INTERVIEW: Mae Muller talks 'Better Days', songwriting and always standing up for yourself: "We have to take the reins into our own hands and we can be whoever we want."
British singer-songwriter Mae Muller has steadily been attracting well deserved acclaim since she released her first single ‘Close’ in 2018. She released her debut album Chapter 1 in 2019 which was followed by the EP no one else, not even you in late 2020. Her music is an addictive mix of R&B and electronic pop and has to date accumulated over 280 million global streams.
In September last year she teamed up with Swedish producer NEIKED and American rapper Polo G on the effervescent pop track ‘Better Days’. The song became Muller’s first global chart hit, peaking at number 16 on the Australian singles charts and hitting the top 40 in both the UK and US and today the song gets a second life with the release of a new remix of the song by J Balvin.
With her ability to craft searingly honest and relatable songs with razor sharp lyrics and melodies and hooks that you quickly become obsessed with, Mae Muller is set to be the next major British global breakthrough pop artist. We recently caught up with her to chat about ‘Better Days’, her music career and future plans.
Hi, Mae it is such a delight to meet with you? How is the energy in your current galaxy?
Thanks very much, it’s good. I'm in Sweden right now. I just got here yesterday, it's very cold, but it's lovely. I'm in Stockholm. I like Stockholm, so it's good. I'm feeling good, I'm feeling excited about the future, seeing what it holds.
You are a major pop powerhouse. The rest of the world sees Sweden as next level when it comes to incredible pop music. Do you feel a little bit like you're in Valhalla at the moment?
Oh, the level of talent here is insane. I've done a writing trip here once before, I had two weeks of writing. And if you do two weeks of writing, and you get two, maybe three good songs that's a good trip, you know? Every single song that I wrote here with the people that I was working with were all amazing. They know how to write a good pop song.
You are a powerhouse, and I have read a couple of interviews where you confessed you were a middle child spotlight puller - great thing! How did you get into music? How did you go from ‘mum, dad look at me’ to where you are today?
Honestly, I just always loved the attention! I've always really enjoyed writing and I've always loved music, but I just didn't really know how to get into it. It was always this big unknown thing. And I would ask, ‘How do people do it? How do you become a singer?’ and people say ‘you get a record deal’. And I'm like, what? You just skipped right to C, what’s A and B first? It was very confusing to me. I just started putting music out on SoundCloud actually, just doing it myself because I was like, ‘I'm just gonna get out there, it doesn't matter if it's not the most sparkly shiny thing’. I just wanted to get my stuff out there. I used to do these little singing videos on Instagram and they were not very good, but then through that I met management and then I just was writing every day and in sessions. I was releasing music independently for a year, and then I got signed [to a label] and that's when it really started popping off.
That's when the shit got real. What I found funny when I was reading about you, people still bring up ‘she didn't get into it music until she was 19’ and I was like, what's everyone else doing at 19?! That's still quite young!
That is something that really has messed my head up a little bit with the music industry. Like, 19? That's old? It's terrifying. I'm a 24 year old woman and I feel like this old maiden who doesn't really get anything. I'm a young woman and I will not allow you to make me think that. There's nothing wrong with getting older, but that is what it makes you feel like you're doing something wrong by getting older. I thought that me making music when I was 19 I was doing pretty well, but no apparently you got to be doing this until 15 and that is the rule!
Either that or you're six and Beyoncé on Star Search and even then they go ‘no, you're not good enough’. I want to talk to you about your recent single ’Better Days’ with NEIKED. ‘Now you. you've been moving on / Let me know can I come along?’ Your lyrics are just so so good, and what a collaboration. Can you please tell me how this song just came together?
So about a year ago, I came to Sweden and me and NEIKED did a week of writing. And just like I said, it was amazing. After I got back, he actually sent me ‘Better Days’, so for once, I can't actually take credit for that amazing lyric, because I didn't write it. He sent me the song, he was just ‘I've got this song for you and I think it'd be really great, let's put a little bit of sauce on it.’ I used to be very stubborn with recording songs that I didn't write myself, because that's always what I've done. All the songs that I've got on Spotify and on my EPs I've written, so I was a bit like, ‘I don't know…’ But I listened to it and I just fell in love with it. A great song is a great song, and NEIKED said ‘put your sauce on it’ and so I did and it just felt right. I didn't know it was gonna be the thing that it is now, but it just felt good. And when something feels good, we should do it.
It's such a needed song for its accessibility, and its familiarity at this point globally. It must be such a joy, and I imagine you're so looking forward to performing it live, because I know that's coming up too.
I can't wait because I performed it live a few times when it was unreleased, which is a completely different ballgame. But just seeing that [reaction] I just knew that it was a song that would spread joy, which is exactly what you want. And like you said, it's what people needed, you know. So I gave it a little test run in the summer, I performed it at a few festivals and people were dancing and just enjoying it, they didn't even know the words. If I'm performing it now, everyone will know it. I'm very looking forward to it.
I want to talk to you as well about your last EP, 2020’s no one else, not even you. This is a work of art, of heart and words. I just love the way you put that EP together. You clearly had your hands on every single moment of the process and I can almost feel like you're learning as you do it and you're leading with your integrity. What does creating and being that present in music, do for you?
It's just a release. I feel like it's really easy to get caught up in the deadlines, the ‘when is this going to happen?' When can we make this work?’ You forget that we're here to make music and I'm so lucky that I'm so involved in the process. It’s been a great release for me and those songs on that EP are so important and it came at such an integral part of this journey. I just feel really lucky that I have, basically, free therapy isn't it? It’s fantastic!
