by Jasper Soloff
A year after Zolita’s _Fight Like a Girl_ video was released we meet our subject in Studio City where she is house-sitting for the week. It's not quiet nor free of smog, yet there is some peace in the commotion of the city at midday. Our bodies with other bodies; our sights set on a light pink exterior.
A shirt in the corner reads, "U-Dyke,"which reassures me I’m in the right spot. Dressed minimally and sans grey hair sits Zoë Montana Hoeztel: Zolita. She is a resident of the San Fernando Valley, who spent most of her youth between Agoura Hills and Calabasas. “I almost interned for Flaunt in high school. So this interview feels kind of full circle,” she says as I sit at her table, iced coffee in hand. Her voice is neither here nor there–free of vocal fry but has a punchiness that feels very New York. We spend a few moments musing over St. Vincent and Kacey Musgraves (of which we share a mutual love) before getting into specifics.
Her interest in songwriting grew out of necessity, used primarily as a tool to express how she was feeling at any given time. Building off of the mixtape culture of the '80s, she would saddle up with her bluegrass guitar and laptop to write, record, and burn CD’s using GarageBand that she would slip into her friends' lockers. Using her country roots, she writes about the everyday, “ I find when I write something as close to the actual experience as I can, the more impact it has.” Her strong lyrical quality which is backed by solid, personal experiences is merely one layer to the immense vision and high production that is Zolita.
Amassing over 34k Instagram followers and 76k monthly listeners on Spotify, all while remaining an independent artist is no easy feat. Her latest EP, _Sappho_ sees her creating undeniably queer pop in more than one aspect. Not only does her music push boundaries in that it creates conversations about niche queer representation but it queers the boundaries of genre in the streaming era. “I think with things like Spotify the rules of genre are out the window.” Zolita believes there will be a time when queer pop and genre-labeling will be a thing of the past. A time when “queerness” wont be aligned with “otherness” and can exists in the stacks under varying genre or no genre at all.
Yet, she recognizes the importance of queer pop for visibility. “I didn’t really have queer icons I felt I could directly relate to until I was around 17, which is why it took me so long to realize and accept that I was gay!” Freja Beha, a Danish model and Karl Lagerfeld muse, ignited her sexual awakening. “I would watch interview after interview of her on youtube and was shook by how comfortable she seemed in her own skin and queerness.”
by Jasper Soloff
For her, accepting her queerness happened while attending college out-of-state at NYU. “In New York, straight people are the minority and it’s like if you're not a little bit queer, people are surprised. I still kind of romanticize what would have happened if I would have came out in high school.” She recounts watching _Love, Simon_ on her most recent plane ride and balling, “ I kept thinking ‘I wish I had found out earlier that I was queer because I would’ve loved to have had a high school romance.”
The moment lingers and begins to reverberate around us as we bake in the nostalgia for moments we never really got to experience. I catch her glimpse in a moment of reflection and see a pair of icy blue eyes starring back at me. In that moment it clicks: Zoë is creating the kind of icon or person she needed to see when she was younger and that so many young people still need to see today. To those people still in the closet or struggling to accept their queerness she urges you to give yourself the proper time. “If you don’t feel safe or comfortable coming out in the place you’re living, find your gay internet family! I have made so many queer friends all across the world, and it’s so amazing to have that support system. I think if you can find at least one person that you trust to talk to, it alleviates the weight of a secret in a big way. While I was still closeted, I had one friend that I told and I can’t tell what a relief it was to know that one person knew the full me.”
She takes a moment to reflect on her childhood, “I grew up in an atheist household and by nature we’re all kind of drawn to the things we are without. So I kind of gravitated towards different religions. I was definitely a spiritual tourist for a little bit”. She never really felt like she could resonate with religions with lots of rules, “ I think there is something to be found in every religion but the intent behind them has gotten so twisted over time.” Wicca was where she found comfort. It is often described as a neo-pagan or a reality-centered religion in that it holds that all of reality is divine. Themes of Wicca and witchcraft have become staples in the visual language of Zolita but aren't merely ornamental, “all of the power is put inside of us and there’s not some external god. Its in us and we can manifest our own destiny.”
Manifestation has played a crucial role in her career and being invested in all of the creative aspects surrounding her work has only ionized her plan of action. Her drive and beliefs are unshakeable; you can almost feel the flames burning from her chest as she speaks, “I want to reach a point that if I ever sign with a record label they wouldn't want to change anything about my project. They would be like, ‘She’s got it handled and we just want to help her finance it’.”
by Jasper Soloff
“My goal is to make music that I would've liked to have listened to when I was growing up and videos that I would’ve liked to have seen.” Referencing artists like Gregory Crewdson and Steven Klein who helped shaped her worldview as an artist. “Like theirs, my work was always cinematic and story driven and it helped me realize that I could take my images, my songs and make them mean something visually.” Her visuals are often over-the-top and unabashedly sexual on her own terms. And even in her sexual liberation and expression there are still voices that want to force a narrative of “overtness” or question the validity of her art. “I’ve had people including my family say ‘Why do you have to be so sexual in videos?’ ‘Why does there have to have sex scenes?’” She looks a little disheartened but reassures herself that these kind of depictions matter. “Its important for queer people to see their content directed by queer people in the same way its important to see people of color directed by people of color or trans people directed by trans people. Otherwise, we end up with things like _Blue is the Warmest Color_ which is directed by a man and features a 10 minute long sex scene with scissoring.” She doesn't deny her love for the film or that those dynamics exist in queer relationship but she hopes that we strive for more, “I feel like sometimes non-queer people direct queer movies and try to tell the audience how they should feel about us.”
She finds it puzzling that queer artists and projects aren't given the platform they deserve in a community that’s intent on telling queer stories for them. Citing a podcast she listens to featuring Justin Tranter, an LGBT+ activist and songwriter, in which they discussed the ridiculousness of an industry that denies the amount of capital queer-consumers hold, “from a business prospective it just makes sense to support queer projects.” Queer-capital has been a hotbed for the demonization of companies who seek to support the queer community with special pride-month-only products. Zolita sees a different side here. After jokingly referencing a Steve Buscemi pride month meme she says, “Having something like American Eagle support queer people is amazing even just for visibility. It’s important and I think you can see when things are disingenuous. You just never know what will make it click for someone.” She recalls a time when being queer was validated for her, “even looking back at it it seems so small, but Lady Gaga, in her song _Born This Way_ says the word ‘lesbian’ and hearing someone as big as Gaga say that word made it click for me. Its important for companies to recognize the capital we as queer people hold and for us to recognize how important corporate validation is for visibility as long as it helps us to push our narrative forward.”
As for how she sees her narrative developing in the future, she doesn't see the benefit of an album just yet. “I’ll always try to always make unapologetically queer work that highlights queer culture and stories. It’s important to me to continue collaborating with other queer and femme artists. I just moved to LA and being here is incredible in just the amount of people I'm surrounded and can be inspired by.” Zolita’s future is clear as she continues to make music that feels bigger than herself without ever losing herself.
“For now, I’m just stuck driving my brother’s old beat up car” she jokes, motioning to a car parking directly in front of us.
by Jasper Soloff
* * *
Photographed by: [@jasperegan](https://www.instagram.com/jasperegan/?hl=en)
Styled by: [@jarrett\_edward](https://www.instagram.com/jarrett_edward/?hl=en)
Hair by: [@discolourist](https://www.instagram.com/discolourist/?hl=en)
Special thanks to Daylight Studios [@daylight](https://www.instagram.com/daylight/)
.jpg)
