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What a year…
Sydney/Eora rising star MAY-A has had a year full of self-realisation and growth, the 19-year-old singer-songwriter bursting into the forefront of the Aussie music scene with her intricate blend of confessional lyricism and uplifting pop that has struck lush, multi-modal chords with the masses. Already having released mega-hits like ‘Swing Of Things,’ ‘Time I Love To Waste’ and ‘Apricots,’ it seems MAY-A can’t set a foot astray; everything she gifts us with turning to pure gold.
And it’s all wonderfully evidenced on her new EP Don’t Kiss Your Friends, which is out now. Inspired by a turbulent relationship and her journey of queer discovery from adolescence through to young adulthood, the new EP sees MAY-A craft a quintessential record for those out there still trying to figure it out; those who may be lost, but are determined to find their way. From the thrilling vulnerability of ‘Amiinmyhead’ to the melancholic realisations of ‘Daffodils’ and the escapist nature of ‘Time I Love To Waste,’ MAY-A covers all of the rush and chaos associated with young love, and it’s beyond cathartic.
Beginning the new project with the confessional ‘Amiinmyhead,’ the Sydney star showcases her ability to craft stadium-ready slow-burns that packs a hell of an emotional punch. The track sees her alternate between sonic palettes with total ease, shifting between pop-centric verses and indie rock hooks, glorious guitars swirling as she details the overthinking and self-doubt that manifests when one realises their feelings for another, but just doesn’t want to admit it.
The power of heartbreak and love and its ability to totally mess with you is a consequence all of us have experienced at one time or another, and its destructive effects are perfectly embodied in ‘Swing of Things.’ Beginning with a bare acoustic guitar and those beyond intimate vocals, MAY-A wastes no time in yanking on our heartstrings, lyrics like ‘Taking back everything I said to you/I can’t tell my own lies from the truth’ revealing just how far love and heartbreak can divorce yourself from who you truly are.
One of the most transportive cuts on the record, ‘Central Station’ is bursting with self-awareness with a dash of cynicism, MAY-A outlining just how fast we can lose our feelings for those who were once the centre of our world. She pulls no punches lyrically as well, totally indifferent to how she comes across in opening lyrics ‘Sitting on the train talking to my girlfriend/She sends me emojis even though I fucking hate them.’ The way she places the listener as a random girl on a train who catches her affections is brilliant as well, prompting you to become a part of the story and invest yourself fully into the journey.
The hook sees her really grapple with the conundrum, emotive guitars reflecting her inner turmoil as she sings ‘Everything is falling into place but you/Maybe we should live on this train for good’ as she contemplates escape in the face of an unfulfilling relationship.
A personal favourite that (in our opinion) embodies everything great about MAY-A’s artistry, ‘Daffodils’ is bursting with emotional maturity and heartache, and makes for one of the most crushing moments on Don’t Kiss Your Friends. The cut doesn’t feature any headbanging guitars or larger than life hooks, just swirls of gentle instrumentalisation that are equal parts sombre and reflective. Except, most childhood hymns aren’t about the crushing realisation that even though you love someone and they love you just as much, the possibility of having a healthy relationship with them just isn’t possible at the present moment. It’s all embodied in the hook ‘Don’t lean on me/I’m not the one you need.’
MAY-A reminds us of her versatility here as well, showing just as much efficacy in moving you through gentle vocals as does with her more high-octane utterances. Luckily for us, we get a good dose of both on the three-minute record, making for a rollercoaster of emotion that beautifully breaks you in two.
The indie rock firefly that we’re still bumping on repeat to this day, ‘Time I Love To Waste’ follows MAY-A as she soundtracks the more innocent parts of falling head over heels. Specifically, the moment you realise that you like this person so much that even wasting time with them is enjoyable. Naturally, the track is rippling with euphoria, MAY-A’s breathy head voice finding catharsis on the hook in ‘I’d let the girl live right through my wallet/Give her all my things, empty my pockets/She takes me crossroads, far from things I know.’
If you were ever tempted to suddenly hop in a car and escape the world with your special person, this would be the song to be blasting as you hit pedal to the metal down that highway, the tornado guitars, synths and drums spurring you forward into your new beginning.
What better way to close out the EP than with one of the songs that started it all? ‘Apricots’ really gets to the root of the relationship that underpins the whole EP, specifically the one between MAY-A’s head and her heart. Written while coming to terms with her sexuality and realising want she wanted out of love, the song is a tender note to her younger self, one letting her inner teenager know that it’s completely okay to not be happy with what you have, and that she’s actually looking for something else she isn’t aware of yet.
