“It sucks to be called a Donald Trump supporter”: indie musician John Maus says a misunderstanding wrecked his career

On January 6, 2021, American democracy collapsed into chaos as Donald Trump’s supporters stormed Washington, DC. That day also nearly destroyed the career of cult indie musician John Maus, after he was wrongly painted as a Trump loyalist.

Maus was in the city when Trump’s Maga crowd broke into the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election. But he says he was not there to riot. He had traveled with filmmaker Alex Lee Moyer, who was filming right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for a documentary about incel culture.

Maus says he and his wife, Hungarian artist Kika Karadi, left before the violence started. “From my perspective it was, ‘Oh, look at the chuds waving the flags, climbing the walls.’” He says they only realized how serious it had become after returning to their hotel.

Still, his presence was enough to spark suspicion online. “Is John Maus going right-wing?” one Reddit user asked. “It’s very disturbing to me that [Maus] is passionate about such a terrible thing,” another wrote.

The backlash worsened because Maus was also with Ariel Pink, a fellow underground musician who openly backed Trump and later went on Fox News to complain to Tucker Carlson that he had been cancelled and was “a recording artist who can’t record”.

‘ I want to respond to every comment and go, “No, I’m not for Trump.” But I figure it won’t do any good. So I don’t’ — John Maus

When Maus tried to defend himself, he posted a 1937 papal encyclical condemning nazism, which only confused people further.

“Maybe you shouldn’t care if somebody calls you a fascist if you know you’re not one. The ironic thing is that the people calling you that are embodying it more than you yourself are,” Maus says. “It actually sucks. I want to respond to every comment and go, ‘No, I’m not for Trump.’ But I figure it won’t do any good. So I don’t.”

In September he released his fifth album, Later Than You Think, a bleak and brooding record that sounds nothing like Trump-style politics. On Because We Built It, he warns the post-war political order is collapsing. On I Hate Antichrist, he uses recordings of FBI agents breaking down a door in a way that echoes Trump’s ICE raids.

“I feel like we’ve got to be nearing the end of this postwar configuration we’ve been in for 60 years, 70 years,” he says. “Whether it’s the tech feudalists, like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and those guys, or a third World War or something, we’re probably on the verge of a reconfiguration.”

Maus does not buy into either major US party. “One of them bombs Gaza and is very sad about it. The other one does the same and makes shit-eating memes about it.”

‘I have liberal friends, and they say, “Come on, be an adult. Plug your nose and go vote blue”… They’re right to an extent,’ he says, but adds there are still “real consequences on the ground” to voting for Trump, especially for undocumented people.

‘ If a populist right ascends, then there are billionaires that can get behind that. But billionaires aren’t going to have any reason to get behind a populist left – a legitimate one’ — John Maus

Maus admits he once donated to Trump, not because he supported him, but out of anger at Democrats for blocking Bernie Sanders. “I donated to Bernie. And the Dems, it was the second time they shafted him.”

Still, he believes the system is rigged. “They’ll never let a populist left ascend,” he says. “If a populist right ascends, billionaires can get behind that. But they won’t back a real populist left.”

On stage, Maus turns all of that frustration into wild, physical performance. As one review put it, he “pogos, head-bangs, and gives vent to a succession of feral howls as he jack-knifes at the waist”.

“It’s more a human being at their breaking point,” he says. “It’s antagonistic to the whole regime of ‘consume and enjoy’. That’s what I’m hoping to accomplish.”