Mandy Slate unveils "Home" EP and connects with us to share the visionary journey behind her bold new release
- STAFF
- Oct 18
- 10 min read
By: Staff
“Home” is an immersive, genre-defying masterpiece that showcases Mandy Slate’s unparalleled creativity.
Mandy Slate’s latest release, "Home," is an EP that will take you on a mesmerizing journey through a world where fantasy and raw emotion converge. With its dreamlike soundscapes and hauntingly intimate lyrics, the title track sets the tone for a project that explores deep themes of mental health, loneliness, and the quest for authenticity. As the first chapter of her much-anticipated visual album, Science Fiction, Home is more than just an EP, it’s the beginning of an expansive narrative that invites listeners into a vivid, almost cinematic experience.
We spoke with Mandy Slate to delve into the story behind Home, uncovering the creative process that brought this deeply personal and experimental work to life. From her use of escapism and video game-inspired visuals to the way she blends playful pop with introspective themes, Mandy shares her thoughts on how this project reflects both her journey and her artistic evolution. She opens up about the ways in which her identity as a queer artist plays into the music and storytelling of Science Fiction, while offering a glimpse of what’s to come in the following chapters of this evolving visual album.
As Home begins to set the stage for what promises to be a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant album, Mandy Slate proves she is more than ready to push the boundaries of indie pop.
Read on to discover the deeper layers of Home, and find out how this boundary-pushing artist is ready to take her listeners on a fantastical ride.
Here’s how it went:
Begin Interview:
Hello Mandy Slate, we’re thrilled to have you here for this interview! We've had an amazing time exploring your music and diving into your creative journey. Now, we’re even more intrigued to get a deeper look into both your brand and your personal and professional inspirations.
Q. After experiencing your EP "Home," it’s clear that your talents are on another level. From "Home’s" deep emotional authenticity to the powerful vibes of "Disaster" and the energy of "Silver Lining," it's a powerhouse of music. The way you combine dreamy soundscapes with deep, longing lyrics left a lasting impression. Can you share the inspiration behind this EP and what it means to you on a personal level?
A. Thank you for your kind words <3 This EP is the first half of an album I’m going to be rolling out over the next few months. It’s mainly made up of singles I already released, but I wanted to re-release them in the context of the story I’m telling through the album. I wanted my first project to feel like the video games I played growing up, the fantasy stories I’d get lost in, and just generally anything I’d use as a form of escape. There’s so much emphasis on authenticity when you’re a songwriter and everyone is telling you to be real and vulnerable, so I tried to leave all of that stuff behind, but it’s genuinely a part of me. And I feel like today with everyone talking about how they’re on their phone so much and having trouble being present, it’s worth actually exploring how that impacts the way we see the world in beautiful and ugly ways. The writing itself isn’t curated very much. I wrote whatever I was actually thinking and feeling in the moment. And it’s inconsistent and sometimes doesn’t match the bouncy production or the colorful visuals. But that’s not a mistake, it’s just real. A lot of the album, especially this first half you hear in the EP, was written at a time in my life when I was in pain but I was trying to escape it and smile through it. And I’ve grown since then, but I’m grateful that I captured those moments exactly as they were instead of trying to make them more digestible. I think that contrast makes the project a lot of fun and makes the awkwardness it took to create it feel more worth it.
Q. The title "Home" feels like it encapsulates a sense of belonging and longing for connection. Why did you choose this particular name for the EP, and how does it set the tone?
A. It’s named after the title track, which was inspired by the movie ET, where that little alien creature is trying to find its way home. The title track was the third song I wrote on the EP, and other than that, the album is in chronological order. Since I had already written Disaster and Beg, I was dead set on making a super commercial pop album and I had spent an entire day writing song after song trying to find a good one, and they were honestly boring. I started to have a moment of “What am I doing? This isn’t what music is even about for me.” “Home” was the last song I wrote that day, and it was a moment of surrender where I was writing a letter to my future self hoping she was stronger in her convictions, that she had love and connection around her, and that she felt free to say what she really meant without the words getting caught in her throat, even when it’s ugly. It doesn’t follow a traditional pop sound or structure, and it was the only song I wrote that day that resonated with me. After I recorded that one, I gave myself permission to trust the process and let the rest of the songs be whatever they were going to be.
Q. There’s a beautiful blend of escapism and reality in "Home." How do you feel about using fantasy elements to express themes like mental health, loneliness, and finding freedom? Has this been a cathartic process for you?
A. Fantasy is really important for me as a tool to share my perspective without trying to water it down. I’ve always been pretty shy but I have a lot to say. I never thought I would be a public-facing artist when I was younger because I didn’t feel comfortable airing out my (or other people’s) dirty laundry like that, but creating is inherently personal for me. So symbolism is really empowering for me to get past that mental block.
Q. The visual component of your work seems just as important as the music itself, especially with the video game-style lyric videos that we totally loved. What role do these visuals play in bringing your story to life, and why is storytelling through video so central to your creative expression?
A. I didn’t release my first EP until 2023, but writing, design, storytelling, and gaming have always been huge parts of my life that laid the foundation for the rest of my creative expression. I wasn’t much of a musician as a kid: I wasn’t all that interested in picking up an instrument, but I loved writing plays, learning to build and design clothes and code in open source virtual worlds, and learning new skills like stop motion animation and choreography. I’ve always reached for whatever medium was closest to me in proximity, so once I found myself in the music world it was music, and I stuck with it because it got me out of my shell and helped other people more than a lot of the other mediums. Music is what I’ve shared most publicly, and it’s given me a platform to share the rest of it, which I’ve been really excited about in the last year and I’ve leaned into more.
