you have to walk through the world in a state of delusion. You have to believe that nobody else is going to believe that you're going to be a pop star if you don't think that you're going to be a pop star. You do have to walk through the world with that mentality. I'm going to get on stage and say these words, and I'm going to speak it into existence.
LUNA: “Lucky Girl” is accompanied by a music video and I love all the femme energy that’s present. How did this concept come to life, and what story were you hoping to tell?
MAGDALENE: The director of the video Madeline Leary, she is from Wyoming. She has family in Wyoming, and she was driving from the Denver Airport to go see her family. This club is right on the border of Denver and Cheyenne, off the side of the highway in the middle of a field, and she saw it and wandered in and was taken by it and the girls and was like, ‘I have to film something here.’ When I brought this song to her, she knew this would be perfect for the club. The narrative of the video is pretty much portraying the dancer as God and men as her followers and and just girls making a fuck ton of money off these dudes that come into their club, and they're the local celebrity. They're on stage and the men are there groveling after them. That was pretty much the premise, the dancer as God and men as her followers.
LUNA: You were really immersed throughout the entire creative process. I read that you also learned some pole movements throughout the shoot. How was your experience filming the video and what was your biggest takeaway?
MAGDALENE: It was such an intense experience filming. It was five days long. I got so close with those girls and bonded to them in such an intense way. It was just such a girl experience, so it was like girlhood, everyone was just so aware of each other's emotions and taking care of each other, and sticking together and helping each other, and cheering each other on when they were doing their anyone was doing their solo shots dancing, and everyone was coaching each other. Those girls helped me so much. I took some private pole classes from a girl named Jessica Hopper in LA, specifically for the video, and she taught me some moves so I wasn't going in completely blind. Then I had my choreographer Kevin there, but we got together with the girls and they helped us choreograph my choreo for the chorus. The girls are the main reason I don't look like a fucking idiot in that music video, and they really helped me because they're not just dancers in the club, they are fucking ripped athletes and they are such amazing pole dancers. They hold themselves sideways in the splits on the pole, like they're ripped. It was crazy.
LUNA: How do your personal aesthetics and experiences play a role in the visual storytelling and the overall story of Magdalene?
MAGDALENE: I think there's always going to be a bit of “desert trash” in everything I do—in the best way. I grew up in New Mexico, which is one of the most visually stimulating and beautiful places in the world. It’s such a unique place to grow up: culturally rich, deeply diverse, and filled with artists who are drawn there for the sheer beauty of the landscape and sky. That kind of environment leaves a mark.
A huge part of my aesthetic sensibility also comes from my mom. She has amazing taste. She’s always been effortlessly stylish, and she introduced me to fashion from a really young age. Her whole vibe—from the way she dresses to how she decorates her house—has deeply influenced me. Her home is filled with old Roman-Spanish Catholic imagery—Virgin Mary’s, sacred hearts, antique furniture, crosses. It’s so aesthetically driven. She’s always had this incredibly strong visual identity, and because of that, I’ve inherited this need to have everything around me reflect me. My home, my clothes, my project—it’s all hyper-personal and very intentional.
So much of Magdalene’s aesthetic comes from that blend of my upbringing and influences. It’s definitely an extension of me, even though it exists in this heightened, maximalist, character-driven world. My background in theater plays a huge role, too—especially the influence of Bob Fosse. I’m obsessed with that gritty, sexy, dark theater energy—think Cabaret, Chicago, Burlesque, Showgirls. The black leotards, the bowler hats, the character shoes—that visual language is embedded in how I see performance and movement.
And of course, there’s the pop queens. Gwen Stefani’s aesthetic? Incredible. Madonna? Obviously iconic. The look and feel of Magdalene is really this amalgamation of all those influences—New Mexico’s visual drama, my mom’s ornate taste, my obsession with pop star imagery, and the performative power of theater. It’s all an extension of me.
LUNA: Your discography is self-written and is produced heavily independently. What are the challenges and rewards of taking on such a comprehensive creative role?
MAGDALENE: I think one of the biggest challenges for me is just how close I am to the work. My process usually starts with me writing and producing everything by myself. Then, once I’ve taken it as far as I can, I’ll bring it to a friend or collaborator to add their touch. But when you’ve been sitting with something alone for so long, it can be hard to really see it clearly anymore. You lose perspective, and that can definitely be frustrating.
At the same time, making things on my own is just how I operate best. I’ve tried starting songs in sessions with other people, but it’s hard for me not to want full control. There’s something really comforting about being in my own space, where I can try weird ideas, take risks, and explore without worrying about bothering anyone or having to explain myself. That freedom is really important to my creative flow.
And honestly, making music by myself isn’t just about the final product—it’s how I process my emotions. I’ve been doing that since I was a kid, just sitting in my room writing songs. Whether or not anyone hears it, that’s just what I do. It’s not even a conscious decision like, “I’m going to produce this entire thing myself.” It’s more like, this is how I live. I like being at home making music. I don’t really have hobbies outside of that—it’s just who I am. Sure, it can feel daunting sometimes, especially when I think about completing full projects on my own. But truthfully, I love it. There aren’t many cons for me. It’s not always easy, but it feels natural, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
MAGDALENE: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling excited. I feel very fulfilled. I'm having so much fun getting to make music like this and put on the type of show I'm putting on, and make visuals like this has been so fucking fun, cathartic and healing. I feel like it finally clicked for me, like what I'm doing right now is what I feel like I've been trying to always do and I finally figured it out. It's been really awesome. The rest of the year I'm just releasing more music, playing shows, just trucking along. But there will be lots more to come. I would also like to add that listeners can go to the credits of the “Lucky Girl” music video, all the girls' Instagrams are there and go follow them. I think their venmos are in their ads and go give them a little money. Go support those girls because they're fucking ballers and I love them.
