Vienna Vienna never made it to Vienna. Instead, the 22-year-old rock star became Vienna himself.
Growing up outside Fresno, California, Vienna Vienna — who goes by J when he’s off the stage — often dreamed about escaping to some far-off place.
“I had this running away fantasy, you know?” J says. “Maybe I could just dip, and then I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this and I could go be myself in a new place and not have to deal with, I guess, what I thought were the perceived consequences of my queerness.”
“Then I realized that was the dumbest f*cking idea in the world, and I would have much better luck bringing this vision of a life I had for myself to me,” he continues. “And so instead of going to Vienna hypothetically, I could just live it.”
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That philosophy inspired both J’s stage name and his song “Vienna (Everything’s Fine).” His music, which mixes a glimmering queer sensibility with a classic rock sound, is theatrical, anthemic, and endlessly screamable. In other words, it’s gay as hell.
“It started with theater — which, guilty! Yeah, I don’t think that’ll be a shocker to anybody,” J says of his love for the stage. “I think I did my first play when I was like 5, and I just really loved being on stage.
“Instead of going to Vienna hypothetically, I could just live it.”
– Vienna Vienna
Whether it’s theater or music, being on stage “very much so feels like home,” J says. “I think it is a place that invites a lot of the parts of myself that I was rejecting for a very long time, more than just a safe place to be emotional, but a real shot at self-expression that I hadn’t had before.”
As he grew up, J fell in love with rock and roll, learning to play guitar and teaching himself every song by Jimi Hendrix. In college, he befriended an emo band and let punk become a part of his life, both musically and spiritually.
“I started going to heavier shows, louder shows, and I was like, ‘Oh sh*t, this is what life’s all about,’” he recalls. “It definitely had an influence on the music I was making, and I just wanted to carry all that through with me. I loved the theatrics and emotionality of what I was doing. I loved the environment of a punk show.”
Vienna Vienna’s classic rock sound has made J a hit with a seemingly unlikely audience: Gen Xers, who are tuning in to hear a queer Gen Zer’s on the genre they grew up with. During our interview, I tell him that my mom is absolutely obsessed with his music and has quickly become one of his biggest fans.
“It’s fun how often that’s happening,” he replies. “I think because I’m very inspired, in part — specifically with ‘God Save The Queens’ — by those early punk sounds, it seems like a lot of parents are like, ‘This is really cool.’ Like, I’ve had that happen a lot, which is really fun to me, you know? Fun for the whole family!”
Discovering the joy of live music also led J to another realization: the fulfilment he thought he got from religion might have been misplaced.
“Another part of this, I think, is how much time I spent in worship bands, being like, ‘This is what it’s all about. This is what it’s all about. Holy Spirit, lead me.’ And it turns out I just really liked live music,’” he explains. “And for me personally, this is no shade — I mean, it’s a little shade, but it’s not a lot of shade — I got the exact same feeling making live music as I did playing worship music. And so for me, when I was deconstructing, I knew that it came from a different place than I thought it did, and that was very relieving.”
Early this year, J released his biggest hit yet, a queer anthem called “God Save The Queens.” It’s a direct critique of organized religion’s tendency toward anti-queerness: In the pre-chorus, he wonders, “How can heaven be better if we’re not fitting together?” A few lines later, he belts out, “God save the queens and all the in-betweens. Why you afraid of the love?”
“It came for me, that song, out of a lot of anger,” J says. “A lot of anger towards indoctrination, a lot of anger, even in parts, at myself for how long it took me to be me. I spent so much time — and this was useless — being frustrated at myself for not, I guess, coming out sooner, because I was just like, ‘I wasted all this f*cking time trying to appease people that it turns out were gonna be sh*tty anyway.’”
“I think ‘God Save The Queens’ is born out of that anger and frustration and a little bit out of pride. Like, I was really proud of what I’d become and how strong I felt, and I didn’t really want to feel like sh*t anymore, and so that was my expression of all that,” he continues. “And I get a chance to really feel and hone that every time I play it live, which is really exciting and kind of beautiful, too, that I get to recapture my anger. And I think now more than ever, I think, the idea of resistance comes from a mix of things, but largely from love for what the world could be for you and, for me, a little bit resentment for what it’s not.”
“God Save The Queens” isn’t shy about its messaging. The song’s metaphors are thinly veiled (if veiled at all), and any listener would be hard-pressed to call it anything other than a rallying cry against the conservative side of religion. As J puts it, “Christian nationalism doesn’t give a sh*t,” so why should he?
“I’m not going to hold their hand and gently remind them that I exist, or that it matters, or that their sh*t needs to be checked. They’re not very gentle about it. I’m not gonna hold their hand to some cosmic realization, you know?” he says. “It’s like, f*ck you. You get to talk your sh*t; why can’t I? I don’t have beef, necessarily, with the act of being religious. I have beef with a politicized movement of Christian nationalism and where it intersects with white supremacy.”
To describe his own religious upbringing, J borrows a term from Dimension 20 star Ally Beardsley: “electric guitar Christian.” He’s a fan of Beardsley and of Dungeons & Dragons in general; he recalls being starstruck by the cast of Critical Role at a recent event, especially when they told him they were fans of his music.
“D&D is the greatest game in the world. It’s another thing like the stage a little bit, where it’s that fantastic tool for self-expression,” J says. “That whole space is very gay, which is pretty beautiful and makes a lot of sense. A world where you can be anything? Yeah, I don’t know, sounds pretty gay to me.”
And as far as his own identity, J says he appreciates the label queer for its multifaceted potential. “I think it’s more all-encompassing of everything for me, not just sexuality, but also expression and my sense of self at large,” he explains. “‘Queer’ is my favorite word because it, for me, is most functional as a verb. That’s, I think, why I love it is like, I am queer, and I do queer, and I make queer of things.”
“‘Queer’ is my favorite word because it, for me, is most functional as a verb. That’s, I think, why I love it is like, I am queer, and I do queer, and I make queer of things.”
– Vienna Vienna
At the start of June, J released his latest single, “Cashgrab,” complete with its own music video, and at the end of July he’ll perform in Denver’s Underground Music Showcase. All that is to say, he’s not slowing down any time soon — and neither is the rest of his generation, who J looks forward to seeing take the reins culturally and politically as Gen Z fully comes of age.
“I think it’s going to be really exciting to see us get older and have more of a say in politics, have more of a say in the general state of things,” he says. “I think it’ll be exciting as we become the majority age group. I think that’ll be cool to have a say and see what we can do. And right now, there’s a lot we can do, but I think half of us are still very young. But we’ll get there. 22, I keep reminding myself, is not the end.” ♦
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