On this episode the guest artist spotlight is on San Francisco indie/folk/jazz singer songwriter Mae Powell, one of the city's most in demand artists who is…
MJ describes the new record as perfect for these times because it “reflects how we should take a deep breath in our times and remember what we have and the community we’re surrounded by.” Listen to the full episode to hear many yet-to-be-released Mae Powell songs, plus a full hour of local music! Enjoy a few snippets from the conversation below:
MJ: If anybody listening to this show hasn’t heard your music before or puts this album on for the first time, I don’t think that their first thought is going to be that this is a jazz album, but your jazz training is so apparent in your vocal phrasing. Did you start off doing jazz from the get-go?
Mae: It’s kind of a silly origin story, but I was a musical theater kid in high school. That is where I was exposed to jazz and really liked it. I started singing jazz around the same time that I started writing songs, so I think they’re tied, for sure. But I would agree that my songs are definitely not jazz songs, but I think that maybe my vocals lean in that direction.
Even though you did musical theater, did you ever have any formal voice training?
No, I just figured it out, I guess. Really I was just listening to people I like and signing along with them, channeling my favorites. Listening to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, trying to tap into a deeper thing. But no, I never had voice lessons. I think I kind of, like, paid the price for that a few years ago. I was not taking care of my voice, smoking weed a lot, and not warming up, and my voice was super damaged. I would lose my voice after one gig. It was just getting really not sustainable so I saw a voice person, and he was like, “You need to stop talking.” So I went on vocal rest for two months, like completely did not make a sound for two months. That was, I think, early last year, and it was really awesome and very spiritual and also very healing. Since then I've been taking a lot better care of my voice.
Your voice in particular is an instrument of its own, and how you guide your instrument in and out of different genres I just find fascinating.
Thank you. Yeah, it’s fun for me to be able to do a bunch of different styles of music, like, Mild Universe has a different vibe, and I have a Wings cover band, and soul and funk…I enjoy being able to weave through a bunch of different genres.
Making Room for the Light is listed as singer-songwriter for genre, which leaves it open for interpretation. It definitely weaves in and out of different genres.
The inspirations for it are super-varied, and I think that comes through. We had different inspirations for different songs, like for “Tangerine” we were listening to Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline and going in that twangy direction. For "Contact High,” we were listening to Chris Montez’s album Watch What Happens, which is 1960s pop. “Meet Me in a Memory,” we were listening to Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, channeling that type of vibe. What we were talking about when we were recording the album was “heartbreakingly dinky,” like it’s not too polished and it’s not too nice but the emotions come through. It’s definitely hard to describe. When people ask me what type of music to make, I glitch and don’t know how to answer. But the label I'm on has described it as “indie folk,” and that is something that it is also. So yeah, it’s a puzzle.
This is a new label you’re working with; when did that all go down?
I made the record in 2023. I just did it out of pocket. It was my dream producer, my dream situation, so I was like, I’m just going to send it. I believe that when you invest in yourself and your dreams, the universe is listening and will reward you for that, hopefully. I was like, I’m going to go for this.”
We had a pretty much finished album that just needed to be mastered, so I emailed like 30 labels and was just shooting my shot, and the only people that responded to me was Colemine Records. And that was kind of a reach of an email. I was like, “I might as well. I have the draft. I’ll just send it to them.” It didn’t feel like one of the more realistic options. And then Terry Cole, who started Colemine with his brother, emailed back and was like, “I love this. We want to put it out.” So that was just like a miracle and really cool. It’s hard to get people to listen to things because there’s just so much music, but Terry’s awesome and started off very DIY. He’s like, “I listen to most everything we get sent because you never know,” so I think it felt good for both of us. He felt like it just fell into his lap, and I was like, thank you for listening and responding. We talked and worked out a deal and yeah, they’re releasing this record, and it’s just been so lovely working with them.
It’s very much what I call a marvelous Mae Powell record. It’s dreamy, it’s dewy, it’s positive. It’s talking about relationships and being present and all this stuff, and it’s dropping at a time of high anxiety when a lot of the music coming out now seems very anxiety-driven. And that’s what makes Making Room for the Light, which is kind of a karmic title, so much of a breath of fresh air in this environment.
Yeah, thank you for saying that. The title is a line from one of the songs, and once I decided on it, it started making more and more sense. Because it does feel like super hopeless, helpless times, and I feel like it’s very easy to get very kind of…to just give up and be like, what do I have to say? What do I have to add to this? How can I help? But I feel like just being vulnerable and open with your emotions and being a supportive friend and partner and caring for the immediate community around you is all you can do. I’ll never not be able to write about anxiety and more difficult emotions, but I feel like I write about them from a place of hoping somebody else hears it and doesn't feel so alone in that emotion.
Tell me about the development of your songwriting.
When I first started writing songs, I was super daunted. I thought I would never be able to write a song, then I listened to Frankie Cosmos and was like, oh my gosh, she’s singing about her dogs and her friends and going out dancing and whatever. And her lyrics are super straightforward and very situational and personal. It made me realize you can be super personal and it’s universal, and also you can sing about anything and make it cool and fun. She really opened the portal for me for songwriting.
I think it’s grown a bit since my last record, just as I grow older and have more life experiences. I feel like when I'm in tune with my body and in tune with the universe and in tune with nature, songwriting is very easy. But when I’m burnt out and working too much and scrolling on Instagram, it’s not going to happen. So I guess my songwriting process is just, like, taking care of my body and my brain and leaving channels open for creativity to happen.
How are you finding time to write new stuff?
I definitely have to carve it out because yeah, like I had this gig right now, I’m in the car, and then I have work in 40 minutes. Normally, my days, there’s not much in-between time. I was just talking to Mayya [Feygina, who plays bass on the record], and she said “Spaciousness is key.” That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about because if you don’t leave time for nothing, nothing new can come in. If you always know what you're about to do, you always know where you’re going to be, there’s no portal to new feelings or thoughts. So working on spaciousness is really important.
Recently, for my birthday, I gifted myself this solo retreat to this beautiful cabin/commune/farm in Mendicino, and I went there for a week by myself with the intention of writing songs. I wrote four songs when I was out there. And I was like, wow, this is what happens when I'm by myself, in nature, with my guitar out and a piece of paper out, and that’s all I have to do. So that was a luxury being able to do that, but I think honestly carving out two or three days at a time where I can settle in…I think that’s important to writing songs at this point.
Making Room for the Lightdrops on August 15. Learn more about the release show on August 21 here, and enter our ticket giveaway before August 19!
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