EDGE Interview: Queer Canadian Pop Star Minoe Brings Fire Island Party to the Village

EDGE: How would you describe your music?

Minoe: I usually say alt pop, just because there's quite a combination of stuff in there. Generally, I lean more poppy, but, especially with my stuff coming up next year, I'm going to lean more outside. There's a couple songs where I get a little more dark, but I would describe it as pop.

EDGE: I heard a bit of Adele in you.

Minoe: I've heard that before. I think it's my tone. I don't think it's the production, but I do have a bit of a raspy tone. I think that's what it is.

EDGE: You started writing songs at seven?

Minoe: It's always something that I've done. My mom told me one day I just came out of my room and I had a song. I didn't know anything about music. I'm not classically trained at all, it just sort of happened that way.

EDGE: Do you play any instruments?

Minoe: I taught myself guitar when I was younger. Honestly, I'm pretty bad at it. My hands are small. I never became proficient at it. I hire musicians who've been playing and performing as long as I've been writing.

EDGE: How did you get from songwriting at seven to becoming a performer in Montreal?

Minoe: I'm from Nova Scotia originally. I always knew I wanted to do music, and Montreal seemed like the place to do it. I'm from Halifax. It's a very artistic city, but there's not a whole lot of career opportunities there just because it's smaller. I went to Concordia, where I studied art history. It was a double major, technically; I did art history and studio art. So, I was painting and drawing. People always ask me why I didn't just go to school for music, and I don't have an answer for them. I don't know why. I think I just wasn't confident enough to do it really.

COVID happened, and I didn't finish my degree. Maybe I will at some point. But I just started transitioning to music pretty gradually. I started copywriting, and somewhere in there I realized that I didn't have to have a big, fancy degree to pursue the things I wanted to do. Opportunities just started popping up here and there, and I took the reins of my career.

EDGE: You were a copywriter?

Minoe: I was, actually. I was working for a medical school admissions blog, teaching people how to get into medical school. You take it where you can get it, you know? But it was actually a cool gig, and I learned a lot about medical school from it. It was pretty lucrative, and I was doing it from home, so I was able to pursue music a lot more. I ended up getting a FACTOR grant – it's the biggest granting body in Canada for the arts. I got $67,000 for my project, and it definitely changed everything. I had to hunker down, get a team, and sort everything out.

I started doing crazy research on what do labels do for musicians, and how I could do that by myself with this money. I didn't want to mess it up, basically. Having it educated me a lot. And then my EP was born from that. It was the first project I ever released.

EDGE: Is it easier building a career as an indie artist now that there's so much social media?

Minoe: Definitely. It's this mega tool to reach your audience that nobody ever had access to before. Even labels are scrambling to figure out how to use it. The promotion you can get from a single TikTok that you haven't paid any money for is amazing. It would have cost so much even just 10 years ago to reach that many people. It's a huge thing. I think everyone's freaking out about it, but it's a really good thing. In 2022, when I got my grant, I had a bunch of TikToks that were regularly hitting half a million, a million views. I was doing pretty well on there.

EDGE: Does it blow your mind to think that half a million people are looking at something you've done?

Minoe: Oh my God, yeah. There's a video of me in my bathrobe singing and being dumb, just something stupid, and it has four million views. People still comment on it, and it was two years ago. It's a funny thing, and I think it's something artists come up against.

You know, those videos are awesome and they do well because they're funny and relatable, but I wonder if they speak to my artistry at all. Maybe it's a mistake to consistently put up something that is just, ultimately, easy. It's free for them and free for me when I'm recording myself getting ready to go out or something. It's easy, but it's a really weird landscape at the same time. In a way, I think it was easier back then, when, if you signed to a label, everyone just kind of takes care of all the stuff for you. Now, you're doing the job of what 30 people used to do, creating content and figuring out where you should go and what you should do. There's no roadmap to it all.

EDGE: And here you are creating your own roadmap, though. That's really impressive and cool.

Minoe: Thank you. Thank you very much. It's honestly the thing that I spend the most time on, creating the roadmap and behind the scenes stuff. Pounding the pavement is 90% of it, and then 10% is making the music. It takes 90% of your effort to get something noticed.

EDGE: It must help when you're looking for gigs – not small bar gigs, but bigger venues, to say you have millions of views on social media.

Minoe: It's funny to say, but I don't think followers really translate to people showing up to your shows. At a certain point they have to if you have millions, but in the tens of thousands or even 100,000, it doesn't really matter. You don't know where those people are. They're usually pretty spread out, and following you doesn't necessarily mean that people want to dish out money to come and see something.

EDGE: Really smart observation.

Minoe: It's just stuff that I've learned the hard way, like spending too much money on a venue with bigger capacity and having 30 people show up. It's real stuff, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I think it's important to learn from these things. It's a weird thing. It definitely helps with booking things, but it's only because people have a misconception about what having followers means. So, maybe I shouldn't be telling anyone. Maybe I shouldn't say anything.

EDGE: Let's talk about your songs. "Liquorlips," did you really meet the woman you wrote it with (Renon) on the street?

