Mothica guides us through her latest era and the creation of her personal new visual album, ‘KISSING DEATH’, out now via Heavy Heart/Rise Records.
Plus, we have teamed up with Mothica for this world-exclusive ‘Reaper’ t-shirt design inspired by the album’s central concept.
Get yours now, only at SHOP.ROCKSOUND.TV
Read Mothica, ‘Kissing Death’ | The Album Story below:
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Not too long ago, MOTHICA had a panic attack at around 30,000 ft in the air.
Sitting on an aeroplane, frantically worrying about finishing her album, it felt like her world was ending – but not in the way she had always envisioned.
Her insect-inspired nickname acquired from teenage years spent attracted to self-destruction and chaos, McKenzie Ellis has long danced with death, but in that moment a realisation came to her – she didn’t want to die anymore.
“I developed an intense fear of traveling. Flying, driving on highways… I can’t be in a car if someone else is driving. All those new fears stemmed from not wanting to die,” she explains.
“If anything happened, I just knew I had to finish this album. I even made up a will saying which songs could come out if I died. This album became inspired by figuring out how to live when you don’t want to die anymore.”
Reevaluating her past, present, and future, once her feet were back on solid ground, MOTHICA went into the studio with a bold idea. Driven by her love of storytelling, she set about exploring the search for clarity within a life she never expected to still be living.
Immersing its listeners in a surrealist world where Death is the love interest in her own twisted rom com, ‘KISSING DEATH’ is part album, part visual spectacle. Each of its twelve tracks and their accompanying videos weaving together to form a cohesive reflection on the ebbs and flows of recovery, on album three MOTHICA has condensed a lifetime of trauma into 30-minutes of sheer catharsis.
An ambitious audio-visual experience that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible for artists within the alternative sphere, Rock Sound sat down with MOTHICA to find out more about her most vulnerable era yet.
THE TITLE & THE VISUALS
The phrase ‘KISSING DEATH’ popping into her head randomly one day, as soon as MOTHICA scribbled those words down in her notebook she knew they were important. A nod to the years of her life spent romanticising morbidity and tragedy, it became the driving slogan of her latest era.
“I had this visual idea of me and the Grim Reaper as toxic lovers,” she says.
“Throughout my whole life, I had romanticised suicide and dying young. There was an anxiety that came with deciding I’m not going to commit suicide, and an uncertainty as to what my life was going to be.”
Establishing her own imprint record label Heavy Heart Records – partnered with Rise Records – for the first time in her career MOTHICA had the budget to bring a bigger creative vision to life. The idea of a narrative fresh in her mind, she began mapping out a music video for each track on the album.
“Everything is so singles based right now but doing it this way gave each song its own life,” the 29-year-old explains.
“Filming twelve music videos doesn’t make you money at all. It’s very time consuming, and there’s not a great return, but I went to school for visual art. I love telling stories in a visual way, and I wanted to see what would happen if I did this.”
Adopting a futuristic time travel concept inspired by the German Netflix show Dark, ‘KISSING DEATH’s visual story documents MOTHICA’s relationship with death throughout her life. The climactic title track’s chorus declaring, ‘I’m sick of kissing death // I’d rather be friends… I know how this ends’, the album’s twelve videos document her experiences with addiction and suicidal ideation – acknowledging the impact of past traumas on her growth.
“The videos go through multiple eras in my life, and you can tell what era we’re in by what wig I’m wearing,” she nods.
“Some videos were harder to film than others. ‘Doomed’ is an emotional ballad, so for the video I recreated my teenage bedroom. I had someone play a younger version of me, and we told the story of my church youth pastor assaulting me. My mom had saved stuff from my actual childhood bedroom, so it was just like watching a younger version of myself. I couldn’t be in the same room when they were filming it.”
THE LYRICS
An intimate look into her life, trauma, and the non-linear recovery process, the principle behind ‘KISSING DEATH’ initially began as a novel. Part memoir, part self-help book, the idea soon evolved, but the central notion of unashamed vulnerability remains.
“I read self-help books all the time, the kinds where you could open any page and get something out of it. I’ve been collecting materials to work on my own project, but writing a book is hard to do!” MOTHICA smiles.
“I decided to make an album instead, and that’s when I wrote the storyline. In the story, I’m in therapy, and the videos take place as flashbacks, telling the story of me and the Grim Reaper. He’s stalking me, proposing to me. Then we go to the altar, and I run away. I end up in a desert town dancing, signifying my freedom.”
A clear narrative thread woven between its twelve songs, whether ‘KISSING DEATH’ is capturing MOTHICA at her most self-destructive – partying, drinking, and doing recreational drugs – or chasing recovery through sobriety and therapy sessions, Death’s constant image remains. A pervasive force that seeps its way into every aspect of her life, it’s a reminder of how difficult dark thoughts can be to shake once they latch onto you.
“My music got more vulnerable, reflective, and retrospective when I got sober from alcohol. I would write much more metaphorically before, but when I started writing more directly, I wanted to look back on why I am the way that I am,” she explains.
