Maisie Peters lets us in on what it’s like chronicling over a year of her life for the album, what it means to be a good witch, and more.
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Many words can be used to describe Maisie Peters, the 22-year-old rising wonder from England. And storyteller is near the top of that list. Ever since she was a kid, Maisie has been making music, eventually sharing her work on YouTube in her teen years. At 15, she began a music career that has only gone up as the years go by. Her talent is as real as it gets, which is no wonder why the rising star served as Ed Sheeran’s opening act for his most recent world tour, and is signed to his record label, Gingerbread Man Records.
It’s also a talent that has birthed some of Gen Z’s favorite 21st-century pop bops, as seen in her debut album, You Signed Up For This. The 14 tracks on the acclaimed album, which included bangers like John Hughes Movie and Psycho, spoke to millions for their catchy hooks, truthful lyrics, and relatable messages. It was a pandemic favorite for many and made fans around the world, including the Philippines. And speaking of, that’s where the UK-based musician recently went to as part of her tour promoting her debut album, as well as hyping her upcoming second LP, The Good Witch.
On a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon, Maisie and her band were gearing up to perform in front of a select crowd of some of her biggest Filipino fans in BGC. But before that, she sat down for an intimate roundtable interview where her charming personality gave way to a young woman with a thoughtful mind on what she hopes her next album becomes and does for her fans.
You’re currently in the process of promoting your new album and on your Instagram, you share tracks from the album through tarot cards. How did that come about?
I really liked the idea of doing a song by song explanation before the album came out. There’s so much that went into writing and making the songs that I really wanted to share with everybody and explain the process of making of this album was cool and special. And obviously the album is called The Good Witch and I liked having this idea of having a deck of cards. Each card is symbolic of its own.
Can you tell us more of your songwriting writing process? Like how do you write or songs? Do you visit the progression first or the melody or the lyrics?
It depends really on the song of the day. But I normally I have a whole list of ideas on my phone and sometimes I’ll dive into that, or sometimes they’ll be whatever feels inspiring on the day, or the music that’s being played, what that lends itself to. There’s really not like a set way.
Can you tell us more of the influences that you’ve placed on your new album?
I guess I was inspired by a little bit by sort of going back to my roots and the way I started making music and that sort of more singer-songwriter folk era and poppier thing I do. I think it lends itself much more to sort of where I started.
So, can you tell us more of the concept of your newest album?
It’s not really a concept album, but it does chronicle the last year of my life. So, I guess you could sort of argue that it conceptualizes my life. The opening and closing song cyclically go with each other and the album track listing is loosely chronological.
What’s the idea behind naming the album The Good Witch?
There was a lot of different reasons why I called the album The Good Witch. When I was thinking about the themes within this album, which felt like there was a lot of words that also felt synonymous with good witch, I sort of like the power within the good witch and femininity, danger, it feels sort of threatening. It feels like an interesting way to describe one’s self, especially as a young woman. I like the destruction it suggest and the power it gives.
Is there’s any specific book that sort of inspired you for the album?
There are lots of books that would be definitely like within the tapestry of this album, A lot of those books I read sort of the modernized the retelling of movements and Greek myths and often from a female perspective, I found it really inspiring.
So, what story do you want to share with the new album?
I don’t think I’m ever somebody that would be like, ‘This is what you have to learn from any music I make.’ I don’t think there’s like a fixed thing I want everyone to come away from I’m not gonna like test you at the end. But I would like people to come away from it and have it be an album that is important to them and sits with them for a long time. I think about a lot of time while I was making this album was Lorde’s Melodrama.
I was thinking about how important that album was me when I was like 17 and how it was so culturally important to me and my friends. As I was writing some of these songs, it would just sort of come up, I don’t really think it’s sonically sound similar, but just the feeling it gave everybody back when it came out and the way that I still reference it. Not that many albums, at least for me, you know, can do that. And so it’s a real honor to have this album do that to someone.
Photos courtesy of Sophie Scott
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