Kim Petras: “Reinvent Yourself and Start Over”

“Fuck Laurel Canyon,” Kim Petras says, laughing, after she regains connection during our call on her way to LAX.

Discussing everything from her dislike of industry parties to the rebellious nature of her new music over the course of our conversation—which was intermittently interrupted by the notorious dead zones of the Hollywood Hills—Petras’s initial comment began to feel less like a snide aside about the terrain and more like the nonchalant mantra of an artist on the brink of an entirely new ethos of freedom.

While long in the works, the German pop star began publicly planting the seeds of her new philosophy just last month. On January 20, she tagged Republic Records in a tweet that began, “I’m tired of having no control over my own life or my career,” and ended with her announcing that she had issued a formal request to leave the label. In a series of tweets that followed, she explained that the label had refused to give her a release date and failed to compensate her collaborators for her upcoming album Detour, a project that she had finished over half a year prior.

In the weeks since, Petras has taken matters into her own hands, self-releasing a series of weekly Pretour singles produced by herself and the same cast of collaborators she worked with on Detour, including Frost Children, Nightfeelings, and executive producer Margo XS. Available exclusively via YouTube, the Pretour tracks—“Cha Cha”, “Mr. Producer (feat. BC Kingdom)”, “Pop Sound”—show Petras in the most honest, and arguably most innovative phase of her sound yet.

Her metamorphosis more than merely demonstrates her prowess as a pop experimentalist. In a cultural landscape dominated by monopolization, inequitable revenue models, and the routine imposition of checks and balances on creative processes, it also pierces the veil surrounding problems still unresolved in the industry.

A week after our shoot with Kim Petras, where she wore H&M Studio’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection, I spoke with the pop star about abandoning pop perfection in pursuit of a new sound, her debut DJ set at Berghain the week prior, and the making of Detour.

PHILLIP PYLE: You’re credited as a producer on all of your Pretour singles and your upcoming album Detour. How has it felt centering yourself in the production process?

KIM PETRAS: I didn’t really intend for it. You just have to ask and be like, “Hey, I made these chords,” or people won’t give you credit for it. I think that is important to bring up because I’ve always made demos, brought them to producers and been like, “Hey, can you help me with this?” – and been fine with not having that credit. But now, I’m just like, you know what? I can have it all. Just in general, my vision has intensified over the work that I’ve done.

I was hearing things in my head that I couldn’t really explain, and that I just needed to make myself. I think that’s a sign of growing as an artist, as a songwriter, as a producer. It's a mixture of being like, “I deserve production credit,” and finally speaking up on that, and wanting and needing to be more involved in my music.

PP: What has been surprising about being more adamant about putting yourself in the music?

KP: It's just been more fun, I think for everyone. I’m just more in it. But I'm also working with new people. I’m working with the Frost Children, Margo [XS], Porches, all these people – and that’s been so fun.

It’s also cool that I’m proving to myself that I’m capable of more than what I thought I was in the past.

“It feels like a return to trusting myself as an artist.”

PP: As someone who’s listened to your music for so long, this moment feels like a return to your experimental roots and your work with PC music producers in the 2010s. Does it feel like a return for you in any way?

KP: It feels like a return to making music that completely disregards what the bulk of people think or wondering if the mainstream is going to get it. The attitude behind it is, “I want to make the music that makes me feel good.” That music never left, but I couldn’t release it because it was not what people thought was going to be successful.

It feels like a return to trusting myself as an artist. But in many ways, it feels like a brand new chapter. I know what I like now, and lot of my older stuff was me finding myself. Now, I’m just nailing it harder.

There’s also a new approach of disregarding perfection a little bit. In the beginning of my career, I was super concerned with pop perfection and how you can make the cleanest, simplest pop songs. Now it’s like, how can I throw that all out of the window and actually bring more life into it? I'm a Virgo, so perfectionism is kind of the blessing and curse of everything.

So it also feels like a return to making music for me, my core fans, and the parties that I actually want to go to. Not like, the biggest festival to play, but the shit I want to go to. I love experimenting and transforming in music. My favorite thing is just switching it up all the time. Especially if I think about “Pop Sound,” or “Freak It,” or “I Like Ur Look” – those songs just feel like the shit I naturally make, it’s not trying to be like, “I want to try out this persona or this facet of myself.”

PP: You mentioned wanting to perform in places that feel more natural for you rather than the biggest venues. How did it feel performing in Berghain, both being from Germany and considering the type of sound you’re making now?

KP: That was so cool. Goal achieved for me, personally. But I don't think that would have been possible with the music that I've made before. I’m really getting into DJing, which is new to me. Like, that was my first official DJ set–

PP:–Biggest debut ever! [Laughs]

KP: [Laughs] Thanks, Berghain! It just feels so amazing and free.

I really need to party, and I don't necessarily like to at industry events and things like that. I don't know that I have the best time at Coachella, in the artist village or whatever. I have the best time in some kind of warehouse, where no one's taking pictures, and I look disgusting and my friends look disgusting, and we don't care about anything but dancing and music.

I want to play at those things. That actually feels fulfilling to me. It’s not that I don’t want to do big things, but the most fun I have is at things that are not for socializing. I’m not necessarily the most social person, to be honest. I struggle with industry talk. I just want to hang out and not think about social climbing, like at Hollywood parties.

There’s this recent thing where my body is telling me like, this feels right and this feels wrong. And I'm finally listening to it.

PP: I think that the EDM sound of your new music reflects this. I mean, EDM is such an immersive genre… it’s not anti-social, but you certainly shouldn’t talk over a bass drop!

