Unveiling MochaJay: A Gender Non-Binary Artist’s Musical Journey and Social Commentary

Exploring Immersive Storytelling, Synesthesia in Music, and the Plight of the American Worker through MochaJay’s Creative Vision

In the second episode of Magenta Moon Presents: Garden Party, we sat down with our friend and collaborator MochaJay to talk about their new project. View the video or read through the transcript below. Cheers!

MochaJay: I love these dragonflies. Do you have any idea how old dragonflies are? Dragonflies were like one of the first animals that are on this planet.

Elaina: They’re really cool. I love these orange ones. There’s always, like, three that swoop around and if you’re lucky, you’ll watch them drink water from the pond.

MochaJay: So cool.

Elaina: So I am here with MochaJay

MochaJay: I’m MochaJay

Elaina: Hi, MochaJay

MochaJay: How are you?

Elaina: I’m really good. How are you?

MochaJay: Pretty good. I’m all right I’m all right. Highs, lows, expressing it all through art grateful to be alive. Pretty Zen right now. Yeah, love that.

Elaina: Sometimes the foliage helps with the Zen.

MochaJay: Yeah.

Elaina: So what have you always wanted to tell people about your MochaJay project?

MochaJay: Okay, so here’s the thing. MochaJay is a character. I’m a character. I’ve always been a character. But MochaJay is me. MochaJay is the thing that’s most representative of who I am right?

MochaJay exists in a world called “For damn sure´´ They work at a grocery store called “Ray Glow Things´´

It’s in the “Gotchu Fam Shopping Center´´

“The Gotchu Fam Shopping Center´´ is owned by a guy named “HorseVillain´´

There’s different characters. There’s this guy named HorseVillain who owns this whole thing. He’s funneling money through the shopping center. Ray Glow. Raymond Glow. He’s the owner of the of the grocery store. This whole thing is, you know, a whole story to tell the story of the American worker today. I’m gender fluid, MochaJay, the character is gender fluid. There’s a lot of content about acceptance and just being okay with who you are.

And ultimately, it’s a story of MochaJay finally maybe getting like a little bit of recognition for their art, but more importantly, finding out a really deep, underbelly plot from what’s going on with HorseVillain and him funneling all of this money through all of these various businesses. So a little bit of crime, a little cool, a little bit of interest.

Elaina: So MochaJay is basically a social justice superhero in a way.

MochaJay: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elaina: Who also happens to make amazing music.

MochaJay: Also happens to make amazing music and happen to make amazing music with you guys. A few nights ago, I’m actually used like a novation circuit or pocket operator, just looping devices, groove boxes that’s what they call them and come up with stuff on the fly. But these things I’m coming up with on the fly are actually kind of part of the musical. These are these are different like scenes in the musical. So like I have these things written out, but I prefer sort of freestyling, like kind of free form, freestyling on stage. I don’t know why I have mental blocks when it comes to just doing lyrics and memorizing lyrics and stuff like that. I’ve done it. I have a song prepared that I actually have pretty polished.

I’ve done it, a lot, you know, a lot. But when it comes to trying to express what I actually mean right now, because there are things that are still happening in my life right now. I’m gender fluid. People in my family and people in my life are pretty transphobic. I had to, like, cancel my wedding over some pretty apparent transphobia and, yeah, things of that nature. So these things are ongoing in my life. And so in order for me to really express myself and express what’s going on in my life, I write those things into the script.

And so I write those things into scenes and write those things into like, what this character or that character’s talking about at this particular moment. And so, yeah, the, the musical continues. It’s getting to a point where it’s like, okay, I’m, I’m finally able to like, really like, see, like the end in sight. And once I have the script completed, that’s when I’ll start to cast.

MochaJay: I used to do theater. I was a theater director for, okay so that’s, that’s another thing you need to know. Spencer Tatum, the person who is behind MochaJay I used to direct theater for a lot for a number of years throughout L.A., Santa Monica Boulevard and just independent stuff. You know, some of the some of the stuff was local. Some of the stuff was in Venice, and it kind of died out just before 2020 and 2020 was definitely the end of it. Like, okay, I know I can’t even do it anymore.

And so that’s when I really started to focus far more into like music recording and into like,  I’ve always I’ve always been a musician, I’ve always been making music, but it’s more just been like, I’m doodling on the piano, making these songs cause I like them, you know? I mean, whatever, as opposed to like, I have Ableton, I’m actually recording it. I’m like, I have a set list. Like, All right, cool. And so now at this point, like, it’s hard for me to write lyrics sometimes. So instead of writing lyrics, I just write scenes.

Elaina: Yeah. Okay. What does that process look like for you?

