Latest news with #Pirouette
Vogue
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
On Their Exhilarating New Album Pirouette, Model/Actriz Take Their Biggest Swing Yet
There's definitely a stronger directness and candor to the songs this time around; some of them, like 'Cinderella,' are even addressed to a childhood self. What was some of the new terrain you were looking to explore lyrically, Cole? Haden: I think there was a lot of room for interpretation with the lyrics on Dogsbody, and one of my biggest fears or anxieties is being misunderstood and misinterpreted. I am proud of that writing, but I knew that I needed to, for my own sake, be more transparent about what the songs were about. It really was a direct response to Dogsbody. I think the record is basically what I learned from the first album, because those were most of the new experiences that I was getting in those two years—and a lot of those that related to the vision of what I saw for myself as a kid. I'm both speaking to me as a child, and thinking about the kind of person I am now. What would my younger self think of that person? Where did the title Pirouette come from? It captures the energy of the record so brilliantly. Haden: What drew me to the word was that dichotomy of being on the verge of falling out of balance, but needing an incredible amount of skill to maintain your posture, like a ballerina. There's something both delicate and athletic about it, which is our process of making things. Having worked together as a band for so many years now, do you feel that sense of being in sync, almost like a dance ensemble? Listening to the record and seeing how you perform, it appears that way… Shapiro: When it's working, for sure. Nothing's ever perfect, though, and we're not necessarily striving for something perfect. But I do think there's a common theme of elegant machinery or something that comes in. It sounds like a hot, dancing robot. Jack Wetmore: I think there's a delicateness to the word pirouette that doesn't give away the athleticism and coordination behind it. And I think we've constantly been trying to bring a delicateness and beauty to heavy music, so the word pirouette feels like the thesis in a lot of ways.
The Age
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Cole Haden is the queer indie frontman of your dreams
Cole Haden is singing to me. His band Model/Actriz are playing at a Manhattan venue called Night Club 101, and he's on the dance floor, prowling amongst the crowd, and now he's maybe a metre away from me, eyeballing me seductively while singing Doves, a spiky ballad from the band's new album, Pirouette. I'm simultaneously thrilled and mortified – the louche, flamboyant Haden is wildly charismatic, but this kind of attention makes me squirm. Luckily for me, I'm not his only target. Intense crowd interaction is a staple of a Model/Actriz live set, and he soon moves on to serenade others in the audience. Unlike me, they're clearly delighted to have their moment. When I meet Haden for coffee in Brooklyn a few days later, he recognises me from the gig. 'Were you there with that man next to you?' he asks. 'No, he was cute though,' I respond. Haden agrees. 'I was hoping you were a couple and that I was breaking you up,' he says impishly. 'I was flirting with you both.' The characteristically sweaty, raucous gig was a small one-off show ahead of Model/Actriz's biggest tour yet, with at least 32 dates booked across the US and Europe until September. The band formed in Boston in 2016 after drummer Ruben Radlauer and guitarist Jack Wetmore saw Haden, a fellow student at the Berklee College of Music, perform. After watching him 'writhing on the floor in a corset, fake blood dripping down his face,' they immediately asked him to join their band. In 2019, bassist Aaron Shapiro completed the four-piece. Two years after the triumphant tour of their acclaimed debut Dogsbody, comes Model/Actriz's second album, Pirouette. The music within remains compellingly abrasive: tense, menacing noise rock full of scuzzy, distorted guitars and mercurial percussion, while Haden's voice ranges from a sultry murmur to an operatic soprano to a guttural growl. Lyrically, Pirouette finds Haden moving away from the myth and metaphor he favoured on Dogsbody and exposing more of his own vulnerabilities. The grungy Diva begins as a boast about Haden's sexual conquests in Europe, but really, he's 'looking for something more/ A home to take you home to.' There are sweet odes to his sisters (Baton) and grandmother (Acid Rain), while on standout lead single Cinderella, he reminisces about his five-year-old, unrealised desire to have a Cinderella birthday party. 'And when the moment came, and I changed my mind/ I was quiet, alone, and devastated,' he moans (in the song's transgressive music video, he finally gets to act out his dream). A 90-second spoken-word interlude called Headlights is about a high school crush on a friend of a friend. 'Over time I started hating him, or I started hating myself/ But I hated most how I'd pray each night/ Asking God to make him see me in all the ways I couldn't,' Haden sings. 'The process of finishing Dogsbody felt like a new dawn,' Haden says. 'I had a chip on my shoulder then, and I was really bitter about my love life, and I was angry about a lot of the sadness that I carried with me from childhood.' 