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Madame Reaper\/Photo: Shawn Ruddy<\/p>\n
Only four years ago, journalist Kira Leadholm was covering Lollapalooza backstage in the press area, interviewing musicians, when she had an epiphany. She realized she didn\u2019t want to be backstage, she wanted to be onstage. \u201cThat\u2019s really when I started to dig into my music career,\u201d she says now.<\/p>\n
Leadholm, who has since adopted the stage name Madame Reaper, credits her journalistic background for giving her exposure to \u201clocal, national and global issues that I aim to address in my songwriting. I think this is a big reason my project has an activist undercurrent.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she clarifies that she hasn\u2019t worked in journalism for a few years, she says that \u201ca big reason I pivoted away from it\u201d is that \u201cthe state of journalism today is bleak. My friends who still work in journalism are paid next-to-nothing to work the worst hours and do a job that\u2019s physically and mentally taxing. Billionaires own major news outlets and are dictating editorial choices to suit their interests. Meanwhile, a massive portion of Americans get their news from social media, which breeds misinformation. None of this is a secret,\u201d she concludes, \u201cand yet we aren\u2019t acting with enough urgency to change the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madame Reaper\u2019s musical urgency is palpable, pulsing through the ten gothic synthpoppy songs on her second record, \u201cThis is an album because the industry says it\u2019s not,\u201d released in April. Nowadays she\u2019s doing all she can to distance herself from \u201cThe Gentlemen\u2019s Club\u201d part of the moniker. Given that this is really her solo act, she always plays with a band, but it\u2019s not always the same people, depending on schedules, and from a practicality standpoint, it\u2019s much easier to fit \u201cMadame Reaper\u201d on a poster, she relates.<\/p>\n
I ask Leadholm to take me back to before her 2023 self-titled debut, so she can \u201cfill in the blanks\u201d a bit regarding the creation of the Madame Reaper character.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started the project, I knew I wanted to separate my stage persona with who I am in my everyday life. I think doing so helps me be a better performer, because I\u2019m acting as a character, and it also helps keep my private life a little more private. I also knew I wanted my stage persona to address the themes that I discuss in my music\u2014sexism, class discrimination, and consolidation of wealth in the United States, to name a few. So, I got to work on making up a character that checked those boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n
With her undergraduate degree in creative writing and a specialization in fiction, she says, \u201cI have a lot of experience creating characters out of thin air. I drew on a lot of those skills when I made up Madame Reaper. I asked myself a million questions like \u2018what does she eat for breakfast?\u2019 (Whiskey and cigarettes at 2pm.) Or \u2018what did her parents do for work?\u2019 (They were Midwestern farmers.) Though most of this information will never see the light of day, it helped me build out a fully-fledged character.\u201d<\/p>\n
Musically, Madame Reaper\u2019s sound is couched in 1980s synthpop (amusingly, she calls it \u201cvampire synthpop\u201d on her Instagram profile), and Leadholm freely admits that has been her chief musical inspiration. I\u2019m hearing a lot of ABBA-like sounds on her latest release, but she seems like the type who doesn\u2019t suffer fools gladly, so I choose to \u201cdance around\u201d that idea, telling her I heard more of a 1960s sound on her debut album, and hear more of a 1970s sound on her latest outing. Thankfully, she confirms that I\u2019m not entirely wrong, and best of all, correct in what I was hearing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis is an album because the industry says it\u2019s not.\u201d\/Cover art: Kyle La Mere<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first album has certain songs, like \u2018Oh Penny,\u2019 where I intentionally wanted a sixties girl group sound \u00e0 la the Ronettes. I also listened to a lot of the Zombies, Velvet Underground and The Doors when I was writing that record, which I think comes through in some of the instrumentation. \u2018This is an album\u2019 sounds a lot like ABBA, which is quintessentially 1970s. I was also influenced by disco instrumentation on songs like \u2018Olympia.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Whew.<\/p>\n
Although Leadholm writes much of her music with her partner, guitarist Kevin Sheppard (member of Girl K, Burr Oak, etc.), she pens the lyrics exclusively, bringing in her journalistic background to craft stories in her songs, complete with characters, setting and narrative in mind.<\/p>\n
