This summer, Lane Moore’s band, It Was Romance, debuted a video for the song “Hooking Up With Girls”, a remake of Fiona Apple’s 1996 “Criminal” video. In the original, Apple soaks in a tub while a presumably male foot grazes her neck. In Moore’s version, a noticeably daintier, more feminine pair of feet frames her face.
This casting call was Moore’s way of subverting the way we look at gender performance and expression. In doing so, she also shows how the narrative has changed in two decades. Playing with gender and expectation is something that Moore, who identifies as queer, focuses on a lot in her music. “I look very feminine in general but also have a very deep voice and kind of sit ‘like a dude’ and have never really felt very feminine, so I’ve always played around with gender and the ideas that if you look very feminine you must feel super-feminine,” Moore says.
But ultimately, she adds, her music is genderless: “I write my songs about love, period. If I didn’t tell anyone, they’d never know which gender [the songs] were about.” Vogue.com caught up with the jack-of-all-trades (Moore also works full-time in publishing and hosts a popular comedy show) about her new project and what’s in store next.
What was the inspiration for the video?
When we made the first music video an homage to John Waters’s Cry Baby, I was thinking about what my inspirations were, and so many of the videos I love now are from the ’90s. Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” video kept standing out to me because she’s been such a constant in my life in so many flashbulb moments. I sang a Fiona Apple cover of “Please Send Me Someone to Love” when I first realized, ‘Whoa, I can really sing,’ and finally had that confidence. I sang a cover of “Use Me” in one of my first bands as a teenager and she’d covered it live at some of her shows as well.
So many years of my life were just me singing along to her albums like they were my only friends, and in some ways, they were. Her music and the idea of everything she is to me have been a constant source of comfort for as far back as I can remember. So paying homage to her video for one of our most emotionally raw, powerful songs off the new album seemed fitting and kind of destined.
When you first asked me to watch your remake, you made it clear you didn’t sit down and write an intentionally “gay” song. What was your motive, then?
My music video is a remake of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” but with queer women instead. Most media we see even in 2016 is pretty straight, but it really was in 1996, and I thought that adding queerness as an element to such an iconic music video to show there’s no real difference when it comes to those types of feelings would be really fun and exciting.
So by creating this remake, you less so aim to celebrate the community but normalize what it means to be queer. What’s the feedback been like?
It’s been overwhelmingly positive. Straight people love it because it’s a well-done remake and a great music video and my cinematographer, editor, and I paid so much attention to details and really nailing it in every possible way, and that passion and dedication shows. I directed the video and coproduced it and I even put in ’90s MTV-style title cards and sought out costumes and props that looked as much like Fiona Apple’s, just to go the extra mile. Any extra measures I could take to make it that much better, I took.
And queer people are really excited about it because it’s so rare to see yourself reflected in the world when you’re not 100 percent straight, so seeing yourself in some way in such an iconic music video that didn’t necessarily have a place for you is really special and great.
Was it ever difficult for you to relate to mainstream artists?
I never had a hard time relating to artists, but I knew I didn’t fit in in general and the artists I related to—which there are so, so many—definitely were loud and gripping and fearless and aggressive, like Fiona Apple, Nina Simone, Stevie Nicks, and Karen O. Even if they’re not yelling, they’re not soft-spoken and quiet at all. And when you’re told, “You’re more like a dude,” it’s kind of confusing because being like a dude is supposed to be a good thing, and while you might feel more like a “guy” does that also imply being a woman is bad? It’s all so weird!
Your Kitchen Karaoke Instagram videos give me life. Your social media persona is really fun and inclusive; do you intentionally brand yourself a certain way to promote your music?
That’s so nice and I love hearing that from people so much! Thank you! For better or worse, there’s no gigantic difference between me on social media and me off social media. I’m just me all the time. Social media has been beyond great for me, and I wish I’d figured out how it could work for me sooner. I was actually pretty late to joining Twitter and Instagram.
A theme in my life has always been me having to find my own way to do things because the “set way you should do things” never really made sense to me. But once I got on Twitter and Instagram and found out, “Oh, okay, here’s how it makes sense for me personally to use it,” it’s been huge. I’ve always felt like a super-weird person and I’m not very social outside of small groups, so my friends on social media really have become like my friends and family. I genuinely want to make everyone laugh or feel things they couldn’t feel previously or feel more powerful or more loved or connected.
In addition to being a musician, you also work in publishing. Do you keep them separate, or do you ever allow your editing job to inform your music, and vice versa?
If we’re being real, I’m also an actor who was just on HBO’s Girls, a stand-up comedian, and have a super-popular comedy show called Tinder Live, and I do a ton of comedy shows every month in general. I codesign all my own stage costumes for It Was Romance and my friend makes them.
I never wanted to choose and I refused to let anyone tell me I had to only be one thing, and it’s working out really well. It was definitely not easy for a really long time, though, and it’s challenging even now because even with everything I’m doing, I still have so much more I could be doing if I had the time and resources. Throughout my career, though, even when it seemed like I was only doing one or two things, that was just what people could see. I’ve always been doing this much. To me, I’m an artist all the time; everything I do is informed by that. I don’t see any difference in the forms of expression, really.
What can fans expect next from you?
We’re going back in the studio to record our second album this winter, which I’m incredibly excited about. Then apart from making the next album and hopefully 100 more, I’m going on tour with Tinder Live, I’m working on a book, and I’ll be showing up on your TV a lot more, which I’m excited about.