Brooke Candy Wants to Prove People Wrong

In comes her new album, CANDYLAND, out everywhere now. With song titles like “Safe Word” and “Pills,” it’s clear that this current iteration of Candy definitely maintains her decades-long artistic ethos, but just more in control and creatively developed. With part two of the project coming up, there seems to be no stopping Candy from cementing her status as a current pop contender, not just an underground pop veteran.

Below, we sit down with Candy to discuss the current state of shock art, Tate McRae and having a threesome with Courtney Love.

What’s your life like in LA these days? What’s your day to day?

It's awesome. I've been obviously working on this new album, and then I have a part two of the album coming out pretty soon. So I've just been making a lot of music, and since I moved back from New York I’ve felt a lot more peaceful, I guess. I was having a lot of fun in New York, and Los Angeles is a bit more laid back and boring, I think. There's not really much nightlife or anything. So I just go to the dog park and make music and hustle in that way.

Do you miss New York?

I do, for sure. I have a lot of friends there that I miss. I miss the bubbly energy of just walking outside your door, and there's just people on the street at all times. And I do miss partying a little bit. Everything's just so cool. The conversations that you have, everybody has good style, and people are really fun.

Yeah, I went to this party in LA recently, and everyone was just standing in a line against the wall. Whereas in New York, they’d go up to the DJ booth and dance. It was kind of weird vibes.

Totally. I think at parties here, oftentimes people that go are concerned with getting their picture taken, or looking around the room and assessing who's who, and who is the most famous person there. I think New York maybe doesn't give a shit about that. People just want to have fun.

Tell me about the space you've been in that inspired this new record. What sort of references can you talk about, or personal life stuff that fed into this new music?

I have never felt like I've been taken seriously as a musician, and I also haven't taken it as seriously because of that. I think I just believed opinions of me and was very hard on myself. I feel like oftentimes I create from that space of feeling like I'm not good at anything, and so I want to see if I can be better. I want to prove to myself. And then also, I think a lot of my drive to create comes from vengeance and revenge, you know? I want to prove people wrong. I've had this voice in my head that has been there my entire life, but since I've started to make art, it's gotten a lot louder. I've felt like maybe I'm not a musician, I'm more of a performance artist. Or more of just, I don't know, a wacky person. So I wanted to make something to prove that I should be taken seriously, or that I had worth.

And I love pop music. I like really basic pop music, to be honest. Like a basic bitch. And so I wanted to go in that direction because it's what I love. I wanted to see where it landed and see if I could be proud of the end result. I’m definitely very proud of it. This part two that's coming up is equally as strong. I feel super proud of that, too. But I still am in that space, though, no matter what I make. I think I'll always be plagued with imposter syndrome, and like I'm not actually good so I don't have any value. So no matter what I make, and no matter who likes it or how well it does, I will still always have that feeling. I think a lot of artists have that drive.

You were definitely a trailblazer in some ways. I feel like such blatantly sexual, outlandish music is fully commercialized now, and you were an OG in that sense. You were making that stuff back in 2011, 2012 when it wasn’t cool to do that. What does it mean to “shock” anymore in 2024? Is it even possible anymore?

I don't think it's possible anymore. I have to say that I think it's cool that I did it, and I am about women winning. It's definitely oversaturated, for sure. And it's not as shocking anymore. Nothing is really crass anymore. When I was doing it, I loved that about it. I loved artists that I felt were shocking. I loved Marilyn Manson. I love Lil' Kim. Her song “Suck My Dick” is so vulgar and incredible. That inspired everything I've ever done in my life. She was such a trailblazer. No one else did that. I think I like to exist in that space, which I don't know what that says about me, but I definitely like doing things that make people feel uncomfortable. But now you're right. It's like, does anybody feel uncomfortable anymore? Which, maybe that's a great thing. I'm still figuring it out. I don't know. What do you think?

I think we need to feel uncomfortable again. We can’t be so desensitized.

Like post-woke or something. The pendulum needs to swing back.

You talked about basic pop music. Who are some “basic” pop artists that you really love?