Sonically the track embodies the emotional journey of the track and EP as a whole in spades, beginning sweet and wholesome before getting totally declarative in the bombastic ‘I’m something that you don’t/Something, something that you don’t know/Something you don’t know you want,’ the rush of textures resonating around her as they embody all the freedom that results from liberation and self-acceptance.
It’s the perfect way to end it all, helping to seal off the first chapter of MAY-A both musically and personally as she lets us know that everything she was talking about on ‘Apricots’ worked itself out, and that she’s happier than ever.
The EP is a journey-and-a-half, and honestly we’re getting a thrill out of immersing ourselves in it all. So much so we figured we’d catch up with MAY-A herself to get the deets on everything concerning Don’t Kiss Your Friends; as well as quiz her on everything else going on in her life right now. Check it below
The last time I saw you was Lazyfest at Mary’s Underground back before those standing mosh restrictions were lifted in late March. That was such a crazy night. As we sit in lockdown now, how do you look back on it?
With pain [laughs]. I want to be back on stage so bad man. It was such a good night. Especially at the end when it was the Lazy Eyes, Stevan and my band all up on the stage together. Just seeing those videos come back makes me want to cry [laughs]. I’m envious of my past self who got to play those shows.
When I saw you at Lazyfest the greenroom had such a nice and wholesome vibe. It was sick to see you and your band just having bevs and chilling out. Do you have a favourite greenroom memory?
Favourite greenroom memory would probably be from the Landsdowne. I did some headline shows there. The bathrooms in that venue are completely on the other side from where the green room is. So I was trying to get changed underneath a jumper and my whole band was holding my jumper out so I could get changed underneath. That was really funny and wholesome. Just being naked under a jumper in the middle of a room of people. [laughs[
You’ve had a huge 2021, but even from that night till now it feels like you’ve continued on this meteoric ascent and as you’ve continued to spread your wings. Does it all feel like a bit of a blur?
It definitely does. I think it’s because my team and I have been working for so long. And I have heaps of artist friends. All of us just write and hang out together, so it’s hard to differentiate work from just chilling. And I think because you just do so much all of the time, you don’t actually notice when things are doing well, at least for me. It’s like not paying heaps of attention to everything that’s happening and more just hanging out and letting it happen. It’s nice, but yeah, it does feel like it’s all going by so fast.
Just how long have you been working at this music thing?
I’ve been writing since I was 13 and recording since I was about 15. And I’ve known a lot of my team since I was 13 as well. I was the first artist that they managed and worked on a project with, and obviously they were the best people that I had ever done anything with. I’m really grateful for that connection because it doesn’t feel like work. It’s just hanging out with people I’ve known for a really long time.
Now, congrats on ‘Don’t Kiss Your Friends.’ This EP feels like it’s long overdue in Australia. Not in terms of this EP specifically, but more so what this EP represents and the stories it tells. What does it mean to you?
There are heaps of pop acts coming out of Australia now, but I feel like we’re so late. The last person I can think of that was massive that came from Australia was Troye Sivan, and he’s one of the first people that we had from this generation, in my opinion. So I’m super excited to join all of these young artists that are dropping poppy records. I’m excited that people are welcoming it as well. There have been a lot of people that have tried to do pop music in Australia that kind of dissociates from them. But it sounds like I’ve already got a bunch of support before my EP is even out, and I feel really blessed to have that.
The EP really explores the notion of self-discovery and queer discovery in this super authentic way. Did you have a ‘Don’t Kiss Your Friends’ that you listened to growing up?
I listened to a lot of Lorde’s Pure Heroine. That was definitely on repeat. In regards to queer discovery, Troye Sivan’s Blue Neighborhood was a really big driving force for me in songwriting. And Alex Hope wrote a lot of those songs with him. She’s a songwriter that I absolutely love and look up to heaps. But yeah, there have been tonnes of influences over the years. And when I was writing the EP, I was listening to heaps of Clairo and The Neighborhood and Beabadoobee and Phoebe Bridgers, just heaps of very singer-songwriter guitar women.
You start the EP with ‘amiinmyhead’, where you really go in-depth into your thought processes and confliction in love. But over Instagram and when I’ve seen you live you radiate this fully realised and confident energy, so it was a bit surprising to find out just how much you’re in your head. How does that overthinking part feed into you as an artist and as a partner?
