She was one of her country’s most famous comedians. After throwing it in to pursue her musical dream, she minted a spooky, singular sound that made fans of David Byrne and Feist. At 64, her irreverence remains intact
J
uana Molina answers our video call from a hospital bed, reclining in a green T-shirt with two cannulas in her hand. She has done her back in while also playing Whack-a-Mole with hernias, two last year, and two new ones now. “Do you know those toys, made of little pieces of wood, and you press the bottom and it goes” – she makes herself floppy, mimicking a push puppet – “that’s exactly how I was yesterday.” But now, says the 64-year-old Argentinian musician, “I have so many painkillers, that I …” She wobbles her eyelids, gurns and gives me two thumbs up.
For the avoidance of doubt, Molina seems entirely with it, and insists we continue when I offer to reschedule. She is ultra precise on the technical odyssey she undertook to make her new record, and also extremely funny company, cheeky and withering about anyone who’s too serious – or worse, boring.
In the early 90s, Molina was one of Argentina’s biggest comedians with her sketch show Juana y Sus Hermanas (Juana and Her Sisters), in which she portrayed a series of outre characters with some degree of John Waters in their DNA. (Some of them still go viral on TikTok, which she doesn’t let herself use because it’s too addictive.) But in 1993, on bed rest while pregnant with her daughter, she realised that if she didn’t pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a musician, she would one day be a bitter old woman railing at the pop charts. So she quit. It was as much of a shock to the nation as it would be if Kristen Wiig swapped SNL for MTV.