Q. You’ve drawn inspiration from movies like E.T. and Westworld for the video of "Home." What is it about those stories that resonates with you and influenced the visual narrative you’re building for Science Fiction?
A. Thank you for bringing that up! So the lyrics were influenced by E.T., and the character in the video was inspired by Dolores in season one of Westworld when she didn’t have full access to her memories yet. I’ve always loved sci-fi, fantasy, and horror because they use entertainment to make bold social, political, psychological, and existential statements in a way that’s just indirect enough to get people to really open their mind to it without being stubborn on purpose. It’s like a fear loophole.
Q. Your style, from fashion to music, has a distinct sense of boldness and creativity. How does your personal sense of style influence the way you express yourself through your music and videos?
A. Growing up I didn’t have a lot of freedom to express myself through the way I dressed, but I loved fashion, so I’d play a bunch of avatar-based games and eventually learned graphic design so I could upload my own clothes to them. Since I developed my aesthetic taste that way, my style can be kind of avatar-y and I like to just have fun with it. The surreal/digital thing isn’t really a gimmick, it’s just how I initially met my creative self and I like to celebrate it. The internet gets a lot of blame for messing kids up, and I won’t deny that, but it also gave me more freedom to be myself when I was younger when the real world felt restrictive.
Q. You’ve launched a line of scorpion lollipop necklaces alongside your music. We love this idea just even hearing about it. What is the backstory on how this idea was created?
A. Thank you! I spent over a year trying to create them before my genius roommate Alana finally figured it out. I was living in Los Angeles when I made the initial prototype, and I would have the scorpion lollipops in my videos and photos a lot because I’m from Arizona (where I live now) and they’re sold at a lot of gas stations here and I started to be really amused by how normal I found them once I lived in a different state and realized they were not. I had a show coming up where they told me to bring a piece of merch to give away, but I didn’t have merch yet, so another brilliant friend of mine, Claire Nichols (who goes by Icky Pop and makes some of my favorite indie music out right now), had the idea for the necklaces. I super glued a lollipop to a string and wore it, and so many people asked where they could get one, but it was just a piece of candy on a string at the time. Basically I have some incredibly smart and creative friends and I couldn’t imagine life without them.
Q. You’ve said that your music is a form of daydreaming. How do you hope your music impacts your listeners’ daydreams or their own personal journeys through fantasy, escapism, and self-discovery?
A. I hope it helps them pay closer attention to wherever it is they go when their mind wanders and ask what it’s trying to convey. When I finished the songs in the album and I started working on building the sci-fi world around it, I read a book called The Language of the Night by Ursula Le Guin, which is about writing science fiction and fantasy, and a quote from the book that explains the name is “We like to think we live in daylight, but half the world is always dark, and fantasy, like poetry, speaks the language of the night.” Essentially, that there’s so much more to living than what’s directly in front of you and observable. We’re in such a weird spot right now with AI and having so much noise on the internet and not being able to know what information, and even photos, are real, so it’s so important to stay in touch with your inner voice. I find that the gut is a little harder to trick than the mind.
Q. Outside of music, who or what has had the biggest influence on your personal growth or artistic perspective?
A. The people around me and the people I get to meet when I’m doing all of this. When you’re really focused on creating art and exploring your imagination it can be easy to forget why, but being surrounded by people who are passionate about things that aren’t music, showing up to a non-music job every day, and learning about the lives of the people who listen to my music and come to my shows helps me stay grounded and purposeful. I mentioned a lot of influences earlier in this interview, but I also want to mention some books, movies, shows, and games that influenced the EP and album, which were The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace, Giovanni’s Room, and The Language of the Night (books); Life is Strange, Doki Doki Literature Club, and Aika Village in Animal Crossing (video games); Westworld, I Saw the TV Glow, E.T. (tv/movies). There are a lot more but these are the more recent ones off the top of my head. They aren’t all sci-fi but enough were that I was inspired to have a theme. I try to not get overly fixated and compartmentalize music to a certain extent so I have room to have actually lived a bit of life before I sit down to write a song.
Q. What do you want people to remember most about you after hearing your music and reading this interview?
A. That I didn’t always think I was good enough or interesting enough or brave enough to do what I’m doing but I did it relentlessly anyway. I feel like there’s so much emphasis on mindset when people give advice to artists, but truthfully confidence never wrote me a song unless it was a song about confidence. I really just followed my curiosity and let the art meet me wherever I was and cared for it until it grew. I’ve failed and embarrassed myself a lot in the process and turned it into something tangible I can enjoy and share. I hope knowing this can help anyone who is curious enough to have read this whole interview look at themselves and see potential where maybe they didn’t before.
Q. You’ve teased more to come in Science Fiction. Can you give us any hints or teasers about what the next chapter in this visual album will hold? What should your audience be excited about as you continue this journey?
A. Music videos with real things and people in them! The first half of the series being video game inspired lyric videos is very fitting because I spent a lot of my early days creating the project hiding behind a screen. But when I was making the second half I was out in the world a lot more and I got to explore my passions for storytelling through other mediums like screenwriting and dance. By the time I was finalizing and working on visuals for the second half of the album, I was more far removed from the stories I was telling and I was comfortable to take more risks and be playful. The songs are thematically heavier and more vulnerable in part 2 but the overall experience is more fun. I’m excited to share it. <3
Mandy Slate, thank you so much, we appreciate you taking the time to talk to us!
End Interview
