San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
WINNING VS. LOSING
COMEDY QUEEN TRIXIE MATTEL SAYS THERE ISN’T MUCH DIFFERENCE
Trixie Mattel says there’s not much difference between winning and losing “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” And she should know. The comedy queen with a penchant for folk music and over-the-top makeup has done both.
“The only difference is conversations start with “Congratulations” or “I’m sorry,” Mattel says. She was eliminated twice during Season 7 but went on to win this year’s third “All Stars” season.
“Up until two months ago, I was maybe the most famous “Drag Race” loser. I’m living proof that you don’t need to win anything to do whatever you want. But now that I won “Drag Race,” I don’t want anybody to attribute any success I have to the fact that someone said I’m not a winner. I’ve never let that stop me before.”
Indeed. Mattel became one of the show’s most famous graduates long before snatching the “All Stars 3” crown.
She starred alongside Season 7 sister Katya in the wildly popular “UNHhhh” Web series, which evolved into the “The Trixie & Katya Show,” a halfhour assortment of comedic bits on Viceland. Mattel also became an in-demand live act for both her standup comedy and original music. Her 2017 album “Two Birds” and this year’s “One Stone,” which play like even campier Dolly Parton records, topped iTunes and made noise on several Billboard charts.
Mattel calls her current Now With Moving Parts Tour “a third standup show, a third music show, a third drag show.” She performs tonight at the Aztec Theatre but talked first about useless fan gifts, falling offstage in Houston and how she’d do on the current “Drag Race” season.
Q: “Drag Race” girls attract a wide demographic of fans: young and old, men and women, gay and straight. Are you seeing that at solo shows?
A: My demographic is primarily young women with emotional trauma. Not sure why. That seems to be the pattern. If you’ve been abused or left out, and you’re really into heavy eye makeup, I’m totally your thing. And surprise, surprise — I get a lot of people who only know me from music. You have young gay guys and young girls front row in eye makeup and pink shirts with bows in their hair who are fans of the drag. I have straight guys there with their girlfriends who only know me from my music. Then there’s people who know me because they found me on Viceland.
Q: It must be particularly gratifying to have people appreciating your original music and singing along from the crowd.
A: Oh, completely. I’m not
Katy Perry. This isn’t me and Mark Ronson sitting down in a studio with four Swedish pop music scientists creating an earworm in a lab. This is me in my dirty underwear, sitting on my bathroom floor, drinking a sugar-free Red
Bull, writing these songs for my own human development. These aren’t designed to be sold. To make these and sing them and then have people come — I can hear the audience singing the music louder than my own voice sometimes. That’s crazy. I grew up playing guitar barefoot in a tree in my backyard. Wildest dreams.
Q: You told me in 2015 that you couldn’t sing and would “absolutely not” be doing music. What changed?
A: I wrote this standup show two years ago called “Ages 3 and Up.” I did this big chunk in the middle about a breakup I was going through. I threw in this breakup song called “I Know You All Over Again,” which is on (my first album) “Two Birds.” On opening night, I tried it in front of the bartender and the lights person during the tech run. It felt good, but it felt really out of place. The staff said that was the best part of the show. I’m good at making people laugh, I’m good at making people cry. With my music, it’s very sincere and honest and conversational. It marries really well with standup, more than I thought it would. I guess I kind of underestimated audiences’ ability to roll with the punches. I didn’t think they would be able to accept Barbie doll crossed with a Coachella experience.
Q: It’s also the fact that your music isn’t the throbbing dance tracks we’ve come to expect from “Drag Race” girls. A: Most drag queens, they put on music like it’s a costume. It’s not in their bones. It’s not in their background. It’s a career choice they make one day, and their album is created by sending a few emails. I’ve been a musician behind the scenes the whole time. I just didn’t think it belonged with my drag, and I was definitely proven wrong. I wish earlier on I would have been like, “That means there’s an opportunity for you to be the only person doing it.” It added an entire shade of legitimacy to what I do. I’m gonna tell the funniest jokes, and I’m gonna sing great songs. And I’m gonna do it in a tight corset.
