WHO'S THAT? Cute Door
Cute Door is your average suburban girl — just with a few secrets tucked inside her matching ALO set. On her single, “Flashlight (Turn Me On),” off b4’s new compilation, the artist delivers her lyrics in a hushed, ASMR-like whisper that feels at once alluring and menacing. Should we run toward her or away? The music — and Cute Door’s perfectly cheesy smile — makes you want to do both.
In the aftermath of New York’s blizzard, Cute Door and I went window shopping through SoHo after a long conversation over tea. Between Aritzia, Lacoste and Equinox, we found ourselves deep in the lore of this project — tracing its subtleties, its complications and the personal discoveries the artist unearthed along the way.
[To the waiter] We’ll just have two teas.
Would it be possible to get them in to-go cups? I need my prop. [Laughs]
Is this what you normally dress like?
It has slowly started to morph. I don’t know how to explain this without getting into the full story of Cute Door–
We’ll get there.
Basically, a year and a half ago, I made the decision to ditch this blonde wig. That was who Cute Door was and how it started. Since then, it’s become more ingrained in my day-to-day life, so it’s a little bit of a push and pull, of figuring out, What would this character wear? What would I be comfortable wearing? What are the differences between that? I’m still trying to figure that out. I was never into athleisure before Cute Door, but now I’m seeing beauty in it. For so long, I rejected modern fashion. I’m just a boho girl at my core. Cute Door, she used to be an early Y2K girl next door when I first started. But it’s become so played out that now I’m trying to shift it into something else. Maybe she can just be a modern girl that exists in a modern world. There’s something interesting about that that I want to explore. But sometimes I feel like an alien creature because I’m like, How do modern girls dress? I’m looking at Pinterest doing this research and was like, Oh, everyone’s just wearing athleisure. Which I rejected for so long
Well, it’s so easy.
I was always like, It’s on par with wearing pajamas outside, which I also rejected for so long. But now I’m leaning into it where, especially in New York, there’s such a casualness to it that I enjoy.
I think the average person sees athleisure and they’re like, This is a nice and put together person.
Yes, that’s what I started to explore too. There is a difference between going out of the house in Cookie Monster pajamas and wearing Lululemon. I mean, no judgment either way. But I’ve been trying to lean into that more, which has been fun and interesting.
So let’s start with the name, Cute Door. When I saw you perform this summer at Knockdown Center, I remember I was like, This girl is so fab, who is she? And everyone was like, I think her name is Cute Door? [Laughs] I loved your set. It was cool because it was so simple.
It’s interesting because before that I played maybe two Cute Door shows total. I used to perform a lot in Baltimore under different projects, but with Cute Door, I haven’t done a lot of live shows, so I’m still working out those kinks. It was a little intimidating for one of my first Cute Door shows to be at Knockdown. But I definitely realized through trial and error between that and my show a few weeks after at 3 Dollar Bill. I’m trying to lean into having a show that’s more experimental. I want to have aspects that are more immersive, because I think that’s the difficult part about performing: figuring out how to keep the audience engaged, but also keeping yourself engaged. Sometimes it’s difficult to be like, I’m pressing play on my laptop and just speaking words into a microphone. I want something that brings people into the world of Cute Door more. I’ve explored projected visuals in the past, but I was met with difficulty from a lot of venues or spaces that just don’t have that.
They don’t have much.
Especially if I’m playing house shows or more DIY spaces. I was like, I want something that’s portable that can go with me forever, so I started using these flashlights. I’m trying to bring it into more of a noise and glitch sphere. The 3 Dollar Bill show was a club show and I felt this internal battle where I’d made this club remix album, but at the same time, I don’t know how comfortable I feel performing it. Like, it doesn’t feel authentic to me or something, and my friend was like, The next time you get asked to play a club show, you should just do spoken word or acapella. [Laughs]
That would definitely be disruptive.
I’m not interested in being like, Fuck the system. I’m trying to figure out an authentic way for me to perform that makes me feel good and keeps me engaged.
How do you see the world of Cute Door?
She’s always been a suburban girl next door. But over time, it slowly became more and more dark and twisted. Like, there was a flip that happened. But the name, it’s honestly so funny, because it’s become this thing that I don’t even think about. It was literally in college, when I started the project. I was spitballing names with one of my friends and I knew I wanted it to be this suburban pop project. We were like, Backyard, front lawn, street corner, and then he jokingly said, Cute Door. I was like, Oh my god, that’s it.
It does make sense.