When asked to point to songs on her second record that particularly address the current political situation in the United States, she says \u201cprobably all of them.\u201d \u201cLyrically, I address political issues pretty obliquely, because I like to give my listeners space to come up with their own interpretations rather than handing them the meaning.\u201d Having said that, she says if \u201cyou watch my music videos, come to my shows, or follow me online, it\u2019s pretty easy to know where I stand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think each song [on the record] tackles a different side of capitalism,\u201d she continues, \u201cand it\u2019s all filtered through my point of view.\u201d Examples she cites include \u201cFeast\u201d (which is \u201call about challenging the patriarchy and traditional gender roles\u201d), and \u201cFalling apart again\u201d (which \u201caddresses the intense emotions I feel as a result of everything going on in the world\u201d). Reflecting on those emotions, she refers to a lyrical moment in \u201cDauphine,\u201d which uses the French Revolution as an analogy for class struggles today, when she sings \u201cAll the people they want my head\/I can\u2019t be king anymore.\u201d \u201cObviously,\u201d she explains, \u201cI wrote this before Trump 2025, but the sentiment was that people who hold political power are overstepping the bounds of their roles. This rings even truer now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of all the songs on \u201cThis is an album because the industry says it\u2019s not,\u201d she calls \u201cUtopia\u201d \u201cthe most obviously political song.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wrote it during the summer of 2023,\u201d she recalls, \u201cwhen the air quality in Chicago was the worst in the world due to Canadian wildfires. [Note: Until Chicago returned to the record books as the worst on July 31, 2025!] I was feeling really frustrated with the political precedent of business as usual and the narrative of American exceptionalism. I wanted to write a song that sonically reflects the tension between the \u2018American utopia\u2019 touted by politicians and the reality experienced by the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leadholm\u2019s looking forward to when the music video for \u201cUtopia\u201d debuts next month, calling it \u201ca campy, over-dramatized enactment of what the song is about\u2014political power and the state of the United States. It also touches on my background in journalism and how I feel about the state of the media, so it\u2019s fitting you asked me about those topics.\u201d She also promises that her roommate and \u201cresident music video czar,\u201d Shawn, animated \u201csome crazy footage\u2014there will be aliens, tornados, murderers and more. I can\u2019t wait for everyone to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If it\u2019s as visually arresting as her other music videos and the Cindy Sherman-inspired album cover photo for her latest release, it will definitely be a \u201cmust see.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Madame Reaper\/Photo: Shawn Ruddy<\/p>\n
The album concludes with \u201cTake My Hand,\u201d although Madame Reaper says it was actually \u201cthe first song I wrote on the album, I think in late 2022.\u201d But when she finished producing and mixing the demo, \u201cmy partner and guitar player Kev said, \u2018This feels like your first album; you could do better.\u2019 I rehauled the whole thing, and I\u2019m really proud of the end result. I chose to put it last because it\u2019s more indicative of the musical direction I\u2019m going in as opposed to where I\u2019ve been. It\u2019s a very electronic, very dancey song, which is what I\u2019ve been most interested in lately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Importantly, she adds, \u201cIt\u2019s also one of the few happier songs on a relatively pessimistic album. I wanted to end the album optimistically, so listeners aren\u2019t like, \u2018Fuck, now I\u2019m depressed,\u2019 after streaming the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though the subject matter might be grim at times, it\u2019s hard to imagine a user feeling depressed after playing this record end to end, or even out of order, for that matter. It\u2019s a rocking and dance-y good time musically, and if that helps Madame Reaper better communicate her point, then we\u2019re all the better for it.<\/p>\n
Having freshly returned from a short European Union tour and opened a show at The Burlington earlier this month, she\u2019s already started working with Pixel Grip\u2019s Jon Freund to produce her next album.<\/p>\n
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