Minoe: Oh, shit, that's amazing. It's been a while, so I think I can say no. We actually met at a charity event where we were both performing. I saw her show and I loved her lyrics, and she loved my lyrics. The first time we ever really just hung out we made "Liquorlips," so that's true. It was so fun. We have the same references. We really hit it off. It was pretty easy.

EDGE: Amazing lyrics.

Minoe: Thank you. What's your favorite?

EDGE: "Dripping down your face, body next to me, eating me up. Lick the plate. Yep, love me like the bitch you hate." That's my favorite.

Minoe: Thank you!

EDGE: Do you, as most artists do, draw on your personal experience to create your music? If so, is there a story behind "Wish I Killed My Ex-boyfriend?"

Minoe: There's an interesting story behind that one. It's a little deep, but it's also a little funny. Basically, I dated this guy who was awful. After we broke up, it came out that he had a lot of sexual assault allegations against him, and, based on my experience with him, I believed them. The night that I found out, I had a dream where I was choking him and I stopped myself because I thought, "Oh my God, I'm not a murderer." Then I woke up and thought, "Damn, I should have killed him. It was just a dream. Just go for it, girl." Funny enough, that song was made with my current partner of four years now. He's a producer, and it was at the very beginning of us being together. I was a bit concerned that he was going to think I was insane, but he was vibing with it, adding gunshot sound effects. He's crazy, too.

EDGE: So let's get to New York. You're coming to the Duplex. What is "Sultry Shores, The Fire Island Cabaret?"

Minoe: It's a late-night cirque cabaret, and it's starring me. I'm emceeing. It's based around my music, my catalog, so I've written all the songs that are in the show. It features these incredible circus performers, burlesque performers, magicians, comedians. It's sort of a variety show.

EDGE: It sounds a bit like "Pippin" meets "Cabaret"

Minoe: We have an acrobat from "Pippin," so there you go. It's also kind of mermaidy, because it's a pool party. We're going in a mermaidy, sparkly direction. It's going to be really, really fun. I'm excited to even just see the acrobatics to my music. I'm sure it's going to totally blow my mind. There are stories that play out on stage through the performances. The main thing is that it's a Fire Island pool party with an annoying lifeguard who's trying to shut it down, and me, the fun party girl who's trying to keep it going. It's gonna be fun.

EDGE: So, how did this all come about?

Minoe: They found me in PinkNews, where I was named a top queer artist to watch in 2024. I am a queer person, you know – shocker, alert the media,

EDGE: And your partner is male.

Minoe: My partner is male. I'm pansexual. I like the wine, not the label, I guess. I don't care about gender. I care about the person, and my partner is the sweetest, loveliest person. And if he was in a female body, if he was gender non-conforming, that just wouldn't matter to me.

EDGE: And that's how you define queer?

Minoe: Queer is just an umbrella term to me. Honestly, sometimes I say queer because people don't know what pansexual is, so I just kind of avoid it. It also kind of depends on the environment that I'm in. If I'm around a lot of straight people, I'll just say I'm queer and let them kind of do puzzles in their head, I guess. But if I'm around a bunch of queer people, I'll say I'm pansexual because I feel maybe a little safer.

EDGE: That's helpful to hear. When I was growing up, queer was a word you never wanted to be called. It can still sometimes be triggering.

Minoe: That's so interesting. I hope maybe people can take some solace in knowing that it's really been kind of rebranded as this almost safe word to kind of not have you dissect your sexuality to somebody, but to let them know that you're part of the community. It's so not an insult now. I'm happy to be having this conversation.

The show is full of queer people. See, that makes it easy, right? Because if I say queer, then I don't have to say gay and lesbian and pansexual and bisexual and all of those things. Back to the show, it's cirque burlesque. When I was initially approached about it, they said, "boylesk," which I loved. That's a fun term. There's an acrobat, an international circus star, a magician, a bunch of amazing people.

EDGE: Sounds like there's a lot of action on Sultry Shores.

Minoe: I hope I represented the show well. I'm really excited to do it. It's my first time in New York City, my first time in the States at all.

EDGE: Really? You're going to love New York. You won't want to leave.

Minoe: We'll see. I've never been, and actually I've had some fans reach out to me from the U.S. saying that they love me and they're so annoyed that I'm never there because I'm in Canada. I'm coming to you now.

EDGE: One more question. If you could go back to your younger self, what would you say to them?

Minoe: That's a big one. I grew up in a very volatile and difficult environment. When I moved away it was partially to follow my dreams, but also partially for my safety. I think it's important, through what I'm doing now, to reach out to those kids that aren't safe at home, because I feel like there's not a whole lot of advocates for those people. If I could talk to her, I would tell her that she's going to be happy and she's going to have really cool things happen to her. Even just knowing that when I was younger would have been awesome. I hope that other young kids that are in similar thing know that things will happen when you're not there anymore. It's not going to be like that forever.

For information about "Sultry Shores" and other events at Ferry's Landing, visit the Ferry's Landing website.

For more information about Minoe, visit her Facebook page.