{"id":5843,"date":"2025-10-10T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/taylor-momsen-interview\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:00:00","slug":"taylor-momsen-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/taylor-momsen-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic, Music, and Movies: Taylor Momsen Is Seeing Things \u2018in a New Light\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2216384424-e1759861956848.jpg\" width=\"1290\" height=\"709\" alt=\"Taylor Momsen of the Pretty Reckless performs during AC\/DC's Power Up Tour at Nissan Stadium on May 21, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Credit: Tibrina Hobson\/Getty Images)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Taylor Momsen sits at a desk in her New York City apartment, the place she\u2019s called home since she was 12, a sign hangs just beyond her right shoulder: \u201clove\u201d written in cursive pink neon. \u201cWelcome to my home,\u201d she says, fresh faced and smiling, a natural beauty in black wide-rimmed glasses. In August, her band the Pretty Reckless released their newest single \u201cFor I Am Death,\u201d and in the video Taylor <em>personifies<\/em> death itself, morphing into a slithering Middle-earth-esque manifestation, slick in all-over black body makeup.<\/p>\n<p>When Taylor and I talked last year for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2024\/03\/as-pure-and-raw-as-it-can-get-the-pretty-recklesss-going-to-hell-turns-10\/\">10th anniversary of <em>Going to Hell<\/em><\/a>, we discussed the original art applied to her back for the iconic album cover. \u201cThere\u2019s something very freeing and pure about being as vulnerable and as exposed as possible,\u201d she says, because actual nudity is often a non-option. \u201cI use paint in different forms to cover up. I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s a recurring theme as we keep making music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/10\/still-holding-on-pierce-the-veils-hard-won-victories-follow-from-tragedy\/\">Still Holding On: Pierce the Veil\u2019s Hard-won Victories Follow From Tragedy<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/10\/no-doubt\/\">No Doubt Reuniting For Sphere Residency<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/10\/5-albums-i-cant-live-without-kyle-stoopid-of-slightly-stoopid\/\">5 Albums I Can\u2019t Live Without: Kyle Stoopid of Slightly Stoopid<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The paradox of power and vulnerability may just define Taylor in many ways. On October 10th, she\u2019s re-releasing the sweet song she sang as Cindy Lou Who for 2000\u2019s <em>How the Grinch Stole Christmas<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/ffm.to\/tprwhereareyouchristmas\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cWhere Are You Christmas?<\/a>.\u201d The fact that it\u2019s the film\u2019s silver anniversary is a complete coincidence, but rather a result of\u2014in addition to finally acquiescing to pleading fans\u2014a storied journey that brought her to revisiting and embracing her past.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"830\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-163438926-1290x830.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-474651\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-163438926-1290x830.jpg 1290w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-163438926-340x219.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-163438926-768x494.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-163438926-498x320.jpg 498w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-163438926.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Taylor with Jim Carrey in a scene from  \u2018How The Grinch Stole Christmas,\u2019 2000. (Credit: Universal\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While Jim Carrey played the title character, it was 6-year-old Taylor, with a wigged blonde basilica on her head, who is the beating heart of the film. <em>The Grinch<\/em> is highly stylized and vividly fantastic, but little Taylor, who\u2019d started acting when she was 2, shines with genuine hope and fortitude, purity and joy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In a <em>Grinch <\/em>promo interview for WFAA, Taylor, who\u2019d tuned 7 by the time the film was released, stated: \u201cI love fantasy no matter what story it is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stand by that,\u201d Taylor says, not recalling the interview. \u201cI stand by that statement today. It\u2019s just proof that you never really change as a person. You\u2019re born the way you are, and you grow and you evolve, but you\u2019re that same person for the rest of your life. At least that\u2019s true with me. I think you\u2019re born with certain instincts and values. I guess values are taught, but inherently, you\u2019re born with some kind of center. I think that\u2019s the key to life.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you can manage to not lose that as you get older, that\u2019s everything. Especially as a musician, as an artist, I spend a lot of time trying to maintain my childlike mind to a degree, because it\u2019s so important and so necessary for writing, and yet still be an adult with responsibilities and bills and all the things that come with being a grown-up. I think that\u2019s the key. I think that\u2019s the key that everyone forgets. You\u2019ve got to remember who you were as a kid, and if you can hold on to that, you\u2019ll always be good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"z1XRh1JZpPs\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Despite audience requests, she resisted the idea of reviving \u201cWhere Are You Christmas?\u201d since starting the Pretty Reckless at 14; the initiative, for her, had to come with a purpose. It wasn\u2019t until 2020, going through a time she describes as \u201ca very difficult period\u2026with a lot of loss. COVID had just hit. We were in lockdown, and it\u2019s the holidays again.\u201d And she was with her band, hanging out, and the requests for a rock version of the song she sang 20 years earlier kept coming in. So, they (probably, somewhat begrudgingly) played through the song. \u201cBy the end of [\u201cWhere Are You Christmas?], these four miserable, jaded, pissed-off, depressed people had giant grins on our faces. Just undeniable, couldn\u2019t help it, huge smiles, laughing, having the best time. We all turned to each other and we went, \u2018Was that just great? I think that was just magic. I think there was something really special about what just happened, and I think we have to do this now.\u2019 That was the jumping-off point with COVID, of going back to my childhood and realizing, after having been through such a hard time, wanting things to be simple again and wanting things to be joyful. This song and this memory of filming this movie and being a part of this, I never had a tainted memory about it. <em>The Grinch<\/em> was something that I hold very dearly and have very fond memories of.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1596\" height=\"1598\" src=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Taylor-Momsen-Christmas-Album.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-474653\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Taylor-Momsen-Christmas-Album.png 1596w, https:\/\/www.spin.