I think that’s fucking hilarious because I know a lot of people who say the same thing about me. I definitely see it, but I’m so conflicted on the inside about everything. One day I’ll write a song and I’ll fucking hate it, and the next day I’ll be like, “Oh, this is all right.” And some days I’ll think “I shouldn’t even be an artist. What the fuck am I doing? I should just go bartend.” And the next day I’m like, “This is exactly what I want to do.”
I never have any clue about what’s going on. But yeah, that’s inside my brain. But I feel like on the outside and in terms of the things that I say, I feel super confident. There are definitely both sides of me in that regard.
The video for ‘Swing of Things’ is so vibey and really shows off Sydney (particularly its train stations) so nicely. What was it like shooting that?
I really wanted to shoot it at night because I realized that I hadn’t used that in many videos before. I love showing different parts of Sydney in the videos as well because I feel like we don’t have a huge rep in the music video world. But yeah, the idea of being on the train is kind of to connect all of the videos together when the EP comes out. Even the next single ‘Central Station’ is going to open up with me wearing exactly the same outfit and makeup on a train but in the morning. So it’s almost like the morning after that video.
Unfortunately I changed my hair colour so that was an issue [laughs], but yeah, it’s just trying to link them all together. And the colors in that video are something that I’ve been trying to put through the entire EP. Which has been more difficult than I thought it would be because it doesn’t really show up in the previous two videos [laughs]. But yeah, definitely sticking to all the themes of neon colors with similar outfits but different shoes, just stuff like that.
But style wise, that video was really heavily planned between me and my creative director. We worked on everything together. We just spent hours planning out the colours and what they represented and even how certain colours crossed over each other, it’s like a conflicting interest kind of thing. It’s just about the back and forth that goes with the song.
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‘Daffodils’ is probably my favourite cut off the EP. It’s got such a soothing and ethereal quality to it. In the hook of that tune, you sing ‘don’t lean on me/I’m not the one you need.’ Listening to that lyric I instantly got an image of loving someone but knowing that it probably wouldn’t work out between the two of you and that you just want them to be happy. Is that accurate?
That’s exactly it. Just knowing that being with that person is going to be worse for them, but also trying to put yourself first. But in doing that, you have to be selfish because you know that they think that they need you, but really they need someone else. A lot of that kind of stuff.
The whole EP was written about the same relationship over a few years. And I think a lot of the same things were happening and we kept going around in the same circles. That’s why the tracks have similar themes. ‘Daffodils’ is kind of just a sadder version of ‘Swing of Things.’ ‘Swing of Things’ is like “I really want you, but I know that I shouldn’t want you and that sucks.” And then Daffodils is like, “I know you want me, but you shouldn’t want me and that sucks.”
Towards the end of that tune you get super powerful vocally and you can really feel the emotion flooding off. Was it tough recording in the booth?
That song just fell out of me. We were just writing with all of these different guitar tones, and I just said “I’m just going to go into the booth and do something random for the bridge.” And then that came out. And I was like, “I actually really want that.” And it was just a lot of me being like, “Wait wait, keep it going, keep it coming, keep going.” Just picking the right part. And then we came back out. And then when I heard the raw vocal, I was like, “I really want to build on this and do as many of the vocal overlays as possible and just have heaps of harmonies in the background.”
And at that point, it was kind of just funny. There were so many emotions I was going through about how I was feeling with this person. I was really upset, but I wasn’t very good at processing it. But I also get this crazy adrenaline rush when I’m writing, and it feels good. I think that when it’s the complete opposite emotion, I just get so into it. You definitely have to tap into those emotions that you’re feeling to get the exact sound right in the recording. So yeah, it was a bit of a weird mix.
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You end the EP with ‘Time I Love To Waste’ and ‘Apricots’, both of which everyone is super familiar with and have already done so well. Since those tracks were released, have they changed in terms of their narrative meaning on the EP?
In a way. I think a lot of people have used ‘Apricots’ to figure out the same things that I was figuring out. And it was responded to really well and I really wasn’t expecting it to do that well at all. It still kind of shocks me. But I think that this EP is probably the most specific and linear piece of work that I will ever write, if that makes sense. I think it will be the most honest and real thing that I will ever write because I wrote so much of it not thinking that it was coming out. I had written like 200 songs and I had gotten so used to never releasing them, so I could be as honest as I wanted because it just felt like a diary. I never thought about people hearing it, that was just so weird to me.