Let me reword that. Not basic, but mainstream. For instance, everyone loves Britney Spears. I love Britney. I like Tate McRae. I had an argument with my best friend, and he was saying that Chappell Roan is the best new artist, and I just do not think so. I just love Tate McRae. I like that she's really simple, and maybe that is the pendulum swinging. Actually, that's my own personal pendulum swinging. She's just kind of a tomboy, and her music is really easy listening. She seems like a really sweet and gentle person. I love how she whips her hair. That's what I mean when I say basic. I just like simple. I mean, I love Slayyyter, but she's not basic. I think she's really talented. She can really sing. I need auto tune. Like, I need a lot of auto tune. So I always wish I could get on stage and just belt it out. I find that to be so cool and inspiring, and she can do that, which is pretty badass. Charli [XCX] is obviously killing it. She's also not basic, but she's made the underground aesthetic and rave culture go mainstream, actually. I love the OG pop stars, too. Like, '90s pop stars. Pink in the early 2000s, Britney Spears in the early 2000s, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim in the '90s. To me, it was still pop even though she was a Hip-Hop artist.

People hate on Pink, but I love her.

I love Pink, are you kidding? Come on now. I've actually been spiraling recently, saving all of her old looks, because they were just out of control. She was doing short pixie wigs that were multicolored, rainbow wigs with bellied crop tops that were bedazzled. Gwen Stefani, too. They kind of both had a similar style for a minute that I just think is so aesthetically pleasing.

I like Tate McRae because she came from So You Think You Can Dance.

Oh my gosh, she did?

And that’s what I feel like is sort of missing nowadays. These gatekeep-y mainstream structures like American Idol or even Making The Band. Being judged by these higher ups. It sounds bad, but I feel like that produced this golden era in pop, in a way.

I could not agree with you more. Bring back the gatekeepers of pop music. Yeah, they have to be selected from obscurity, right? Plucked from a town in Arkansas, and then placed in front of us in sparkles. That's such a fantasy. I love that.

You were on the frontlines for the early 2010s Tumblr era. Is there any tea or an interesting story you could tell us from that time?

Oh my God. It was very wild. It was very chaotic. It was very fantasy. Still, when I look back at it, I can't decipher if it was a totally scary, chaotic nightmare, or if it was just the best time of my life. I think it was a combination of both, because I was just obviously out of my mind. Very fucked up all the time. I was always drunk and high, and I was just doing the most outlandish things. During that time, my most memorable story is, and it's actually funny because shortly after this I did a cover for PAPER, and then this person did a cover for PAPER. It was like a dual cover. But there was a night in Venice, Italy, where I had performed for Diesel. We partied after, and I ended up meeting Courtney Love. We got very wasted. I think somebody gave us Molly. I don't know. I ended up taking a gondola back to the hotel and having a ménage à trois with her and another unidentified person. That, to me, was the perfect representation of that time.

That sounds like a dream, actually.

Exactly. So that happened, and then we stayed in contact and hung out a couple more times. It's been nine years since that happened. I don't really kiss and tell, to be honest with you. I'm a vault for secrets. But I feel like I’m just a freaky person, and also she's a rock goddess.

What was that, 2014? What a time to be alive.

Oh my God. It was crazy. It was pre-TikTok, so people weren't as glued to their phones as they are now. They were still being wild, and things felt like the wild west. Things still felt new.

Pre-TikTok, pre-Instagram Stories. I feel like when Instagram Stories came out, something shifted.

100%. I think Snapchat existed, but nobody really used it. People were still literally on Facebook. I feel like any moment I had in my life during that time was just so synchronistic, and I would just get into the most insane situations. And it always happened naturally. Nothing was online, and it was really cool. Oh God, I wonder if she's gonna be pissed, but it's fine. It doesn't matter.

I feel like that’s what’s missing with the younger pop girls nowadays. There’s no chaotic energy.

No, 100%. Everybody is way too toned down and perfect. Nobody is chaotic. Nobody's a drug addict, nobody's a hot mess. I feel like that's so fun, and it's so relatable as well. All my favorite artists growing up had serious issues, and I feel like I loved them because I could relate to them. I thought, Wow, those people really are like me. I want to see a celebrity with mental health issues that is truly spiraling out of control, because that's how I feel every single day of my life, right? I want to know the truth. I feel nobody is really honest, which is so funny, because everyone is on TikTok all day, every day, but I still feel like people are so contained. I agree with you. I just want somebody to get arrested in stripper heels and be wearing an ankle monitor around like Lindsay Lohan or something.

Olivia Rodrigo with Ketamine dust on her nose would be so iconic.

It would be. You know, talk about legendary. I feel like someone even just needs to method act. Just do it to become the biggest legend in the world. And like, really do it, you know? Start developing a Ketamine habit, get arrested at the Chateau Marmont. Get thrown in jail for a week. Even if it's not really you, just do it for the people. Do it for the kids.

Well, thanks so much for talking to me.

Yeah, thank you for talking to me.

Photography: Jean Toir
Styling: Erik Ziemba
Makeup: Sophia Sinot
Hair: Luisa Popovic