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Taylor-Momsen-Christmas-Album-340x340.png 340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1596px) 100vw, 1596px\"><\/figure>\n<p>The experience inspired Taylor to write an entire Christmas record. \u201cIt\u2019s this little coming-of-age story and this full circle moment of me accepting my past and embracing it and realizing that you never really do change, with the intent of just wanting to purely spread joy to everyone. It\u2019s a very hard time for everyone right now if we\u2019re being real about it, and I just wanted to bring happiness. I wanted to bring joy to the world, to quote another Christmas song.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new version of \u201cWhere Are You Christmas?\u201d \u201cmorphs\u201d childhood Taylor\u2019s original vocals into her own now, a concept she says exemplifies the magic of one\u2019s childhood self. \u201cTo be a part of something that is so universally loved feels surreal, now, 25 years later, and also has been very cool. I wanted to continue that joy and bring fresh life to it from my own perspective as a grown-up Cindy Lou Who.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But music, she says, was always her everything\u2014not acting\u2014knowing from a very young age she wanted to write songs, something she did while filming <em>The Grinch<\/em>. (Young Taylor was clearly an avid animal lover, as one song was about her father\u2019s dead dog, and another was called \u201cRescue a Pet.\u201d) With all the fluctuation from her early childhood acting career, songwriting provided an all-important grounding. \u201cWriting was this place where I could truly be me without any affect, without having to be this version of me, or this version of me. It was the purest form of myself because it wasn\u2019t for anyone. It was just for myself, and it still remains that. My notebook was my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/25-06-18_Scene-1_Hero-Cover_1117.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-474657\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/25-06-18_Scene-1_Hero-Cover_1117.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/25-06-18_Scene-1_Hero-Cover_1117-340x340.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/25-06-18_Scene-1_Hero-Cover_1117-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/25-06-18_Scene-1_Hero-Cover_1117-498x498.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(Credit: Steph Gomez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>The Grinch<\/em> also provided Taylor with her first experience in a professional recording studio, with none other than legendary film composer James Horner (<em>Titanic<\/em>, <em>Braveheart<\/em>). The entire experience, she says, changed her life. \u201cI left that experience going, \u2018That\u2019s what I want to do.\u2019 That was magic. That was everything. There\u2019s a really great photo of me, holding a stuffed animal, sitting at the console with my chin on my fist listening to the song with James Horner sitting next to me. Fast forward years later, there\u2019s another photo of me and our producer, Kato, sitting at the console, and I\u2019m doing the exact same thing. It\u2019s a mirrored image, except I\u2019m now 20-something. It just reassured me that all my crazy decisions in life of quitting a career [in acting] and pivoting and joining a rock band to go on the road and grind it out, and all those things, that was my path. That was the path that I always wanted. I fought for it and went for it, and now I\u2019m doing that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a scene in <em>The Grinch<\/em> where little Cindy Lou Who is walking up a mountain to the Grinch\u2019s nefarious lair. Director Ron Howard later told her the story. \u201cIt was a big mountain. I actually am walking up the mountain, so it was a very long shoot, but there was no dialogue or anything. I was miked. I shoot the scene. I come down, and everyone\u2019s laughing, and I don\u2019t understand why everyone\u2019s laughing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going, \u2018Why is everyone laughing? What\u2019s so funny?\u2019 Turns out I was humming the entire time up the mountain, not knowing it because I was always singing. I was always humming. I was always writing songs. I always had music in me, which I feel very blessed about because it\u2019s just something that came really naturally to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"856\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-1290x856.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-474655\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-1290x856.jpg 1290w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-340x226.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-240x160.jpg 240w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-1536x1019.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810-498x330.jpg 498w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-51102810.jpg 1656w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Taylor in a scene from \u2018The Grinch.\u2019 (Credit: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Today, she says she\u2019s in a good place, well-earned after some dark and difficult years, the same that inspired the Pretty Reckless\u2019s fourth studio album, 2021\u2019s <em>Death by Rock and Roll<\/em>. \u201cLiving in that space, I had to make a very conscious decision at one point of I was on a very bad path, and I was going to die. I had to choose if I was going to live or die, and I made a very conscious decision to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was the beginning of Taylor looking back at her childhood in an attempt to rediscover her true self. \u201cWhen I lost some of those people, I couldn\u2019t listen to music anymore. It brought me so much pain I couldn\u2019t deal. To lose an outlet like that, where this music has been such a solace for me, to not have that anymore was terrifying. I felt like I really lost myself.\u201d She says she began almost in chronological succession identifying and reintroducing the things that brought her joy in her early years, starting with the first band she fell in love with: the Beatles.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And part of this process included going back into her past film and TV work, \u201caccepting them and seeing them in a new light.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She says she\u2019s comfortable now, stronger.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was always very me, but\u2026you go through phases. I had my rebellious youth, where I was extra angsty. I wanted to be something and was fighting for that, and now I just kind of <em>am<\/em>, and that\u2019s just a really nice place to be. I just feel very comfortable in my own skin and all aspects of myself, and I\u2019m not living in a place where I\u2019m shutting off any part of me. I\u2019m firing on all cylinders, and it\u2019s good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m still that little girl humming, walking up the mountain. I really am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taylor Momsen sits at a desk in her New York City apartment, the place she\u2019s called home since she was 12, a sign hangs just beyond her right shoulder: \u201clove\u201d&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,4080,24,2402,3581],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-how-the-grinch-stole-christmas","category-pushly","category-taylor-momsen","category-the-pretty-reckless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}