Yeah, it makes sense. It’s also really funny the Google images that come up when you type in Cute Door, because it’s just like Valentine’s-themed doors. The world definitely started out as quite literally the movie Girl Next Door. Like, very early 2000s bubblegum pop, preppy girl, blonde wig, but this was before I transitioned, so it was very rough around the edges. I never wore makeup. It was weird, because it was this character that I didn’t really see as drag, because it’s not like I was performing fully. I still had a hairy body, so it was like, What is this weird, nonbinary, bizarre thing? It was also before I did voice training, so I had to pitch my voice up really high and it took on this very PC Music, early hyper pop, super sped up sound.
In hindsight, do you feel like you were experimenting with different parts of yourself?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s why it was hard for me to see it as a drag character. It was never trying to be an overexaggeration, it was always just trying to be authentic to who this person was. So in hindsight, absolutely. And I had that realization years later where I was like, Oh shit. I want to live as this full time. And then I took a break from Cute Door, because I was trying to figure all of this out and my relationship to it now that I transitioned. Do I feel comfortable still dressing up as this character? It was this difficult thing, but then something happened where I was like, I have to write this group of songs, and then Cute Door 2.0 came out. It was very dark, very moody. That was Night School and it was very after school hours, dark suburbia. That’s how it got into horror films and then eventually got into me being in the woods. It was exploring the grit underlying the beautiful suburban fantasy.
Having grown up in the suburbs myself, there is something very dark about that environment. You always end up in the woods for some reason.
You get it. You go there to smoke and drink and explore. I’ve even heard of people hooking up as teenagers in the woods. It’s where you’d go to have some privacy.
It’s a very weird, isolating experience.
Yeah, it’s very bizarre. I lived upstate for most of my life in the suburbs. That experience, especially as a queer person, is isolating, but I also found it to be such a beautiful experience. I really, actually love being in the suburbs. When I’m up there, I’m constantly surrounded by my mom’s friends who own nice lake houses.
It’s very comforting.
Very comforting, but it’s interesting to also experience the darkness of it. That’s where I’m at now: flip flopping between this beautiful facade of pristine houses and lawns, and then this nasty side.
Through this darkness, where do you see things now as far as how you’re approaching music today?
I was obsessed with the darkness for so long, and now I’m trying to bring it back into the light and do more of this daytime, suburban stuff. Now it’s more of going back and forth, and I have so much more room to play with. But it’s interesting, especially doing a shoot today in Soho, because I want her to exist in the suburbs. To me, she doesn’t really exist in the city. But maybe she’s a suburban girl visiting the city to go shopping.
Well, what’s the difference between a suburban girl and a soho girl?
Exactly, the line is very thin. [Laughs] But I think that’s where I’m going with the project, just trying to branch out. Maybe she’s from the suburbs, but maybe now she travels to different places. She’s just a girl’s girl in Italy, or something.
It’s so interesting that you refer to Cute Door as somebody else. Is that actually how you think about your relationship to the project?
Absolutely, 100%. Every article of clothing I buy, every decision I make with my hair and makeup, or anything regarding my appearance, I’m always considering, What would Cute Door do? It’s interesting because it’s similar to drag queens in that they have two completely different wardrobes. How much do you want to invest in one or the other? And it’s difficult being a small, mostly independent artist, because I don’t have a stylist or someone doing my hair and makeup. So a lot of times I’m just searching on eBay. I’m such an environmentalist that I refuse to buy most new clothes, so I’m having to buy used Lululemon or whatever.
When does Cute Door turn on and turn off?
It honestly depends. It’s interesting that the lines are getting blurred, for sure. But I think again, at my core, I’m just more of a frilly boho girl. When I’m doing research, I’m seeing images of Kate Moss in the early 2000s and she was doing this boho, basic girl thing. So I’m like, Okay, there’s ways that I can do this without having to go full tilt one way or the other. I can blend these universes together.
There are nuances. People aren’t just one thing. It seems like this is more of character building exercise than styling, in a way.
And it can be overwhelming at times, but I understand that I’m my own worst enemy.
Being a perfectionist is torture. I say that as someone who’s also a perfectionist. I think it’s really cool that you’ve built such a focused world, and that focus is starting to pay off. When I look at the Cute Door images, I understand what it is. And when I hear the music, it’s surprising and exciting in relation to the image — but it still makes sense together.
Especially now that I’m trying to slowly incorporate more noise and glitch and experimental aspects into the project, I fantasize about the idea of this image of a perfect, suburban, normal, basic girl, but behind it there’s this weird, brooding, hard to listen to music. There’s something really interesting there that I want to play with.