But ‘Apricots’ started out being about the same girl that this whole EP is about, because that was when I was like, “Oh shit, I actually kind of like this girl. Wait, fuck, I like a girl.” And then ‘Time I Love To Waste’ was written for her. That’s how we got together. I literally just sat her down and played her this song and said “This is how I feel about you.” And she was like, “Oh fuck. Okay.” Then we started seeing each other, but it didn’t really work out and I wrote ‘Swing of Things.’ And then we kept trying to get back together and I wrote ‘Daffodils.’
And then we were together again for a bit [laughs], and I was like, “this isn’t working. I’m literally just looking at and thinking about being with other people.” And then I wrote ‘Central Station’ [laughs] which is pretty harsh because it starts off with me sitting on a train talking to my girlfriend. She sends me emojis, even though I fucking hate them and it’s me singing about looking at this other person. And low key we’re back together again already [laughs], even though this EP was written like a year ago. And all I hear about my side of things is “I never sent you fucking emojis.”
You’re back together with the girl who inspired this EP?
Yeah [laughs]. We didn’t talk for like six months because she was really pissed off by ‘Swing of Things’ and she was like, “Fuck you.” But over lockdown, we got back together and she’s basically been living with me, which is fucking hilarious. But it’s hard because when things are good I can’t write. And I’m just like, “Just break up with me so I can write a good song.” [laughs]
In ending the EP with ‘Apricots,’ were you at all sealing off that chapter, or saying goodbye to that part of you?
Definitely. Things are so different with me and this person as well now. I think we’ve both grown so much from that. And we’ve also both had so much more life experience since I wrote those songs. The first song I wrote on this EP was almost two or three years ago, with the last one being about a year ago now. And we have definitely gone through our shit. But it was also me as a writer, me as a person. And in terms of the topics that I write about and the sound of the songs that I make, I’ve definitely sealed off a lot of that. The songs that I’ve been working on recently, they sound absolutely nothing like the EP. It’s like it’s from a different person.
I think that I’m a lot more sarcastic now as well and take myself a lot less seriously than I used to. Because when I was writing this EP, I didn’t even think it was going to be an EP, it was a lot more pessimistic and a bit selfish. A lot of self-hate came through in a lot of those lyrics as well. I’ve definitely grown past a lot of that. Now I’m just growing up and growing out of being a teenager. Because I think it’s a very adolescent EP. It was a lot of my thoughts throughout high school. So I’m really, really happy for it to come out because I’m excited to just have that be there for someone else, but also to just absolutely get over that person and fully let that go for myself.
Do you see love, yourself or that relationship differently after finishing this EP?
Looking back, it definitely makes me realize why we had the problems that we did because we were just kids. But also we’ve just been focusing so much more on growing ourselves. Yeah, I definitely look back and it makes a lot more sense than it did before. If you step back from anything, you’ll be able to put the pieces together.
Your live shows are super energetic and bonding, how do you see the newer songs on this EP translating live?
Oh my god. Playing these songs live is fucking so much better than just listening to them. Because I feel like we’re able to bring a completely different energy and it feels a lot more like a band, as opposed to just one person. And that’s exactly what I want it to come across as. And ‘Central Station’ gets so much bigger and is a real high-energy moment rather than just a pining and sad moment. Yeah, I absolutely love the way that these songs come across live.
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You’re only 19, but you’ve already done so much. From being a respected songwriter to performing in all sorts of venues and even having a podcast. It usually takes years to build all of that up. Have you just been pedal to the metal like this for as long as you can remember?
I’ve always wanted to do something creative. It’s not necessarily about having the most people cheer or having the most people see you or anything like that, it’s just about having the right people see and resonate with it. That’s good enough for me.
I just like doing what I’m doing. I like putting things out and I like making them. I’ve always been an internet kid as well. I’ve always filmed little mini-documentaries and stuff like that. Always been into photography too. I think it all just fits in really nicely with each other.
If the MAY-A at 16 who had just written that first track of the EP could listen to it in full now, or even if she could sit in on this interview, what do you think she’d say?
Wow, that’s crazy. I never would’ve thought about that. I think that I would just be like “that’s not real, I didn’t write that. I must’ve stolen that from someone else.” I wouldn’t believe it.
Wow, that’s crazy. That’s a fucking weird thought. That’s really cool to think about though. That actually made me feel a lot more proud of myself than I thought it would.
MAY-A’s debut EP ‘Don’t Kiss Your Friends’ is out now. You can buy/stream it here.
