When Caroline Weinroth stepped onto the stage to compete for the title of Miss Virginia, she played electric guitar.
For the D.C. indie musician, who performs under the alter ego Cinema Hearts, pageantry and music have long gone hand-in-hand — from dazzling the judges with her surfy guitar riffs to leveraging her position as Miss Virginia to advocate for better female representation in music, all while gigging around the D.C. area on the side. Weinroth’s brand-new EP, Your Ideal, is the latest ode to her bittersweet relationship with the stage — a grungy and glamorous look into the highs and lows of American pageantry told through the lens of the ex-pageant queen herself.
The five-track power-pop EP, produced by fellow D.C. indie powerhouse Bartees Strange, pulls from Weinroth’s own experiences competing for Miss Virginia, conjuring the jealousy, ambition, and dysphoria that come with clawing tooth-and-painted-nail for the title of America’s sweetheart. The ballad-rock opener “Mirror,” and grungy, tongue-in-cheek “Your Ideal” are nods to the ridiculously-rigid expectations of pageantry, while the concluding track “Sister,” examines the bonds Weinroth formed with her fellow contestants, despite being pitted against each other. Middle tracks “Everyday is a Day Without You,” and “Can I Tell You I Love You,” swap crowns for romance, briefly forgoing the overt themes of pageantry to wax on about falling in love and longing to be loved back. As Weinroth tells BREAKOUT, “The secondary theme of the album is wanting something so bad that you’re willing to compromise your own personality or yourself for it, whether that’s, ‘I want to be Miss America,’ or ‘I really want this person to love me.’ I think the overall theme of the record was me seeking love and validation through other people’s opinions.”
In honor of Your Ideal’s release, Weinroth recently sat down with BREAKOUT over Zoom to talk about musical inspirations, working with Bartees Strange, and the similarities between local pageantry and being a DIY musician. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
BREAKOUT: You’ve said that competing in pageants and performing in a DIY band are pretty similar experiences. Tell me about that transition, from one stage to another.
Weinroth: Sure. I guess to put it into context, I was doing both at the same time, which was very interesting. It was very tiring after a while, but it also made me see [that] the similarity is even more jarring. So I did Miss America, and the way that that pageant system works is there’s a local pageant, then the winner goes on to the state and the state goes on to the national. So at the national level, that’s the one that’s on T.V., that’s the big production. And even the state level can be pretty big. But the local level, it’s very, they wouldn’t call it this, but it’s very DIY. It’s very much set up in a school theater or a church or I’ve seen some set up in random lobbies of office buildings. And I always found it really funny that on stage to the public, it’s a very glamorous poised show. But backstage, the contestants are changing in bathrooms. And there are times also when you are a title holder, a winner, and you go to these different appearances and you’re getting changed in the gas station or you are putting on your makeup in the van. It’s that kind of idea. And I felt like when I was driving around to all these different pageant events, it just reminded me of all the times I’ve been driving around on tour.
BREAKOUT: You’re really outspoken on this record about the downsides of competing in pageantry, kind of like a love-hate relationship. And so I’m wondering, now that you’re on the other side, is this an experience you’re glad that you had?
Weinroth: Absolutely. It absolutely is. The thing is, I love pageants. I love it because it satisfied this need for me to do theater, or I often also compare it to how some people love doing drag shows or some people love doing DIY music or some people like doing burlesque. I think my one regret is that I was not confident enough at the time to just be myself and do things how I wanted. I was very, very anxious. And I think that’s my biggest critique of pageantry overall is I wish that the people who are putting it together would just at face value accept that there are women who want to do it and give their all to it. But you have to be able to accommodate for their mental health and their time and their money. And I think that there’s a big, big disconnect there. I mean, there’s things I don’t like about the music industry, you know. But I think in the music industry, with other musicians, we’re able to come up with more solutions and there’s much more flexibility on how you can approach something. Whereas in pageantry, honestly, it’s kind of a cult. Like if you said anything to critique it or to offer for improvement, people might shut you out. And I think that can be very, very toxic.
BREAKOUT: So the EP focuses mainly on these themes of pageantry, but then there’s those two sort of 60’s style love songs in the middle. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the decision to include those there.
Weinroth: You know, it just happened that Bartees the producer, Bartees Strange reached out to me at a time when I had those five songs and part of me was like, I wish I had enough for a full album. Maybe I should rerecord some more songs. I don’t know. But I just knew I had to take the opportunity to work with Bartees and just present what I have. So that’s why it’s not 100% pageant-themed songs, but I think it kind of works out because the secondary theme of the album is wanting something so bad that you’re willing to compromise your own personality or yourself for it. Whether that’s “I want to be Miss America,” or “I really want this person to love me.” I think the overall theme of the record was me seeking love and validation through other people’s opinions. And that is not a good long-term solution. And I think that’s something I’m kind of discovering now, now that I’m kind of grown up since I wrote those songs.
