Trashworld Want You to Embrace Being a Lil Weirdo

When we last spoke to Dani Miller, one part of the duo Trashworld, the singer was imploring us to explicitly celebrate our platonic relationships as much as our romantic ones - even declaring relying on “friend romance” to be the only way through this gross little world. It tracks that in the time since, Miller has been working on a slay side project with her model bestie, Ashley Smith.

Trashworld, the intimidating pairing’s band name, releases tunes combining the vibes of Ayesha Erotica with the world of hardcore - the kind of music you wish the club DJs would play instead of another TikTok-core, AI generated remix of My Humps.

For a Polyester exclusive, the pair sat down with each other to discuss being a furry, alien dance music and self care, accompanied by photos by Megan-Magdalena

Dani Miller: I’ve seen you nunchuck while you're singing. What other insane talents do you have that we should know about?

Ashley Smith: I'm pretty much a dance machine. I also am really good at math. I swordfight, I know a lot of different types of martial arts… I'm really good at drawing. I'm pretty much an actress. I do it all really? It's kind of it's annoying how talented I am.

So, Surfbort and now the freaky dance music of Trashworld. Did you think you'd be doing all this when you first started Surfbort 10 years ago?

And I haven't even launched my solo music yet! I'm doing so much music and I love it. I had no clue when I was screaming at house shows, mostly covers of Ramones that I would just be doing music the rest of my life. It's so much fun. As I've grown older I've kind of just realised there's so many different parts of who I am creatively and in all other aspects. So yeah, it's cool to do I think the more genres the merrier. Surfbort’s so weird, freak punk. My solo’s more cheesy Taylor Swift, and then Trashworld is just banging dance music so it's awesome.

Yeah, there's so many different sides to to you. It's really nice that you're giving the world a taste of all the flavours of Dani Miller.

Speaking of, I want you to do a country record. Because you're from Texas. 

The only time I ever felt comfortable singing was in like a Southern accent. It may still be that way. 

Let’s do a Trashworld country song. OK: I'm asking you more questions. I'm the best interviewer on the planet. What's your favourite Pokemon?

Probably like Umbreon or Sylvion. It's really hard to pick a favourite Pokemon. It's either like Bulbasaur, Ivysaur or Eevee evolutions.

I've seen you play Pokemon Go like, every second of the day.

It’s like my secret obsession. 

And it's not just old school like Charmander, Jigglypuff. It's like a billion different little weird dinosaurs.

There's so many new Pokemon, it's really hard to keep up. What inspires your personal style, Dani Miller?

I used to wear all black which is cool. I'm actually wearing all black right now. But my Surfbort drummer, who collects vintage clothes, was like “When I saw Black Flag when I was 16, I wore tie dye. So he really just gave me some more clown clothes and inspired me to go more rainbow styles. I found a whole new style with Trashworld, and it's so sick. I get to be like hyper-feminine and like an alien cyborg.

Alien cyborg hottie patottie Y2K meets bad acid trip.

That's our style, baby. But yeah, I don't know. I feel like Nina Hagen inspires me. 

Yeah, Nina Hagen’s the baddest.

Just like, freaky shit inspires me. Who are your main creative influences?

Style wise, it's changed so much. I always have like eight personalities in my closet, but right now I've been really vibing on Tank Girl. I'm really letting my inner nerd shine right now. So I'm inspired by anime and comic books, and Pokemon. I really love like old school, fucking L7. I really could listen to them all day.

And Poly Styrene. And Dolly! I always feel this way. But lately, I’m just feeling it extra. I love how she's like, “It's expensive to look this cheap.” Yeah, that's so Trashworld like, we're always like, trash, but dolling ourselves up.

This may not make any sense, but I always say that my three spirit creators are Dolly Parton. Andre 3000 and Freddie Mercury. Those are like my three things I pray to at night.

That’s so tight. 

