If you find something a little familiar about Avalon, it’s for good reason. First, there’s her name, which features in the monikers of multiple other musicians. (If you’re in the business of online media, you might call it, well, bad SEO. But if you’re in the business of becoming a cult indie-pop star, there’s an elusiveness to it that feels just right.) Then, there’s the fact that she’s been on the scene for nearly a decade—first, as a DJ lighting up fashion and art parties around the world; more recently, as a musician releasing a slow but steady drip feed of singles.
Today, however, Avalon is sharing her first full project, the EP Permanent Californian—and is ready to reintroduce herself. “I think it took me a long time to really find myself and figure out what I wanted to say and to have a body of work that made sense together,” she says over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles. “I’d sat on so much music, and finally I felt like I had a group of songs that really represented me and what I want to do.”
The end result? Six slick, stylish, and deliciously moody tracks that explore the shadowy corners of desire, fame, and sexuality. There’s the wildly catchy opener “Harder to Reach Than God,” on which she delivers a winking come-on to a lover, and the eerie, noirish “Scream,” on which she sweetly sings about having a “superstar” locked in the trunk of her car. A particular highlight is the scuzzy, electric guitar-led “Forever,” with its lyrics charting a dangerous romance—mysterious snippets of which feel like they’re being glimpsed through the shimmer of a hot, hazy day in Los Angeles—over swirling synths and a hyperactive, distorted beat. (“If you fucked me forever / in your denim and leather,” she sings, with a gentle growl. “If you fucked me forever / don’t you think I’d feel better?”)
The EP has quiet echoes of other artists who have both romanticized and subverted the clichés of California life—Courtney Love and Lana Del Rey both spring to mind—but Avalon’s melting pot of sonic influences is altogether her own, with traces of grunge, ’00s indie, and synth-pop all whizzed up into a silky, seductive package. Like most artists of her generation, however, Avalon doesn’t worry about genre all that much. “When I think about genre, I don’t necessarily think of a sound, but more about the subcultures they sprang from,” she says. “I think we’re now living in a sort of post-subculture world because of the internet, and a lot of artists aren’t really conforming to genre. I suppose I was really inspired by some of my contemporaries that just make music from the heart, as corny or trite as that might sound. I think that’s the most important thing. I don’t think about genre so much as I think about honesty.”
This fluid approach to making music can be chalked up, at least in part, to Avalon’s upbringing. She notes that her parents had her when they were 18 and 20, and when she was growing up in Santa Ana, they’d often take her to gigs, where she absorbed an eclectic range of sounds—new wave, post-punk, electroclash. By the time she was a teenager, she was already performing in punk bands. (She even co-founded the very first Death Grips fan club with her friend Jarrod.) Before long though, she wanted to strike out on her own. “I’m a control freak,” she says with a laugh. “I always knew that I needed to have full autonomy over the work and every aspect of the music I was making.”
As a first-generation Chicana, equally central to her artistic identity is her Mexican heritage. “I think the Chicano community is one of the driving forces of alternative and post-punk and goth music,” she says. “A lot of those artists have been held up by Chicanos: Morrissey and the Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode. These are all bands that my uncles listen to. Even though they’re from England, for some reason, their music just resonated with us—I think because it’s so dramatic, it reminds us of Vicente [Fernández] or Luis Miguel. It’s so passionate and romantic. I suppose that’s how I feel about life too.”
Indeed, while the title of the EP came from a book, Permanent Californians, given to her by a friend—a weird and wonderful illustrated guide to California’s cemeteries and the celebrities buried within them—given Avalon’s background, it also carries a more weighted meaning. “I was thinking a lot also about everything going on politically with immigrants here in California, and all over America, and I felt like it really represented so many different aspects of not just myself, but also my community,” she says. “And not just my community, either.”
If there’s another throughline in Avalon’s music and visual identity, after all, it’s the city of Los Angeles itself. (Just take the cover of Permanent Californian, which sees her perched in the open door of a vintage car, a road sign for the Interstate 5 visible in the foreground.) What interests her isn’t necessarily the classic tropes—“all the palm trees and the Hollywood sign and Beverly Hills,” as Avalon puts it—but the city’s stranger, seamier corners. Just take the “Harder to Reach Than God” video, which was shot down in Inglewood, where the Long Beach Oil Field—a relic of the days when the region was one of the world’s most important oil sources—looms ominously in the background. “LA can be very dark and dystopian too,” she points out, citing her lifelong obsession with David Lynch and a more recent fascination with the 2003 essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself, which explores the myriad ways in which the city has been represented in cinema.
Given the control she likes to exercise over her sound, it’s no surprise that Avalon’s attitude to crafting her project’s visuals is just as uncompromising. “When it comes to the glam, I know what I want,” she says, referring to her signature bleach-blonde bangs and lingerie-inspired mini dresses. “I do my own makeup, I style myself.” Being part of the queer community has changed her understanding of fashion as well—she notes that her teenage years sneaking into underground club nights, and the friendships she formed then, meant she’s always looked up to a certain spirit of “high-femme fantasy.”
“It was very much a choice for me to become very feminine in my style,” she notes. “And I think when you take it to that level and there’s a campness to it, it’s only truly understood by a certain amount of people, and that’s how I want it. I never wanted to conform to the male gaze or be conventionally sexy or anything like that.”
While she’s feeling more self-assured than ever about the music she’s releasing—and the small but mighty universe she’s built around it—it wasn’t so long ago that she felt a crossroads. Avalon describes her recent stint supporting The Dare on his US tour dates as a turning point for her—a moment when the energy of the room made her realize that it was finally time to embrace the kind of musician she knew she could be. “I was just on cloud nine, being able to do that every night. It kind of made me want to put music out again. I think the tour changed my perspective completely: Why am I waiting around to have the right songs, or to have this perfect project to put out?”
She remembers being especially inspired by The Dare’s fans, including two best friends who flew out from Florida in matching outfits inspired by the musician’s signature skinny suit and tie look, and talked about how his music had helped to strengthen their friendship. “I think I cried on the bus after,” Avalon recalls. “It was just so sweet, because I felt the same way about music when I was growing up, and I still feel that way. I’ll always be a fan.”
Now, however, she is rapidly building her own fanbase—and with plans to tour later in the year and a full-length album in the works, an even bigger audience is on the horizon. But Avalon is taking things one step at a time. “I still have to find the vision for the next part, and you have to be quiet to find the vision—so I’m trying to live a peaceful existence right now,” she says. “I just want to focus on my work. It feels nice.”
