Joining the Cool-Kids Club: An Interview with Trans-led “Shoegays” Band Vivian
By Maya Bishop | April 7, 2026
PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Blieden (@s.r.b)
I absolutely love that you describe your band as "shoegays" somehow it creates such a perfect image. Did you come up with that or am I missing a whole fun genre in the queercore community?
Christine: “I believe that was Claire’s idea. We had a meeting about it, because our sound is so diverse and yet decisive. Claire can take full cred for ‘Shoegays’.”
Mike: We listen to a lot of shoegaze music (I do personally) but we don’t sound like a lot of the bands that are boxed into that genre, so I think it’s appropriate to what I think we sound like.
While you're the "face" of the band would you mind telling me how Vivian the band got together?
Christine: I had an old group, Smooth McDuck, that reached a natural conclusion. This band came together one by one, like an Ocean’s 11 recruitment. I knew Mike from high school, but we only really connected through a mutual friend, who told us we needed to be in a band together. Liam and I have known each other through high school.
(“College - Liam”) [“My bad - Christine”]
Liam and I have always jammed with each other and bonded over music, and this was the first time we got to collaborate as songwriters with each other. Lastly, Claire and I were the only two gay women using “Bumble for Friends”, and met with each other to jam to some Big Thief and Alex G songs.
Mike: Perfect timing too as I was looking to start playing in a new band.
In your newest EP "Third Eye Demos" there's an interesting medley of sounds. It has some emo, some math rock, some grunge. Do you often find yourself genre hopping musically?
Christine: Fortunately, yes. I wrote all of these songs a couple of years ago, and it’s hard for me to pin us down, but we feel firmly in our lane. The songs you hear on Third Eye Demos will be re-recorded to Hi-Fi for our upcoming EP
(“LP* - Mike”) (“Right, upcoming LP - Christine”).
We wanted to have a bare bones recording of these songs specifically at first, we didn’t even know if we’d release them. But then we heard what we made and knew we still had to put them out.
Mike: Claire had just joined the band and the demo were songs that we were rehearsing and playing at shows at the time. When we were presented with the opportunity to record them live to tape it felt like a fun way to capture that moment and stay busy as we kept working on said LP.
That kind of blending is also present in your self-titled introduction EP. How do you manage mixing all these styles while maintaining some sense of musical direction? Or is the idea here to be as varied and messy as the human experience?
Christine: There’s never been a philosophy of “we need to sound like this”, other than emphasizing dynamics and achieving that “wall of sound” quality, which I haven’t heard a lot before in emo music and wanted to explore that from the very beginning.
Mike: Very loud, very quiet.
Christine: Historically, I’d just write something, and if the band liked it, we’d play it. As the songwriting has become more collaborative, I’m still bringing music to the table that surprises everyone. But I always ask “Is this good?”, and then we roll with it.
You also seem to define your sound around other musicians. I've seen you mention Mitski, Third Eye Blind, Dinosaur Jr. Do you often pull inspiration from the artists around you?
Christine: Constantly - Often, I’m watching a friend or local peer perform, and immediately afterward I run home to write something because I was so inspired by what I just saw. SHAGGO (my other band, that I play drums in), Wiring, Wince, Punchlove, Yuvees, and Laveda. All NYC-grown acts that get my blood pumping.
Mike: Marshy & Myra Lee (fka Dino Expedition).
With all of that musical inspiration, have you ever thought of a dream bill you'd want to be on?
Christine: I think we want to open for Ovlov or play any show with an Exploding in Sound artist. We draw a lot of inspiration from that roster - Ovlov, Washer, Cusp, etc. An even bigger dream would be to open for Mannequin Pussy or Wednesday.
Mike: I say this in jest but the goal is just to get to play a show with Ovlov, we break up on stage, then watch Ovlov play. Otherwise Greet Death or Home is Where.
PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Blieden (@s.r.b)
Currently, you play a lot of LGBTQIA2S+ lineups. Do you often reflect on your place in the community? Do you feel supported?
(Personally I've always felt wildly lucky to be a NYer because I grew up with a constant open queer community. )
Christine: I grew up purposely isolated from queer communities, which had prevented me from transitioning at an earlier age. Support is something that I had to seek out and gift to myself. After almost a decade of Catholic education, the best thing I could do for myself was move out of my Long Island childhood home and into Brooklyn. Fortunately, the more I play music in NYC, the more kind and intelligent queer people I meet. I don’t think that’s an accident, the connection between music and intelligent queer people.
On Third Eye Demos you have the song "swanky" which you say is about "dressing up to impress the cool girls around you". Is that something you put a lot of effort into? Impressing the so-called "cool girls club"?
