INTERVIEW with MNDR

(Originally posted on WSOE 89.3 FM here)

LA-based pop veteran MNDR has been an integral part of pop’s backstage for the last decade, and finally made her return as a solo artist on June 25th with her sophomore record Hell To Be You Baby, her first full length record since 2012. MNDR’s landmark work on a myriad of pop hits in the last decade has cemented her as a production wizard, including collaborations with artists like Charli XCX, Mark Ronson, and Carly Rae Jepsen.

MNDR was gracious enough to sit down with us for a Zoom Interview to talk about the new album, her come-up, and musical tastes.

Before she was known as MNDR, Amanda Warner came up in Fargo, North Dakota, steeped in a love for music inherited from her father. “Oh, [it] definitely came from my dad,” Warner says, “he was a musician… and he had built the little four track studio in our basement on our farm.” Through recording demos and Jane’s Addiction covers, MNDR began early in building her tenacity of production.

In college, MNDR translated her production/music making knowledge into her band Triangle which in her own words was “an indie pop band that was definitely influenced by like, no wave, post punk.” It was also here where Warner refined her skills as a musician, experimenting with a gamut of influences until finally finding a tone consistent with her personality and skills.

“I first learned about it, maybe in 2014,” Warner says on hyper pop music, “I heard of the late, great, iconic SOPHIE and A.G. Cook.” MNDR’s influence on hyper pop started on her genre-fusing hit “Bang Bang Bang” with Mark Ronson and Q-Tip that featured glossy spaceship synths and chanting pop vocals that deeply influenced modern hyper pop today. The track was also how soon-to-be collaborator Charli XCX first learned of MNDR, as the track was a number one hit in Britain when Charli was a teenager.

“It was super fun to work on what I would like to describe as the Beatles of hyper pop.” MNDR said on co-writing one of Charli XCX’s first big hyper pop hits, “Vroom Vroom.” Produced alongside SOPHIE, the track was vastly important to the hyper pop genre, bringing the scene much of the well-deserved attention it has today. “[Charli’s] an incredible songwriter. Her and Carly Rae Jepsen are just like, insanely tight at writing pop hits.”

MNDR happily shared some of her latest musical obsessions including 90s electronic legends like The Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack to modern indie classmates like Japanese Breakfast and Dizzy Fae.

Upon asking what her favorite record might be, MNDR dived into an extensive monologue on the brilliance of Prince’s Purple Rain. “He’s just like a genius on like Mozart-Beethoven-level like, the stories of him in the studio and his musicality and the amount of volumes of music he made is just like staggering, and his ability to add during his era to channel funk music, punk music, new wave, pop, disco all into a sound and then to like grow into like pulling from gospel and just to make this amazing sound and then for it to hit a fever pitch with Purple Rain… I don’t know if you really top an album like that.”

“I think I’ve always been an audiophile,” Warner says, “I’d say MNDR always has a high-low factor like a high production value as well as a lot of like grimy grit.” One of the most noticeable aspects of MNDR’s music is how multifaceted and colorful her beats can be. Often mixing high-level production with scratchy synth sounds is not only a signature of Warner’s music but also a cornerstone of hyperpop.

“Well, I knew I was writing a concept record,” Warner says, “And so…I needed to understand how to be a viable artist. And in this era, like, every two years, the music industry completely flips.” Despite MNDR saying that her most 2021 record had been near complete for several years, keeping up with the ever-changing state of the music industry is a big concern of hers, and affects the sounds of all of her music.

Also, the last nine years since her last album Feed Me Diamonds, MNDR has been keeping busy, collaborating and touring at every opportunity she gets. “I mean, I did 21 features. I played Glastonbury… I was on tour… I did Coachella three times. Like it was just a very busy time, but I also started to write and work on other people’s records and that’s started to go really well.”

MNDR seems pretty content about her place in the music landscape right now. She’s released her most ambitious work yet,–a grandiose glam pop concept album about Warner as a cult leader type figure–produced some of the most important singles of 10’s hyper pop, and recently had her first child (who is featured in the music video for the new record’s title track).

“I’m kind of like a hippie punk about shit. I’m just like ‘I just want to make music every day. I don’t want to swim upstream, man’. And it seems like I got some good momentum going as a songwriter producer, I’m just gonna see this through.”

Be sure to check out MNDR’s latest album Hell To Be You Baby released on June 25, 2021 to WonderSound Records on Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal or purchase it on Bandcamp.

Also, check out the full interview recording available on SoundCloud where MNDR and I go in-depth on Prince, The Chemical Brothers, her new indie label, and the challenges of being an indie artist today. [Ben Nguyen O’Connor]