Since we’re talking about Cute Door as two separate people, what parts of yourself do you see in the performance of the project?
That’s a difficult question. I don’t know, it’s difficult to know at this point. It kind of ebbs and flows. A lot of it is this standard trans girl dream of trying to be the perfect Barbie doll. I think there’s something kind of beautiful behind the fantasy and desire to want to fit this perfect feminine aesthetic. I would be lying if I said that’s not a driving factor of where my appearance comes from, this obsession with wanting to fit this certain mold that not just trans women, but a lot of women feel. Trying to recognize that and play with the darkness behind that is interesting. But it’s hard, because it’s such a slippery slope. Even if I want to play with these things performatively, there’s definitely still a part of me where it’s like, That shit is real.
It has to come from somewhere.
I think any performance you do has to come from somewhere. There is some part of you that sincerely wants to do this, whether you want to admit it or not.
Which probably makes it easier to have some sort of separation, because it’s like you can play with and examine and explore all these things without declaring, I am these things.
Exactly. With clothes, you can just take it off. You can deal with the discomfort of maybe not feeling like you’re fully yourself for a day or whatever. But when you start physically changing your appearance, a lot of these things you can’t undo. It becomes a permanent exploration of whatever you’re trying to explore.
And the internet is forever. So there’s the physical, but then there’s also the record of everything you’ve explored.
You’re so right. That’s a terrifying aspect to me and something else that I try to explore with Cute Door, this digital influencer thing where, in my mind, she’s a TikTok influencer. I tried that for a couple weeks, but I was like, I physically can’t keep up with this. I can’t even do this as a joke.
Keeping up with content is hard. I definitely have respect for influencers in that regard. When people are like, Influencers are awful, I’m like, They’re actually hardworking.
It’s a job. I gained so much respect. It’s so draining. That also ties into the whole obsession with appearance, because when I’m taking more TikTok videos, I’m like, Maybe I need to get this done or talk to my dermatologist about that.
You become so aware of yourself. I don’t think we were ever supposed to look at ourselves this much.
Even if you’re doing it ironically, you still absorb this stuff. It’s fucked up. [Laughs]
Let’s talk about music. Do you do it all by yourself?
I do it all by myself. One of my EPs, called Perfect EP, I worked on with my friend VOOR, who’s a producer. But that was my first time working with a producer and definitely a one off. I think a lot of it’s just because I’m a control freak. Actually, that’s a lie. I have a song that I’m working on with this producer named Ben Babbitt, who’s really amazing and I work with really well. But for the most part, whenever my management tries to set me up for a studio session, I’m just like–
No!
It’s hard, because it’s really difficult for me to describe the type of music that I want, or the type of feeling. I just have to do it myself. But also, I realized even if a song that was produced for me sounds good, it takes away half of the fun for me. I don’t get all of my enjoyment from writing lyrics and doing vocals, I also love doing the production. Being able to control the two helps marry both of them and helps to build the vision of the project. If I was trying to produce straightforward pop bops, it would be easier. But now that I’m trying to do something a little more nuanced, it’s difficult
The best person to capture all that nuance is probably you. Unless you work with someone for a long time and you start to have the same dialog.
I’ve tried working with a few producers, and I found that difficult — I was trying to describe or pin down what it was, but it turned out to be something I had to figure out on my own.
Tell me about the newest song, “Flashlight (Turn Me On).” I can’t stop listening to it.
I made it for a performance I did at this gallery, called Alyssa Davis Gallery. My friend Shelley Uckotter was showing her movie and she had a couple of people perform afterwards. I did this 20-minute long DJ performance set. It was all new material, so I did a lot of quick demos. And one of the songs was a demo of “Flashlight.” I had basically copied a beat from this song, called “Da Huncho Show.” It’s a rap song, but it’s an extremely simple beat. The percussion is just a kick drum and a snare or something. It was so stripped down and simple, and I was like, This is genius. I ended up changing the percussion completely, and sped it up and scrubbed it clean. So it no longer has ties to that original song anymore, but that’s been a fun way to make songs.
“Flashlight” is still pretty minimal, which is what makes it so cool.
I’m such a minimalist when it comes to music. Especially with pop music, so much of it is so maximal. You’ve got so many layers, pads, 500 vocal layers. I want my music to be stripped down, mysterious, very dark. But sometimes I have an issue with being too precious with my music. When I make something, I’m like, I don’t want to ruin this by making it too crazy. But I’m trying to be more comfortable making different versions of songs.