Christine: I’ve always had that worry with people, girls and boys. As music and queerness can feel like community, it can also bring out certain insecurities, and feel competitive. Transitioning feels quite literally like a second puberty, and Bushwick feels like High School. And just like high school, queerness and community feel best when surrounded by people who don’t care about appearance or social status.
What does being a "cool girl" entail for you?
Christine: When I say “cool girl” in this song, it’s probably the least cool girl in the room in reality. She might be the hottest, most stylish girl, but these are the girls that will give you a blank stare when you say hi to them at the party.
Do you have any fun stories about times where that worked or backfired?
Christine: I’d have to redact all of my Bushwick stories, but there was one time in college where I tried to look really cool and offer this girl a bong hit. I took the first rip, and the water overflowed and splashed all over my clothes. She left the room after that. Fun stuff.
Claire: I once asked a girl out via poem over email because my friends convinced me that was cool. Now that I’m thinking about it, I actually did this with two different girls and believe it or not neither accepted…
Also what inspired the move to drop the demos EP between the self titled and the full album?
Christine: Claire had just joined the band, so we knew there would be a lull period between when our Self-Titled EP came out and our next release. We initially did “Third Eye Demos” as an internal project, just to hammer out some key songs and record them straight to cassette.
Mike: I preemptively answered this question but I’ll add - if I remember correctly we wanted to learn “Narcolepsy” by Third Eye Blind to cover in the future. It hasn't happened (yet?)
Christine: I was also very obsessively revisiting Third Eye Blind’s self-titled debut LP - it’s one of my favorite albums.
What excites you most about this upcoming release?
Christine: It will feel so rewarding to have these songs released in their most realized form. Right now, It’s been fun to piece all of these songs together and figure out how they tell this first album as a story. I’m also planning out a bunch of video concepts to promote with the songs. I used to work in film production, so this has been a creative itch I haven’t scratched in a very long time.
Do you ever worry about being pigeonholed as a trans-led band or is that an identity that you find integral to your sound and your performances?
Christine: Vivian started around the same time as I started HRT. At the beginning of my transition, I wanted to acknowledge my gender as little as possible. I was scared of it, and scared of not being accepted by my trans peers. But now, more than 2 years into my identity as both Christine and Vivian, it feels important for me to put my transness and my queerness at the forefront of my work. It defines my perspective, and that includes my perspective on music.
Vivian has also done some interesting shows. Opening for Grrrl Gang, playing with friends of the team Eevie Echoes and the Locations, A tour of the east coast, last year you even played some South By Southwest shows. How has it been getting to interact with fans live?
Mike: I have played these songs so many times that any show we play where anyone has anything to say other than the de facto “great set” is very encouraging. I know I like what I’m hearing so seeing that translate live or after the gig is awesome.
Christine: Someone at the Grrrl Gang show gave us a lil squishy plastic Seal - which was her “Seal of Approval” for our performance. Very cute. Very flattering. I’m always surprised when someone knows who we are, and I feel very bad when I don’t know who that person is. But that’s how having fans works, I guess lol.
PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Blieden (@s.r.b)
Do you miss performing when you're just in your day to day or in the studio or is it just kind of part of the deal?
Mike: I’m notorious for air drumming which certainly alerts the surrounding public to stay away from me. I’m also thinking about playing.
Christine: I work a corporate job, and feel like Supergirl where I’m boring and don’t talk much during the day and then jam out with my friends and be a rockstar at night.
Are there any shows in the works that you're particularly excited about in the future?
Christine: We’ve got a lot of planning to do around our release and fall tour dates - but we have a few exciting festival dates that are TBA.
My usual question, everyone's favorite birthday cake flavor?
Mike: Yellow Cake or Funfetti, Chocolate Frosting
Liam: Not to come across as sociopathic but I have fond memories with carrot cake. (Maya: fear not, I love a carrot cake, we can be sociopaths together)
Claire: My family did pies for birthdays, but if I had to pick it’d be the caravel *Carvel ice cream cake iykyk.
Christine: I didn’t know this about Claire, and I’m very jealous of her. I dream of having pie on my birthday (Strawberry Rhubarb). Otherwise, I will happily take Ice Cream Cake.
Is there anyone you'd like to thank?
Mike: My cats Cosmo and Wizard. All our pets.
Christine: Soupy, my cat. Francisco Lindor, the glue that keeps my New York Mets together. SOPHIE, the first trans woman who ever inspired me. My local venue/arcade, Wonderville, which stocks Sunny D Seltzer. All of my friends who come to my shows and all of my bandmates who I love playing with :) All of these people remind me that I don’t suck.
Claire: Shout out to John and Sarah, my mom and dad!!