We know Michael Cimino the actor. He is the sensitive teen navigating the complexities of identity in Love, Victor, the adrenaline-fueled driver in Motorheads, and the haunted survivor in Until Dawn. He has built a career on disappearing into characters, molding himself to fit the needs of a story. But now, with the release of his debut music EP, SUPERHERO, we are being introduced to a different artist altogether—one who is not hiding behind a role, but stepping forward to reveal himself.
Music, Cimino explains, was always his “first love,” a dream of rockstardom that predated his acting career. While Hollywood opened its doors to him first, he has spent the last two years quietly cultivating his own sound behind the scenes. The SUPERHERO EP is the culmination of that work, a melodic and tender project that serves as his clearest artistic declaration to date. It is not about spectacle, but about sincerity.
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The EP’s title track, “Superhero,” was the first taste of this new direction, a bright and hopeful song that Cimino says “felt like the beginning of finding my sound.” It is followed by his latest single, “reminds me of you,” a track that showcases a more introspective and moody side of his artistry. It’s a late-night slowburn that, as he tells it, was born from a moment of creative fatigue. After feeling burnt out during a writing camp, he took a long drive to clear his head, and the song “flowed” to him that same night.
This project represents a fundamental shift in his creative process. While acting requires him to become someone else, he sees music as an opportunity to “bring yourself into the sound.” It is a chance for audiences to see him not for who he might represent, but for who he already is. When asked to describe the persona of this EP, he doesn’t reach for a world-saving hero, but for a more grounded one. “I feel like a superhero version of myself in this project is kind of like ‘Robin’,” he thoughtfully explains. “He doesn’t have powers but he has grit and determination and smarts.”
That determination is evident in his meticulous approach to the music. After working on the project for nearly two years, he admits he was tweaking and changing things until the very last moment. For Cimino, a song is only truly finished “when it’s out,” when the world can hear it and it can no longer be altered. With the release of SUPERHERO, he is finally letting the world hear him.