Q: What is the physicality like of being in drag as Trixie Mattel and singing heartfelt, emotional folk-country ballads? A: Oh, it’s garbage. I hate drag. It’s extremely uncomfortable. It’s awful. I’m in a full corset and pads and giant wigs. I’m playing an autoharp, two different guitars. This show has, like, five costume changes, three wig changes. There’s even three sets of earrings. Ambitious? Maybe. But I guess something I’ve never connected with in modern music and modern comedy is it’s some guy in jeans and a T-shirt, and to me that’s not respect to your audience. In some ways, the pain of drag is what makes you feel like the only bitch. And when you feel like the only bitch, you perform like the only bitch. You make yourself believe it so you can make the audience believe it.
Q: What are your must-haves on the road?
A: I drink a lot of tea. My Nintendo Switch. Fix Plus for MAC. It’s a facial moisturizing spray that I’ve been using for five years. I put my skin through a lot.
Q: I imagine you get a lot of wacky gifts from fans. What sort of stuff do they bring you? A: I get like one-percent useful things: Chapstick, makeup wipes, lash glue. The rest of the time I get things that an adult gay man who’s 28 years old has no use for: Barbies, teddy bears, candies, cookies, drawings of myself, shirts with my own face on it. If you’re gonna bring me gifts, bring me (stuff ) like if I’m a hurricane survivor. Bring me hand san- itizer and a tootbrush. Give me something I can use. I feel bad because I think people think that they are really turning the party and giving me the most creative gift ever. But it’s over and over again. I always get Barbies, and they’ll take markers and write on the face to make it look like me. Probably every couple of days. I get a lot of Tamagotchis. I get a lot of toys. I get a lot of honey because of the “Oh, honey” thing. I get a lot of DVDs of the movie “Contact” because of the YouTube series with Katya. I own no less than 20 DVDs of the movie “Contact.” Young, emotional women like to buy DVDs. A very small percent of it makes it on the road with me. I can’t keep mountains of drawings of myself.
Q: What do you listen to as a music fan?
A: My music taste is, like, 90 percent old American folk music. And then I like 10 percent female rock music: The Donnas, The Runaways, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar. I was just listening to the Cherie Currie version of that song by Rainbow, “Since You’ve Been
Gone.” After she left The Runaways, she did a recording of it with her twin sister. It’s a great recording.
Q: Last concert you attended? A: I never go to anything because I hate loud music, fun fact. If I go to anything, I sit in the back, and I wear earplugs, for real. I saw Dolly Parton at the Hollywood Bowl like two years ago. No, no, no. I had front row tickets to see (Swedish folk sister duo) First Aid Kid at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles. They snatched my wig completely off.
Q: How do you think you would have done on the current “Drag Race” season?
A: Oh, fully lost. I always say I’m a loser who won. I’m not very competitive. I think you can tell on “All Stars.” Winning was cool. But I think I spent so long proving to myself that losing wasn’t gonna hold me back that by the time I won, it was like a trinket. It was like a cool bonus prize. I don’t take losing seriously anymore. Losing doesn’t mean you’re a bad drag queen. I’m a comedian and a musician who happens to be in drag. Even on “All Stars” I felt like a reporter, reporting live from the work room. I don’t feel like I’m cut from the same cloth as other drag queens.
Q: Finally, the burning “All Stars” question: Do you know whose name was on Bebe Zahara Benet’s lipstick during the “All Stars 3” elimination? A: I think it was mine. I think she didn’t wanna show it because she didn’t want fans to be mad at her. She didn’t wanna incite the anger of young, emotional women. I have no idea. She won’t tell us. At this point, she wants the attention more than she wants to get a point across.
“Up until two months ago, I was maybe the most famous ‘Drag Race’ loser.”
Trixie Mattel