'Lady Gaga put out Bad Romance and I started figuring it out – yeah, I'm gay!' Haden is gentler with himself now, and on Pirouette, he's more able to make peace with the pains of his past. 'I really wanted to speak to my inner child, that was the mission statement,' he says. 'I wish I could have heard my future self speaking to my younger self as a child, and I appreciate the ways our music can help people see themselves, especially people who might feel lonely.' Haden says he didn't have any deep friendships until he was around 14. 'Before that, I was a very lonely kid and I didn't really know how to help myself,' he says. 'And then Lady Gaga put out Bad Romance and I started figuring it out – yeah, I'm gay!' Gaga was a formative influence on Haden. 'Like Germanotta, Stefani/ Pull the weight from under me,' he sings on Dogsbody 's Crossing Guard, referencing both Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) and Gwen Stefani. On Pirouette, Haden channels Gaga and fellow divas like Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue, infusing the heavy riffs and anxious beats with a dance-pop spirit that's especially evident in the live shows. 'What I love about [Minogue] so much is that she doesn't really carry a lot of baggage in her music,' he says, naming Aphrodite as his favourite Kylie album and her 1988 gem Turn It Into Love as one of his favourite songs. 'I think she represents what an unabashedly fearless pop song should sound like,' he says. Legendary performance artist Marina Abramović is another, less obvious influence on Haden's stage presence. In high school, he travelled to New York with a friend to take part in her project, The Embrace. 'I hugged Marina for about two minutes and I cried,' he says. Another of Abramović's projects, The Artist is Present, was composed of prolonged staring contests. 'Marina showed me that eye contact doesn't have to be scary,' he says, as I'm reminded of his intense gaze the other night. 'It's more multitudinous.' When I tell my friends, big fans of Model/Actriz, that I found the show hectic – in a good way – they tell me it was tame compared to other gigs, where they would go home with bruises from all the moshing and slamming their bodies into other crowd members. For the band, the shows are even more taxing. 'Jack was limping at the end of our last European tour,' says Haden. 'He was banging his guitar into his hip so much there was a bruise all down his leg, and he couldn't walk.' After screaming into the microphone for nights on end, Haden was often left with bleeding vocal cords. 'My throat will bleed again, probably,' he says with a laugh and a shrug. Outwardly queer frontmen are not the norm amongst noise rock bands. Possibly for this reason, people would often come up to Haden on the Dogsbody tour and ask if he was really gay. 'I was like, 'Am I really standing here right now?'' he says. 'I thought, ok, it needs to be even clearer on this album because I don't want there to be any question about it [his gayness]. I want someone who needs someone like me to listen to, to have no question that I'm there for that.' Loading Haden's angsty confessions often inspire messages from fans who have experienced or are going through similar turmoil, who then get to thrash out their demons at the live shows. 'When we're playing a gig, it's like we're hosts to a party and I want those people to be able to come there and feel liberated from [their worries] and feel welcome in celebrating who they are,' says Haden. 'Being gay and queer is painful, especially romantically and especially in this climate in America – and everywhere. But I think we have to fight to make the world around us reflect the one we want to see outside of that.'
Sydney Morning Herald
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Cole Haden is the queer indie frontman of your dreams
Cole Haden is singing to me. His band Model/Actriz are playing at a Manhattan venue called Night Club 101, and he's on the dance floor, prowling amongst the crowd, and now he's maybe a metre away from me, eyeballing me seductively while singing Doves, a spiky ballad from the band's new album, Pirouette. I'm simultaneously thrilled and mortified – the louche, flamboyant Haden is wildly charismatic, but this kind of attention makes me squirm. Luckily for me, I'm not his only target. Intense crowd interaction is a staple of a Model/Actriz live set, and he soon moves on to serenade others in the audience. Unlike me, they're clearly delighted to have their moment. When I meet Haden for coffee in Brooklyn a few days later, he recognises me from the gig. 'Were you there with that man next to you?' he asks. 'No, he was cute though,' I respond. Haden agrees. 'I was hoping you were a couple and that I was breaking you up,' he says impishly. 