KP: [Laughs] For sure. I love the EDM influences in this. It makes so much sense with me being German, too, but I just feel like there's so much to do with that genre right now. It feels really fresh, and it’s cool to try and reinvent it, and try to to make the pop songs that I make on that soundscape. I really have to credit the Frost Children, though. They’re the ultimate encyclopedia of EDM music.

PP: What’s it like working with Angel and Lulu?

KP: At this point, we’re really dialed in. It feels like working with family or best friends. It’s just cool to work with people who have their own worlds, and are super down to combine my world with theirs. And their vision is so clear. I think they're superstars.

It’s been so fun and has felt kind of rebellious or punk for us, honestly. We just make the shit that slaps the hardest, and really don't pay attention to classic songwriting rules.

PP: You’re also unique in that you've worked with both eras of EDM producers. You’ve worked with David Guetta and Kygo, and now you’re working with the genre’s more experimental, younger artists.

KP: You know what? For anyone who has anything to say about that, I think it’s so cunt that I signed to a major label and got my David Guetta song and got my big “this is what you do when you get a major label deal” thing. I always thought that was so cool, me kind of coming out of the left field and being like, you know what, I’m going to do to all the classic pop tropes and combine that with “selling out.” Also, I’m a huge David Guetta fan. He’s so fucking nice and just a lovely guy.

I think there’s more pressure, and more opinions, if you do a David Guetta song, rather than when I work with the Frost Children. Working with them feels like treading new ground. But, honestly, both were really fun and I loved both experiences. Working with the Frosties just feels more personal.

PP: Throughout your career, you’ve been labeled as a first in many things. With your recent and upcoming music, I’d argue that you're the first major pop star to fully take part in the EDM renaissance. Having been the “first” so many times, do you feel any sort of pressure to innovate? Does it ever feel like a hindrance on your own creativity when people project titles onto you?

KP: In general, I’ve never really cared about that so much. I always think that it's about who does something best, rather than first. I naturally flow with what’s popular, and being on the opposite end of that. I get so much joy out of playing with tackiness and what's cool and what's uncool, you know? Right now, there’s one personality that’s the cool personality to be. Right now, I think EDM is this nerdy pocket in music that’s not mainstream or socially acceptable yet.

It’s important to me to always find my own pocket and to be the anti-thesis of what's cool right now. There’s a whole thing about taboos in my career. Slut Pop, in general, makes so many people so uncomfortable that they can’t listen to it. But the people who fuck with it, really fuck with it

I love making music that divides opinions. I’ve just always liked that more than something that is on in the background and that everyone agrees is socially acceptable. When you’re playing music for friends, you don’t want to be one who plays the weird shit. But I love being the one who plays the weird shit. I make music for the aux robbers. That’s the kind of person that I love and that I am.

PP: Besides Frost Children, who are some of the other people that you’ve brought on to enhance your new sound on Detour, specifically?

KP: I met Margo [XS] a few years back at a party, and we just clicked. We’ve stayed in touch ever since. She’s the executive producer of Detour. She's taught me a lot about producing, honestly. She’s someone who’s really dear to my heart and special to me. She also taught me how to DJ.

It was just about this spark and vibe that we all had, and wanting to build a collective of people who all really clicked and who care about music being great rather than what could be successful, or what could play on the radio. We’re all tired of that way of thinking.

I think, first of all, they all care about me as an artist, care about music being great, care about pop, care about songwriting in a way that feels completely new – and shattering what I thought good music was, to be honest. Now, the stuff I used to make doesn't necessarily excite me.

“Everything I’ve made has been an escape, and escape is why I keep coming back to music.”

PP: Pop music, as a genre, is often described as an escape or fantasy. Have the recent changes in your own artistry felt more in line with this idea of pop, of it being lighter or more fun?

KP: It depends. I think I’m also able to go way deeper. If you listen to “Pop Sound,” for example, the lyrics are pretty dystopian and self reflective on what the machine made me into. I think that there’s a lot of dark themes packaged in a way that sounds really fun. But, in general, Detour, is this escape vehicle. Like, there is no turn, but I’m just going to drive off this cliff. There’s no path, but I have to do it. Like, when you’re standing on top of a tall building and, just for a second, you’re like, “what would it feel like to jump?” Or when you see a fire and you kind of want to touch it.

It’s that thing that you can’t help but want to do. It is funny that the album’s called Detour because I am fully breaking away from everything and creating a new path. It’s a new kind of escapism for me. In the past, escapism, for me, was pretending to be this bitchy, bratty girl who gets whatever she wants. I pretended to be this bitchy girl because my life is not like that, and I’m not that, and that inspires me to portray that. Escapism in Turn off the Light is thinking about murdering guys. Then in Slut Pop, I’m the most obnoxiously sexual person ever, when I’m actually a really shy person. Everything I've made has been an escape, and escape is why I keep coming back to music.

PP: What escapes or detours do you hope the album will provide for other people?

KP: Really crazy nights. And really good road trips.

I just want you to feel like you can break away from whatever your life is, at any point. It’s never too early or too late to do what feels right. I hope that can be the throughline, because I really relate to wanting to throw your whole life away and every version of yourself that you’ve ever been – to reinvent yourself and start over.

H&M Studio’s Spring/Summer 2026 Collection

H&M Studio’s S/S 2026 collection takes an unconventional approach to familiar design motifs. Hyperbolic proportions, architectural tailoring, asymmetrical cuts, and refined classic patterns are found throughout this collection, which spans design-forward garments and elevated staples. The H&M Studio Essentials line is now available online, and the H&M Studio S/S 2026 collection will be available in select stores and at hm.com on March 5.

Special thanks to Hotel Astrid.