On that, who were those sheros that you were listening to growing up? Who were those women that you were not just pretending to be and singing along to, but who were the ones that you were like, I want to make that?
I used to love Lily Allen when I was younger and especially in a lot of my earliest stuff like you can really hear her influence because I just wanted to tell stories. I used to listen to her and she sang with her with her own accent, with her own voice. She was just herself and I really really liked that. And then I listened to Florence & The Machine, who I love whose storytelling was just incredible. My mum used to play Dixie Chicks and Simon Garfunkel in the car, which was very different to what I do, but it's just amazing storytelling and I've always just been so swept away with that. I've always known that whatever I do, and whatever kind of music I make, I want people to be able to see it and to feel it and for there to be as a message.
What I love about your music is you're such a lyricist, it's almost this personal storytelling, but at the same time it's metaphorical. One of my favourite tracks is ‘Jenny’, it’s your solidarity girl power anthem, it's so incredible. It's playful, but it's so important. When you have that ability of that songwriting, do you prefer to flip it on its head and write for someone else? Or do you prefer to pull from pure experience?
When I'm going through stuff, obviously, you can just pull from your own experience and for me, that's the best way to go. There are people who have their own ways of doing it., but for me, that's when you get the most honest and real. But then, I will take one little part of something that's happened to me and then exaggerate. A lot of my songs, I've taken one part, one thing and really run with it, because I have licence to do that. That's the great thing about songwriting, there's no rules, you can do whatever you want. For example now, my life is kind of perfect. There's no boys making me upset, I'm not heartbroken, everything's going well. And I could write about that, but I don't think that's very interesting. So then I can pull out stuff that's happened years ago, or something that my friends are going through. You just got to find that inspiration where you can.
Yeah, there's not many people, they can get away with singing how great their life is! With ‘Jenny’, obviously, it's all about female solidarity and I wanted to know, how important is that female driven solidarity within your own career trajectory?
It's so important because from when we're literally little tiny children, girls are put up against each other. And it only gets worse as you grow up, especially now with social media. It's really easy to look at other women and other girls and instead of seeing them as part of your team, it's ‘Oh, why has she got that? Why am I not her, why is she not this?’ If I can be just a small, tiny little part in people seeing that we're all on the same team here, I would have done my job. Being a woman, it's bloody hard sometimes, social media was not the thing that it is now when I was growing up, it must be so difficult for young teens [today]. So if they can tune in to one of my songs and feel a little better about themselves, then I'm very, very pleased with that.
And there's a little bit of therapy for them as well, you see, beautiful. I read an article where you had this beautiful quote: ‘don't ever feel like you're taking up too much space’ with regards to advice to given to young people, particularly young women, who like you go, ‘how do people hear my songs?’ I thought that was just such a great way to put it. Is that something that you yourself have struggled with, the feeling of taking up too much space?
Yeah, it’s kind of like you can't be too loud, or you can't be too sexy, or you can't be too funny. We just have to take the reins into our own hands and we can be whoever we want. Whatever you want to be, don't feel like you're being too loud within that. For me, I have felt like sometimes in sessions ‘Oh, should I say that?’ I feel I’m quite honest in my writing, but there are some moments I'm like, ‘can I say that? Is this a bit too much? Is that a bit too loud?’ And I have to catch myself and be like, no, because this is your art and you can do what you want, who's that person to say ‘no, you can't do that because that's too much’. I’ve earned the right to be allowed to do what I want and say what I want. It's so important for other people to know that they can do that as well and they shouldn't be told off for that. That should be something that we're all striving to do.
You've really pinpointed it, it’s that word ‘too’. We're raised unfortunately, from a very young age to have that in our head. It's the too much, too loud, too fast, too soon. Speaking of too loud, you've got a lot coming up, you've got a lot of singing coming up, and a lot of performances coming up. Tell me what's happening for you in this very, very new year.
I have got my first US shows coming up. I'm doing one in New York, one in Chicago, one in LA, which will be very, very exciting. And then I go on tour in the UK in April, so I'm really excited. Australia is on my list we’re figuring it out. I'm always ‘when can I go over there? Why is this not happening?!’ That's something I'm really, really looking forward to, just getting back out and singing again. There’s things that I would love to say that I'm doing, but I feel like I'm not allowed yet. There's some really, really exciting things happening that I've been wanting to do for ages and it's all going ahead. So I'm really, really excited. But just can’t wait to get back on stage and see everyone. That's the best part of this job for me, being in that room with people. Nothing can beat that that feeling you know, that energy.
Do you think that comes from the human connection? This all came from my heart, and I can see what it's doing to people in real time.
Yeah, I feel like we all need that human connection. That's something that we've been really deprived of over the past couple of years. Being in a room and having that sense of community, you're all there for the same reason, for music, and that’s the thing I've missed the most. Being in a room, whether I'm the performer or going to a gig, we're all here because we love music, and this is so exciting. I've just missed that so much. I can't wait to see the faces again, there are quite a few fans that I recognise at every show, and I just really miss hanging hanging out with them and singing with them.
Oh, that's brilliant. I've just now got this image in my head at the line of very smiling people.
We have fun and I haven't got the dance routines on point, that's not really my thing, but I love to have a little chat between songs and just to make it feel like we're all in the front room just hanging out. It's just the best because when would you be able to get to do that with like, 1000 people, it's just the best.
‘Better Days’ (J Balvin remix) is out now. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Mae Muller you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
