Violet Chachki and Gottmik got the idea for their new era after fighting. No, seriously, these divas were actually tussling. As Chachki jokes, “Me and Mik are family, and families fight. That’s just the reality of it. Me and Mik are both very strong, opinionated visual artists. We both have our ways that we like to do things. Two drag queens working together, as you can see on TV, it’s a lot!”
From that scuffle “TKO” was born, both single and music video, and the “Knockout Tour” they’re set to embark on across fifty cities later this fall. Check out the premiere of that very same music video below, directed by Callum Walker Hutchinson.
The music video follows a clash of glamor versus rock as the two tumble and punch and pose across the boxing ring. Better yet, it features the legendary Fantasia Royale, who the pair personally cast themselves. Gottmik tells PAPER: “We needed someone that was just so camp and gorgeous in such a caricature kind of way. I was like, Fantasia! That’s the woman, that’s iconic.”
The single, produced by Novodor and Nightfeelings, precedes the pairs own solo music ventures later this year. Gottmik will continue leaning into metal on her solo music, having grown up in the pits at metal shows. “I had really close family friends in Megadeath," Gottmik says, "and I grew up with ear plugs in at Megadeath concerts, metal concerts, taking out my ear plugs at eleven being like, ‘I’m so bad!’”
Chachki will continue to lean into her established New Wave sound, showcased previously on the excellent "Mistress Violet” with Allie X. But she teases that there are tracks in the works that diverge from what fans might expect. “It’s a bit more modern, a bit less ‘80s. Like, electroclash!” She laughs. “It’s very JoJo Siwa, like, no one’s ever done this before!”
For more on the mythical scuffle that birthed their next act, drunk voice memos in Portofino, Pinterest at the club and more, read PAPER’s full interview with Violet Chachki and Gottmik below.
Hi, Violet!
Violet: Just waking up, just did therapy.
Shoutout to therapy.
Violet: I just kind of babbled on for an hour.
Gottmik: You have to not babble!
I think they’re paid to listen to you babble though. I think that’s the whole point, right? I’m certainly babbling in therapy.
Violet: I know, I just want to get to the root cause, you know?
I’m sorry, I almost responded "boots" to that, but I withheld, and am telling you now because it’s different.
Violet: You gotta get to the root cause, boots.
Also, hi for real, it’s nice to see you again after we spoke before your Crazy Horse residency. How has life been since coming back from Paris?
Violet: My god, I’ve just been on the move. Go, go, go. No rest for the wicked type vibes. My body has also changed since Crazy Horse, I will say that. Looking back at videos, I’m like, wow, I was really snatched up there. So that’s different!
Thank god we have corset technology!
Violet: Yes, custom stretch garments.
RuPaul’s favorite technology! Let’s start with the single, “TKO.” It bangs! How did you get linked up with Novodor and Nightfeelings for the single?
Violet: Oh my gosh, it’s a winding road.
Gottmik: Nightfeelings and I… you worked with him first, right?
Violet: Nightfeelings has worked with a lot of my friends, like Cody from SSION, and a few other of my artist friends as well. I’ve seen him out and about in the scene, and then we linked up with Novador through our friend Alex Chapman. Just the LA music faggotry of it all.
Gottmik: Literally. Nightfeelings and I have been working on my solo music. He’s done every single song on my music project that’s coming out really soon, too. He’s really helped me figure out my sound, and he’s just my favorite person ever.
More on the solo music in a second, but I also have to say: You recorded a music video for this, and it was fun to watch you both play fight throughout it. Was it satisfying at all? Because sometimes I daydream about beefing with my best friend physically.
Violet: Well, funny that you mention it, because the whole concept of the tour is based on true events.
Wait, this is a buried lede. Can you elaborate on that please?
Violet: Well, me and Mik are family, and families fight. That’s just the reality of it. Me and Mik are both very strong, opinionated visual artists. We both have our ways that we like to do things. Two drag queens working together, as you can see on TV, it’s a lot! We’re big big personalities, and sometimes things come to a boil. There was play fighting that turned into real fighting that turned into play fighting. It’s like, where is the line between reality and fantasy? We really like to straddle that line.
It was a really intense filming day on set, because there was no air conditioning. It was literally 110 degrees, and we were in full drag doing athletic things. Like lifting chains and working and pumping weights and doing all this athletic stuff in drag, in no air conditioning, so tensions were high.
Wait, question: Were they real chains in the video? Because when I was looking at them, I was like oh, those must be the styrofoam ones that they put the chrome paint on.
Violet: My arm is sore! They were literally still sore from this video! Everyone just thinks its magic, and everything just happens. No, we’re in corseted fetish heels, wigs, taped, yanked, 100 degree weather lifting real, live weights and chains. Doing this stuff for real!
Gottmik: There were times where we’d be lipsyncing the take. I was like, I don't know if I can get through this shot I was like, working out. It was insane.
