Dani Miller Wants The Whole Damn Cake
- Josh Kitchen
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
By: Josh Kitchen / May 28, 2025
"I just wanna party like it's 2019," sings Dani Miller on her addictive new single, Fuck You, I'm Hot. "I'm a real ass bitch and you can't have what I've got." To longtime fans of Miller’s main project, punk rock mainstays Surfbort, the track might feel like a departure from their raw, DIY edge—think “FML,” “White Claw Enema Bong Hit,” or the band’s killer new single “USA Cheese.” But after a single listen, there’s no doubt Surfbort fans will have it on repeat. Miller’s fearless energy and signature “devil-may-care” attitude have made Surfbort one of the most electric live acts in punk today. Her ever-evolving fashion, with makeup inspired by icons like Divine and Nina Hagen, is just the cherry on top.
For over a decade, Miller has laid herself bare in her songwriting—take “FML,” which opens with a real voicemail from a cop calling her mom to tell her he's taking her to a hospital for her excessive drinking when she was 15. Her honest, confessional lyrics have struck a chord with punk fans navigating similar struggles, especially in a post-pandemic world fractured by uncertainty. That vulnerability continues across her new solo tracks like Fuck You, I’m Hot, Surfbort’s “USA Cheese,” and “Vampire Haircut” from her project TRASHWORLD with fellow icon Ashley Smith. Whether crying in the club, manifesting love and beauty, or blasting off in a trash-made spaceship in search of blood, Dani Miller is creating cathartic joy in a world on fire—and she’s doing it with style, vision, and serious punk heart. I caught up with Miller to talk about her new projects, what it means to be a woman in a broken music industry, and what she’d promise aliens if they landed looking to party.
You have so many projects out right now. You’ve got new Surfbort, TRASHWORLD, your solo stuff... talk to me about all the incredible things coming our way this year.
I'm so excited. For a little bit, I was getting bogged down by the business side of the music industry, and I thought, “Wait, I have so much fun music and art—I’m just going to self-release independently and have a blast with my friends.” So yeah, I’ve been going for it and giving everyone fun music. Surfbort is where I channel my anger—like, toward the government, getting wild, letting go of angst in the pit. My solo stuff is like my diary, working through life and emotions. And Trash World is just super hot, experimental electronic stuff with my best friend. It’s all different sides of me just having fun.
I love that. Because I feel like anybody who likes Surfbort or the LA punk scene will love anything you put out. Even though it's different sides of your personality, it's all still you.
Yeah, totally. I don’t want to put myself in a box and be like, “I can only do this genre.” I'm just a dork who loves making art with my friends. Whatever comes out is what I’m into.
Let’s talk about USA Cheese. It’s the first new Surfbort music in, what, three or four years?
Yeah. We spent a lot of time behind the scenes with people in suits saying, “Let’s pitch this to labels,” or “Let’s wait for the right rollout,” and “Let’s get a budget.” Eventually, I was like, “I know how to edit videos, I don’t need a crazy budget, I just need friends who want to make a music video and help record and mix it.” Huge shoutout to the awesome LA art community. We’ve been writing our third record these last couple of years and it’s almost done, but before the big rollout, I wanted to just drop “USA Cheese” because it’s fun—and the world is so fucked up right now, it’s hard to find joy some days. So that song is about that.
Every day feels nihilistic and crazy, but let’s all scream about it together.
So I’m putting out wild stuff that makes fun of all that. We had a blast advertising that shitty cheese.
Let's talk TRASHWORLD with Ashley Smith. "Vampire Haircut" is dope. I read that all the props in the video were made from real trash?
Yes! Our friend Max [Robinson]—he works on movie sets—is insanely creative. He made the entire TRASHWORLD city, the guns, all the little figures from trash. Like, a Gatorade bottle glued to something else that somehow looks like an alien town. It’s beyond my wildest dreams. That’s the thing—you don’t have to wait for people in suits to say you can make stuff. You can just hang with your friends and make it happen.
Anyone who listens to your music knows how professional it is, but it still feels rooted in that DIY punk ethos.
Yeah, totally. It’s not about fame or blowing up. It’s about us all coming together to make art and express ourselves. Getting rid of that “fame wall” you see in how labels release stuff... we’re all just existing in this world. It’s cool to share art and party.
That toxic side of fame is real. Last week Chappell Roan said if the internet keeps treating her like a villain, she might quit music. That sucks—it shouldn’t have to get to that point.
It really gets to you. That’s part of why I was quiet the last couple of years. It’s intense being in the public eye. Haters online don’t make anything except hate. Chappell Roan’s so cool, and she’s facing even more pressure being so visible and new. But I think she’ll find her healing wave and come back. Being a woman in music is psycho. One thing that helped me—and I know it’s cheesy—is a book called The Artist’s Way. It helps you clear out the haters and keep creating.