You can always go back. What I really like about “Flashlight” is that you can clearly hear your voice over the simple production. As we’re talking about the Cute Door character, it makes me wonder how much of that vocal delivery is connected to her as a persona. Even the extreme articulation of certain words feels deliberate — almost perfectly delivered. Is that how you naturally record? How much of it is consciously shaped in that way?
It’s definitely all considered. I usually end up taking a few vocal takes to make sure it’s exactly how I want it to sound. But through voice training, I’ve mastered how I want it to sound when I’m recording. When I’ve worked with producers, they hear my normal talking voice and it’s so much deeper than Cute Door’s. They’re like, Oh, we’re gonna pitch it up, but I’m like, No, I record differently. When I’m recording, I’m extremely close to the mic. I’m always trying to have a slight ASMR quality to it. I want everything to be understood. When I was talking to the guy who masters my music, he was like, I always master your vocals to sound like they’re right next to your ears, like someone’s whispering to you in bed. That’s exactly how I want them to sound.
It is very ASMR in a way that’s pleasing and a bit creepy. [Laughs]
There’s also an aspect too, where maybe you’re tied up and a psychopath is whispering something in your ear about what they’re gonna do to you. And you’re like, Fuck, what’s going on? [Laughs] There is definitely that horror movie aspect of someone giving you instructions: Okay, we’re going to go to this house–
It sounds convincing and alluring. But I think “Flashlight” is so successful because of its hook. You want to listen to it over and over and over again, it’s so easy to just keep streaming.
That’s also something I want to do with my songs. Along with making them minimal, I never want to make them too long. I love when a good song is a little too short and it pisses you off, where you’re like, I wish this was longer, but it forces you to keep listening. I want that feeling of wanting more.
“Flashlight” definitely has that quality. Is that like the other music you’re making now?
For sure. I’m working on a new mixtape that was supposed to be out this spring, but there’s no way I’m gonna be done. [Laughs] It’s also very dark, very minimal. “Flashlight,” honestly, could have been a song on it. I’m playing a lot more with bad MIDI instruments, like cheap trumpets and trombones and strings. I really want to bring it into that early Soulja Boy stuff where it’s a lot of stock FL Studio sounds. But it’s definitely a lot noisier. I’m interested to see how people will respond to it, I’m a little nervous.
What is your larger goal for Cute Door? Do you like being positioned in this more art, underground space, or do you see it becoming bigger?
I always have this push and pull. Part of me is like, It would be smart if I just buckled up and released a bunch of straightforward radio pop bops. But I also have recognized that the industry is not that straightforward and, even if I did that, it wouldn’t guarantee anything. Also, even when I’ve tried to make straightforward pop music, it never comes out that way. So I don’t think I really have a choice. I want to make sure that what I’m doing is authentic to me and hopefully the universe will reward it accordingly. But I also think I need to give people more credit. People like weird shit and they’re not just listening to mainstream music anymore.
I could see “Flashlight” becoming a big underground hit.
I think so too. That’s why my label is always trying to push TikTok videos, because that’s how a lot of stuff becomes mainstream, but it also feels kind of cringy in a way.
Well, is that not kind of the Cute Door character? I feel like she’d be all over TikTok, reviewing fancy grocery stores and doing food hauls.
You’re so right. I’ve done a watermelon mukbang. I did What’s In My Bag? videos. But right now I’m full head down working. When I’m working on stuff, I’m very much locked in my room.
Do you go out?
[Laughs]
Well, I ask because I’m curious where you envision this music being listened to?
I don’t really know. Part of me sees her playing MoMA PS1 or that type of vibe, because I have a history in fine art. But no, I don’t go out. I’m always in bed at 11. I honestly live a very suburban lifestyle. It’s very work nine-to-five, cook myself dinner, hang out with my boyfriend, make music.
I love that. In some ways, that lifestyle translates into Cute Door. It all makes sense.
I feel like Cute Door would go out to the bar with her friends and go clubbing and drinking. But I’m fully a sober individual.
You’re not hitting Basement? [Laughs]
No, I’ve had a few friends who have had mental breakdowns in Basement. I won’t touch Basement with a 10-foot pole, I’m scared. [Laughs]
You’ve got a nine-to-five and a boyfriend, you don’t need to go to Basement. [Laughs] Basement is for people without those things. But I agree, Cute Door does give, Going out with her friends. But it’s more like Lemon Drops at the bar, not crazy raves.
I don’t think she does drugs or anything. I think Cute Door’s mostly a good girl, but she definitely gets turnt on the Lemon Drops. [Laughs]
Interview & Photos: Justin Moran
Art Direction & Design: Zach Pacheco