In the world of emo and punk, fans and musicians are often separated by six degrees of Denny’s bacon. If it’s not popping up together in a corner booth at 3:00 a.m. to nosh after a show, then it’s bands bringing the concert to America’s favorite diner.
So it should’ve come as no surprise that up-and-comer Vienna Vienna found this common thread with Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz the first time they talked. “We had this crazy conversation about the Denny’s Grand Slam, of all things, and the punk and hardcore bands we liked. It was such a good vibe,” the 23-year-old artist, who also goes by J, recalled in conversation just days before his rambunctious new EP, Entertain Me, released January 16 on Wentz’s DCD2 Records.
That first meeting was back in 2023 after Wentz first got his hands on J’s private SoundCloud link and his ears perked. What the pop-punk vet heard in Vienna Vienna’s material, like the emotive banger “Sex Drugs Whatever” (which appears on the 2024 EP Wonderland) was a familiar thumping melodic pulse and witty lyrical tongue that brought to mind first impressions of Wentz’s other signee, Panic! At The Disco.
“As a Panic fan and a Fall Out Boy fan, it was such a cool compliment that [Pete] wanted to jump on board. I was like, you’ve written some of my favorite lyrics ever!” J said, before ruminating about two critical pieces of advice from Wentz that have stayed with him ever since. “One is, don’t be afraid to be earnest and two, to be truthful and straightforward. … I think they tie together—if I say what I mean in these songs, people enjoy it.”
The formula certainly works on the six-track Entertain Me, its title in some ways also indebted to Wentz. “I was going to call it Entertainment as a Gang of Four reference. I got on a phone meeting with Pete where I shared it, and he was like, ‘Entertain Me, that’s great!’ He must have misheard me, but it was so much better,” J explained of the eventual name, which also subconsciously captures “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Nirvana’s sarcasm. (With blonde hair and thrifted cardigans, J isn’t too far off from the look of Cobain, also.)
“It captured where I was at the moment, with a sort of modern-day yearning and search for something,” added J, reminding me he graduated high school in 2020, at the height of the pandemic shutdown when human touch was a rare commodity. “I was lonely growing up and there’s always been this modern want of connection that’s interrupted by the modern world.”
You can hear the Gen Z ennui on the ’80s-tinged thumper “Idle Hands,” a generational anthem which references OCD and existential boredom: “I fail to launch, but I’m the rocket man in my mind,” J waxes on the song. The single is buffered by the alt-rock gems “Molly” and “Buzz” that look for an artificial, substance-fueled escape. His softer side comes out on the pop ballad “Company Hunting” that equates the relentless search of trying to find good friends as a skill set that requires target practice.
“And then there’s ‘Monarch’ which in a lot of ways is the aftermath of all of that,” J added about the EP’s closer. “Once you’ve attempted all the connection, maybe you still feel disconnected. And at the end of the day, maybe all I really wanted was to be entertained.”
It’s a feeling that’s been bubbling up in J for a while and finally found release in the music he creates as Vienna Vienna, dubbing it “glimmer rock,” a code word that captures the big personality, shiny production, and fashion cues that accompanies his music. But in some ways, it’s also appropriate for the glimmer of hope he imparts too: Vienna Vienna is as cathartic for him as it is for the listener.
Like a good number of punks and rockers, J is an admitted recovering Christian. He first cut his musical teeth in worship circles in his native Fresno, California, until a sense of alienation set in as church teachings forced him to question his sense of self as someone who identifies as queer.
“I’ll give my church experience credit for learning six to eight songs a week on guitar and to sing. It makes you a really quick and ready musician. But I spent a lot of time in these worship bands, and I spent a lot of time in little plastic seats and praying, and the whole time I was hoping that maybe all of this would change what’s immovable within me, you know?” he shared in a revealing moment. “I think Christianity can be really beautiful for some people. I see the value that it has in people’s lives, but some churches that I know of have sort of preyed on young people’s feelings of incompleteness and loneliness. … The environment that I grew up in made me feel very unlovable and unwanted by a God that we’re supposed to think is the great creator. And believing that I don’t think he wants me is kind of just like an unbearable feeling. It teaches you to change yourself for love. And I don’t think that is a valuable lesson.”
Vienna Vienna clapped back at the hypocrisy on the brilliant and gutsy 2025 declaration, “God Save the Queens,” that first started attracting his own congregation of fans (to date, there’s more than 1 million streams). In the song, and the video that features “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Salina EsTitties, J advocates for the larger LGBTQ community that, like him, felt faithfully rejected. By preaching a message of self-love, J created a boisterous rocker that references Freddie Mercury, Bowie, and Little Richard as the chorus ponders, “How can Heaven be better if we’re not fitting together?”
As J distanced himself from the church as a young person, he soon found rebellion in music and began writing his own material by the age of 13. “Rock and roll is a church that I actually feel comfortable in, and I’m so grateful for that,” he declared. Upon moving to Nashville for college, J also started finding himself at copious punk, slowcore and shoegaze shows in between classes, specifically recalling formative nights seeing They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Waveform*, Teethe, Gouge Away, and Pinegrove. “That shit blew my mind!” he recalled, adding, “And then I did the typical, like, angsty young person thing, where all I did was lay in bed for six months straight and listen to three or four albums a day.” Built to Spill, My Bloody Valentine, and Radiohead were significant bedfellows, he said. “And I had my short but intense emo phase, with Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, and Built to Spill,” he added. “It really opened my eyes and gave me that same relief. It felt like church.”
Soon enough, J felt confident to try recording and performing himself, popping up at open mic nights and posting his opuses to SoundCloud, which serendipitously ended up in the right hands. “I initially had no plans to release the music, but I’m so glad I did,” he said, with a dose of encouragement. “So, any young artists checking this interview out, just go ahead and release your music.”
After he got the call from Wentz, J quit college and in 2019 moved to Los Angeles, where he’s embedded himself with an incredible network of do-good enablers and believers ever since. In addition to Wentz and recent supportive tourmate K.Flay, there’s Justin Tranter, the songwriter extraordinaire who has worked with Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, and Fall Out Boy, among many others. Tranter worked with J on “Company Hunting,” which he said was a game-changing experience.
“He’s incredibly good at finding the right story,” J admitted. “As I’m spouting and releasing all these ideas, he’s like, ‘That’s what I want to hear!’ That’s the story that we should tell.’ It’s why I love collaboration because there’s things that you miss in your own mind. Because to you, it’s just a fact about your life. But to him, he caught on to something. He’s a fucking beast.”
Being in Hollywood, TV and movies are also naturally on his mind. As we talk about the cinematic new video for “Idle Hands,” featuring an unhinged food fight that captures the internal longing of getting into it with jerk uncles and awful cousins at Thanksgiving dinner, J is also all too eager to point out the movie posters that decorate his wall behind him.
Among them are art pieces for Princess Mononoke and The Thing. “Those are probably my two favorite movies. I want to get the posters of my whole Letterboxd top four,” he joked. “But I keep changing. I guess Bladerunner would be the next one to get.”
Because, as the proud AMC Stubs card carrier believes, “There’s a lot to learn from a good movie, especially as a songwriter.”
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