Artist Feature · October 9, 2026
Artist Feature: Before OK MICKEY, Mickey Brandolino Was Already Building Pop Songs
The former Valley guitarist brings a decade of collaboration to his first solo single, “gay allegations ft. my girlfriend.”
Northern Dial artwork
“gay allegations ft. my girlfriend” arrived Oct. 1 under the name OK MICKEY. It runs just under two minutes and passed half a million Spotify streams in its first week. The title makes an entrance. What makes it interesting is that nothing else about it sounds like a debut.
OK MICKEY is the solo name for Mickey Brandolino, former guitarist in Toronto pop band Valley. He has been making pop songs for years, and one old writing session shows how he works.
In a 2021 Atwood interview, Brandolino recalled Valley’s “Like 1999” coming out of a session that was going nowhere. He recalled the group’s decision: “Let’s put 30 minutes on the clock and start something new, if we don’t like it then let’s end the session.” The song arrived within hours. A clip of the band playing it spread on TikTok, and requests for a release pushed them to finish it quickly. Brandolino also explained how they worked backward from the chorus, building verses that would make its nostalgia land. There is craft underneath a song that seems spontaneous. The quick idea still needs people who know how to finish it.
Brandolino has spent the years since collecting those people. He left Valley in 2024 to concentrate on production. His collaborators include MICO, Will Linley and Kevian Kraemer, and he signed a publishing deal with Position Music in 2025. Kraemer described their sessions in a 2026 interview with 1883: they would start by talking about their lives and the songs they were enjoying, then Brandolino might lay down a drumbeat while Kraemer added synths or guitar. “When we’ve written for it, there’s no pressure,” Kraemer told 1883.
Which brings it back to the single. Brandolino produced “gay allegations ft. my girlfriend” and shares writing credits with Eliana Arian. A joke title from a first-timer would be a gamble. From someone with a decade of finishing songs behind him, it reads as confidence: he knows the song underneath can carry it.
Watch OK MICKEY: gay allegations ft. my girlfriend on YouTube