'I was flirting with you both.' The characteristically sweaty, raucous gig was a small one-off show ahead of Model/Actriz's biggest tour yet, with at least 32 dates booked across the US and Europe until September. The band formed in Boston in 2016 after drummer Ruben Radlauer and guitarist Jack Wetmore saw Haden, a fellow student at the Berklee College of Music, perform. After watching him 'writhing on the floor in a corset, fake blood dripping down his face,' they immediately asked him to join their band. In 2019, bassist Aaron Shapiro completed the four-piece. Two years after the triumphant tour of their acclaimed debut Dogsbody, comes Model/Actriz's second album, Pirouette. The music within remains compellingly abrasive: tense, menacing noise rock full of scuzzy, distorted guitars and mercurial percussion, while Haden's voice ranges from a sultry murmur to an operatic soprano to a guttural growl. Lyrically, Pirouette finds Haden moving away from the myth and metaphor he favoured on Dogsbody and exposing more of his own vulnerabilities. The grungy Diva begins as a boast about Haden's sexual conquests in Europe, but really, he's 'looking for something more/ A home to take you home to.' There are sweet odes to his sisters (Baton) and grandmother (Acid Rain), while on standout lead single Cinderella, he reminisces about his five-year-old, unrealised desire to have a Cinderella birthday party. 'And when the moment came, and I changed my mind/ I was quiet, alone, and devastated,' he moans (in the song's transgressive music video, he finally gets to act out his dream). A 90-second spoken-word interlude called Headlights is about a high school crush on a friend of a friend. 'Over time I started hating him, or I started hating myself/ But I hated most how I'd pray each night/ Asking God to make him see me in all the ways I couldn't,' Haden sings. 'The process of finishing Dogsbody felt like a new dawn,' Haden says. 'I had a chip on my shoulder then, and I was really bitter about my love life, and I was angry about a lot of the sadness that I carried with me from childhood.' 'Lady Gaga put out Bad Romance and I started figuring it out – yeah, I'm gay!' Haden is gentler with himself now, and on Pirouette, he's more able to make peace with the pains of his past. 'I really wanted to speak to my inner child, that was the mission statement,' he says. 'I wish I could have heard my future self speaking to my younger self as a child, and I appreciate the ways our music can help people see themselves, especially people who might feel lonely.' Haden says he didn't have any deep friendships until he was around 14. 'Before that, I was a very lonely kid and I didn't really know how to help myself,' he says. 'And then Lady Gaga put out Bad Romance and I started figuring it out – yeah, I'm gay!' Gaga was a formative influence on Haden. 'Like Germanotta, Stefani/ Pull the weight from under me,' he sings on Dogsbody 's Crossing Guard, referencing both Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta) and Gwen Stefani. On Pirouette, Haden channels Gaga and fellow divas like Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson and Kylie Minogue, infusing the heavy riffs and anxious beats with a dance-pop spirit that's especially evident in the live shows. 'What I love about [Minogue] so much is that she doesn't really carry a lot of baggage in her music,' he says, naming Aphrodite as his favourite Kylie album and her 1988 gem Turn It Into Love as one of his favourite songs. 'I think she represents what an unabashedly fearless pop song should sound like,' he says. Legendary performance artist Marina Abramović is another, less obvious influence on Haden's stage presence. In high school, he travelled to New York with a friend to take part in her project, The Embrace. 'I hugged Marina for about two minutes and I cried,' he says. Another of Abramović's projects, The Artist is Present, was composed of prolonged staring contests. 'Marina showed me that eye contact doesn't have to be scary,' he says, as I'm reminded of his intense gaze the other night. 'It's more multitudinous.' When I tell my friends, big fans of Model/Actriz, that I found the show hectic – in a good way – they tell me it was tame compared to other gigs, where they would go home with bruises from all the moshing and slamming their bodies into other crowd members. For the band, the shows are even more taxing. 'Jack was limping at the end of our last European tour,' says Haden. 'He was banging his guitar into his hip so much there was a bruise all down his leg, and he couldn't walk.' After screaming into the microphone for nights on end, Haden was often left with bleeding vocal cords. 'My throat will bleed again, probably,' he says with a laugh and a shrug. Outwardly queer frontmen are not the norm amongst noise rock bands. Possibly for this reason, people would often come up to Haden on the Dogsbody tour and ask if he was really gay. 'I was like, 'Am I really standing here right now?'' he says. 'I thought, ok, it needs to be even clearer on this album because I don't want there to be any question about it [his gayness]. I want someone who needs someone like me to listen to, to have no question that I'm there for that.' Loading Haden's angsty confessions often inspire messages from fans who have experienced or are going through similar turmoil, who then get to thrash out their demons at the live shows. 'When we're playing a gig, it's like we're hosts to a party and I want those people to be able to come there and feel liberated from [their worries] and feel welcome in celebrating who they are,' says Haden. 'Being gay and queer is painful, especially romantically and especially in this climate in America – and everywhere. But I think we have to fight to make the world around us reflect the one we want to see outside of that.'