I’m glad you brought up being a woman in music, because I went back to your op-ed in Alternative Press for International Women’s Day [March 8] a couple of years ago—which is your birthday too, right?
Yes! Pisces baby. But yeah, back then I identified more as they/them. I didn’t even really want to identify as a woman—it felt pressurized and intense. But I’ve done a lot of healing since then and reconnected with my femininity. Still, it’s crazy, especially for trans women in this political climate. The community really has to stick together. The more I lean on people who get it, the more I heal.
That’s why I love the scene you’re part of—and honestly help lead—because Surfbort shows feel like inclusive, safe spaces.
When the band leads with love and acceptance, it reverberates into the crowd. You can totally tell when a show has gnarly, macho energy—it’s just not the same. I love shows where it feels like a safe space to let out angst, meet new friends, and have fun.
Can we expect a new Surfbort record this year?
I was touring nonstop for years, so this year I’m really just focusing on friends and family. My family got hit by a hurricane in North Carolina, and there were some health issues, so I decided to show up for them and release stuff from home. Hopefully next year we’ll be back with some awesome shows.
We have a third record—just figuring out timing. I’m also putting out a solo record soon. The singles I’ve been dropping lead up to that. TRASHWORLD has a new EP too.
"Fuck You I’m Hot” is a banger. I love that line—“I want the whole damn cake.”
Totally. My solo stuff is all about figuring out true love, and it’s been a journey. I actually made that song in 2022 but was too nervous to release it. I thought no one would relate. But then I showed it to some girlfriends going through breakups, and they were like, “This is my anthem!” So I put it out. And now I’m dropping “Crying in the Club,” and new TRASHWORLD stuff is coming too.
Alright, I'm gonna try and pull a Nardwuar here. I was doing some digging and went down memory lane on your YouTube account, and you have this video on your channel from 2014, where you're playing Patti Smith's “Pissing in a River” on a turntable while making pasta with your cat. I watched the whole thing—it’s such a mood. You wrote this piece on Patti Smith in the description that is really great. I don’t know when the last time you read it was, but I really think it holds up, and I want to read you part of what you wrote because it’s beautiful and feels so connected to everything you’re doing now.
You wrote: “Even though I missed the prime era of the punks with young Patti screaming her poetry on stage, meeting her today let me know someone like her—with a heart, a brain, beautiful art and energy that cultivates feeling and emotion so powerful it could stop wars—isn’t just a figment of our American culture’s imagination, but it exists. I hope with my films and my music I can somehow carry on a chord of Patti Smith. An energy like hers must never be lost in this wasteland of drones and dubstep.”
Now we’re here, all these years later, and to me it feels like you really kept that spirit alive.
Oh my God, that’s crazy. Wow.
Right? I mean, you totally carried that energy. It feels like you’ve stayed true to that. You even titled that video “CRY ME A RIVER” in all caps. I love it.
I was so dramatic! My drama was at an all-time high.That’s so wild. Patti Smith was a huge inspiration. I lived in the same Bed-Stuy building she lived in—I didn’t even know until after I moved in. I went to Pratt too, like she did, but only for a year because I couldn’t afford it. I was reading her book, and she said she just started screaming poetry—and that’s exactly how Surfbort started. I didn’t know how to play instruments, but I started screaming poems and found musicians to play with me. And yeah, that video—that was me loving filmmaking in a DIY way. I’m tapping back into that again now.
Back then I didn’t have much spirituality to hold onto, and the world just felt so overwhelming and intense. But little things like that really mattered. I had no money—like, legit broke. There was this pizza place on the corner near my apartment, and the guy who worked there kind of took me under his wing. He could tell I was struggling, and he’d hook me up with a free slice and throw two garlic knots on top. No questions asked.
It was like his quiet way of saying, “You’re seen. You’re gonna be okay.” I didn’t even have to ask—he just did it out of kindness.
And honestly, when you're broke and trying to create and figure life out, that kind of humanity sticks with you forever. I think about him all the time. I really need to go back and find that pizza place—he deserves the biggest shoutout.
When Surfbort started, you were the youngest in the band consisting of yourself and three dudes. Now the band’s changed a bit, right? Alex [Kilgore] isn’t in the touring band anymore?
He’s living his best life in the jungle in Costa Rica! We had some shows planned this year, like Punk Rock Bowling, but we shut it all down and take a beat. The Surfbort family band is big—whoever wants to play, can play.
Final question from someone I understand is the biggest Surfbort fan in the world — Kayla Belcher. I love this question. Kayla asks, "If aliens came down and you had to show them Surfbort, what would you show them?"
I’d take them to our cool spaceship recording studio in LA and blast “HVI (Where’s All My Shit).” I’d order them pizza—and party with them. I’d tell them, “Yo, there’s some weird people on this planet, but we can still have fun.”
There is so much good shit coming from Dani Miller this year! Follow Surfbort and Dani here, listen to the new stuff below, and follow on Bandcamp!
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