If there was a singer or musician or producer in the world that you could collab with, who would it be? Like, anyone in the world, dead or alive?

I mean, maybe like Amy Winehouse, Kurt, and I mean Freddie? Cher’s sick. Everyone's sick. That's a good question!

I mean, you did do a collab, sort of, singing with Debbie Harry. That was pretty iconic.

All the people I love that are alive, I try to just party with and have a blast and make stuff with. So yeah, it already kind of came true, you're right. Debbie Harry. Singing Heart of Glass with Debbie Harry, I was like “Am I on drugs?”

Ways to get high sober. Just collab with the baddies.

Yeah basically. I’m trying to do Trashworld X Lil Uzi. He’s sick. He’s so punk. OK. Now I’m looking at questions to ask you. Are you a furry? Let's just get this out here. And let's just ask.

You think I'm a furry and a few of my other friends think I'm a furry. No shame. I think I may not know exactly the full extent of what it means to be a furry. But since I was young, I love my furry stuffed animals, and then in the last few years, I've gotten more comfortable with wearing furry things. My last Halloween costume was Sonic the Hedgehog and I feel like that kind of unleashed my love for furry, period. I just realised yesterday that I don't have a tail. And I'm thinking I'm gonna need to invest in that soon.

That’s a really important part of being a furry.

I have ears and paws and boots but I need a tail. I’m not a furry, but I’m furry-adjacent, maybe. 

And I'm like, not wearing the outfits. But every day I identify as an animal. I'm always like, “Yo, I'm a horse. I'm a pony. I'm a dolphin.” You know me.

We’re all animals. So it's just us trying to revert back to our original authentic form. Do you have any secret obsessions?

I mean, I watched the worst TV ever, but that's not that secret.

What kind of TV do you watch?

I watch all those like, Bachelorette-type like shows, and like home makeover shows. And Hoarders.

What’s the most recent obsession?

I just love eating cake while watching Is It Cake? Or any cake show. Cake Impossible or Baking Impossible. [Pauses to look at questions] Wait, one of your questions is “What smell do you most identify with”? OK I’m giving that question to you. 

I want to say something southern.

I’m into jasmine.

You give me jasmine vibes. In the house I grew up in, I grew up behind this blackberry orchard. And then there was like jasmine and blackberry everywhere. But it was also like wrapped around this barbed wire fence. So it kind of smelled like rusty a little bit. So I'm gonna say I'm gonna say rusty blackberries. Something southern and sweet, but a little bit like, “Has that got chemicals in it?”

We are working on a bunch of new songs right now, and an EP. Which song is your favourite, released or unreleased?

I loved making Alien Supersonic, that's such a banger. And then oh my god, the one we're about to put out, Juliette Lewis, is so freakin good. I'm stoked. And yeah. We’re just making the coolest shit. We have a really sick Trashworld collective. And it's just fun to make songs coming out of the apocalypse for people to just like, forget their problems and dance. Do you have any favourites? Or like a favourite line or something?

A favourite line? In Alien Supersonic it’s probably “Hit you real quick with my laser beams.” What's before that? “Rock your body, give into the groove…”

“...I really really like your bad attitude!” 

Alien party stuff. We sing about bubble butts and lasers.

We’re half angels, half devils with a bubble butt. 

What's your favourite thing to wear on stage for Trashworld shows?

Zana Bayne. She made me like this coolest spike stuff for tour and then I kept it. And then I mixed it with like, she made Trashworld head to toe outfits. We're so lucky. When are you the happiest? 

This is gonna sound super cheesy and like, staged, but I really am the happiest right now when I'm in the studio making new songs with you and whoever we're working with that day. I've also felt the happiest I've been, before the SAG strike happened, I was shooting a movie in the desert. And like, it's just an indie film, right? It's not like I'm hanging out in my big trailer or whatever. I'm just like hanging out in the styling room talking to the other actors, but I'm, honestlyI feel like I'm in the centre of creating stuff. And that's when I'm the happiest. When I feel like my creative voice is being utilised. In a way it makes me feel like I'm like, part of my purpose of being born or something.