“I got sober, and that changed my life for the better, but that doesn’t mean I will live happily ever after now. I still have issues, and if anything, I don’t have the barrier of escaping anymore. You have to feel everything.”
Grappling with suicidal ideation, mental illness and addiction, ‘KISSING DEATH’ recognises that these issues don’t discriminate. Impacting people of all walks of life, regardless of age, gender, race, or religion, each song offers an unfiltered look into the kinds of complications that can afflict us all. From the self-destructive hedonism of ‘Curiosity Killed The Moth’ to the almost pitying tone of ‘Afterlife’ – written from the perspective of the Grim Reaper – this it MOTHICA in her most laid-bare form.
“I’m such an overthinker, and I’m hyper self-aware. It’s natural for me to tell complete strangers about the most traumatic stories of my life,” she shrugs.
“Talking about these things was so stigmatized when I was in high school. When I told someone in Oklahoma back in 2011 that I had a suicide attempt, the community wasn’t like, ‘We care about you’, it was more like, ‘You’re selfish, and you want attention’. It was shamed, and so I kept in the things that happened to me. Now, I’m making up for lost time.”
“For most people that listen to my music, just getting through the day and staying alive is the greatest task. I wanted to make an album that was anti-suicide, but not in a cheesy way. It’s a reminder that you don’t have to choose that way out, but there’s no, ‘It gets better’ or, ‘Just breathe’ slogans. It’s a life affirming album about death.”
THE SOUND
With 2022’s ‘NOCTURNAL’ embracing the guitar-heavy rock sound that soundtracked her youth, when it came to making her next move, MOTHICA’s inspiration was dragged in every direction. The album title, tracklist, and a Pinterest board of visual inspiration all planned out, the sound of ‘KISSING DEATH’ was the last element to be defined.
“I knew I wanted it to sound like a movie soundtrack,” she reflects.
“I’ve learned how to trust myself, and that’s why this record is so sonically different from anything I’ve done before. I kept trying to follow wherever the songs were taking me, and there’s a lot more darkwave synth influence on this record. The old me would have been like, ‘No, don’t do that. The fans don’t want that’.”
From the church organ synth of the title track to the country nod of ‘Mirage’ – no idea was too extreme. Dabbling in everything from shoegaze hums to atmospheric soundscapes, album three became an opportunity for MOTHICA to develop her sound and break out of any artistic limitations.
“The only rock song on the record was ‘Red’, which I made as a parody of a song that I would have listened to in high school,” she says.
“The lyrics are so bleak, and they’re the kind of thing I would have scribbled in my journal. I love that song, and I know lots of my fans want me to do more of that style, but it felt important to do whatever felt natural with this album.”
THE COLLABORATORS
Dancing with such uncomfortable topics throughout ‘KISSING DEATH’, it had never felt more vital for MOTHICA to be surrounded by people she trusted. Keeping her circle small and teaming back up with longtime producer David Burris – a whizz with synths and soundscapes – his influence was important in establishing the sonic direction of the record.
“He is so good at the cinematic shoegaze sound, and we ended up developing most of the album together,” she says.
“I also did a few songs with Nigel [Hemmye], who I’ve known for six or seven years. He has all these analogue synths, and he’s always making weird sounds. Having worked with both of those producers before, it’s nothing new to come in and be like, ‘I want to talk about suicide’!”
THE FUTURE
A project that has required an immense commitment of her time, MOTHICA’s future has been firmly on her mind throughout the creation of ‘KISSING DEATH’. With fifteen songs already written for her next album, she’s hoping that her latest venture opens doors for her to continue chasing her boundless creativity.
“I hope that my fans will follow me in whatever medium I do, and music will always be a part of that, but I don’t consider myself a musician at heart,” she nods.
“I don’t have dreams of selling out stadiums or getting a Grammy, and I don’t sing for fun. It’s just something I do to get my story out there. Performing doesn’t come naturally to me, and I don’t thrive when I’m on stage. I’m very awkward, and it’s taken almost 200 shows for me to get used to being on stage. I love creating new things and building new worlds though.”
Inspired by Gerard Way’s success with The Umbrella Academy and the ever-growing list of musicians putting a visual focus into their art, MOTHICA is excited for whatever comes next, but regardless of what happens – her motive remains unchanged.
Making sure to stand and wait until the last person at every meet and greet has had a chance to say hello, each show she plays and each festival stage she graces brings new opportunities for connection, and now more than ever – that’s what this is all about.
“I never want to have an overrated song that people are annoyed by, and I’m totally fine with being a hidden gem. I just want to do things for the people who want to see it, and I’m happy to never be recognised in public. That’s not what I do this for,” she nods.
“My favourite part of performing is meeting people. People always tell musicians that they saved their life, and whilst I find that hard to believe, if there’s a possibility of doing that then I’m going to keep writing about the heavy subjects. There’s music I listened to as a teenager that really impacted me, and when we think about it, the human experience is not that personal. We might feel alone, but we all go through similar things.”