Who’s the better fighter, would you say?
Gottmik: Like physically?
Violet: We can talk about emotional warfare, we can talk about physical. There’s different ways to win. Mik, you can probably speak more to this.
Gottmik: I mean, honestly, in the video, we were fighting, air quotes. I was gagged at some of the punches she got in. Honestly, I was like, oh, okay, I didn’t see that little right hook coming. I was like, okay, you would have knocked me out.
Violet: The thing for me is like, we spent a lot of time, energy, and money on this project. I want it to look real. It’s not like we had a stunt coordinator! We did so much work on this project, and I’m not about to have some pussy ass, weak ass shot where it’s fake looking! So I was really going for it, really method acting. And Mik met me at that level as well.
Gottmik: The director was gagged. He was like, oh, okay, let’s keep this up!
That “met you at your level” comment… I would say Violet, you seem like you’re coming out on top in a war of words. I’m sure you saw your assassination attempt on Trixie and Katya’s podcast making the rounds on Twitter today.
Violet: What!
The voice note you sent in about season seven!
Violet: Oh my god, I haven’t, I just woke up.
I was hysterically laughing when they played it.
Violet: What did I say?
Just that they didn’t stand a chance, you whores couldn’t take it, etc. That kind of stuff. It was great.
Violet: I sent that message drunk in Portofino, I don’t remember!
That’s when a voice memo should be sent. Drunk in Portofino. Especially if your friends are going to play it on a podcast.
Violet: It’s always something, you know. I wake up every day and I’m like, what fresh hell awaits me. Today it’s Trixie and Katya’s drunk voice memo I sent from Portofino. But it could be any and every day, I’m like, what now? It’s so funny because me and Mik are always… I wouldn’t say censoring ourselves, but we’re very careful with the stuff that makes it in the edits, in our podcasts, or in interviews. Half the time, I don’t know if people are in on the joke. Trixie, Katya and I are close friends. And the stuff that me and Mik flag as maybe a risky joke to say, or we shouldn’t say that, never gets flagged! It never gets the headline! It’s always something I wasn’t expecting to get picked up as a headline, and it always gags me every day.
I would say at least once a week, there’s something that I say or do that I was not expecting for people to be upset about, or get a reaction at all, and then it does. I’m not getting on Twitter today, so thank you for the warning.
You’re welcome, but to be clear, people are loving it.
Violet: They might have cut the clip! Because I did say something else, I said something about Ginger as well.
I don’t think I remember anything about Ginger!
Violet: They might have cut the clip short.
Gottmik: This is a really fun artistic partner to deal with. This is what I deal with everyday.
I can only imagine what the fight was about. And, this might sound crass, but I loved the talent in the video too. We have huge breasts and bodybuilders. How did you go about casting for this?
Gottmik: Violet and I were casting everything, and Fantasia Royale has those breasts, famously. So I was an absolute stan. Then we were talking about creative for the video, and I was looking at old ring card girl references, like vintage. We needed someone that was just so camp and gorgeous in such a caricature kind of way. I was like, Fantasia! That’s the woman, that’s iconic, holding the cards. Then our bodybuilder diva, we flew her out from Vegas. She’s a champion bodybuilder, and we literally were like, we need you. The stars aligned with her.
Violet: I think we intentionally made the male presenting characters be featured less, and used them just for their bodies. We really wanted to get the femmes, full face, full body glam. Whereas the men, even in the opening of the video, I intentionally cut out their faces. Like, we don’t need to see these butch ass dudes as we wanted to feature the butch, cuckoo body femmes. That was intentional on our part, to feature different body types, extreme body types.
This video and song also tie into your 50 city tour. What can people expect from it? I know there’s an element of you fighting thematically throughout the show.
Gottmik: The whole thing is structured around a boxing match. Violet and I work super amazing together as creatives, because we do have very different styles. She’s very classic, gorgeous, burlesque perfection. I do this rock and roll, harder thing. Then we do have the overlap of fetishy, vintage, and leather that ties it all together. We’re setting it up like it’s a battle of rock and roll versus glam, and it’s showcasing us in different rounds. It’s gonna be really cool.
Violet: We’re playing towards our differences as well as our strengths. It’s a fun theme. I’ve worn so many outfits, and done drag for so long, and I’ve never done sporty. That is so not on my radar. It’s fun to experiment with what Violet would look like as a sporty girl, and then the fact that we bicker like siblings in real life — it’s a great format for a show. We want to get the audience involved as well, like: whose side are you on? Is it glam, is it rock? We love a theme! We’re drag queens, we love a concept. We did not realize that some people maybe were thinking we’re actually boxing to a degree. There is a battle, but it’s a drag show. That’s just the theme of the runway gorge!
What I’m hearing is that this is sort of like Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson, but for the girls and gays.
Violet: Literally! It’s twinks versus dolls.
