Doja Cat talks new music and her surrealistic influences

Doja Cat is amping up hype for her upcoming album, with the working title ‘Hellmouth’, scheduled to be released sometime this year.

After citing a number of different influences both for her new sound and her changing style, she’s recently revealed where her headspace is right now, and what’s influencing the sound of the new album.

Doja Cat’s taste for the surreal and avant-garde

In an interview with the French fashion magazine L’Officiel, with Doja gracing the cover of the latest edition, she spoke of her changing styles throughout her career, including her current artistic, fashion, and musical influences.

After revealing a piece of artwork that she was currently working on, Doja cited Salvador Dalí and Steven Parker Jackson as artistic influences, and despite her new venture into painting, isn’t so sure she’ll put herself out into that world.

“I need to prove to myself that I deserve that first. I don’t know if I’m good enough to do that. Some people just put a little splatter of paint on a canvas and it sells for $100,000 sometimes.”

Following her instinct for surrealist art, Doja says she’s willing to “sacrifice my comfort; I’ll do anything for that fantasy that I have in my head.”

She added, “I think in my personal life, I really enjoy finding the line between being comfortable but also doing something that’s exciting with whatever I’m wearing. And it’s been sort of like a game for me.”

For fashion label Schiaparelli’s ‘Inferno’ show at Paris Fashion Week this year, Doja went full fantasy–donning herself with red paint and roughly 30,000 red crystals glued to her skin from her chest, arms, and full head.

“[My stylist Brett Alan Nelson] said, ‘Yeah, Schiaparelli wants to do something with you.’ And before he could finish his sentence, I was like, ‘Yes.’ There are sketches, and everything he’s sending, I love them. I fall in love.” She says of the collab: “I’m very, very proud of it.”

Her eclectic tastes won’t influence the new album

On whether her inclination to surrealism and the avant-garde will translate over into her new music, Doja says it’s unlikely.

“I listen to a lot of music, but I listen to music that I don’t make. I listen to some Japanese House. Dead Can Dance. Drop Nineteens. I was listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins,” she said of her current faves.

“I think I’m solely influenced by the things that I grew up on. And I didn’t grow up on Cocteau Twins. But it’s definitely a place for me where my mind can rest when I hear music like that.”

She clarifies that she avoids listening to music similar to what she wants to make, saying, “I avoid listening to rap. I don’t listen to anyone’s music because I feel like that influence is so strong.”

The ‘You Right’ singer also revealed that in terms of new music, she says she has “probably 10 or 12 or so songs” that she’s working on.

It has not been confirmed if ‘Hellmouth’ will be the final title for the album, or when it will be released, other than sometime in 2023.