BREAKOUT: You’ve mentioned wanting to be the representation for young girls in music and advocating for more women in music programing, which I think is really cool and really admirable. Were there any female artists that you were particularly inspired by growing up?
Weinroth: Growing up? Well, I should start, I didn’t know women could play guitar until I was like, 18. So my indie music journey started when I was 18. I did piano when I was young and my mom was a piano teacher, but I just didn’t know people wrote songs, people could get on stages. But my favorite band has always been La Luz and their sound and their writing style, I’m obsessed. They’ve always inspired me. One of my favorite shows, we got to open for them, and that was like, peak moment.
BREAKOUT: I saw a video of you performing “Your Ideal” on Twitter and it was in a kind of punkier, almost riot grrrl sort of way, very screamy, which I loved. Will we see some of that harder, angrier music from you in the future?
Weinroth: I think yes. I think a lot of that came from playing live shows and people not paying attention. I have this joke with my bandmates that there cannot be a moment during our set where people decide to leave to go to the bar, or leave to go to the bathroom. There cannot be a moment, every single part of our live set has to be drawing you in, the audience just can’t go. And I think a lot of it also is that I’ve gotten more into D.C. hardcore and I’ve been listening to Turnstile a lot. Also, I get such a positive response from people when I do that kind of style and I’m addicted to attention. I did pageants up until 2019 and then it was kind of coincidental that I gave up my title and the pandemic started. So when I was performing with Cinema Hearts, while I was also publicly known as a Miss America title holder, I didn’t really do that kind of thing. I was very, very self-conscious because I genuinely wanted to be a good representative and I wanted to win and whatever. But now that I’m a few years removed from that and I realize like, oh, I can do whatever I want and I can also act like that and people don’t think I’m being dangerous, or rude, or a brat, you know, all these kind of misinterpretations that women get when they act a certain way, especially on stage. So it’s been kind of cool to explore that other side of myself. And I feel in my live shows lately, I’ve just felt freer and much more powerful, instead of feeling contained.
BREAKOUT: Do you have a favorite song on the EP?
Weinroth: I think “Mirror” I think is my favorite.
BREAKOUT: Why is that?
Weinroth: Well to me, it kind of explores that idea that I felt, one, being a pageant holder and being in a band, which was about driving and meeting people. And just also, when people would ask me questions about myself, I felt like I couldn’t give them an honest answer because if I did, they would look at me really weird. I think for “Mirror,” musically it’s very different than other things I’ve written and it has this tension to it and this vulnerability to it. And I feel like it’s more subtle. So a listener would have to really kind of look at the lyrics and think about it.
BREAKOUT: I think it’s a beautiful song. I love the way it’s written. I feel like every song on this EP is so relatable. I mean, I’ve never done pageants, but just kind of that pressure.
Weinroth: That’s exactly what I wanted. And that was what I found so interesting, to use this kind of symbolism, because no one thinks about that. No one cares about Miss America, let’s be real. No one cares. But we all know what it means, right? Like we all can envision in our head what that character is. And that’s pretty remarkable that even though it’s not relevant, we know what that means. And I think because Your Ideal has been less about my years being a pageant person and it’s now become more about overcoming perfectionism, which is a huge thing. In my day job, I teach piano lessons and music lessons. I had a little girl this past week who was really having a stressful time doing a piece. And it was just remarkable because she was saying, she’s like six, and she was saying she wanted to be perfect. She wanted so badly to be perfect. And here I am like, oh, I get it. It was just heartbreaking to me that at that young of an age, she felt that need to be the perfect princess good girl.
BREAKOUT: What’s one thing that you hope people will take away from this EP.?
Weinroth: This is a little funny way to phrase it, but that there’s power in beauty. And it’s not only like there’s power in a beautiful sound or a beautiful lyric, but I think one thing that kind of scarred me from doing pageants is I realized how much people listened to me when I decided to present myself as beautiful or present myself as ultra-feminized or something like that. And it’s that sort of idea of like, do you choose to lean into that idea for your own survival or to be able to get what you want, whether it’s getting that love you want or getting that crown? Or do you decide to reject it so you can truly be yourself? Do you want to go goblin mode or not?
BREAKOUT: Will we catch you on the road anytime soon?
Weinroth: In D.C., I’m playing a release show on September 23rd at Comet Ping Pong. And then I want to go on tour. I want to plan it. I think it’s just a really difficult time right now with the pandemic. So I’m not sure about that yet, but I do live stream every single performance I do.
BREAKOUT: Where do you stream it?
Weinroth: Usually Instagram Live and then, I don’t post the whole thing because I never know how it is, but I’ll post really good clips after the fact, so people can always follow me on Instagram or TikTok and they’ll see a lot of live stuff.
Your Ideal is out today, August 19th.