MochaJay: Really, It just comes to two different things. It comes to me just jamming and just coming up with songs and finding out like, because I have synesthesia, I kind of like I associate various notes with various colors and because I have a good idea of the character models of the different characters that are in this, musical Cacao Nibs is, you know, the love interest of MochaJay They have a whole color scheme. MochaJay has a color scheme, HorseVillain has a color scheme. And because of all of their, like, different moods and, their character breakdowns, I’m able to identify, okay, well, this song is obviously a this person’s, this is obviously this person’s song, is obviously that person’s song. I can kind of discern who’s song is who’s and then kind of break down what part of the musical that goes into.

MochaJay: And you know, what part of the story that goes into. And yeah, that’s kind of how I do it really evil, know, nasty industrial sounding songs are like HorseVillain, really repetitive songs a lot of times are Ray Glow. There’s some like kind of like shy, very tender songs that are Cacao Nibs a lot of like, like a lot of my like very rambunctious, most of my songs are, are MochaJay because it’s told from MochaJay perspective. So yeah, that’s, that’s kind of how I break it down.

It’s sort of a way for me to work through my issues right now with trans acceptance in not just the country but also in my personal life. It’s a way of me dissecting the, the anger of the American worker right now, not just because of, you know, wage disparity, but also because of things like AI you know, replacing people. And really tell you the truth, I think that AI is going to replace us all. We have to be okay with that. And eventually it’s going to turn to a different, you know, form of economic systems and we’ll have to completely rethink the way we think, even think of capitalism and all this other shit like it’s going to it’s going to change a bunch of shit whatever. That’s I don’t even want to turn and turn this to a conversation about that. But it’s it is one of the things that’s like really bothering a lot of workers right now and working at the grocery store that has self-checkout. I actually have this conversation on a daily basis.

Of course, it’s going to work its way into my art. But yeah, and that’s kind of why I have the  HorseVillain character that’s just like kind of pointing more at like, the absolute absurdity of the wage disparity and just how Disney villain like these business owners, that is the CEOs of these corporations are getting with the with the you know, price gouging and with, you know, everybody getting fucking evicted like all at the same time like a couple of months ago.

MochaJay: And, you know, that happened to a lot of my friends. I’m lucky enough that it didn’t happen to me. But it’s sad, you know? And so, yeah, there’s some pretty central themes towards this musical Yeah.

Elaina: Definitely

MochaJay: Sorry

Elaina: No. Thanks for sharing. There’s a lot of amazing stuff there. Do you see it becoming also like a concept album or a recording of the musical? Would you want like the original cast recording that?

MochaJay: Yeah, yeah. So pretty much what it would be is I would want to–so when I was doing improv at CSU Monterey Bay, I got a chance to work with some pretty great improv professionals.

They were fantastic. I want to set it up so that we, we all understand the basic structure of each song. Maybe. Maybe there are some songs that are heavily structured. I mean, there are some songs that we do need to say. These things, these plot points need to happen. But I do also like the idea of incorporating a little bit of a jam, incorporating a little bit of a this, a little bit of that, and really having, you know, the actors get into their character and get into the psyche of their character so they can really speak from the character’s perspective.

MochaJay: And so I would like to have an ever changing show that still kind of tells the same story, but is a little bit more freeform. And we have a strong structure, a strong skeleton. We know what these songs are about and we know what plot points we need to get to. But similar to like–

Elaina: Like jazz.

MochaJay: Similar to jazz or like similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Elaina: Yeah.

MochaJay: You know something like that where you have a, you have a structure but you’re, but you’re not actually like, like strongly scripted until you get to this actual script part until until the song stops. And then you need to actually move the, the plot forward. 

Elaina: And then like one day the person that plays MochaJay, which I assume would be you or some someone like Ray Glow suddenly wants to take the show a completely different direction. You’re like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, let’s go for it.

MochaJay: Yeah, Yeah.

Elaina: If you trust the person,

MochaJay: that’s exactly. I’d like to trust my actors enough to be like, okay, if we want to do that for the show, we can do that for the show. I’d even like to incorporate some type of choose your own adventure via Instagram, but that would be a completely different rendition of the show, right?

Elaina: Well, I love that so much because I feel like one of the things about musical theater is that like, despite having like alternate casts and stuff, there’s like, there’s like, this idea that you’re trying to make it the exact same as the night before or something.

MochaJay: Yeah,

Elaina: like even though it’s a different audience and often a different cast, but, like, what if the goal is to embrace that it’s going to be different every time?

MochaJay: Exactly like, okay, here’s the thing, is that one of the things that’s really driving me towards this is that there is a void in these immersive worlds that we used to love because some of the people who made these immersive worlds are kind of assholes. Like, for instance, take I don’t want to say her name, but Voldemort, let’s call it, let’s call her Voldemort.

Elaina: She who must not be named.