The Guardian
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
One to watch: Model/Actriz
Exuding glamour, spectacle and pathos, Model/Actriz create a ferocious mix of industrial rock, dance-punk and pop that's often sexy and disturbing in the same breath. After breaking out in 2023 with debut album Dogsbody, the New York four-piece spent 2024 touring relentlessly, likely leaving every stage they played slicked with a mixture of sweat and blood. Their forthcoming follow-up record, Pirouette, is their first for British independent label Dirty Hit. Lead single Cinderella is a remarkable, teeth-gnashing reintroduction to their sound: a brutalising song about, in part, lead singer Cole Haden's desire to have a Cinderella-themed birthday party when he was five. This is quintessential Model/Actriz, blending manic, menacing grooves with steely-eyed flamboyance and needling openness. The band – Haden, Ruben Radlauer, Aaron Shapiro and Jack Wetmore – formed in 2016, and it's their sense of gay transgression and avowed diva worship, brought to the band by Haden, that separates them from the scores of punk-adjacent rock acts on the rise. Pirouette is punchier, more willing to sink its teeth in, than Dogsbody, and allows for moments of softness too, such as the forlorn spoken-word track Headlights or delicate ballad Acid Rain. It will almost definitely beef up an already killer live show, but if you can't catch it, Model/Actriz still bring immense spectacle to their records. Pirouette is out on 2 May via Dirty Hit. Model/Actriz play Outbreak festival in London and Manchester, 13-15 June
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Model/Actriz Learned to Let Go and Have a Little Fun
If you saw one of the 100-plus shows that Model/Actriz played in 2023, what you were probably most struck by was the Brooklyn noise band's intensity. Every night felt somewhere between a secret initiation and a car crash, with lead singer Cole Haden at the center of the madness. 'It's not a show unless we're all drenched in sweat,' says Haden, 28. Those shows were never less than exhilarating for the audience, but by last year, the band was starting to feel exhausted. 'Playing shows every day fried the reward center of my brain,' says drummer Ruben Radlauer, 29. 'I didn't know how to make the shows feel good anymore unless it was constantly leveling up. And usually the only way is just to play harder.' More from Rolling Stone Help Joanna Sternberg, Model/Actriz, and Others Defend Trans Rights With New Comp The Outrageous Thrills of Model/Actriz Noise Rules the Night in Austin Guitarist Jack Wetmore, 29, winces as he remembers one European tour where he played so hard that he ended up injuring himself onstage. 'I had gotten into a habit of throwing equipment,' Wetmore says. 'And then that shit hurt me back.' Bass player Aaron Shapiro, 30, smiles thinly: 'I don't think I've ever felt less sympathy for a person in pain than a man who threw a guitar at himself.' Model/Actriz can laugh about that era of the band now, because they're about to vault past it. Their second album, Pirouette, out April 25 via True Panther, is a stunning sequel to their rave-reviewed debut, Dogsbody. If Haden's lifelong love of pop stars like Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue was something the last album hinted at, it's front-page news on this one. Radlauer calls Pirouette 'a dance-pop album,' and while you won't confuse it with anything on the Top 40, there's a new energy that's irresistible. 'Before, it's been very claustrophobic and kind of gnarly all the time, and scared to show emotion sometimes,' Wetmore says. 'This one feels like we took big leaps of faith into trying to be as open as possible.' On lead single 'Cinderella,' Haden recounts how he dreamed of having a Cinderella-themed birthday party in elementary school, only to change his mind out of fear. 'That's my experience as a gay youth,' he says. 'I remember wanting to wear the dress, and I was imagining entering the party. And then I remember thinking about what other people would think of me.' In the music video, he gets his moment at the ball after all, starring as Cinderella in a surreal storyline that climaxes at an underground club. Radlauer, Wetmore, and Shapiro play Cinderella's mean step-family. 'It's the first time I'm doing choreo on camera,' Haden says. 'It really is a diva moment for me.' More seriously, he sees 'Cinderella' as reflecting the personal growth he's done as an adult. 'Despite all of that pain, I still made it through to the other side,' he adds. 'And I don't have to defend myself like I did. I can let the shield down.' Some of Pirouette's most thrilling peaks come on songs like 'Vespers,' where Haden lets us listen in on his inner monologue before a show ('I'm asking, are you her? Are you free/To be a bitch, but graciously?'), and 'Diva,' where he fully embraces his power as a charismatic performer ('Yeah, you could call me a small-business owner/Living in America, while trapped in the body of an operatic diva'). The latter song's lyrics came to him spontaneously: 'I had one verse written and then I was like, 'I think this song will be better if I have a glass of wine and just do it in the booth,'' Haden recalls. 'It was just to amuse myself and let it not be overwrought — which is something that I would not have been able to do on the first album.' That playful quality in his words mirrors the band's newly flexible studio philosophy. Recording over a few weeks in Rhode Island last fall, they found that their sound has room for an acoustic ballad ('Acid Rain') and a spoken-word ambient interlude ('Headlights') along with plenty of sleek twists on the industrial clangor they're known for. 'A lot of it was asking ourselves, what is the point of all of this, honestly?' Wetmore says. 'I mean, the world was falling to shit in so many different ways, and we're out here trying to write fucking songs. We had to rediscover what the point is.' They found a surprisingly liberating answer in letting go of any expectation of how a Model/Actriz album should sound. 'We were so stressed out making the last one, and worried that it wouldn't represent us,' Radlauer says. 'All we can do now is have fun with whoever we are at the moment.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