On the sporty thing, I don’t think I ever pictured either of you in sportswear. How did you go about designing the costumes for this, because obviously it wasn’t something you were pulling up from the wardrobe already made.
Violet: It took so long actually, to get the looks for the music video together, because we just wanted… I mean… Mik is the Pinterest queen. So many references, and to a point where it’s almost too many references. I’m like whoa, we needed to zero in on what we actually love and what we actually want to do. But we took inspiration from vintage wrestling and boxing shorts and the classic tropes of the sport, and then added a pinup element as well, and a fetish element. We had custom boots made and Swarovski crystal headgear and boxing gloves by Disco Daddy. We really just tried to add our own spin on it, and add glamor.
Gottmik: It’s so far from what we would normally do that it’s been fun to experience. Obviously, like you said, we would never be in athleisure, or like, “Let’s do sporty looks.” Being able to design sporty in our taste levels has been a challenge, it feels like a Drag Race challenge. I love a theme! I’m not sure you’re ever going to see sporty Gottmik again.
Violet: It’s also funny, because I don’t think we even know what we’re talking about. I’m like, is this wrestling or is this boxing? We don’t know which gear is for what sport. We’re just like, whatever! It looks good. It’s a sports ball.
Gays fought and died for wrestling and boxing and all sports to be the same sport.
Violet: I’m sure there’ll be some person out there who’s like, that’s not in a boxing whatever!
I want to ask about Pinterest, Mik. How long have you been using Pinterest, how do you use it, are you super organized? I have so many questions!
Gottmik: I think I have a couple of public boards, but it’s my secret. I will literally be at the club and I will be by myself for a second and I’ll be pinning stuff. I am on it all day, going through references. I pin my own references from things I find and take photos of for Pinterest. And I have to battle them, they try to remove my stuff all the time, just because they have strict community guidelines over there, and they try it with me. So I’m in a constant battle with Pinterest trying to keep my art alive.
Outside of the music video and this tour, you are also working on solo music projects as well. Starting with Violet: You came out with “Mistress Violet” a few years ago, and had an incredible cover of my favorite New Wave song, “Fade to Gray.” You’ve always had a New Wave sound to your music, can we expect to hear more of that sound on the new stuff?
Violet: There’s a few different producers working on the projects I’m currently working on. Music is really hard! It’s really hard. I’m such a visual learner, and a visual person, a visual artist. I have what I’m going to say is a very high taste level, but it’s hard for me to describe. I don’t have the vocabulary. I’m not a musician in the same way I am a visual artist, but there is definitely a New Wave vibe to it. There are some new influences coming in as well. I’m working with the same producer as “Mistress Violet” for a lot of the tracks.
I love that song so much, because it has the ‘80s New Wave, but also a draggy, raspy, talking element. It’s like genres are blending together. There’s definitely a lot of that, and then there’s another track I’m working on that has two other different producers that is a different sound for me. It’s a bit more modern, a bit less ‘80s. Like, electroclash!
I’m loving electroclash!
Violet: It’s very JoJo Siwa, like, no one’s ever done this before! We were kind of breaking the boundaries down I would say, a little bit. I think for me, always, I try to carve out my own path, especially coming from the Drag Race world and the drag world in general. It’s ingrained in my brain to try and carve out my own niche, and have my own unique perspective
Mik, you also put out some songs last year, like “Skullfucker.” What inspired you to start music yourself, and what inspired you this year to be like, I’m going to make an entire project?
Gottmik: With “Skullfucker,” I love the dark-synth vibe. It’s been really fun get some fierce guitar divas in the studio. We add some synths and we mix the guitars in a cool way. Nightfeelings is just so good at that. He just gets it. We’ve been working on music for like three years now. I didn’t really know how I wanted to transition into metal music. I was self conscious about my voice, just everything! “You got to pitch it down. This is giving trans guy.” I was very in my head about it, but now I have worked on it for so long that I’ve gotten super comfortable, and I know what my sound is. This next project, it’s giving a slow transition into metal. It’s still going to have that fun, gay beat and vibe, but it’s definitely slowing getting to the full metal era.
I’m going to keep doing music forever, because I was talking to Violet about this the other day. I literally love drag, and I love performing, traveling and meeting people. It’s my favorite thing, I’m so blessed that I’m in this career. The thought of performing my music live — I’ve never felt this feeling where I’m like, “This is what I’m supposed to be doing.” It’s clicking to me that I want to go up there and sing live, I want to be on those metal festival lists with hot band divas. I just want to be out there and do that, and I think that’s what I’m going to be doing.
Growing up, I had really close family friends in Megadeath, and I grew up with ear plugs in at Megadeath concerts, metal concerts, taking out my ear plugs at eleven being like, “I’m so bad!” Ruining my ears!
You were at Megadeath at eleven! To anyone who’s going to have an issue with you at the metal circuit — you are here to stay!
Gottmik: There needs to be drag metal! I have the credentials. Let me in!
Photography: Callum Walker Hutchinson