MochaJay: She will not be named. You know, we see this really great, magical world, really great, awesome world. And now nobody even wants to be involved in it. Or Game of Thrones, for instance, which was great until the last couple of seasons. And then it kind of died out. No one even really talks about it anymore. And so, like, there’s kind of a void of these like really immersive worlds, but I don’t think any one of them really spoke towards the like the plight of the American worker having to deal with bullshit customers while also feeling absolutely exploited. And half of your coworkers are on the verge of homelessness, if not homeless.

Elaina: Yeah. This is highly needed right now. So who is your ideal audience?

MochaJay: Well, of course the LGBTQ community, but also just, you know, anybody who’s frustrated with their job and is ready to fucking quit. You know what I mean, some of my jobs, some of my songs are really, like, heavily inspired by like Dolly Parton, 9 to 5, you know what I mean, that type of shit.

Elaina: Yeah.

MochaJay: I mean, people think that like, yeah, you do. You do musicals. It’s you must be inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It’s like, not, Well, yeah, cool. But like, also like Gil Scott-Heron.

Elaina: Yeah, Yeah.

MochaJay: I mean, like, it’s heavy influence, you know what I mean? And so, like, I just want I want every single character and, every single detail to be something that you can just get very, very lost in.

Elaina: Yeah, that’s really awesome, so what like taking all this into account, what is your live performance set looking like these days? Can you explain like what can we expect from a live set by you?

MochaJay: So when you see me live, usually what if it was a if it was a solo show, I would love to have a synthesizer with me. My favorite synthesizer is a mini nova by Novation but really, my travel rig is totally fine and is totally capable of telling the story. And it’s all I need. All I need is a Novation circuit rhythm. That instrument is deep enough. It goes, You could build an entire set around it and you can invoke enough emotion and tell entire stories, which I’m going to tell one of the stories here today.

MochaJay: But in order to like kind of like let’s get a little bit more emotion out of it, you know, do a little bit more than that. I oftentimes bring a pocket operator with me. Pocket operators are really popular in the synth community. They’re like a groove box on their own. Pretty much. It’s a it’s a it’s a drum machine sequencer, synthesizer, all those things. So I bring a pocket operator with me. I’m able to add a little bit more drums or add an extra synth voice on top of what I’m doing to accentuate what particular character talking or just a solo over something, you know what I mean, and yeah, essentially what you would see me with is, yeah, a circuit rhythm and maybe a pocket operator or two.

And they have the essential things to set those up, including a dude mixer. Anybody who’s gigging get a dude mixer by Bastl, B-A-S-T-L

They are, they’re, they’re really cool. This is not sponsored. I’m not sponsored by Bastl But they also just came out with another mixer. That’s pretty much the same thing. But in stereo, it’s called The Bestie. Get a small mixer. It doesn’t matter if it’s those thing, if it’s those two, but get a very small mixer. Thank me later. Something like that’s like can fit inside of  in the palm of your hand so you can connect multiple instruments.

MochaJay: It’s it’s the best thing. But besides that. Yeah, all I really need is a circuit rhythm. I don’t even really need the mixer. All I need is a circuit rhythm. I can do everything I need with just that one instrument. It’s like my guitar. And I play guitar, I play bass, I play piano. I don’t need any of those things anymore. It’s really interesting. It’s like and once you start to understand it, you start to really get like how it’s just as deep as any of those any of the other instruments that I play. You know, it’s really cool. I like it.

Elaina: Awesome. I’m really excited to hear it in action. But last quick question. What’s your favorite thing about your own music?

MochaJay: My favorite thing is that I can tell my truth and that I would continue making it even if no one was watching. I’m going to continue making this  world and continue making all of the characters because I need to and because it’s therapy for me.

I mean, it’s therapeutic for me. I’ve been in some really dark places recently for being completely honest, and I wholeheartedly believe that being able to tell my stories through my music has absolutely saved my life, and it stopped me from doing some really dumb things. So I, I love that I it’s a it’s a gift that I’ve given to myself and that anybody can get for themselves. I hate when people say, you’re so talented. It’s like talent is literally just a manifestation of practice. And thank you that you that you’ve that you’ve  called me talented, I take it with grace. Thank you so much. You’re amazing. Thank you. But you are also capable of the same thing.

MochaJay: And I don’t have also talented. any more hours in the day than you do. And all I’m doing is just trying to save my own life by telling my own story and the best way that I know how and then you call me talented. And I know and you know, cool, great, fantastic. But you are also talented. Everyone is talented in their own ways and in ways that they take for granted. And that’s also another thing. One of the other stories that I want to tell with this is just to love yourself, and how important that is.

Elaina: Thank you. So beautiful. Well, come see MochaJay at the Moon Rock Cantina They will be tearing it up and we’ll all be dancing and laughing and singing. And I wish you the best of luck. I cannot wait to  see this show and help in whatever way I can.

MochaJay: Thank you. Thank you.

Elaina: I want you to have your own theater for it. And yeah,

MochaJay: I appreciate you guys. You guys are you guys are awesome.