Photo / Juli Yanai (@jbelle.photo)
A crowd begins to form and people cheer as Melbourne-born and L.A. based artist, Banoffee (instagram – @banoffeemusic) plays an eclectic mix of music that’s been dubbed as “mutant pop” that has an underground feel to it. Their music is vulnerable in its own unique way, pairing honest yet subtle lyrics with upbeat dance mixes.
Songs like “Tapioca Cheeks” are a playful take on the genuine feelings of fear that often accompany falling in love as you find yourself falling deeper and losing control. Lines like, “Tears roll down your face, freckles look like taro bubble tea,” and “Cos I’m scared too, everything, everything you say makes you love me more,” come together in a soft pop mix that lets you dance out your feelings under the lights.
And that’s exactly what Banoffee does, taking the stage and unabashedly dancing around in their own quirky style, giving the audience permission to have fun and feel. It’s the perfect opening dance session as Banoffee hypes up the crowd, loosening their grips and senses before the main act. And Banoffee lies on the ground, breathing heavily from giving it their all in a full-bodied performance as the crowd cheers. Then they introduce the main act, Donna Missal (instagram – @donnamissal), before quietly slipping backstage.
For a period of time, the room is filled with chatter among the ambient background music that signals a transition between shows. People talk amongst themselves, excitedly awaiting Donna Missal, and small tidbits of their conversations can be overheard.
“She’s fantastic!” I hear someone say, and the anticipation is high.
The bassist and drummer begin setting up, checking sound and making sure everything is plugged in correctly. More and more people flow into the theater, filling any empty spaces that were left. Finally, from the black curtains behind the stage, Donna Missal emerges. The crowd erupts in cheers, and she reciprocates in charm and charisma as she graces the stage. Her presence is electric, and her vocals reverberate through the room.
Missal has a rare ability to command the stage and she can change the atmosphere according to her desired outcome, oscillating between softer, vulnerable performances and powerful vocals that blow you away. At times she’s a little cheeky and isn’t afraid to engage with individual audience members. But most of all, she’s having fun and taking us all along with her for the ride, dancing freely without inhibition.
It’s crazy to think that just an hour ago, I was speaking to Missal in a room backstage, barely big enough to fit a couch, coffee table and mini fridge and now she’s commanding an entire room. Yet it’s no surprise, given her ability to be so vulnerable both on and off the stage. Missal is a force to be reckoned with, but her power comes from a genuine place rooted in deep transformation.
From the moment I met her, she was an absolute ray of light.
I walk through the backstage area, going into our conversation with the intention of simply getting to know Missal and have the most human experience possible. And as soon I knock on the dressing room door, she bursts out with a hug and the enthusiasm you’d expect from someone who’s meeting an old friend. It’s refreshing in a time where people can portray a certain persona online but be completely different in person, and I’m immediately excited to soak in everything she has to tell me.
We talk a little about the altitude and how it’s been affecting her — carrying out a show is already physically demanding, but Colorado tends to hit performers even harder for this very reason. I reassure her that most performers grapple with this, and we begin talking about the vulnerability of performing a show.
Missal tells me that she’s glad the stage is compact, because she tends to go a little wild with her performances and it’s something she can’t restrain herself from doing. She describes it like blacking out and entering an alternate space, “I hear this a lot with people who play, that they can’t remember what happened when they get off. I think it’s just transcendent and you’re like, tapping into something. It’s a different state of being than like, you know, talking with you or talking with my friends.”
We continue on this track of discussing how vulnerable performances are, and she tells me she’s not logically processing it all until watching a performance afterward. “When I’m watching a performance, that’s one of the first things I’m noticing, like, this is such a level of vulnerability that’s abnormal in our day to day life and I think that’s what makes it so important to people.”
She goes on to describe it in the best way I’ve ever heard stating, “I just did a VIP event and we were talking about how it’s like church. You know, a church of the misfit people or people who need a space to commune and feel vulnerable feelings in the presence of other people. There’s nothing like that. Crying in your room and dancing alone on your bed is like one thing [or like scream-singing in your car], but doing it around lots of other people doing the exact same thing—there’s a totally different kind of energy to that kind of vulnerability where it’s on display, but it’s also so accepted by everybody else that surrounds you while you’re all sharing this communal vulnerability. It’s so special.”
Just listening to her speak, her sentences perfectly articulate the spiritual aspect of why concerts and performance spaces in general leave us feeling so awe-struck. And this is what Missal is really about, artistry in its purest form and its capacity to move people.
Since being dropped by her label, she’s had a reckoning with placing statistical constraints on her art and isn’t concerned about the numbers as much as growing and evolving as an artist. “I want to keep changing and [I think] that’s so important to the human experience. And I just want to be a vessel of my genuine human experience, which is full of growth and exploration and curiosity. And I just get to do that now in a way that doesn’t hold as much concern for whether these CEOs understand what I’m trying to do. And so I think the whole thing has kind of developed to not reflect that ideology. And that’s probably why it feels the most free to me, and I hope that the experience for the people watching and witnessing and being a part of it is also that this is the most genuine it’s been.”
Her general attitude toward life and artistry is liberated—free from the constraints of corporate interest. And although Missal stated that she never felt pushed to be a certain way by any label, she’s just become a lot less concerned with what’s going to sell and that reflects in her music.
Her newest work, “Revel” is a dance pop album that explores different aspects of the human experience, in all its darkness and light. The album is at times slow and on the melancholy side, with songs like “Paranoia” that divulge about life in L.A., and songs like “Flicker” that are a rush of euphoria wrapped in a danceable beat. Among the list of tracks are also songs like “I Saw God”, that capture the inexplicable and esoteric experience of being alive. Overall, Missal’s music is an ode to the multidimensionality of life in all of its complexities.
And she doesn’t plan to stop creating and relaying her unique lens of the world anytime soon. As we talk about what was the driving force of her continuing to pursue music despite any obstacles she states, “I just can’t stop. Yeah, like I don’t wanna do anything else. I want to help others imagine who they are and the possibilities of what they are and who they are, and I wanna challenge people’s ideas [mostly] about themselves because that’s what I’m trying to do for myself.”
Missal goes on to say that she feels that creating music and art and creating that space for others is her job; something she would do with or without an audience and whether it makes money or not. Furthermore, she’s excited that she’s moved out of L.A. and the city in general to write music in a different atmosphere and be part of an era of artists shaking up the music industry.
And as Missal continues to seek truth in her experience through music and art, it’s clear that there are many people (myself included) who look forward to seeing how she continues to capture the essence of the human spirit.
As our conversation concludes, I can’t help but feel immense gratitude for the time and energy we shared.