It feels so good to create. I used to be running around being like, “I'm gonna be happy when I like, blow up and have a mansion. And I'm married to Post Malone, and Lana Del Rey’s my best friend, and I don't even know what the fuck I was doing. But now I’m just  happy with a simple life. Hanging with my besties making our music. It's so fulfilling and so much fun. We've had so much fun this year creating together. I'm so grateful for Trashworld. And I'm so excited to like make an EP, make a record, tour the world and just throw dance parties. That’s what makes me happy: Trashworld!

And being with your doggies. 

My puppies are the best ever. With puppies, life is the best ever. 

You think happiness is in all these things that society tells us? Like, designer bags and money and success. We both have had that and also not had that. And I think I might have been more depressed when I had like, the most amount of money in my bank account.

I feel the same. Like, I'm like, wow, life frickin’ rules right now. And I'm not like, a millionaire or anything. I just love making art and hanging out with friends and fam. 

So the energy around Trashworld is super fun and playful. But as individual artists, we both struggle with mental health issues on days when the world feels too much. And we're required to show up and create anyway. How do you keep pushing forward? And what sort of tools do you reach for?

Let’s both answer this. It's the pressures of girl bossing and surviving and paying rent and all that shit. And also wanting to like, make whatever art manifests in your brain. It's so much at once. Calling my besties, calling new friends, really helps me. Telling other people what I'm going through. Trying to like do my self care first before other things. Like kind of like the aeroplane thing, put your mask on first before you can put other people’s on, because yeah,I really realised I was not doing any self care. And just like hitting rock bottoms of stress. What about you?

I agree with the self care stuff, because I remember being like 23 and being like, “Self care is like a myth. I'm not going to notice if I don't like, give myself self love. That just feels like something somebody tells you, you know, like, you gotta love yourself before you love others.” But it's so fucking true. I needed to go through that journey of learning to love myself and quiet the world around me when I feel overwhelmed. I think the best thing for me to do is honestly meditate. I have to put my phone on silent, stay off social media. I think social media is literally built to sometimes make us sick. There are good things to it. But there's also a really dark side to it where we are ingraining a system of comparison. Comparison is the stealer of joy. I think meditation has been the biggest help to me, as far as how to get my head straight when I know I have to perform and I feel like garbage.

I agree with the loving yourself. I really figured out lately a deeper level of that. It’s cool to like, fake it till you make it, but then I realised “Oh, if I just associate loving myself with success, or with a tonne of likes or comments or something like that, it’s so fleeting. I use the internet as a tool to share my art, but I’m not using it as a form of measuring my self-worth or with success. That's helped me so much. Whereas before, I thought “I love myself, but I feel like shit.”

I think that redefining what success means to you even sometimes on a daily basis is okay. Like, sometimes success for me is like doing laundry and just giving myself patience and kindness when I feel like shit. Or just showing up to set and taking deep breaths and just getting through the day. That's a success. Like, it doesn't mean I have to be the funniest in the room and the and the sexiest in the room. 

That is so important to me now. Because now success comes as an extra gift. Or like, a Trashworld song was in a fashion show. And I was like, “Oh, that's just like a cool treat.” Whereas before I was girl bossing in a rat race like, “Oh my god. I hope I’m so successful. I hope that I pop off otherwise, I'm like, fucked.” It’s switching that whole perspective where you're just focusing on self care and showing up for other people and then the success comes naturally and it's just like an extra gift. 

Everyone goes through all their different shit, no matter if you look successful on the outside or whatever. I'm so happy that you're my bandmate and I love doing Trashworld with you. Everyone come out to the Trashworld show. And go dance in your room to Trashworld.

I love you, Dani.

Photographer: Megan-Magdalena | Clothes: Zana Bayne